Here's a portion of the email I received -- I left off the other articles he refers to since they all say basically the same thing and are much too long to post here.
At least this will get us through Christmas...
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Dear CPSIA stakeholder –
Thanks in part to your advocacy in recent weeks, the CPSC voted today to extend the stay of testing and certification requirements for lead (which was scheduled to expire on February 10, 2011) until December 31, 2011.
Your emails and advocacy helped create the environment that led to today’s vote.
The announcement doesn’t appear to be on the CPSC website yet, but below is a blog posting by CPSC Commissioner Nord from earlier today announcing the good news. At the bottom are several articles and wire stories that discuss today’s action. Below that is the AAFA press release welcoming this news.
However, while this announcement is good news, it only pushes the deadline down the road by a few months. As Commissioner Nord notes, absent further CPSC action or any action by Congress, the stay will lift on December 31, 2011.
Much work remains to be done to fix the problems that have been created by the CPSIA legislation. Your continued involvement and advocacy will be critical throughout the year to make sure the CPSIA can be finally amended to ensure a functioning product safety regime that advances public health and safety while not creating burdens for business or confusion for consumers.
You can learn about future advocacy campaigns for CPSIA in part by friending us on Facebook (facebook.com/apparelandfootwear) or following us on Twitter - @apparelfootwear.
Thanks again.
Steve Lamar
AAFA
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Lead Testing Stay Extended to December 31
Nancy Nord | February 1, 2011 at 12:07 pm |
The Commission has now voted (4-1) to extend the stay of enforcement on third party testing for lead content—until December 31, 2011. Although the recommendation before us was to extend the stay until the middle of September, this would have imposed an expensive testing burden on small manufacturers during one of their busiest seasons.
This extension will also give the agency more time to complete the component testing proposed rule and the testing and certification proposed rule. Both these rules need to be in place before the stay of enforcement is lifted. While I would have preferred to specifically tie the lifting of the stay to the issuance of these rules, the December date gives everyone—the agency and manufacturers--a bit more time to prepare.
The stay of enforcement does not relieve anyone from complying with the underlying lead regulations. Therefore, consumer safety is not impacted by the agency’s action. Instead we have pushed off for a bit longer this burdensome requirement. However, unless Congress changes the law, the testing requirement will go into effect at the end of December.
