Official: Consumer safety agency at risk

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Official: Consumer safety agency at risk
By WILL LESTER Associated Press Writer
Article Launched: 07/27/2007 12:28:26 AM PDT

WASHINGTON—The Consumer Product Safety Commission could
soon shrink to the point where it can't effectively protect the
public, veteran Commissioner Thomas Moore says.

Many employees at the agency responsible for overseeing the
safety of many thousands of consumer products are looking for
other jobs because "they have no confidence the agency will
continue to exist— or will exist in any meaningful form," Moore
said in a statement Thursday.

"The commission can either continue to decline in staff,
resources and stature to the point where it is no longer an
effective force in consumer protection," said Moore, "or with
the support of Congress it can regain the important place in
American society it was originally designed to have."

The number of full-time staffers has shrunk to about 400, less
than half the size of the staff in 1980. Complaints from business
leadership about the agency created in the early 1970s resulted
in the staff being sharply cut during the Reagan administration,
and staff size has continued to shrink. The Consumer Product
Safety Act was amended to prohibit mandatory safety standards
if a voluntary standard would eliminate or significantly reduce
the risk of injury.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_6476643

[Maddy McCall]

1. Which ever Democrat is elected in 2008....

He's going to have a LOT of work to do to ameliorate the Bush mess.

[aquart]

2. Whoever wins will be destroyed by the sheer effort

of trying to undo the damage. A tsunami could not have been more effective than the monster Bush.

[rodeodance]

4. The greed of the market economy Mentality had taken over--Dems are

included in this mentality to some degree.

[rodeodance]

5. Bush's pick to head the safety commission, Michael Baroody, withdrew his nomination in May

The agency also has been hampered by a vacancy on its three-member commission.

With only two of three commissioners, the agency had no quorum and has been unable to make rules about product standards, mandate recalls and assess civil penalties for the last six months.

Congress could soon restore those powers to the agency for a limited time despite the commission vacancy.

Bush's pick to head the safety commission, Michael Baroody, withdrew his nomination in May after strong opposition from some Senate Democrats because of his career as a manufacturers' lobbyist.

———

On the Net:

Consumer Product Safety Commission: http://www.cpsc.gov

[tanyev]

3. Bush Administration: Mission Accomplished.