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Comment by nimos | Hacker News Reader

As much as I kind of like this it seems like this is basically another freebie for random offshore companies like BEEMOK and JOOBLE that are spamming stuff via amazon/temu/et all. There is basically 0% chance they even exist 7 years later and then another basically 0% chance you could actually get any remedy against them even if they did.

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The general solution, at least as done by some other countries, is to hold the seller/importer also wholly responsible for upholding all the regulations and warranties - so if the manufacturer is bankrupt, or not responding, or overseas, then that's the problem of whoever sold you the lemon and took your money (i.e. Amazon, Temu, Walmart, etc); if they allow shady sellers on their marketplace, that's their loss.

the main point is that someone has to do the due diligence on the product, and it shouldn't be the consumer, especially when there are few to no remedies.

My point is that liability for consequences determines who (and if) does due diligence. If there are no remedies then customers are on their own, and either they do due diligence themselves or there is no due diligence at all; but as soon as the seller has to bear financial consequences for selling noncompliant product, suddenly they will become very capable of effective due diligence.

It's all about the incentives and motivation; companies which are permitted to offload risks to consumers will do so and ignore even trivial measures they can take to reduce these risks.

Often cheap is better than expensive and repairable

The state could request proof of a stock of parts before allowing something to pass customs.

Customs for a state? I don't think that exists, or would even be legal to exist.

Relevant section of the constitution. Don’t know if this would fall under inspection:

> No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.

I've always wondered about the constitutionality of California's state-to-state border stations where they check every car for produce. Seems iffy.

Yeah, just encountered those on a road trip and wondered how they were legal. Was right on the Cali/Oregon border for a couple of days and those checkpoints were also only sporadicly staffed, so I don't understand the point anyways.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine_v._Taylor

SCOTUS has ruled that, with specific and compelling reasons, states can implement these kinds of interstate restrictions. If Congress wanted to, they could pass a federal law that would pre-empt the state law, but has not done so.

it would also mean that the FedGov would have to evaluate or interact with every sort of intra-state interaction, which would get onerous and expensive quickly.

> FedGov would have to evaluate or interact with every sort of intra-state interaction

I don't think that's the case. It would be up to Congress. They have the authority to pass a law that says: "No state may put up any intra-state barriers to commerce at all", and that would be that.

Or they could choose to pass a law that's a lot more specific, in which case they would need to deal with each intra-state interaction.

It says right there they can do what is needed to execute inspection laws. They just can't charge you to import. California had serious problems with Mediterranean fruit flies destroying crops from the 50s onward, which is why they started doing this.

Ah, right, it's the US, states are not countries.

Absurd bureaucracy, and what are you gonna do when it ceases to exist after the paperwork is filed and hte aprts are just funneled back into manufacturing? Making manufacturers bank the schematics and auto-releasing them after manufacture ends is less work for the manufacturer and easier for the market.

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