Jewelers target limits on cadmium

LOS ANGELES – The U.S jewelry industry wants states to overturn laws that limit the toxic metal cadmium in children’s trinkets and adopt new voluntary guidelines it helped create, saying stricter rules in several states create chaos for manufacturers and importers.

Persuading legislators to reopen the issue won’t be an easy sell: Many consumer and environmental advocates say the new guidelines weaken protection of children’s health.

While the voluntary rules have the support of federal regulators, states that passed much stricter limits over the past year would have to backtrack and allow higher levels of a metal that can cause cancer.

That didn’t sound likely Monday.

“Maryland ought to set whatever standard we feel is correct,” said Delegate James Hubbard, a Democrat who successfully sponsored the nation’s toughest cadmium-in-jewelry limits this spring. “We made a judgment call based on what we felt was in the best interest of the people we represent.”

The jewelry industry does have some momentum, now that the rules it drafted were passed last week by the respected organization ASTM International, which sets voluntary rules for a range of goods. Industry’s goal is to replace the current patchwork of regulation with a unified standard.

“Our whole mission in this is to have standards that are not floating in quicksand,” said Brent Cleaveland, head of the ASTM subcommittee that wrote the rules and executive director of the Fashion Jewelry and Accessories Trade Association. He described the limits he oversaw as “way more conservative than necessary” to protect kids’ health.

Cleaveland said his next move is to press legislatures in states that have set limits to reopen the issue and adopt the voluntary standards. If that succeeds, he would then ask Congress to pass legislation to make the standards national law.