Do You Support the Work at home community?

This is very important. In August Congress voted to pass HR4040, also known as the Consumer Products Safety Information Act (CPSIA). The intent of the law is to protect our children from products contaminated with lead, phthalates, or not passing flammability standards. The problem with this law is for lead, it is *retroactive*. Retailers and Manufacturers have until February 10th to comply with the law and remove any products from their shelves not in compliance. This includes existing inventory. This includes used products. Anything intended for children. Read: clothing, diapers, bedding, toys, strollers, cribs, car seats, high chairs, and so on. To comply with the law, products have to undergo expensive testing. The testing per product can be anywhere from $500 up to thousands of dollars. A piece of clothing that is size newborn and an identical piece of clothing that is size 3 months are considered TWO DIFFERENT products and must be tested separately. The costs of this are astronomical. It will be difficult for most businesses to comply, and *impossible* for small manufacturers to comply. For example, I own a small diaper business, www.pamperedcheeks.com, and I make custom cloth diapers. I make hundreds of different variations, but the way the law is written it will be illegal to sell without doing the testing. It is useless--I CAN NOT test every product variation. So far NOTHING is being done to stop this law. There are small activist groups, and a petition or two out there, but the news media is NOT talking about it. It's incredibly frustrating. I'm not copying this letter from some other board, I'm typing it out as I think of it, and I'm sure I'm not being eloquent or concise or even clear. I am, however, trying to be accurate.

According to the law, ANY children's product not tested, properly certified, and labeled, regardless of when it was made, will be "banned hazardous material" as of February 10th and it is a FELONY to sell such products. Even on ebay, garage sales, goodwill, etc. Period.

This law has already passed congress. It was signed by President Bush. It is a done deal. We can't stop the law from being passed. Don't say "this law won't stand." It will unless it is amended. It already IS standing.

Here are some links and resources. Please, please, please contact your congressman.
http://www.cpsc.gov/about/cpsia/cpsia.html (see the law for yourself)

http://nationalbankruptcyday.com/ (a helpful blog--also has links to contact your representative)

http://fashion-incubator.com/phpbb/viewforum.php?f=32 (a forum for people who feel this may affect them or have questions...particularly clothing manufacturers)

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/handmadetoys/ (handmade toys petition)
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/economicimpactsofCPSIA/ (apparel petition)

There are some videos http://stephsoundoff.blogspot.com of the manager of the large educational company called Learning Resources (visit the site, I know you've heard of them: http://www.learningresources.com/) appearing before a CPSC council on this topic. The videos outline the gravity of this law and the far-reaching impacts it will have.