On Friday, March 6, 2015 at 2:47:59 AM UTC-5, micky wrote:
On Mon, 02 Mar 2015 09:09:32 -0600, dpb wrote:

On 03/02/2015 7:14 AM, Frank wrote:
On 3/1/2015 9:04 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
Anyone watch 60 Minutes tonight? They has a segment about the laminate
flooring that Lumber Liquidators is having made at three plants in
China. It can be made 10% to 15% cheaper if you put in excessive
formaldehyde. It exceeds California limits as much as 20X.
...
I saw it too and question in my mind was that, while it fails California
standard, what about US standards?
...

CA was also just testing the boards where I would expect the EPA to
sample the indoor air.

I had it on, paid moderate attention...what I thought I heard was that
EPA implemented the CA standards in part, at least, altho didn't try to
get the details particularly.

I only heard about 3 words, but I consider 60 Minutes an alarmist
program, and untrustworthy.


I don't completely trust 60 Mins or any other news source for that
matter. And there are very good reasons to be concerned with this
story, because a hedge fund that has sold short the stock is involved
with an environmental group and they are suing LL. The day after
the story, LL stock dropped 25%. Potentially that could be worth
hundreds of millions of dollars to the hedge fund. I think 60 Mins
had an obligation to ask the hedge fund manager if he currently was
short the stock. They interviewed him, but never asked. So, there's
that troubling angle.

But if you watched the whole thing, it's hard to dismiss
the hidden camera part where 60 Mins went to the factories in China
that produce the product for LL and posed as buyers looking for
product for another company. The plant managers openly told them that
the product they make doesn't meet the California CARB standard. They
asked if it could be made to meet it, managers said, "that would be
very expensive". Yet the product they are building for LL is labeled
as CARB compliant. That's pretty powerful proof that the essence of
the story is correct.

There was one other big avenue that 60 Mins didn't pursue, or if they
did, didn't report on. LL CEO has what he says is test data from
the lab they use to check CARB compliance. He showed a chart that
shows all the tests are under the CARB levels, fully compliant.
60 Mins used a lab that says it;s actually ~2x to ~15X over the limit
for formaldehyde. You would think 60 Mins would go to the lab LL
used and try to figure out if there is an explanation for the huge
difference, what that lab has to say, etc. But there was nothing.