Freedom Line Blog

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is pushing the boundaries of its regulatory authority, as it’s set to issue a rulemaking on the basis of outdated data and faulty reasoning.

Specifically the CPSC, long known for its overzealous overregulation, voted to move forward in late December (in the midst of the holidays), with a draft rulemaking that would ban a class of chemicals called phthalates from some consumer products. Phthalates are used in a variety of consumer goods to make them more durable and to prevent plastics from shattering. CFIF’s Timothy Lee covered the issue more in-depth last week.

The circumstances surrounding CPSC’s ruling truly fly in the face of any pretense of scientific objectivity or transparency. The Commission completely ignored four years of the most recent data and made sure that no pesky third party scientists would point this out by refusing to open the peer review process to the public.

Placing the review behind closed doors also left the public in the dark about a new review process CPSC used called a cumulative risk assessment.  This method is so new and untested that the EPA, an agency not exactly renowned for being a model of scientific integrity, has decided to review it before using it for its regulatory decisions. The result of using this method and general overreach of the Commission could be previously safe chemicals being banned in everyday products and replaced with unknown and potentially unsafe alternatives. The level of overreach has prompted two of CPSC’s own commissioners to question its validity.

Fortunately, the CPSC has started its public review and has opened the docket for comments from the public.  Take a stand now and tell CPSC that this type of overregulation is exactly what we don’t need from them. Follow the link here to take action and comment now.