Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act

‘CPSC Handbook for Resale Stores and Product Resellers.’

Anyone doing a yard sale, please first read and understand the manual that has been thoughtfully provided for you by the Consumer Product Safety Commission to inform you of what you may or may not resell. Please remember that you are explicitly required to follow these regulations, that it is your responsibility to follow every relevant government regulation involved in this, and that ignorance of the law is not an excuse. You may not get caught – but then again, maybe you will.

Via Reason, via Instapundit. To me, the most frustrating thing about this manual is that it actually has a good deal of useful product safety information in it; stuff that consumers should know about. If the government had just left it at that… but that would require trusting the markets, and the only entity less willing to do that than the (Democrat-controlled) 110th Congress is the (even more Democrat-controlled) 111th one.

Much obliged, Speaker Pelosi. Some of us can’t buy new for our kids, you know.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

[UPDATE]: Fausta makes this a lot more elemental: this affects people’s moms.

Rep Waxman still refusing to face small business owners.

It is easier when they can stay being just faceless blobs, I suppose.

Last week, Congressmen Joe Barton (R) and George Radanovich (R) sent a letter to Congressman Henry Waxman (D) requesting hearings into the rather badly misnamed Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. As you know, the CPSI was pushed through a Democrat-controlled Congress by Speaker Pelosi (D) without the usual Congressional oversight: as a result, it was not until after the law had been passed that it was noticed that provisions within it would effectively eliminate the thrift store industry, in a time where the economy is at a particularly precarious position. Government agencies are currently looking into what leeway that they might have in implementing the Democrats’ new regulatory scheme, but there was obviously a failure in the legislative process somewhere, and there is no guarantee that this particular (and presumably) unintended consequence will not be fully realized.

The two Congressmen are particularly concerned because their first request for hearings back on January 21st was apparently ignored, despite of the fact that this problem is a looming disaster for small business owners (including minority small business owners) across the country. Accordingly, they have resent their request, including the contact information of some of those business owners, in the hope that this might… I’m not sure. Trigger some spark of humanity within Waxmen’s breast? Or sense of shame? Or even a reflex of self-preservation? However you want to put it, they… and more importantly, we… deserve some sort of reply.

Letter text beyond the fold.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.
Continue reading Rep Waxman still refusing to face small business owners.

Federal bureaucrats graciously choose to let the thrift store industry live.

That title should grate.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has apparently decided that they don’t feel like holding the bag for Nancy Pelosi’s inability to write a functional consumer protection bill: Continue reading Federal bureaucrats graciously choose to let the thrift store industry live.