Article by: Heather Flottman
Owner/Designer
liliputians NYC

Several new developments have come about on the CPSIA front since the last Boutique Café article on this topic. Here’s a quick summary.

1) On 2/4/09 Senators Jim DeMint of SC, Roger Wicker of MS and Saxby Chambliss of GA, and David Vitter of LA introduced bill S.374 to the Senate where it was read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. This bill would amend the Consumer Product Safety Act to provide regulatory relief to small and family-owned businesses. On 2/11/09 Senators Sam Brownback of KS, Tom Coburn of OK, Mike Crapo of ID and James Inhofe of OK cosponsored the bill also. Call (202-224-3121), email, fax and write your Senator to let them know you support this amendment.

2) On 2/11/09 Rep. John Shadegg of AZ and co-sponsor Rep. Roscoe Bartlett of MD introduced bill H.R. 968 to Congress where it was read twice and referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. This bill is identical to Sen. Demint’s in wording to amend the CPSIA, providing relief for America’s small businesses. Call, email, fax and write your Representative to let them know you support this amendment.

3) On 2/10/09 CPSC posted Guidance on CPSIA for Small Businesses, Resellers, Crafters and Charities. Although this obviously was needed months ago, it is still welcome information and summarizes the legislation in understandable terms. ALL sellers, resellers, retailers, and manufacturers would do themselves a favor by reading this guide. Table B is of particular interest, listing materials, which are exempt from testing (hopefully a permanent ruling) such as dyed and undyed yarns and fabrics.

4) The Stay of Enforcement remains . . . for now. Activist consumer groups NRDC and Public Citizen are rumored to be filing a lawsuit to get it overturned.

So keep up the fight. CPSIA is not going to go away and we need to ensure that small business and micro manufacturers can survive this legislation.

tags CPSC, CPSIA, Lead Testing, Regulations, Senators, Small Business, Stay of Enforcement

This entry was posted on Friday, February 13th, 2009 at 8:05 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.