CPSC's "Opportunity for Oral Comments" for Magnet Ban, such a sham.

The CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) is procedurally required to hear more arguments regarding their magnet ban. Actions show questionable intention of having meaningful dialogue with the dissenting public. Despite internal conflict within the ranks of the CPSC on the topic (of an all-ages-nationwide ban on sets of high powered magnets such as Zen Magnets or Buckyballs,) the federal office continues through the steps while hoping to sidestep a public relations disaster.

At 10 A.M., October 22, 2013, the CPSC will hold a public meeting to give “interested persons [the opportunity] to present oral comments on the notice of proposed rulemaking the Commission issued proposing a standard to reduce the risk of injury associated with children ingesting magnets that are part of a magnet set.”

The absolute minimum, which is required of the CPSC by CSPA, is to post the notice to the federal register. Despite having a “Magnets Information Center” with news and legal updates, the notice of public meeting was placed only to the Federal Register and not deemed a worthy item to post in the list of recent “News”. If a concerned citizen found post titled, “Magnet Rulemaking: How You Can Be Involved,” the notice regarding the public meeting is still omitted.

However, the only question that need be asked in the new comment box, is “What happened to all the concerns and complaints in the old comment box?” Comments submitted to the magnet rulemaking record already represent more than half of all rulemaking comments ever received by the CPSC. Over 90% were against the ban. None have received a response. National polling results from Democratic leaning Public Polling Policy show similar sentiments nationwide regarding the attempted ban of Zen Magnets and Buckyballs. And a petition with over four thousand signatures has yet to be acknowledged by the CPSC.

When staff such as Jonathan Midgett, who already recommended the ban on the rulemaking record despite partial information, are also assigned to self-police the CPSC, it’s difficult to assume any of these “comment boxes” are anything but spurious. Ever since the Democratic commissioners Adler and Tenenbaum joined the ranks of leadership, the structure of the CPSC has morphed to grant more power to CPSC staff and commissioners, at the cost of impartiality and democratic agency.

To date, there have been no recorded ingestion of Zen Magnets. Both the Zen Magnet company and Buckyballs company are fighting an administrative complaint from the CPSC, seperate from the rulemaking at hand.