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Safety Chief Junkets as States Take the Lead Back Home

State enforce safety laws while CPSC's Nancy Nord visits Japan

By Truman Lewis
ConsumerAffairs.com

November 25, 2007

• Safety Agency Waits 16 Months to Recall Lead-Laden Key Chains • Lawmakers Propose Bill To Prevent 'Stove Tipping' • Senate Passes Tough New Consumer Safety Bill • Infant Deaths in the Nursery Increasing • Sears Stove Tip-Over Case Illustrates Safety Agency's Shortcomings • Next Season's Toys: Technology Meets Hannah Montana • Toys Safer than Ever, Toy Makers Claim • Toy Industry Needs Import Safety Checklist • Toys Getting Safer, Safety Chief Claims • Plastic War Hits The Toy Industry • Feds Propose New Furniture Fire Rule • Safety Recalls a Sign of Success? • Congressional Leaders Send Message to Mattel • Another Industry Lobbyist To Head Safety Agency? • $30 Million Settlement in Thomas & Friends Suit • Consumer Protection Bills Spark Bitter Lobbying Battle • Time Running out for Consumer Safety Agency --- • More Consumer Safety News • Recall Notices

With the holiday shopping season underway and parents worried about toys drenched in lead, you'd expect government potentates charged with protecting consumers safety to be working overtime, wouldn't you?

Perhaps, but for Nancy Nord, the chair of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the run-up to Thanksgiving presented an opportunity to spend a little time in Tokyo, courtesy of the Japanese government.

Japan? Other than its war on the world's whales, Japan, unlike China, hasn't been considered much of a threat to anyone for the last 60 years or so.

A CPSC official said that Nord gave the keynote address at a safety conference, telling attendees about the U.S. government's efforts to deal with the safety hazards associated with imported products.

It may have been an interesting speech, but it would be difficult indeed to find anyone back home who would speak well of the CPSC's efforts to keep dangerous toys and other products off the shelves. About all the agency's fumbles have produced lately is a growing number of YouTube parodies.

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States fill the void

In fact, as Nord was traveling, the states of New York and California were stepping into the void, taking action to force retailers to remove dangerous products. That's something the CPSC would never dream of. Its recalls are voluntary and it's not at all unusual for recalled products to remain on shelves and online for months after recall announcements.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo sued Michaels Stores, Inc. and Big Lots and reached a settlement which requires that the stores immediately discontinue sales nationwide -- not just in New York -- of children’s jewelry found to contain dangerous levels of lead. Stiff penalties await if the retailers fail to do so.

Just a few days earlier, California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. sued twenty companies for manufacturing or selling toys with unlawful quantities of lead.

Both states have laws that are generally regarded as much tougher than the anemic statutes under which the CPSC operates.

The states conducted their own tests of the toys in question. New York prosecutors said that about half of the items tested contained excessive amounts of lead with some containing more than a thousand times the level identified by the CPSC as safe.

Nord's itinerary

Meanwhile, back in Washington, the Washington Post, which recently revealed that Nord and her predecessor, Hal Stratton, had taken nearly 30 trips funded by industries the CPSC regulates, was probing for details of Nord's Japanese travels.

Perhaps the CPSC spokespeople would provide Nord's itinerary? Though traveling at Japanese expense, she is, after all, still on the U.S. payroll and her itinerary is by law public record.

The CPSC's response was familiar to any reporter who regularly covers the agency. A spokeswoman suggested the newspaper file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The agency, which complains that it is hopelessly understaffed and overworked, routinely takes months to respond to even the simplest FOIA request.

The Post reported that Quin Dodd, Nord's chief of staff, wrote in an e-mail: "I am confident your FOIA requests will be responded to promptly and in good faith (which, if you're unfamiliar with the phrase, means honesty)."

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