Their request for exemption was apparently denied.
http://www.northwestcyclereport.com/2009/02/24/lost-atv-and-motorcycle-related-economic-value-could-..."The new lead rules that have banned the sales of many youth all-terrain vehicles and motorcycles could lead to $1 billion in lost economic value in 2009 for the industry, predicts the Motorcycle Industry Council."
http://www.cpsc.gov/library/foia/foia09/brief/leadexclusion.pdfHere's a 43 page release from the CPSC/ There are the points I thought most pertinent, speaking specifically of the motorbike people's request for exemption, it says:
"The Commission believes that the clear language of the statute which provides that it must determine, on the basis of the best-available, objective, peer-reviewed, scientific evidence that lead in such product or material will not “result in the absorption of any lead into the human body…” (emphasis added) does not allow the Commission any discretion to consider materials or products whereby exposure to the lead-containing elements under reasonably foreseeable use and abuse conditions would result in any absorption of lead, including through swallowing, mouthing, breaking, and the aging of the product. While Congress focused on ingestion by using the words “swallowing, mouthing, and breaking,” the use or abuse of a children’s product containing lead in excess of the lead limits could lead to the absorption of lead from hand to mouth contact, as the Commission has recognized for many years. Had Congress not included the use of the word “any”, the omission, relying, inter alia, on the advice of its toxicologists, engineers and human factors experts, would have had the authority to have considered whether the requirement could be met if there were some low amount of absorption of lead, resulting in “no meaningful increase” in children’s blood levels, thereby constituting a negligible risk. While there is no established threshold for adverse effectsof lead, peer-reviewed scientific literature suggests ways of assessing the risk to children given child-specific exposure routes, and taking into account the current knowledge of lead toxicology. ….
Physiologically, if there is absorption of lead into the human body, blood lead levels will increase, but whether that has significance from a health standpoint remains a question. However, the addition of the word “any” made it explicit that Congress had already made this risk assessment and legislated that any absorption of lead, no matter how insignificant, would be deemed unacceptable….
Accordingly, the Commission must follow the clear language of the statute and cannot grant any exclusion that does not meet this requirement."
That pretty much tears it for the motor-bike people, the BMX bicycle people and probably the ball-point pen people as well.
From the same documents:
MSDS sheets are not sufficient to satisfy the representative testing criteria… rather, the showing necessary to obtain a determination must be based on objectively reasonable and representative testing of the material or product
