Inside the Handmade Toy Alliance

by Dan Marshall

Published June 13, 2009 @ 12:10AM PT

We had an HTA board meeting today. It took place not in a board room but via conference call using a free web-based service that usually works well enough but today was causing our voices to echo like we were inside a grain silo.  All of us, from Oregon to Massachusetts, were taking time from our families and our businesses to organize our thoughts.  One of us was sick with the flu, another had just recovered.  At one point we all waited while a child was tended to.

None of us are professional lobbyists or political insiders. We're just small business owners caught in a net that was supposed to catch bigger fish. When Shakespeare wrote "Neither a borrower nor a lender be", he might also have added, "nor be an unintended consequence." The problem with being a side effect, with being the baby that got thrown out with the bath water, is that no one wants to admit they were wrong and fix the problem, least of all powerful House committee chairs or the New York Times.

What sustains and fuels us, I think, is our respect and admiration for each other--not just on the board, but all of the members of the Handmade Toy Alliance.  We are people in an untenable situation who banded together and formed a community.  Not a corporation, not a special interest group, but a community. We've all taken considerable time and energy away from the businesses that sustain us in order to fight an unfair law. Working together, we've gotten the attention of folks who didn't know we existed a year ago. Working together, we've replaced our individual feelings of despair with action, support, and shared struggle.

Now we just need a few brave lawmakers to stand up for us and amend the CPSIA.

Outreach to the Senate regarding Tenenbaum confirmation hearing on June 16th

by Jill Chuckas

Published June 10, 2009 @ 06:03PM PT

Open Letter to crafters, small businesses, and supporters of handmade

by Cecilia Leibovitz

Published May 27, 2009 @ 06:12PM PT

Handmade Toy Alliance Member Testifies in House Small Business Subcommittee

by Dan Marshall

Published May 14, 2009 @ 11:11AM PT

HTA member Suzi Lang, owner of Starbright Baby, testified at the House Small Business Subcommittee on Oversight today.  She and several other business owners did a great job describing the difficulties the CPSIA is causing for small businesses.  This was the first post-CPSIA Congressional hearing and our first chance to tell Congress what we need.  The complete hearing is available on YouTube.

Amend the CPSIA Testimony

by Cecilia Leibovitz

Published April 10, 2009 @ 07:36PM PT

Following is my written testimony for the Amend the CPSIA website (you can view the recorded version here and other speakers here.

If you own a children's product company, please consider submitting your own testimony about how the CPSIA has affected your life and business.  Your testimony will serve as an important contribution to the growing body of evidence that shows why this law doesn't work. Please submit your testimony to webcontent AT amendthecpsia DOT com by April 15, and it will be published to the Amend the CPSIA website.

Guidelines for writing your testimony:

1- Introduce yourself and your business. Explain what you do, how long you've been in business, and any other significant facts.
2- Explain how the law has affected your business. What has been or will be the impact? Include economic repercussions and any stats.
3- If appropriate focus on the section of CPSIA that is causing you the most problems (lead, retroactivity, tracking labels etc.)
4- Call for Congress to fix the flaws in the law.

My testimony:

Craftsbury Kids is a retail company providing handmade toys, clothing, and gift items made by nearly 100  artists in the US and Europe. Most of the products we sell are made of natural fibers, in limited runs, or are one of a kind. By limited, I mean batches of 10 or less.  My business was founded around the concept that our product line would serve two important functions-
1- A livelihood for American crafters.
2- An alternative to mass-produced, fad-based items that dominate the children's marketplace.
It also happens to provide the sole means of income for my family of six.

Our customer base is made up of parents, grandparents, and gift givers who see the value in giving children quality handmade items that last. Even with the condition of the economy, our sales have remained steady.

Of the nearly 100 artists we represent, all but 3 will be forced to close their doors if changes are not made to CPSIA. And I will be left with almost nothing to offer my customers.

There is a marked difference between items produced in the home of a hand-crafter, and those made by machines, assembly line fashion in a large factory. For thousands of years adults have been making toys and clothing for children, sometimes out of necessity, but equally as important, from the kindness of their hearts, and the patient labor of their hands. And CPSIA requires that this kind of handwork, produced over many hours, be destroyed in order to be proven free of lead and phthalates. 

Ironically, the items I offer pose no lead or phthalates risk, yet it is required that they be tested.  This law literally makes it impossible for my business model to remain in existence. The process by which testing needs to be done destroys the sample. But in our case, there often is no sample because of the one of a kind nature of many of our products.  The outrageous cost of testing ensures that even handcrafters producing small runs, will be pushed out of the market.

CPSIA brings a tradition that has existed since well before any of us were here, to a complete standstill. This law is poised to render our society one which is void of creativity, individuality, and options for children. Is this the legacy we want to leave them? If the answer is no, then the CPSIA must be amended to allow small innovative businesses to remain in business.

My Letter to President Obama

by Jill Chuckas

Published April 06, 2009 @ 05:29PM PT

Dear President Obama:

My name is Jill Chuckas and I own a small home based hand crafted children’s accessories business in Stamford, CT.  Since December of 2008, I have been working with the Handmade Toy Alliance (www.handmadetoyalliance.org) to bring awareness to and changes within the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA).  Unfortunately, this very well intended piece of legislation that I applauded Congress for undertaking, was written so broadly that my product line, as well as thousands of others, has become one of the unintended consequences. 

This past Wednesday, I, other representatives from the Handmade Toy Alliance and 24 other industry organizations that are negatively impacted by the CPSIA, joined together at a rally on Capital Hill to discuss and share our concerns with each other and Congress.  Afterwards, we attended a multitude of Legislative meetings with our Members of Congress.  Personally, I met with Rep. Jim Himes and staffers from Sen. Lieberman’s, Sen. Dodd’s and Sen. Kerry’s offices.  This was an exhilarating process that myself, as an ordinary citizen, had never imagined I would undertake.  But in this great land, it is both a person’s right and duty to call upon their leaders for help and guidance when they see a problem that needs to be fixed.

The overall consensus of those of us at the rally is that a technical amendment to the CPSIA is needed so that those of us producing safe products that are below the limits set forth within the legislation but can not afford to prove this compliance, as well as those who produce products that for one reason or another should be provided permanent exemptions (such as books, resale shops, ATV and motorbike sellers).  To give but one example of these unintended consequences, I create a soft clutch ball for children ages 4 months and up.  Like most small scale manufacturers and artists, I work in small batches – usually about 10 in a production run.  The way the law is currently written, as of August of this year, I would need to send one clutch ball of each run in to a third party accredited laboratory to test for lead and phthalates – a component in plastics.  There are no plastics anywhere on the ball, but because it is intended for children under 3, it would need to be evaluated for this toxin as well.  The test is destructive, so I would not get my clutch ball back.  And, they would break it down into components – 5 for this product - and perform the tests – to the tune of an average price of $75 per component for lead and $250 per component for phthalates.  That totals $1500 to test 1 clutch ball that retails for $16.50. 

Now, after I receive the test results, I would need to permanently mark each clutch ball with a distinguishing label listing place of manufacture, company information, date of manufacture and identifying numbers for the batch – different labels for every batch, or run, of 10 clutch balls.  The tracking on this alone is burdensome, and would only prove to increase administrative costs without any safety enhancements.  For one of a kind artists, this process would be impossible.  The other key point that needs to be made is that fabrics are inherently known by science to be lead and phthalate free (as long as no coatings are added).  Component based testing – where the supplier of my raw materials would certify the compliance of my components – would be a much more logical, cost effective approach to prove compliance, but the law does not allow for such flexibility.

On Thursday evening, a vote was held on the Senate floor for S.964 – an amendment presented to remedy some of the unintended consequences of the CPSIA.  It is my understanding that just prior to the vote, Sen. Pryor assured the Democratic leadership that Commissioner Moore of the CPSC has gone on record stating that the Commission has the authority and the discretion to address the issues of implementation – that the law does not need to be amended.  Instead of a change in the law – a change in the leadership at the CPSC (Acting Chairman Nord) is needed to enforce the law with common sense.  This is something that I have been told time and time again.  I so badly want to believe that it is true.  Two things in particular make me believe differently, though.  First, the NY District Court overturned a ruling that the CPSC had made regarding phthalate retroactivity and put the industry in a whirl wind just a few days prior to the date of implementation.  Secondly, just last week, the CPSC had the opportunity to grant an exemption to ease the burden on the motor bike and ATV industry.  Rather than voting to grant the exemption, Commissioner Moore voted against the exemption.

So today, I call on you Mr. President, to please help me and so many other small business owners like me.  If new leadership at the CPSC is all that is needed, then please appoint someone quickly.  As it stands, I will be put out of business on 8/14/09.  Not because my products are unsafe, or because of the state of the economy.  But instead because I can not afford the testing protocol that the CPSIA imposes on my company.  I need your help and your guidance to save small business from the CPSIA.

Thank you for your leadership.

Best Regards,

Jill Chuckas

Owner, Designer – Crafty Baby

Secretary – Handmade Toy Alliance          

A Precautionary Tale

by Dan Marshall

Published March 26, 2009 @ 01:14PM PT

While eating a peanut butter sandwich the other day, I started thinking about the larger political context of the CPSIA. Why did Congress, in cooperation with a consortium of consumer groups, create such a sweeping law that forces every manufacturer of a children's product to prove it is safe before it can be sold? Certainly, there might have been better solutions available such as increased funding and greater powers to the CPSC to enable them to better identify and remove substandard products.

The answer is that a larger movement has been at work here which goes beyond problems with Thomas the Tank Engine.  That movement is an idea known as the precautionary principle, which has been struggling to take root in government for a decade and a half.

The precautionary principle is a simple idea.  Before humans or the environment are exposed to a new chemical or technology like Tris fire retardant or nanontechnology, the manufacturer would first have to prove that the new chemical or technology would not cause harm. Once you get past the difficulty of proving a negative, the precautionary principle seems like a reasonable approach in many ways, especially where the possible harm might be global in scale.  The precautionary principle is already at work regulating new drugs at the FDA, new airplanes at the FAA, new nuclear power plants at the DOE, etc. Many would argue that it should also be applied to issues like global warming,genetically modified organisms, or industrial chemicals.

But, instead of applying the precautionary principle to any of these issues of global importance, Congress decided to ride the wave of public outrage over toy recalls and apply it to bicycles, booties, books, and rubber balls courtesy of the CPSIA. The devastation caused by such a sledgehammer approach to a problem caused by a few errant cans of paint is just beginning to be quantified.  Estimates by the CPSC now range in the billions of dollars.

But what liberal folks, environmentalists, and consumer advocates need to realize is that the myriad problems with the CPSIA are not only destroying thousands of small businesses, but are also severly undermining the entire concept of the precautionary principle.

Already, the CPSIA is being used as an example to avoid in future legislation.  Jeff Stier of the centrist group the American Council on Science and Health writes,

"Today, the food industry is exactly where the toy and other childrens' products companies were two years ago. And it is not a pretty place. Just because there's a problem, doesn't mean a big overhaul will do the job. And if the problem is big and highly visible the solution doesn't need to be equally large. Situations like this require us to be cautious against the same unintended consequences that came about as a result of the CPSIA."

The example of the CPSIA has also been used to argue against re-writing the Toxic Substances Control Act, most notably by CPSIA reform activist Rick Woldenberg. Even this year's legislative effort to ban BPA from baby bottles lacks the sweeping testing requirements that last year's bill contained.  Clearly, Congress has learned from its mistakes.

It may be true that the precautionary principle has a place in federal regulation, but the CPSIA serves to demonstrate that it should be very carefully applied, and certainly not to subjects which are so inherently low-risk as children's products.  Until it is fixed, the CPSIA will serve as a glaring example of an over-reaching extension of the precautionary principle and will undermine the entire concept.

Democrats everywhere--hear my voice. It's time to fix the CPSIA and move on.