It is targeted at the thousands of foreign manufacturers who ship electronics, toys, clothing, and consumer goods into the US. It is intended to make those companies subject to, and easily accessible by, the US tort system. It also includes any suppliers to those companies – such as companies that make boxes, pallets, packaging materials, straps, plastics, etc.

We, the vintage dirt bikers, are just a little invisible community that will be squashed if this bill passes.

I read an interesting quote today from the folks at Downsize DC, an activist group fighting for smaller government:

Politicians and bureaucrats constantly speak with a forked tongue…

• They claim they’re protecting “the little guy” from “the fat cats,” when in reality…
• The State actually works for the fat cats (though in an unreliable Mafia kind of way).

This is quite perceptive, and is what is actually occurring with H.R.4678. The bureaucrats and politicians push out one more sweeping piece of legislation, under the guise of protecting us, that incidentally crushes the small guys while offering barely a hurdle to the billion-dollar corporations.

Here is a sad, relevant tale of collateral damage under the CPSIA – the story of small-but-growing home business crushed under the weight of legislation which big corporations are now using to browbeat their small suppliers.

To address the reams of similar horror stories that have emerged from CPSIA, H.R.4678 contains provisions for rule-making on the “minimum amount” that triggers the need to register — a process that, ostensibly, will relieve the burden on small businesses. But how will that work? Let’s look at one observer’s analysis — Rick Woldenberg of CPSIA blog:

And consider how this rule might be applied. To determine whether you are above or below the threshold, you must disclose your revenues and volumes to the government for their scrutiny and approval. This is remarkably invasive and is reason enough for many factories to concentrate on sales to South America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Who needs this nonsense?

[And if registration is unavoidable, the registration process itself is also tedious and requires the disgorgement of lots of detailed information - which not only will discourage participation but also sets up the foreign manufacturers for liability to the government for "false" statements if they make errors. We have 1500 catalog items, so I can identify with the problems that this kind of requirement might create. It's nothing more than a bureaucratic set-up for regulators to accumulate causes of action to use as they see fit.]

There are people, some of them knowledgeable, who disagree with Woldenberg. But to his point, how else will the US Government or Agency know that you are under its threshold for registration if you don’t disclose all the relevant information?

If you are GMC of Australia, or Sammy Miller Products of the UK, or that guy in Australia who re-pops rubber carb boots and such out of his shed, are you going to hire a solicitor in your country to guide you through this process? Are you going to turn over your books to the US Government? What if you’re Northwest Maico/CZ, or AMS Racing? Are you going to get all your suppliers certified with the government?

What about individuals, can we order something from overseas even if it isn’t imported? Are we then importers? Will the item be allowed through Customs? I do not know the answers to these questions.

What I do know is that if this piece of legislation passes, rule-making or no, it is a potential nightmare for our hobby. The only way we can fight back is to contact our Congressmen now and let them know the serious impact this could have, and that their solution to the problem is inadequate.

This bill has 63 cosponsors ( list available at Thomas.gov) and if your representative is on this list it is critically important you make your views known now, early in the process. If you are importing parts, you should contact your Congressman now.

We are unlikely to get support from any of our organizations. We are too few, too quiet, and too easily dismissed. We must stand up for ourselves, before it is too late.

A couple of years ago the motorcycle industry was caught by surprise when Congress enacted, and then deployed, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) — almost immediately wiping out a $1 billion youth motorcycle and atv industry. Over the ensuing two years the CPSIA proved to be a massive screw job for all sorts of small businesses.

On Wednesday, June 30, 2010 the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed (by voice vote) another piece of legislation that could be equally devastating to the vintage dirt bike scene — the Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act of 2010, H.R. 4678. The bill now moves to the larger Ways and Means Committee or perhaps to the floor for a vote.

This act is aimed at forcing foreign manufacturers into the US tort system for liability law suits. Like most laws, that sounds great in a sound byte on the news – force all those big Chinese and Taiwanese companies to be accessible to our thousands of personal injury lawyers.

The truth is that if you’re a vintage dirt bike fan and you buy or use any part that’s made in the UK, China, Taiwan, Australia, or Europe by a small manufacturer you may well find that part is no longer available to you. Those cool CZ parts Bertus brings in from Czechoslovakia? Not gonna happen if this bill passes. Nifty trials parts for your Ty250 or TL125 from Great Britain? Kiss them goodbye. Replica frames from GMC in Australia? Adios, amigo.

To get a little more insight into this bill I called Paul Vitrano, General Counsel for the Motorcycle Industry Council (MIC) and the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF), to discuss it.

According to Paul, the MIC currently has no official position on the bill and has not been involved at the draft stage. However, he did offer some comments based on his reading of the bill text and previous experience with the CPSIA.

My first question to Paul was whether this bill was actually as ominous as it seemed, and whether people like me — vintage bike hobbyists — should be concerned. His answer? A definite Yes, with a couple of caveats.

As currently written the bill does not encompass products that are otherwise covered by the Department of Transportation (DOT). What this means is that manufacturers of parts, pieces, and materials that are DOT-approved for street use should not be subject to the new regulations. Essentially the street bike crowd should be relatively safe. But if you’re into performance (non-DOT) parts for vintage road racing you’re vulnerable.

As for us dirt bike guys, almost none of our stuff is DOT-approved. There may be some parts for early dual-purpose bikes, but I’m not aware of anything. Typically, everything that comes in from overseas for dirt bikes is stamped “For Competition Use Only” specifically as a way of avoiding liability. None of this stuff will be allowed through customs unless the manufacturer has  complied with the onerous registration, agency, and disclosure requirements of the bill.

Paul’s second caveat was that the bill does allow for rule-making after passage. He sees this as a good thing, as the main problem with the CPSIA was that limits were set in the law itself, allowing for little or no flexibility on the part of the bureaucrats responsible for implementation.

Specifically, the bill provides for the administrative bureaucrats to determine the minimum size of the manufacturers to be regulated, based on dollar volume, unit volume, and number of incoming shipments. This means there is the potential for certain small businesses to be exempt, but I fail to see any incentive for the bureaucrats to exempt them. Small, cottage businesses in foreign countries don’t have any political representation in this country, and can’t pay lobbyists to fight on their behalf.

I am not any more comfortable with idiot bureaucrats making laws than I am idiot Congressmen but, to Paul’s point, at least that allows for some input by the affected parties — however difficult and expensive that input may be. With CPSIA there was no input mechanism at all and the result was a legal quagmire of historic proportions.

Paul’s closing comment was that there are some benefits to the bill, in terms of making large foreign manufacturers more accountable, but it definitely bears watching and could  pose serious problems to the vintage hobby.

I first became aware of the bill here, at the Learning Resources, Inc. blog. Editor Rick Woldenberg has posted additional commentary on the bill, specifically on the rule-making and minimum size aspects, here.

If you’re interested I have posted a Government Printing Office PDF of the bill, or you can track it at Thomas.gov using HR4678 for your search. (Note: If you open the PDF it may appear to hang for a minute as it goes out to the GPO site to validate authenticity of the document.)

In summary, I think this is going to be another bad piece of legislation and, unless we are very careful and proactive, the vintage dirt bike hobby could take a real beating on this deal. Few, if any, of the vintage parts guys are members of the MIC (as far as I know) and cannot expect to be represented by them. As to whether the AMA or AHRMA will take a position on this, I do not know.  I will keep you updated here as I learn more.

This report is unconfirmed and based on this RacerX article. I also found this post from June 2006 and this LinkedIn profile for Bruce Whitehead.

Based on these sources the property on which the track sits is part of WB Ranch, a property owned by a limited partnership with Bruce Whitehead listed as General Partner.

Whitehead is a hunting enthusiast and investor and it appears the property is being converted into something that can make more money — a managed hunting preserve, corporate retreat, and housing development.

Whitehead does not feel that motocross is compatible with these activities. The track, races, and blue-collar RV camping are probably putting a crimp in his ability to sell  $200,000 housing lots. Well, it is America and we are not (yet) communists here.

It looks like Whitehead’s group has run the ranch since 2000 and allowed the track to remain operational under the supervision of Dave Martin (of Honda of Houston and managing partner of Moto-Mgmt. LP) until 2006.

In June 2006 the track operating lease was transferred from Martin’s Moto-Mgmt. group to Allan and Jamie McWilliams of Millcreek Race Promotions.  Millcreek operated Lake Whitney MX, along with other racing facilities, from 2007-2010.

I haven’t been to Whitney since the late ’80s but am told the facility had suffered from economic neglect for the last several years and was in serious need of modern upgrades. Some riders indicated this was just the last nail in a coffin built 10 years ago when Whitehead took over the property.

That’s unfortunate as Whitney was Mecca for Texas motocross racers in the ’70s and ’80s. I personally witnessed John Banks hammering the lower section of track by the river bank on a thundering CCM at a Trans-AMA race in ‘76 or ‘77. I also attended a number of AMA Nationals there.

My high school friend Tom Holtan (AMA #516 in the early ’80s) got blown off the track by Kent Howerton during practice at one National at Whitney and was never quite the same afterward.

I hate to see this change, especially given that the heir apparent track is Freestone County Raceway which qualifies as a motocross track only under the broadest, most wildly optimistic definition of the word. But time moves on.

Lake Whitney Cycle Ranch may no longer exist, but the memories will live on. And who knows, some corporate fat cat may still hear the rumble of John Banks’ CCM as he putts his little golf cart along the river where the Men of Motocross once ruled.

I don’t believe the pointy-heads give a damn about climate change or gas mileage, much less about whether I survive a head-on with one of their tax-sucking mass-transit projects. All they want to is to make me hate my car. How proud and handsome would Bucephalas look, or Traveler or Rachel Alexandra, with seat and shoulder belts, air bags, 5-mph bumpers and a maze of pollution-control equipment under the tail?

And there’s the end of the American automobile industry. When it comes to dull, practical, ugly things that bore and annoy me, Japanese things cost less and the cup holders are more conveniently located.

We are witnessing an end to American idealism and individualism — and perversely this is all in the name of diversity. Even Pravda laments the loss of American freedoms in the face of this bureaucratic socialist onslaught that is taking our land, our cars, and our motorcycles:

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

Never before have we seen the level of government meddling we witness now on a daily basis. No pursuit is too small to be regulated for our own good — see this article on Federal regulation of garage sales. Yes, our love of the automobile is dead, and there are millions of people in this country — people who lack imagination, guts, character, honesty, and integrity — who are glad to see it go.

But I am not one of those people. I am not one who is happy to see honest Americans barred from our own public lands. I am not one who is happy to see an overgrown toy regulation agency given total control over motorcycles. I am not one who wants to see a President who has never held an honest job now guiding an entire industry with the help of a cadre of unelected buffoons.

But that is what we have. As O’Rourke says, it’s time to put a bullet in the V-8.

Preserved for their use and their use only — the arrogant, self-anointed elitists and their faux moral superiority. All of them sit around in their electrically-heated homes — watching their TVs and playing on their computers — using all the things that hard-working American engineers and thinkers and businessmen designed and developed and produced.

They enjoy all this while complaining and carping and crying about it like like whining children. They do painfully stupid, meaningless things like turning their lights out for an hour and then parade around as if they’ve made a statement for mankind. Give me a break. It’s the same kind of do-nothing do-goodery that let’s people puff up over a “click this link and someone, somewhere will donate a penny to a starving child in Africa” campaigns.

It’s quite sad that we have all sat on our asses for so long and let these self-serving fools get in charge. If you want my respect live on a farm. Grow your own damn food. Weave your own cotton. Get off the grid and stop sucking electricity from coal-fired power plants. Ride a fucking horse and stop parading around in your battery-powered hybrid that has a lower overall energy efficiency rating that a well-maintained internal combustion engine you useless, hypocritical piece of human refuse.

But do not run around here claiming you’re saving the planet. Some poor, nearsighted sportsman who’s forced to hunt near residential areas now may mistake you for a nice, fat doe…

This bill is very likely to pass, and summarily lock up 2.1 million acres of Public Land, eliminating motorized access for responsible Americans. This is a travesty, foisted on us by eco-Nazis and politicians that are either gutless or wrongheaded.

It’s not too late. Please call your Senators’ Washington D.C. office tomorrow morning and urge them to vote NO on this devastating bill. Here is where you can find your Senator’s phone number.

The vote was actually a vote on cloture – a way to see if the Senate is ready to vote on a bill. The bill is H.R. 146: Revolutionary War and War of 1812 Battlefield Protection Act and “other purposes.” The other purpose being to serve as a carrier for a 1,300-page amendment that is the Omnibus Lands Bill — a measure that was defeated in the house last week — to deprive responsible Americans of access to 2 million acres of public land.

Given the huge margin of victory for the eco-nazi-Democrats and their Republican-In-Name-Only colleagues, this bill could pass easily. And responsible Americans will be deprived of hundreds of individual areas, comprising 2 million more acres of public lands, without so much as a minute’s discussion or debate on whether the individual parcels need that designation.

Pay attention to how your Senators voted. 15 Republicans voted for this motion, and could vote in favor of the bill. Four Republicans, including my own Saxby Chambliss, did not vote.

We need 15 Republicans to stand up like men (forget about Olympia Snow, who ought to be disowned by the party) and vote against taking away our right as Americans to use American public land. Had they voted Nay on this motion the bill would have been stalled and likely died. But they didn’t. And it didn’t. GovTrack has a full voting record on the motion for cloture.

It is still possible that this bill will not pass, if at least 15 Republicans vote Nay on the actual bill. This vote will show how your Senators feel about you, your right to ride, and your right to responsible use of public lands. Pay attention. And then let your Senator know you won’t forget their vote when your turn comes at the polls.

I didn’t hear the show but you can read the transcript here. According to Hillier, Cobra employs fewer than 50 people, but there are about 100 companies around the country that depend on Cobra for business (probably contractors for the manufacturing of various parts.)

Hillier also noted that when similar, game-changing legislation hit the auto industry back in the 1980s the industry had years to react and re-engineer. The CPSIA was passed in August of 2008 and put into law six months later. With catastrophic effects.

This is not the last we have heard about this law. This is another fine example of people who don’t know what their doing, passing a law on a topic they don’t know anything about, with absolutely no consideration for its consequences. This is what happens when government “works”.

According to this Oligopoly Watch post “Getting hosed“, the EU competition commission recently issued $173 million in fines to six global corporations for conspiring to fix the price of marine hose. Included in the list:

• Bridgestone Tire and Rubber (Japan)
• Trelleborg SA(Sweden)
• Manuli Rubber Industries (Italy)
• Dunlop Oil and Marine (UK-based, but a part of Herman conglomerate Continental Tire Group)
• Parker ITR (Us/Italy)

Any of those names sound familiar? Getting credit for an also-ran position is Japan’s Yokohama, which chose to expose the cartel to avoid fines. These companies control the great majority of a world-wide commodity product — rubber — that is used for a lot of motorcycle parts besides tires.

According to the article, there is some hope as the UK appears to be moving more aggressively toward criminal investigations of complicit executives. It’s about time. After a dozen years of letting companies do whatever they want we need a serious redirection of anti-trust action.

As a side note we, as motorcyclists, need to be extremely cynical that global corporations have our best interests at heart. They do not. Not Honda. Not Suzuki. Not Yamaha. Not Kawasaki. Not BMW. Not HD. None of them. And we need to be extremely vigilant that these companies do not co-opt our rider organizations for their own goals just because they have the money.

This brings our total sponsors to four. I’m very pleased at the interest shown in the survey so far. We’re closing in on our goal for responses. If you’ve not entered your opinion yet, please take a minute to do it now. We’ll probably close the survey December 31 and begin tabulating the results.