We should all sleep better tonight knowing that the government is keeping our children safe from eating motorcycles and ATVs.
In a classic case of unintended consequence and regulatory overkill, the federal government has rendered thousands of small motorcycles and ATVs useless to dealers who already have them in stock.
A federal law which took effect Feb. 10 bans lead above a tiny level from all toys intended for children younger than age 12. The law includes motorcycles and ATVS.
"There's nothing wrong with the plastic. There's nothing wrong with the paint," said George Tubbs, owner of Lake City Honda-Kawasaki in Warsaw. "But the amount of lead in the aluminum engine cases is above the limit."
Tubbs has 54 of the small motorcycles and ATVs in stock. He's moved them all to a warehouse, waiting for the manufacturers to decide what to do.
He can't sell any of them without facing fines of more than $100,000 for the first offense. Fines can run into the tens of millions for multiple offenses.
And since they're all "contraband," they can't be sold to a foreign country, like Canada.
Tubbs surmises that if the government doesn't exempt them, manufacturers will likely have to buy them back from dealers and destroy them.
Making the situation even more ludicrous it the fact that the law also covers parts and service that are applicable to small motorcycles and ATVs.
So if you show up at the service department with an older model of one of these, there's the likelihood you could be turned away because there is lead in the parts you need.
Bicycle shops also are being hurt by the law because certain nuts and bolts and valve stems on bicycle have lead content over the limit.
And be assured, the limit is miniscule.
Libraries may not be able to lend books made before 1980 to kids because the ink in those books contain unacceptable levels of lead.
Now see, this is the type of regulatory insanity that drives me, well, insane.
I get that kids should be kept safe from ingest lead.
Agreed.But how many kids are going to lick or eat the engine case on a motorcycle?
Some of the motorcycles even have batteries. Wow, lots of lead in those. Mmmm, those motorcycle batteries are tasty.
Gotta keeps the kids off those.
And the books? I know some kids are hungry for learning, but I doubt they are going to be chowing down on the pages of "The Cat In The Hat".
Secondhand shops also face the wrath of the federal government because there is lead in zipper clasps.
So a single mom trying to save money by buying clothes for her children under age 12 at a thrift shop gets turned away. Are you kidding me?
And Associated Press reports that the Consumer Product Safety Commission is unlikely to grant exceptions.
That's because the law is written so strictly that it will take an act of Congress to make any exceptions.
Commission spokesman Joe Martyak told AP the law says exemptions can be granted only to products that do not result in any - not even a tiny amount of - absorption of lead.
'If the word 'any' were missing, that would leave more flexibility to the agency,' he told AP. 'That's traditionally the way the agency has operated.'
Martyak said only Congress, not the commission, can make that kind of change.
Tubbs said he contacted his senators and representative.
"When you write your congressman, you just get a form letter saying they are monitoring the situation," he said.
Hey, how about those tax dollars working for us.
Here we are in the midst of an economic downturn where small businesses are struggling and the president is talking about how we all have to work together to make things better.
Then we have a law that idles 54 of a local business's products for no reason at all.
Let's be honest.
No child is going to eat an ATV.
Doubling the impact to Lake City Honda is the ensuing parts and service fiasco.
And you also have to consider the fact that these are the gateway machines that get kids into motorsports. How many lifelong motorcycle customers is Lake City losing each month because of this inane law?
Politicians like to criticize businesses for outsourcing and job losses.
Well, with enough regulations like these, the government is going to make it impossible to do business in this country, period.
And for what?
You know, sometimes I wonder how I ever survived my childhood. When I was a kid, there was lead paint all over everything. When a thermometer broke, we played with the mercury. What good fun it was to push it around the table.
Lots of cars still didn't have seat belts. Nobody owned a car seat for the kids. We rode around on our bicycles without helmets.
Just about every boy in my elementary school had a pocket knife. If you got a new one for your birthday it would become a "show and tell" topic for the class.
More than a few guys had gun racks with shotguns in their pickups in the high school parking lot and nobody locked their doors.
I don't get it. How were we able to live before the government regulated virtually everything?
Honestly, this lead content law is abject nonsense.
Congress should change it to give the CPSC authority to make exceptions. Or better yet, rescind it back to the old lead content standard, which was more stringent than it needed to be anyway.
Maybe Congress will do the right thing and fix the lead content screw up, mess, but the larger, sadder issue is this: All I see on the horizon is bigger government, more programs and more regulations.
How are we ever going to turn this around? How are we ever going to stop the madness?
