I’ve talked about the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) a few times on this blog, HERE and HERE… and it should not come as a surprise to anyone who knows the MO of this administration that throughout Bush’s presidency he’s installed people in the CPSC that put business interests over the public interest… in case you need examples (HT to ThinkProgress);

• The first CPSC chair under Bush, Harold Stratton, assured the business world that he would “break the barrier of fear” by making it more difficult to order product recalls… recalls that protected the public…
• His nominee to replace Stratton, Michael Baroody, opposed asbestos regulations and highway safety reform…
• And then there’s Nord… the current acting head Nancy Nord, who famously opposed Congressional efforts to strengthen the CPSC… despite millions of Chinese-made toys were recalled due to incredibly dangerous levels of lead.
• Both Nord and Stratton took nearly 30 trips at the expense of industries and companies the CPSC was supposed to regulate… which is clearly a conflict of interest…

Well… apparently the schmuck has not learned his lesson as the Bush(whacked) Administration is strongly considering nominating Gail Charnley to head the CPSC…

Ms. Charnley, in the past, has been a consultant for the tobacco and coal industries... which makes her perfectly qualified for a post that deals with consumer product safety.

Yes Virginia that was sarcasm...

Ignoring for a moment her shilling for coal and tobacco (see more about that HERE and HERE).

She also has a nasty habit of hiding her ties to the coal and tobacco industries (which is nothing new in this administration)… including her hiding the fact that a study that was partially funded by pesticide makers was her basis for a 2004 letter to a technical journal supporting the human testing of pesticides…

Like the people preceding her at the CPSC, Charnley also opposes government regulation at all costs and of any kind and doesn’t think the CPSC needs to regulate environmental hazards to children’s health because “government agencies do not know which environmental exposures actually pose risks to children.”

I want people in DC to remember something; Bush is a lameduck, so you don’t have to give him everything he asks for… the nominating and confirming of this nominee should not happen quickly if at all…

Why? Because she is yet another in a line of nominees from this administration that not only does NOT have the qualifications for the post, but is in bed with industries that could very well be policed by the CPSC…

Just once it would be nice to see the Democrats in DC find their balls and NOT hand Bush everything he wants… he has less than a year in office, start treating him as such…

More on Nord

Earlier this week I posted about the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is responsible for reviewing thousands of consumer products to look for potential health risks, and their acting chair Nancy Nord who wants less money, less staff, and less product safety rules.

Given recent events like, I don’t know, the plethora of Chinese-made toys with lead “issues”, one would think that the CPSC would want the opposite and chalk it up to Ms. Nord being yet another crony in a long line of Bush-appointed cronies.

Now with a Washington Post article today showing more questionable actions on her part, I’m going to come right out and say it; Ms. Nord needs to resign.

(Granted, so does Bush, Cheney, Rice, Gates, Petraeus and everyone else in the Bush(whacked) Administration, but let’s take it one at a time)

Today’s WaPo article;

“The chief of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and her predecessor have taken dozens of trips at the expense of the toy, appliance, and children's furniture industries and others they regulate.... Some of the trips were sponsored by lobbying groups and lawyers representing the makers of products linked to consumer hazards.”

Nice.

My favorite? The $11,000 junket to China and Hong Kong that was sponsored by the “American Fireworks Standards Laboratory” who said the trip was above-board because, in their words, they didn’t have “pending regulatory requests.”

The Bush cronies that run the agency said all of the industry-financed trips are routine and happen all the time… but they don’t.

And before the trolls come out and shout that the head of the CPSC under Clinton did the same thing, consider this from the article;

“The agency's travel patterns during the Bush administration, detailed in internal agency documents, differ from those of the Clinton era. Ann Brown, who served as chairman from 1994 to 2001, traveled only at the expense of the agency or of media organizations that sponsored appearances where she announced product recalls, according to the documents provided.”

(Ahhhh… the Clinton years… Remember those? The economy was growing, the debt was disappearing, the tech world was growing, things were on the right track… and then an idiot was elected by the supreme court, regardless of the will of a majority of Americans, also known as the popular vote… sorry, I think I started daydreaming there – but I digress)So for those of you who have trouble figuring out the mathematics of this, during the Clinton years CSPC officials travel on regulated industries’ dime exactly zero times.


So much for the trips being “routine.”

There are many things to get upset with the CSPC about, things like the fact that 50% of their budget is earmarked for children's products but they only have a single toy tester.

Nice.

But this, this should be the final straw. This isn’t complicated…. when a government agency is regulating an industry, that industry should not, I’ll say it again – should NOT pay for those regulators’ travel to exotic locales.

Has no one in these agencies heard of “appearance of impropriety”… or “conflict of interest”?

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) put it better when he responded to the news, saying;

“Now we know why Nancy Nord opposes efforts to give the Consumer Product Safety Commission more resources: Who needs more resources when the industries you regulate will pay your expenses for you? After taking dozens of trips on the industry dime, it is now time for Mrs. Nord to take a permanent vacation from her post.”

Couldn’t have said it any better myself Congressman…

Get the lead out... no says Nancy Nord

With toy recalls seemingly happening every week, the Senate Commerce Committee is trying to write legislation to return the Consumer Product Safety Commission to its former strength so it can prevent things like lead-filled toys from entering the market.

But Nancy Nord, "President" (a term I use very loosely) Bush’s acting chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, is trying to preserve republican "ideals" of small government and is asking Congress to reject legislation that would strengthen the agency by giving them more money and resources so they could properly do their job.

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With toy recalls seemingly happening every week, the Senate Commerce Committee is trying to write legislation to return the Consumer Product Safety Commission to its former strength so it can prevent things like lead-filled toys from entering the market.

But Nancy Nord, “President” (a term I use very loosely) Bush’s acting chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, is trying to preserve republican “ideals” of small government and is asking Congress to reject legislation that would strengthen the agency by giving them more money and resources so they could properly do their job.

From the New York Times;

On the eve of an important Senate committee meeting to consider the legislation, Nancy A. Nord, the acting chairman 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, 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 this afternoon to the Democratic leaders of the committee. She was critical, for instance, of a provision to ban lead from all toys. [...]
She opposed making it easier to bring criminal prosecutions of companies that knowingly sell defective products and also criticized a measure that would make it easier for the commission to publicly disclose reports of faulty products.

So let me make sure I have this straight; she opposes a ban on lead in toys. She opposes making it easier to bring criminal charges against these companies and she opposes making her committee stronger...

What in God’s name is wrong with this woman? Government regulation is needed for consumer goods as it will NOT come from the companies whose primary goal is to make themselves money. Think about it; to oppose a ban on lead in toys, and on top of that refusing to explain yourself, is, at its core, criminal, especially when so many children, and adults, are at risk.

Makes you realize that the old mantra about the Bush administration is pertinent; their concern for children is conception and birth, and after that they’re on their own.

Isn’t it ironic that Nord recently complained to Congress about the agency's lack of resources, and confirmed that the commission only has one person who tests toys? Hearing that, then hearing her now makes an intelligent person, and by intelligent I mean a non-lemming, wonder – she was complaining to Congress about lack of funds and all that before, but suddenly she thinks these measures are no good... methinks Ms. Nord got chastised from someone on top above her, despite a White House spokesman insisting that the White House didn't coordinate with Nord on her comments (cause they’ve never done anything like that before) but still "shared many of her concerns."

Irony notwithstanding, the line of incompetent Bush officials never seems to end and we as a nation will be very lucky to come out of 8 years of this 'mis'- adminstration’s lies and deceptive dealings with even 50% of the national societal strength that we had at the end of the 1990's.

January 20, 2009 can NOT come soon enough...