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Confusion Reigns Over Consumer Product Safety Law
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Published: February 7, 2009
NEW PORT RICHEY - Carol Vaporis still isn't sure what's in store for her consignment shop next Tuesday.
Feb. 10 is when the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act is supposed to go into effect. The law mandates rigorous tests for lead levels in children's toys, clothes and other items.
Vaporis, who owns Duck Duck Goose Consignment, a store near S.R. 54 and Seven Springs Boulevard, is concerned over possible unintended consequences of the law.
Duck Duck Goose, which has thrived for 22 years specializing in children's items, could be forced to close its doors, Vaporis believes. Many thrift shops and other resellers face a similar fate, she says.
Confusion over the law is widespread, Vaporis reports. The CPSIA could even be interpreted to mean someone selling a used toy at a garage sale might be breaking the law.
Elected leaders in Congress are "very concerned with the destruction that 'Hurricane CPSIA' is going to leave in its path and seem to be ready to take action," Vaporis wrote in a recent memo to The Suncoast News.
U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Palm Harbor, has joined a chorus of members of Congress asking for a clarification of the new law. Others seek to delay CPSIA's effective date up to six months.
Four other U.S. senators and representatives have asked President Barack Obama to remove Nancy Nord as acting chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Nord, appointed to a seven-year term on the CPSC by former President George W. Bush in 2005, has been criticized for the commission's handling of toy safety and related issues.
The National Association of Manufacturers is up in arms, too, lobbying for an emergency stay of the safety act's Feb. 10 effective date.
A charitable organization could not even give a used baby blanket under this law, Vaporis said in a December phone interview.
Ordinarily, sale items are displayed on the Web site for Duck Duck Goose Consignment at http://duckduckgooseconsignment.com/. Vaporis has devoted some of the online space as a pulpit for changes to CPSIA.
Lawmakers had the best of intentions when they passed the law, Vaporis observes. They acted after many recalls the past few years involving imported children's toys and other items with dangerous levels of lead or other defects, Vaporis observes. But the law was vague, she maintains.
Federal regulators released a clarification last month, but the clarification needs clarifying, Vaporis believes. The law still appears to require testing retroactively for children's items manufactured before Feb. 10, she said.
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