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The fact-checking website Snopes changed one of its ratings after pressure from President Joe Biden’s administration, newly disclosed emails show.Snopes on Jan. 10, 2023, said that there was some truth to a claim that President Biden’s administration was planning to ban gas stoves.Under a heading of “what’s true,” Snopes said that “The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), a federal agency, is currently considering a ban on gas stoves if they can’t be made safer, due to concerns over harmful indoor pollutants that cause health and respiratory problems.”Under another heading, it said that the ban has not been put in...

EXCLUSIVE: Biden administration officials successfully pressured fact-checking website Snopes to alter its rating on a fact check it conducted regarding a potential federal ban on gas stoves, according to internal communications. In early January 2023, Snopes issued a "mixture" rating on the claim that the Biden administration was considering a ban on gas-powered stovetops, citing comments made by a senior official overseeing product regulations. Shortly before the fact check, Richard Trumka Jr., a member of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), said such a ban was "on the table." "This is a hidden hazard," Trumka told Bloomberg at the time....

A federal agency is considering a ban on gas stoves, a source of indoor pollution linked to childhood asthma. In an interview with Bloomberg, a US Consumer Product Safety commissioner said gas stove usage is a “hidden hazard.”“Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned,” agency commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. told Bloomberg. The report said the agency plans “to take action” to address the indoor pollution caused by stoves.

This afternoon, Peter Feldman was confirmed by a vote of 80-19 to be a Commissioner for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission for a term to end in October 2019. The Senate also voted along party lines to invoke cloture so a vote could be taken on Feldman’s nomination for a second term. Feldman’s second term would run from October 2019 through October 2026. The Senate is expected to vote on the second term within the next couple of weeks. Once Feldman is sworn in for his first term, which also likely will happen within the next couple of weeks,...

The 3-1 Democratic majority at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has officially come to an end one and a half years after the election of President Trump and eight months after the nomination of Dana Baiocco as a commissioner of the CPSC. This afternoon, the United States Senate voted 50-45, mostly along party lines, to confirm Ms. Baiocco to the Commission. This confirmation is significant. As of today, Ms. Baiocco will be able to take her seat on the Commission, and Commissioner Marietta Robinson, currently in her “hold-over” year as her term expired last October, will depart the agency....

University of Miami athlete Austen Everett died from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2012. Her mother said it was soon after that, as she found out about even more sick players, that she came to believe that artificial turf used on soccer fields was the culprit. "I realized, 'Oh my God, the thing that she loved most probably killed her,'" June Leahy told NBC News. "And that was hard." Leahy says since her daughter's death, she still hasn't gotten enough answers — or action from lawmakers and regulators.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a regulation for Christmas lights on Monday, deeming some holiday decorations a “substantial product hazard.”“The Consumer Product Safety Commission … is issuing a final rule to specify that seasonal and decorative lighting products that do not contain any one of three readily observable characteristics (minimum wire size, sufficient strain relief, or overcurrent protection), as addressed in a voluntary standard, are deemed a substantial product hazard under the Consumer Product Safety Act (“CPSA”),” the final rule said.The ruling applies to a variety of Christmas decorations, including “stars, wreathes, candles without shades, light sculptures, blow-molded...

Hide your Santa’s, hide your reindeer, and take down your wreaths …because big government is regulating everything! That’s right, the government is now turning all its nanny state hate towards the holiday season – and in a move that would make even the Grinch blush, President Obama’s bureaucracy is proposing new regulations on the use of traditional Christmas lights and other holiday decorations. This month the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) un-wrapped new proposed federal regulations that if enacted, would categorize certain Christmas lights and other “seasonal decorative lighting products” as posing a “substantial product hazard” to the public at...

Christmas lights and other seasonal decorations are the target of new federal regulations as the holidays approach. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) proposed new requirements on Tuesday to prevent decorative lights from causing electrical fires and other dangers in homes around the country. The new rules would apply to everything from Christmas tree lights to the light sculptures and animated figures of Santa Claus and his reindeer that illuminate front yards across the country. Decorative lighting that does not meet new standards will be considered hazardous, the agency said. "Consumers can be seriously injured or killed by electrical shocks...

It felt like Christmas had come early when I got my package of Buckyballs in the mail a few days ago. Buckyballs are small, super-strong spherical magnets made of the rare-earth metal Neodymium. A set of 216 Buckyballs fits comfortably in the palm of your hand. Obviously Buckyballs are adult toys, and Maxfield and Oberton emphatically warns users not to give them to children, eat them, inhale them, or place them near objects (such as pacemakers) that are sensitive to magnets. However, for those who use Buckyballs with common sense and due care, they are reasonably safe—just like countless other...

Buckyballs, the three-year-old innovative toy company that makes magnetic desk toys for adults, is in the fight of its life. The Obama administration’s Consumer Product Safety Commission has filed a lawsuit to stop the firm from selling its products and to issue a recall of its toys. Several retailers have yanked the magnets, despite the company’s clear warning that Buckyballs and Buckycubes are for adults — not children. Buckyballs executives have taken to social media and radio airwaves to save the company.

The Republican-led House of Representatives is fighting back against big-money plaintiffs’ attorneys who use campaign cash to control congressional Democrats. A provision in the budget continuing resolution would forbid government from spending funds to implement a new Consumer Product Safety Commission program. On March 11, the CPSC is set to launch a new online database publishing thousands of outside complaints about allegedly unsafe products. These attacks would be publicized before any investigation and without independent evidence that complaints are legitimate. It’s an open invitation for competitors or interest groups to destroy a product’s reputation - and sales - without proof....

The latest dictates from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) will drive up the cost of manufacturing products intended for children. The agency adopted a pair of new rules in July and August implementing the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, but as drafted, these regulations will force companies to waste time and money on redundant testing programs solely for the entertainment of bureaucratic busybodies. Anne Northup, one of the agency's five commissioners, has waged an often lonely fight in favor of common sense on this issue. She opposed the requirement for third-party testing of mattresses, carpets and other...

[Edited for excerpt] The baby crib, usually a safe haven for little ones, became a death trap for 6-month-old Bobby Cirigliano. The side rail on his drop-side crib slid off the tracks and trapped his head and neck between the mattress and the malfunctioning side rail. His face pressed against the mattress, the boy suffocated. Bobby was one of at least 32 infants and toddlers since 2000 who suffocated or were strangled in a drop-side crib, which has a side that moves up and down to allow parents to lift children from the cribs more easily than cribs with fixed...

New federal guidelines say thousands of U.S. homes tainted by Chinese drywall won't be safe unless they are completely gutted. The Consumer Product Safety Commission released the guidelines Friday. They say electrical wiring, outlets, circuit breakers, fire alarm systems, carbon monoxide alarms, fire sprinklers, gas pipes and drywall must be removed. About 3,000 homeowners, mostly in Florida, Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana, have reported problems with the Chinese-made drywall. A large quantity of the drywall was imported during the housing boom and after a string of Gulf Coast hurricanes. It has been linked to corrosion of wiring, air conditioning units,...

A federal law banning lead and other toxic substances in products for children 12 and under has raised new concerns. Some libraries have pulled children's books that were printed before 1986 because lead was used in printer's ink before then. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the chances of those books containing lead harmful to children is low. At least two libraries didn't want to take any chances and removed the books from their shelves. The Consumer Product Safety Commission interprets the new federal law to include books but hasn't weighed in on whether older books could cause...

WASHINGTON (AP) - One of the nation's top safety officials is putting manufacturers on notice: Comply with new rules aimed at keeping children's products safe, or face the potential of big fines. Consumer Product Safety Commission Chairman Inez Tenenbaum said Tuesday that her agency will get new enforcement tools next month—and she plans to use them in order to protect consumers, especially children.

Selling any used cribs or playpens at your upcoming garage sale? Children’s clothes with drawstrings or zippers? Pre-1985 books? Rubber duckies or pool floaties? Better check them twice. Just like megasize toy manufacturers and stores that sell products from China, the notoriously broad and confusing federal Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act applies to you and your front yard

Makers of children's products and charities that run second-hand shops are stuck with more than $1 billion of inventory they can't sell because of a new federal product-safety law, according to surveys by trade groups and the charities. The goods, which have -- or are suspected of having -- illegal levels of lead or plastic-softening chemicals called phthalates, include everything from beach balls to second-hand clothes to brand-new all-terrain vehicles for children. The goods -- piled up in warehouses and storerooms -- will have to be incinerated or dumped, resulting in write-offs and disposal costs that the suppliers say they...

Legislation will protect families, charities and small businesses from regulations and lawsuits that could kill thousands of jobs. Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) announced the introduction of a bill protect small businesses, charities and families by reforming the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA). Senator DeMint’s legislation would stop the most overreaching and burdensome aspects of CPSIA, slated to take effect February 10. Unless reformed, the new law will demand onerous testing for anything geared towards children age 12 and under. This mandate would fall on books, toys, clothing, hair bands, board games, sporting equipment, backpacks,...