On the eve of an important Senate committee meeting to consider the legislation, Nancy A. Nord, the acting chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, has asked lawmakers in two letters not to approve the bulk of legislation that would increase the agency’s authority, double its budget and sharply increase its dwindling staff.
Ms. Nord opposes provisions that would increase the maximum penalties for safety violations and make it easier for the government to make public reports of faulty products, protect industry whistle-blowers and prosecute executives of companies that willfully violate laws.
The Times described the acting chairman's position as "consistent with the broadly deregulatory approach of the Bush administration over the last seven years." It is really consistent with the administration's attempts to undermine federal law and to ignore its mandated responsibilities.
The CPSC is supposed to protect consumers, not businesses that market through fraud or purvey defective products. If Ms. Nord does not believe in that mission, let her get out of the agency. She is free to work as a lobbyist trying to get Congress to gut the laws that now protect consumers; she ought not to be free to sabotage the work of the Commission; as acting chair, she took an oath to follow the law. Undermining the work of the Commission is--at best--dereliction of duty, and if the acting chair will not resign, she should be removed.
Nord's position is not only inconsistent with her sworn duty it is, fortunately for American consumers, politically stupid. As The Times noted in another story reporting that House Speaker Pelosi called on Nord to resign, "In early October alone, recalls [of lead-tainted toys] ranged from Cub Scout badges to play blocks and Halloween candy buckets." So the Democrats have called for Nancy Nord's head on the proverbial platter. Good for them. But how many children were poisoned, and how many other Americans cheated and hurt, over the seven yers that Ms. Nord and her cohorts have been subverting the agencies they were hired to serve?
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Ms. Nord, who before joining the agency had been a lawyer at Eastman Kodak and an official at the United States Chamber of Commerce, criticized the measure in letters sent late last week and on Monday afternoon to the Democratic leaders of the committee. She was critical, for instance, of a provision to ban lead from all toys, saying it was not practical. She said that the proposal to raise the potential penalty to $100 million “may have the undesired consequence of firms, as a precautionary measure, flooding the agency with virtually every consumer complaint and incident.” Her concern, she said, was that the increase in complaints would so overwhelm the commission that, “true safety issues would go unrecognized in the process.”
Every time I say "WOW they can't sink any lower" they prove me wrong. Even if you believe in a lower regulatory approach to governance, I can't think of anything more offensive to Americans than kids putting lead tainted toys in their mouths. This is political suicide in the name of principle. Even staunch Democrats, knowing this stance by the Bush administration works to their favor would rather the GOPhers change their stance. We are talking about KIDS here. So as Bush showed with the SCHIP veto, he really could care less about kids - unless of course he can use them as props for a dog an pony show about snowflake babies.
Another reason Nord isn't interested in regulating is here frequent flyer miles accumulation rate would dwindle to a trickle :^)
The Washington Post writes
The records document nearly 30 trips since 2002 by the agency's acting chairman, Nancy Nord, and the previous chairman, Hal Stratton, that were paid for in full or in part by trade associations or manufacturers of products ranging from space heaters to disinfectants. The airfares, hotels and meals totaled nearly $60,000, and the destinations included China, Spain, San Francisco, New Orleans and a golf resort on Hilton Head Island, S.C.
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