Government Gone Wild

In 2006 I made a campaign promise to help the OHV (Off-Highway Vehicle) industry in Tennessee. Being a political junkie, I took on the cause with great relish. How hard could it be?! Three years later, I am still amazed at how hard it really is but dang it has been fun.

Unfortunately, I have also learned that Logic doesn't seem to play a part in most politics.

Here is another edition of Government Gone Wild.

Some frustrated with lead mandates
Libraries, bike shops scramble to comply with new requirements
by Jimmy Myers
Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Minimal amounts of lead in aluminum casting have caused some to be concerned about motorcycles such as this one made for young children.

With Congress saying “get the lead out,” local retailers and librarians are wondering if common sense gets chucked along with it.

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, which goes into effect Feb. 10, is meant to protect children from lead-laden products. But when the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission gave libraries two options, get rid of all your children’s books or ban anyone under 12 from entering the library, librarians across the country waited for the punch line. But it never came.

“I was speechless,” said Mary Beth Revels, director of the St. Joseph Public Library. “To know it wasn’t a joke and those were our choices.”

After discussing the situation with the library board, she deduced that they would not pack away the library’s 70,000 children’s books and they weren’t going to close the library doors to children.

“We felt that if libraries didn’t comply with this across the country, that we would be taking a stand of continuing to connect children with books,” Ms. Revels said.

The publishing industry has tested the lead content in books, Ms. Revels said, and the levels are within legal limits. But the commission won’t recognize those tests because they weren’t carried out in a “certified lab.”

“But there are no certified labs,” she said incredulously.

And though librarians can’t give an estimate of how many of their children’s books end up in the mouths of readers, Ms. Revels said they’ve never had to replace a book destroyed by an orally fixated patron.

Luckily, libraries have received a reprieve that will last one year, and the commission will consider which products should be exempt from the law.

But local motorcycle shops that sell kid bikes aren’t so lucky. They will not be allowed to sell motorcycles to children as of Feb. 10.

Motorcycles contain lead parts on the batteries and various other areas of the engine.

“It’s so stupid,” said Mike McBride, owner of McBride’s Yamaha on the Belt Highway. “You’d have to suck on an engine case for hours a day to get any lead out of it.”

He’s got about 10 motorcycles that he’ll have to pull off the showroom floor on the 10th if he doesn’t sell them first, which he said won’t happen.

With fines up to $150,000, Mr. McBride said he’s not going to risk keeping them on the floor. Instead, he’ll pay interest on them until “it gets resolved.”

“I think everybody thought (the commission) would have a flash of common sense, but that didn’t happen,” he said.

Jimmy Myers can be reached at jimmym@npgco.com.