After passing California's House on a 64-4 vote, a bill that would have required table-saw manufacturers to equip their products with flesh-detecting technology has died in the state's Senate, according to CabinetMakerFDM.com.
"I think that's an unfortunate thing for woodworkers in California and the whole nation," Stephen Gass, who holds a patent on the technology in question and has marketed it under the "SawStop" brand, told CabinetMakerFDM. "There's a lot of people who are going to be injured or suffer devastating injuries that they wouldn't if the bill would have passed legislation."
According to CabinetMakerFDM, Gass has lobbied 21 legislators with a total of $46,400 to support The Table Saw Safety Act (AB 2218). Opposing him are Home Depot, Lowe's and Sears, as well as The Power Tool institute. They argue Gass is attempting to create a monopoly in the table saw market.
"… Rather than spending their time actually making their products safer for their customers," Gass told CabinetMakerFDM, "they're spending their effort hiring lobbyists who oppose customer safety."
After preliminary discussions about enacting federal regulations for tighter table saw safety standards, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking in October 2011. Since then, it has fielded public comments on the matter but has not issued further guidance on the likelihood it will initiate table saw regulations.
