Senator DeMint Warned Congress CPSIA would harm small businessses

[Former_Member]

It's not that they didn't know. They didn't care.

http://www.consumersunion.org/pub/2008/02/005467print.html

That's the website of one of the liberal (I know people don't like that pointed out, but you need to know your enemies for who they are) self appointed consumer protectionist groups.

In February a year ago, they wrote:
"The office of Senator DeMint, through the Senate Republican Steering Committee, is circulating a document entitled "The Top Ten Reasons to Oppose the CPSC ‘Reform’ Act (S. 2663)." Our coalition of public interest, safety, and scientific organizations offer the following rebuttal to this document filled with falsehoods and fictions regarding a common-sense, balanced legislative proposal designed to improve consumer safety reported by the Senate Commerce Committee and finalized in negotiations between Senators Mark Pryor, Daniel Inouye, and Ted Stevens."

Ted Stevens, of course, is the former Republican Senator of Alaska who is facing all sorts of criminal charges.

Here is one of DeMint's objections that I was not aware of:
Demint objects because the CPSIA: "Creates a public government-sponsored website to anonymously smear companies . . .This places the imprimatur of the federal government on the oftentimes frivolous complaints filed by left-wing interest groups..."

THE Consumer groups says: "S. 2663 creates a database for the collection of consumer complaints and third-party information about potential product hazards to help consumers make safer, better informed choices in the marketplace. NHTSA has had a similar consumer complaint database available to the public for some time. The legislation specifically allows businesses to rebut such complaints, and includes these rebuttals in the database. The bill also requires the CPSC to promptly remove any information on the database that it finds to be incorrect."

Those not concerned about whether or not fellow Etsyians will be turning you in because they won't even know how- think again. This bill appears, if I understand the above correctly (and I hope not) to facilitate anonymous complaints from anybody, and they'll be posted to the internet. Yes, you can have the information removed 'promptly' once the CPSC finds the complain was incorrect. How prompt do you suppose the investigation will be? THey have 100 investigators for the whole country.
I really didn't know anything about this, and now only know what I've read above, but it sounds deeply chilling to me. How long will a complaint stay up there while CPSC 'investigates?'

Senator Demint warned that the CPSIA: "Massively increases fines, threatening small businesses for no good reason: The substitute increases maximum civil penalties more than 10-fold and the individual violation penalty more than 50-fold subjecting each product that wrongfully enters the stream of commerce to a $250,000 fine. . ."

The Consumer Group totally blew that off: "The massive number of toy recalls in recent years suggests that manufacturers have been unsuccessful in making sure their products are safe. .... Small, reputable businesses will not be driven into bankruptcy from this change. But the threat of higher fines for violations of consumer product safety laws will and should deter all companies from shortchanging safety concerns. "

DeMint warned: ""Threatens to send the owners of small companies to prison for unknowingly selling a dangerous product. . .This may make the bill proponents feel good, but it does nothing to improve product safety.""

The Consumer group disagreed, but admit that previously, the agency had to issue a warning, and would pursue criminal charges if you persisted. Now, they think it's a good idea if you get prosecuted first, and spend thousands of dollars in legal fees proving that you did not know your product had some flaw in order to stay out of jail.

DeMint warned: "The Bill has been endorsed by the Consumer Federation of America and the Consumers Union."

They agree, and they're very proud of it. Please note- THESE are the people behind the bill, along with the Democrat author, and the 106 co-sponsors (101 of whom were Democrats) not the boogie man of 'big business:'

"The authors of the DeMint document are correct! CFA and CU do support this common sense, bi-partisan measure as do other not-for-profit organizations, including the Union of Concerned Scientists, the American Academy of Pediatrics, Kids in Danger, U.S. PIRG, National Research Center for Women & Families, and Public Citizen. And thousands of concerned individuals across the country have also contacted Senators urging its passage. This legislation is urgently needed to restore consumers’ faith in the products they buy every day.

Contact:
Jennifer Fuson, CU (202) 462-6262
Rachel Weintraub, CFA (202) 387-6121
Ed Mierzwinski, U.S. PIRG (202) 546-9707
David Arkush, PC (202) 550-0107
Celia Wexler, UCS (202) 331-6952"

So contact them, as they ask, and explain why this bill was, in fact, deeply harmful and did nothing to restore your faith, as a consumer, in anything except the power of special interests.

[Former_Member]

Wow...thanks for the info!

[Former_Member]

marking and bumping...more people need to read this!

[Former_Member]

Awesome Info. Will Contact these folks.

[Former_Member]

everyone needs to read this

[Former_Member]

They also wrote in very specific language to protect whistleblowers.

[KGarnerDesigns]

marking. Why am I not surprised?
Thanks for posting!

[Former_Member]

Marking to read later.

[Former_Member]

When POLITICIANS are competing for popularity points, labels like "liberal" and "conservative" become meaningless.

NO one from EITHER side actively FOUGHT this thing.

[Former_Member]

I think it would be helpful to know what politicians have accepted campaign funds from those organizations. They are all special interest groups....

[Former_Member]

Trinylak, I realize this may not fit with your established worldview, but it's both false and not fair to Senator DeMint to say that NOBODY from either side actively fought this thing. It's also counterproductive. As long as you believe the falsehood that nobody fought against it, you will be relying on your 'enemies' (those that wrote it, sponsored it, passed it, or on the same 'side' as those that did) on this issue while holding your allies (on this issue, those who voted against it) at arm's length.

Senator DeMint fought it. Very hard. Very actively (did you even read the link?) He got a lot of grief from the liberal consumer groups who were promoting it. Please read the linked page above, which comes from the group itself.

There were 13 Republican Senators who voted against it at least once, and one Republican Congressman. NOT ONE DEMOCRAT objected. Three of those Republican Senators voted against it consistently, and Senator DeMint in particular spoke out against it quite actively. The very leftwing 'consumer' group who wrote and published the article linked above are complaining about Senator DeMint precisely BECAUSE HE FOUGHT THIS THING. I don't understand why you are so opposed to giving the best friend you have in the Senator on this matter no credit for how hard he has worked against this bill.


PLEASE read the New York Times article already posted here multiple times.

The Bush Administration DID fight it. Nancy Nord fought it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/31/business/31consume.html?fta=y

This was, according to the NYT story (and the NYT is hardly a friend to conservative interests), a Democrat Bill which the Bush administration objected to, and the acting chairman of the agency at the time as well as several business organizations warned the Democrats that their bill was unwieldy, burdensome, and over-reaching. In response, the Democrats called for her resignation:
"WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 — Over the objections of the Bush administration, a Senate committee unanimously adopted sweeping legislation on Tuesday that would extend the authority of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and sharply increase its budget and staff."

I disagree with former President Bush on MANY issues, and did not vote for him, nor did I vote the Republican ticket this time.
Just because you agree with a particular politician on some issues does not make them your friends and allies on other issues.

[Former_Member]

VintageEmbellishment says:
I think it would be helpful to know what politicians have accepted campaign funds from those organizations. They are all special interest groups....

That is a very good point. How would we go about finding out?

[Former_Member]

We would have to check each politicians website to maybe find the info, and I think the organizations are required to post the info also. Of course most of these are groups within groups within groups, so it is very difficult to track. But these groups seem to be very proud of what they have done and I would venture to guess many Etsians are members or supporters of some of them, so maybe they could find out or their political leanings could give us a hint. I.E. liberals might belong to groups A,B, and C versus Conservatives might belong to groups D, E, and F.
Anyone know the core beliefs of any of these groups and if they are considered liberal or conservative?

[Former_Member]

Deputy, thank you for your incredibly well-researched posts. You are right that it is incredibly useful to know who our friends are.

[boygirlboygirldesign]

marking

[OhFaro]

marking for reference.

[trendybindi]

ditto

[acorngirl]

Marking. This sucks so bad. :(

[Former_Member]

The Consumer's Union is the group that publishes Consumer Reports.

David Arkush teaches Modern Chinese History at a university and works for Public Citizen.

According to Wikipedia, Public Citizen is:
"a Washington, D.C.-based public interest group engaged in consumer advocacy, government accountability, clean democracy and ethical government, access to the courts, global trade, and regulatory and science policy."
Founded by Ralph Nader in 1971, since disassociated from him.

US Pirg, possibly the most influential of the groups pushing for the CPSIA and fighting for NO EXEMPTIONS for small businesses is:
the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups.
Their website has been linked before, look at the top left corner, safety lissues, click and read about toys to see how proud they are of the advocacy work they've done that's going to put you out of business:
http://www.uspirg.org/
This Huffington Post link also has some information on Pirg:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-kalman/?view=print
and this wikipedia article is informative:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Interest_Research_Group

I'm still looking up some of the others, but not having much luck finding political contributions.

Planned parenthood, of course, is NOT a conservative group.=)

For those interested in finding out more about the special interest groups pushing this bill, there's a list here:
http://heartkeepercommonroom.blogspot.com/2009/01/cpsia-german-toy-company-pulls-out-of.html

[NiftyKnacksVtgHome]

marking for later--thanks for the info!