Paper Is the Right Choice for Clothes and Shoes: Marking One Year of the CPSIA

On Friday, we are marking the one-year anniversary of the Consumer
Product Safety Improvement Act, landmark legislation that provided
needed resources to the Consumer Product Safety Commission to improve
consumer product safety. We are also commemorating the second of three
phase-in dates for reductions in lead standards for children's products.


As tradition holds, the first anniversary gift is paper. For our
anniversary gift, Congress should consider giving the producers of
children's clothing and shoes a thoughtful piece of paper: legislation
allowing the U.S. apparel and footwear industry the opportunity to
continue making safe clothing and shoes.

The CPSIA was an effort to adapt consumer product safety to the changing
manufacturing landscape. While well-intentioned, the CPSIA has unduly
burdened businesses by shifting focus away from risk toward legal
compliance. As a result, companies that manufacture and sell safe
products have been forced to shut down.

The legislation went far beyond its intended purpose of keeping unsafe
and dangerous toys off store shelves by creating a "guilty until proven
innocent" compliance environment - even for products that have always
been safe. As a result, manufacturers of children's products are
spending tremendous resources in duplicative testing of their products
simply to comply with the legislation. These extra costs are doing
little to improve public health or provide safety, and they are adding
enormous pressures to companies already scrambling for ways to cope with
the economic downturn.

The U.S. apparel and footwear industry has been a victim in this
unfortunate debate that pits compliance against safety. We believe we
have a strong safety record. While any recall is one too many, the
amount of recalls in our industry in 2008 equaled less than 0.0082
percent of total merchandise sold. To give you an idea of that figure:
If a football player were to stand at one end of a football field and
run 0.0082 percent of the way to the other goal line, he would travel
only a small fraction of an inch.

For us, product safety is engineered into clothing and shoes from the
start. That is why we need strong and clear product safety rules that
can be communicated and understood up and down the supply chain.
However, the CPSIA's rigid parameters have eliminated key "flexibility"
and "risk assessment" tools that are needed for the product safety
system to work efficiently. And with some rules implemented
retroactively or being announced only a few days before they take
effect, the system falls apart.

We will always work with the CPSC and consumer interest groups to
determine what, if any, product safety problems exist in the industry
and how to best rectify them. Congress should encourage this cooperative
environment because it alleviates many of the current burdens the CPSIA
imposes on industry - burdens that do not improve consumer safety. This
transparent process creates a risk-based, common-sense product safety
regulatory network that is agreeable to all stakeholders.

The current regulatory framework has made even the most low-hanging
fruit nearly unreachable. When the legislation first passed, our
industry began the process of seeking out a rule exempting fabric and
textiles from the lead standard because the materials are inherently
lead-free. Due to strict statutory language, the tedious process
involved hearings, comments, thousands of test reports and several
meetings. The final rule came out on Aug. 7, almost one year since the
law was enacted. In the meantime, the industry has spent millions of
dollars to demonstrate what it already knows - your plain white cotton
T-shirt does not have lead in it.

Other exemption requests posed by our industry and others have not been
so successful. Crystals and rhinestones on children's clothing, shoes,
princess costumes, dance uniforms, cell phones, jewelry, accessories and
eyeglasses are now banned hazardous substances despite a CPSC staff
determination that this "bling" does not pose a health risk to children.
Furthermore, data shows crystals and rhinestones would leach less lead
than some jewelry that is compliant with the strictest CPSIA lead
standard that goes in effect two years from now. However, as new CPSC
Chairwoman Inez Tenenbaum stated, "A decision to grant the exclusion by
using compliant metal jewelry as the baseline for assessing the
acceptable level of exposure will reintroduce risk analysis back into
consideration. ... Such an interpretation of the exclusion section of
the CPSIA appears to be in direct conflict with the statutory language,
which does not allow for the consideration of risk."

Last week, the Senate moved quickly in confirming the two remaining
nominees to complete the slate of commissioners at the CPSC. For too
long our nation's product safety regulatory system had been underserved
because of long-standing vacancies in vital leadership positions.
Fortunately, the recent batch of confirmation hearings has renewed the
discussion aimed at restoring common sense to our product safety rules
and regulations. Through the appropriations process, chronic
underfunding issues are swiftly being resolved as well.

Now that we have five commissioners providing leadership at the CPSC,
the commissioners should begin following through on commitments made
during confirmation hearings to quickly issue comprehensive and
unmistakable guidance to fashion designers, manufacturers and retailers
to resolve the immense confusion that has held our industry back.

Congress has an important role to play as well. Hearings are urgently
needed to provide all stakeholders an opportunity to document the early
successes and failures of the CPSIA. More importantly, with the one-year
anniversary behind them, key Members of Congress should take a hard look
at the legislation to see what fixes can be made - technical or
otherwise - that will make this law work better and as intended. In
answer to Chairwoman Tenenbaum's appeal last week, one urgently needed
legislative clarification would provide the CPSC with needed tools to
grant common-sense exemptions based on risk.

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act was a historic piece of
legislation that should have been lauded but instead has become known as
the law of unintended consequences. For our one-year anniversary,
Congress should give American consumers and businesses a piece of paper
that makes it easier to buy and sell safe and compliant clothes and
shoes.

Source: Roll Call 8/14/2009
Kevin Burke is president and CEO of the American Apparel & Footwear
Association.