WASHINGTON, DC, April 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has approved a draconian new “Magnet Safety Standard” for non-toy products that largely bans high-power adult hobby magnets. CPSC relied on flawed studies and, unlike the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA), failed to properly account for the benefits of magnets or the cost of removing them from the market. Basically, the CPSC is structured unconstitutionally because it is an independent agency that exercises executive power outside of the President’s control. Today, the New Civil Liberties Alliance submitted a motion opening short In Magnetsafety.org, et al. v. CPSCand asked the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit to reverse the magnet ban on a second Time – this time because it was promulgated by an unconstitutionally structured agency in violation of CPSA rules.

On September 21, 2022, CPSC promulgated a final rule entitled Safety standard for magnets. earlier in Zen Magnets, LLC v CPSC, a panel of the Tenth Circuit that included then-Judge Neil Gorsuch, overturned a similar 2014 magnet ban. Shihan Qu, the founder of Zen Magnets, now runs MagnetSafety.org – an organization dedicated to the “promotion of[ing] the safe use of high-performance magnets by consumers and educators.” NCLA is representing MagnetSafety.org and two hobby industry associations, the Hobby Manufacturers Association and the National Retail Hobby Stores Association, whose members include 400 hobby stores across America, in the lawsuit.

In adopting the new rule, CPSC repeated the same mistakes that led the Tenth Circuit to overturn the previous ban. As in 2014, the Commission did not consider “a known and significant change or trend in the data”. This time it was not possible to separate the increase in magnet pick-up from the increased pick-up of small objects. CPSC was also unable to distinguish between high performance magnets and other types of magnets, making it impossible to say with confidence that significant…