I’ve been pretty critical of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. But, in the face of a little logic and deductive reasoning, I have to admit I’ve been wrong.
Sure, CPSIA’s litany of problems is well documented. To name just a few: the law is forcing libraries to sequester all children’s books printed before 1985. Thrift stores are dumping their inventory into landfills, and small businesses have closed shop to avoid the crushing cost re-doing the same tests their suppliers have already done. Libraries pulling their only copy of Where the Sidewalk ends from their shelves? Heck, even the Consumer Product Safety Commission itself has deferred enforcement of key provisions while it continues to try to figure this thing out.
So, stop recycling and fill up the landfills? Unnecessarily penalize small business while passing a 700 billion dollar “stimulus” package? Sounds crazy. It would be pretty easy to allow libraries continue to lend older books to “children” as old as 12. And it would be pretty easy to exempt resale shops from testing everything on the shelf (while still prohibiting dangerous levels of lead). And it would be pretty easy to let small business rely on the testing done by their suppliers. Who could argue with that?
Well, the law's apologists, drafters and champions, like the venerable New York Times could, that’s who. Not that they’ll address any of these issues in any kind of specific way. Nope, they just keep saying, CPSIA is just fine the way it is. Crazy. Almost like… OH MY GOD. It’s so obvious, now. The people who continue to defend CPSIA must have been chewing on pre-1985 children’s books. Their minds must have been muddled by lead poisoning. If only they could have been saved by CPSIA—why didn’t we pass it sooner? How could I have been so blind?
We cannot let this kind of tragedy happen again. We need the protections of CPSIA if only to prevent the passage of another CPSIA.
