The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CSPC) is stretched to the breaking point in its effort to keep up with the flood of products coming into the United States from overseas. Over the last 10 years, imports have risen by 101 percent; last year, Chinese-produced goods accounted for nearly 42 percent of the total. This unprecedented volume, combined with short staffing and low funds, “strained the agency’s resources,” Nancy Nord, acting chairman of the CPSC, testified in July 2007. The agency recalled 473 products — more than 80 percent of which were imports, in fiscal year 2007. But according to watchdog group OMBWatch, “neither CPSC regulations nor enforcement practices have kept up with a changing marketplace.” In countries like China, where products can be made at a reduced cost, companies often cut corners to save money, but do so at the expense of consumer safety. After summer 2007, when more than 2.5 million toys had to be recalled, Nord issued a statement that “vital talks” were taking place between the CPSC and the Chinese government. Nonetheless, watchdogs say that major blame falls on the CSPC for its failure to oversee the shipment, distribution, and sales of toxic products to American consumers. “When it comes to CPSC’s ability to stop unsafe products from reaching the market, they fall short,” Senators Dick Durbin and Amy Klobuchar wrote to Nord in August 2007. “We must get to the bottom of how this is happening and stop these unsafe toys from reaching our store shelves and our kids’ hands.” A CPSC spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment, but Commissioner Thomas Moore told Congress in April that “last year’s heightened activities with respect to imported toys, in particular, clearly illustrate the benefits of a strong CPSC federal presence in today’s consumer product marketplace.”

Follow-up:
In 2007 the President’s Interagency Import Safety Working Group issued a plan for participating in international forums and global agreements while taking stricter enforcement actions. In response, CPSC has made agreements with 15 foreign agencies, including China, to establish close working relationships on product safety. In January 2008, the CPSC created a new import surveillance division, placing full-time inspectors at U.S. ports. Additionally, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 authorized the CPSC to implement mandatory safety standards for imports, require testing by an independent laboratory, and subject foreign manufacturers to civil and criminal penalties if necessary. It remains unclear, however, if CPSC will have enough inspectors and other staff to do its job properly. In late November, Nord said that due to being “resource constrained,” a database required by the act has yet to be started, and that other major CSPC initiatives have also stalled, as staff have had to “pull back” on the creation of voluntary safety standards.

Photo credit: Consumer Product Safety Commission

Enforcement actions by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which oversees food and pharmaceutical products, markedly declined under the Bush administration. The number of warning letters issued for various violations dropped by more than half, from 1,154 in 2000 to 535 in 2005, according to a June 2006 report by Representative Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, then ranking minority member of the House Committee on Government Reform. The “number of seizures of mislabeled, defective, and dangerous products” plunged by 44 percent, noted the widely cited report, which also found that officials at FDA headquarters had “routinely rejected the enforcement recommendations of career field staff.” Among the curtailed warning letters were those for violations of drug marketing practices to consumers. "From 2002 through 2005… it took the agency an average of 4 months to issue a regulatory letter, compared with an average of 2 weeks from 1997 through 2001," stated a December 2006 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). "FDA has issued about half as many regulatory letters per year since the 2002 policy change." The FDA has also fallen short in efforts to control “off label” drug use (using prescription drugs for non-prescriptive conditions), according to studies by the Center for Public Integrity and other watchdog groups. The GAO told Congress in July 2008 that the FDA took inordinate time issuing letters for off-label abuses, limiting their effectiveness.

Follow-up:
A spokeswoman for the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research told the Center that since companies have better complied after receiving warning letters, the need for additional regulatory and enforcement actions has decreased. “We cannot measure the agency’s enforcement success — nor can we measure industry compliance — by counting warning letters and other actions individually,” she said. Congress passed the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007 last fall, giving broader enforcement power to the agency. The impact of the law remains to be seen.

Photo credit: House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

A series of recent high-profile meat recalls involving E. coli infections, mad cow disease, and listeria, among other maladies, has left Americans wondering about the safety of their food and the effectiveness of regulators at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) who are supposed to watch over the meat supply. Critics have specifically questioned the policies and competence of the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), which is charged with assuring that the commercial supply of meat, poultry, and egg products is safe, wholesome, properly labeled, and packaged in compliance with various inspection laws. In 2007 alone, meat companies recalled 30 million pounds of beef. “Although the meat industry now performs significant testing of its own and publishes best practices for members to follow, FSIS does not have a formal campaign for educating meat industry representatives and encouraging the implementation of best practices,” the USDA’s inspector general reported to Congress earlier this year. The Government Accountability Office has long called for drastic reorganization of food safety; in a 2004 report, it said the current system, which emerged piecemeal over decades, needs to be streamlined and brought under a single, independent food safety agency. At the moment, besides the USDA, the Food and Drug Administration also has jurisdiction over the safety of many food items.

Follow-up:
The FSIS told the Center it is better-equipped than ever before to fight diseases such as mad cow, has expanded its testing of imported beef, and has improved its recall process. In congressional testimony last March, Richard Raymond, USDA’s under secretary for food safety, said that the percentage of E. coli positive samples had declined significantly, compared to the years 2000-2003. In its fiscal 2009 budget request, the Bush administration proposed to generate nearly $100 million in user fees to be collected from the industry to boost meat inspections, a move lauded by Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, who has championed more stringent oversight of food safety. During the campaign, President-Elect Obama vowed he would increase “funding for meat inspectors to ensure compliance with current federal laws.”

Photo credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture

Although record amounts of drug ingredients and drugs are being imported to the United States, government oversight of these products has failed to keep pace. The number of foreign firms filing marketing applications with the FDA has jumped four-fold since 1992, yet in 2007 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspected only about one-tenth of the foreign establishments on its prioritized list. The risks are considerable: In January 2008, the pharmaceutical company Baxter Healthcare Corporation recalled several batches of the blood thinning medicine heparin after scores of people who received the drug died and hundreds suffered serious adverse reactions in the United States. An investigation by the FDA revealed that an active pharmaceutical ingredient in heparin, manufactured at a Chinese facility, was contaminated. Janet Woodcock, director of FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, told a House panel in early 2008 that her agency faced “an ever-growing number of brokers, traders, distributors, repackagers, and other players involved in the import of pharmaceuticals,” in the wake of the globalization of the pharmaceutical supply chain. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) called for improvement in the FDA’s Foreign Drug Inspection Program as early as 1998. A decade later, as the GAO pointed out in April 2008, there has been only marginal improvement. From 2002 through 2007, FDA officials inspected only a little over 1,100 foreign establishments out of nearly 3,250 worldwide. The agency’s budget for the foreign drug inspections this fiscal year is $11 million, up from $10 million last year, but still less than a sixth of the amount the GAO says is required for such inspections.

Follow-up:
The FDA has launched initiatives to improve its Foreign Drug Inspection Program. The “Beyond our Borders” initiative focuses on international collaboration, building new systems, and working more closely with industry. The agency is also enhancing information technology capabilities. In 2008, the agency received the green light from the State Department to create eight full-time FDA positions in China and announced it is hiring five local Chinese nationals as inspectors. On November 19, 2008, the first overseas office opened in China. In response to a request for comment, a spokeswoman for the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research noted the agency’s comments in response to a September 2008 GAO report in which it claimed several initiatives were underway to improve the foreign drug inspection program, including an expanded international presence, improved information technology, and greater cooperation with the importing community.

A number of high-profile public health scares involving unsafe food have highlighted the failure of the 15 agencies that administer more than 30 laws related to food safety. Critics have particularly faulted the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which overseas four-fifths of the U.S. food supply. Last year, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) added regulation of food safety to its list of “high risk” programs that demand attention. The federal government’s effort has been plagued by “inconsistent oversight, ineffective coordination, and inefficient use of resources,” according to the GAO. During emergencies — such as the E. coli and Salmonella outbreaks earlier this year and the contaminated pet food fiasco of 2007 — federal agencies often do not have the authority to mandate food recalls. As the GAO pointed out, these agencies “do not know how promptly and completely companies are carrying out recalls, do not promptly verify that recalls have reached all segments of the distribution chain, and use procedures to alert consumers to a recall that may not be effective.” Lack of regulatory power has not been the only problem. The GAO reported in January 2008 that even though the food safety workload of the FDA has increased in the past decade, its food safety staff and resources have not. The problems involve not only food products produced domestically, but the flood of food arriving from overseas. Contaminated items originating in China, including milk, have been especially worrisome; key ingredients in the tainted pet food originated in China as well. “U.S. consumers often take for granted that the food they purchase will be safe . . . but the standards of other countries and the lack of U.S. food inspectors . . . too often proves them wrong,” said Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois. The GAO has called for a fundamental re-examination of the food safety system and has urged enactment of comprehensive legislation that might reorganize the food safety effort and give the government more regulatory power. The FDA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) press offices declined to comment; however, in July 2008 testimony, the FDA’s associate commissioner for foods, David Acheson, told Congress that his agency has worked with a host of other government, industry, and consumer groups “to significantly strengthen the nation’s food safety and food defense system across the entire distribution chain.”

Follow-up:
The Office of Management and Budget, in concert with the FDA, USDA, Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies, has convened an interagency group to address the food safety issue. The FDA launched a Food Protection Plan in November 2007, and recently said significant progress had been made — including better targeting of inspections and closer cooperation with the states. In late June, President Bush signed a supplemental appropriation for FDA that included $72 million in new money for food protection. In early November 2008, though, the GAO identified food safety as one of 13 “urgent issues” that are “critical and time sensitive and require prioritized federal action” by the new Congress and the new administration. President-Elect Obama has indicated that food safety would be a priority for the FDA under his administration.

Photo credit: Food and Drug Administration

During the course of the Bush administration, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has emphasized voluntary compliance over enforcement and inspections; by 2007, the situation had grown so bad that The New York Times ran a front page story noting that over that period OSHA had passed "only one major safety rule," which was issued by a court order. OSHA has seen its funding cut, when adjusted for inflation, every year since FY 2001, according to the watchdog group OMB Watch; those budget cuts, in turn, have been mirrored by a drop in the enforcement budget for the agency. Staffing levels at OSHA have suffered as well, with 1.5 agency members for every 100,000 American workers — half the staffing level that existed in 1980. Bush administration officials argue that their regulatory philosophy at OSHA has reduced the number of fatalities, but public health groups, unions have challenged those reports, claiming that companies are underreporting and some members of Congress have harshly criticized the approach. The movement away from enforcement was revealed early when President Bush signed legislation in 2001 overturning a new ergonomics standard that the Clinton White House had pushed through before leaving office. More than a dozen proposed regulations were killed by the end of 2001 alone. The New York Times has reported that OSHA stopped dozens of existing regulations and delayed adopting new standards, even on hazards that the agency itself has acknowledged are dangerous. According to Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington and chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee’s Workplace Subcommittee, the average penalty imposed by OSHA for “willful violations was just $36,720 – about half of the maximum allowable penalty,” in 2007. Some members of the GOP have also questioned OSHA’s approach. Representative Howard McKeon, Republican of California and the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Education and Labor, said that there is “a culture problem within OSHA,” regarding oversight enforcement. When reached for a comment, a Department of Labor spokeswoman responded that “[OSHA] has achieved the lowest injury, illness, and fatality rates in recorded OSHA history. American workers are safer today thanks to the dedication and service of Assistant Secretary Edwin G. Foulke, Jr. and their team.”

Follow-up:
At the end of its term, the Bush administration fast tracked a proposal that would take the workplace risk-assessment process away from OSHA scientists and give its control to policymakers at the Department of Labor. The Washington Post editorialized that the move represented a last-minute attempt to sabotage OSHA’s future ability to regulate workplace dangers. The administration also proposes that the Department of Labor be forced to seek more public comment before adopting any new rules on worker protections, which Democrats and union officials view as an attempt to make it harder for the next president to regulate toxins in the workplace. President-Elect Barack Obama has pledged to increase OSHA’s funding, provide more health and safety training for employers and workers, and reinstate the ergonomic standards.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has failed to adequately safeguard the nation’s drug supply, according to various studies and watchdog groups. The agency’s most glaring failure: its lack of action against the popular arthritis and pain medication Vioxx despite clear and convincing evidence that the drug posed a threat to thousands of heart patients. Instead, the FDA — which is responsible for guaranteeing “the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, medical devices,” as well as America’s food supply — waited for the drug’s manufacturer to act on its own. In September 2004 the pharmaceutical giant Merck voluntarily withdrew Vioxx after it became evident that the drug increased the risk of cardiovascular events and may have caused tens of thousands of heart attacks. After the tragic failure, FDA whistleblower David Graham testified before a Senate committee that “the FDA, as currently configured, is incapable of protecting America against another Vioxx. We are virtually defenseless.” The incident raised troubling questions about the adequacy of the FDA’s safety-monitoring and the agency’s record on safety issues. A 2007 report issued by the Institute of Medicine, a center under the National Academies, blamed the FDA’s problems on “a lack of clear regulatory authority, chronic underfunding, organizational problems, and a scarcity of post-approval data about drugs' risks and benefits.” In the past decade, more than a dozen drugs have been withdrawn from the U.S. market, and around the world, because of risks to patients. According to the watchdog group Public Citizen, the agency has made mistakes with at least a dozen drugs, “leading to large numbers of avoidable deaths and injuries.” A spokeswoman for the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research told the Center that the agency's job is "to balance a drug's benefits against the risks for the drug's intended use. The agency approves a drug only after determining that the benefits outweigh the risks for most people, most of the time."

Follow-up:
The Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007, signed by President Bush, contains several measures to strengthen the FDA. Among the new powers gained by the agency is the authority to issue mandatory label changes and require companies to do more studies on drug safety. Earlier this year, the FDA launched a new electronic database system for monitoring medical product safety. The agency says the system, dubbed the “Sentinel Initiative,” will strengthen its ability to monitor drug performance and could help prevent another Vioxx-like debacle.

Photo credit: Department of Health and Human Services

The mission of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is a noble one: “to protect the public from unreasonable risks of serious injury or death from more than 15,000 types of consumer products” — but recent cases of injuries, and even deaths, caused by faulty products have revealed a broken system that has left consumers outraged, wary, and scared. Perhaps most famously, the massive toy recalls over the past two years, including popular products like Barbie dolls and Polly Pockets, put millions of children at risk and prompted serious questions about the agency’s oversight. The CPSC is limited in its ability to disclose safety hazards to the public and will usually issue a recall of a product after the manufacturer has agreed to it, to avoid being sued. Also, the agency must rely on the manufacturer to adhere to safety standards. When it comes to enforcement, the CPSC can fine violators, but the amount of civil penalty is capped at $8,000 for each violation. These restrictions ultimately slow down the recall process and weaken its effectiveness. In 46 cases since 2002, it took the CPSC an average of at least 209 days to relay information to the public. Polaris Industries reported that its all-terrain vehicles had faulty oil lines, which caused 42 fires and injured 18 people, but the CPSC did not notify the public of these problems for more than two years. ATVs continued to be a serious problem and related injuries have risen 24 percent since 2001, but the CPSC has said it doesn’t have the resources to investigate. Critics believe this lack of enforcement had a major impact on children’s safety. The CPSC received 409 reports of injuries from Yo Yo Waterballs, a toy banned in several countries and the state of Illinois. The agency only issued one warning to parents and never recalled the product. In September 2007, the CPSC issued a major recall of one million cribs, but this came two and a half years after a nine-month-old child was killed when he got stuck in a defective drop rail and died from asphyxiation. The CPSC was notified of the incident during the police investigation immediately following the infant’s death, but the CPSC investigator failed to track down the manufacturer and took no further steps. After the child’s death, the CPSC received a number of complaints from concerned parents, including reports of the deaths of two more children, before issuing its recall. A CPSC spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment, but in a 2007 congressional hearing, acting chairman Nancy Nord noted the agency’s inability to “fully investigate every one of the hundreds of thousands of annual product incidents of which we become aware.” However, she said she remained “extremely proud of the CPSC, its dedicated professionals, and the work we do. And, in the final analysis, I believe we carry out our mission of consumer protection and education extremely well.”

Follow-up:
The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA) allows the CPSC to adopt mandatory safety standards for ATVs, impose higher civil penalties on violators of up to $15 million, and create a searchable database available to the public that lists reports of hazards. CPSIA also bans the sale of toys containing certain chemicals effective February 10, 2009, but places no such restrictions on products manufactured before that date. On December 4, two nonprofit groups filed a lawsuit against the CPSC over the loophole, which the suit claims will allow potentially dangerous products to remain on store shelves long after the ban goes into effect. But the administration is seeking to protect corporations from lawsuits by rewriting federal rules to say that the CPSC, along with other federal agencies, can “preempt,” or override, citizens’ right to file suit over dangerous products. Nord, acting chairman of the CPSC and a Bush-appointed commissioner, is expected to step down once President-Elect Obama takes office.

A series of fatal mine disasters and subsequent investigations revealed a stunning and systematic failure in the government’s oversight of mining safety, with much of the blame falling on the beleaguered shoulders of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). The problems began to dribble out after a series of disasters made 2006 the deadliest year for mining accidents in 11 years. A total of 47 people died — 12 of them in a coal mine explosion in Sago, West Virginia. Congress responded by passing the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response (MINER) Act in 2006, but a subsequent investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that MSHA was sluggish in implementing the reforms called for in the legislation. And before long, MSHA had much more to worry about; in August 2007, six miners at the Crandall Canyon Mine near Huntington, Utah, were trapped in a collapse. During the ensuing rescue effort, three rescue workers were killed. Investigations conducted by both MSHA and the Department of Labor later illuminated what went wrong at Crandall Canyon, and painted a disturbing picture of the federal government’s role. Three years before the collapse, it turned out, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which monitors how much coal is mined from public lands, wrote about serious structural problems at the mine. Because BLM is part of the Department of the Interior and MSHA is part of the Department of Labor, MSHA never knew about BLM’s concerns until after the accident. A 2008 report from Labor’s inspector general found MSHA “negligent” in approving the mining plan at Crandall, a claim MSHA denies. Labor’s report found that MSHA did not adequately review the engineering information and did not consult with experts when deciding whether to approve the Crandall Canyon project; the report also found that efforts to test the integrity of the mine’s roof were inadequate. A report from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee also found that an engineer in MSHA’s Denver office brought up concerns about the Crandall plan, but was overruled by superiors after a meeting with company representatives. In the wake of the Crandall Canyon disaster, Labor conducted a full audit of MSHA and found that the agency’s Office of Coal Mine Safety and Health did not perform required inspections in 107 of the nation's mines in 2006. Fifteen percent of the inspections performed were not documented. An independent review, traced some of the problems to what it said was chronic understaffing and underfunding of the MSHA over the course of the Bush administration.

Follow-up:
In January 2008, despite a veto threat from President Bush, the House passed HR 2768, which shortened the deadline mine owners had to install the new safety gear mandated in 2006’s MINER Act. It also called for increased oversight for retreat mining, the method used in Crandall Canyon, in which coal pillars supporting the mine’s roof are destroyed to reach coal trapped inside them. The bill has not been acted on in the Senate, so the legislation will likely need to be reintroduced in the 111th Congress. MSHA leveled almost $2 million in fines against the owners of the Crandall Canyon mine. The agency has also stepped up its enforcement in 2008, slapping mines with $97.4 million in fines over the first 10 months of the fiscal year — an increase of 141 percent over 2007. Mine operators have complained that the agency is being too heavy handed in order to change its public persona, and that production is being hurt by the increase in citations. After being assessed nearly $1.5 million in fines for alleged safety violations, the American Coal Company filed suit against MSHA in November, claiming the agency’s enforcement “has demonstrated a clear pattern of disregard for both the spirit and intent of the law.” In September 2008, MSHA announced it would be seeking a criminal investigation of both the mine operator and the engineers involved in the Crandall Canyon disaster. The Department of Labor press office did not respond to a request for comment, but in July Secretary Elaine Chao issued a statement noting that “over the last two years, MSHA has implemented numerous improvements to better protect the safety and health of America’s miners.”

Photo credit: House Committee on Education and Labor

When the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created, responsibility for the Agricultural Quarantine Inspection program was largely transferred to the sprawling new agency from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Since then, things have not gone smoothly for the program, which is responsible for checking international passengers and cargo entering the United States to protect the country’s agriculture from pests and diseases. A 2006 Government Accountability Office (GAO) survey found that the majority of the program’s specialists believed the transfer had compromised the inspection mission; three-fifths said they were conducting fewer inspections and interceptions of prohibited agriculture items since joining the DHS. Another concern was that the program is being overshadowed by counterterrorism activities. A joint DHS/USDA audit in 2007 found the program lacking on many fronts; among the problems were inadequate inspections, poor morale, and staff retention. The transition was “rife with turmoil,” John Jurich, an investigator for the House Committee on Agriculture, testified in 2007, adding that morale problems resulted in an “exodus of agricultural officers.” The audit report found that agriculture specialists decreased by 17 percent between June 2003 and February 2005. According to the GAO, as of August 2007 the program had only two-thirds of the personnel required. Negligence of the program, which has been termed the first line of defense for the $1 trillion U.S. agriculture industry, could be costly for the nation — both for industry’s health and the safety of American consumers.

Follow-up:
Last year, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California and other congressional Democrats introduced legislation to move the inspectors back to USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the program’s pre-transfer home. She withdrew the measure after DHS chief Michael Chertoff announced creation of a new position to oversee agricultural inspections. Vernon Foret, executive director of Agriculture Programs and Trade Liaison at Customs and Border Protection, told the Center that his office has instituted various reforms, including increased staffing levels, more agriculture inspections, and additional scientific equipment.

Photo credit: Port of Seattle

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) oversees more than 15,000 consumer goods and is charged with protecting Americans from product-related deaths, injuries, and property damage. Yet for years the agency has been understaffed and overwhelmed. In 2006 an eroding budget left the CPSC with less than half the staff it had about 30 years before. By the time a wave of lead-tainted Chinese imports hit U.S. stores in 2007 — prompting a recall of more than 25 million toys — the agency was down to 90 inspectors, with a mere 15 at U.S. ports and just one responsible for toy safety nationwide. A dwindling budget has also hampered the agency’s ability to keep up with changing technologies in the product market. The CPSC’s laboratory, which is crucial to its research and investigations, has not been upgraded in 32 years and, according to one critic, resembles “a bad high school lab.” The stakes are considerable. Dangerous consumer products cause damage to people and property estimated at $700 billion annually. The Bush administration allocated $63.3 million for the CPSC in fiscal year 2008, which, accounting for inflation, is less than half of what the agency was budgeted in 1974. At this rate, the agency could only employ a staff of 401, the smallest in its history. Senator Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat and chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, managed to secure $80 million for the agency at the end of 2007, a near-30 percent increase from the previous year. A CPSC spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment, but acting chairwoman Nancy Nord reported to Congress in March that they are “putting these new funds to very good use.”

Follow-up:
In August, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 was signed into law, which proposed strengthening the agency’s enforcement and bulking up resources. The act has authorized budget increases over five years, starting in fiscal year 2010. But even with a larger budget of $80 million, the CPSC says the amount is insufficient to carry out its mission. In August the agency requested an added $30 million to meet the new mandates of the 2008 law and, although the House and Senate have proposed increases of $15 million and $20 million respectively, these funds are not guaranteed. The $700 billion bailout in response to the current economic crisis could delay the appropriation of funds for the CPSC.

Photo credit: Consumer Product Safety Commission

When Chairman Hal Stratton stepped down from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in July 2006, he left the agency with just two commissioners. Without a three-member quorum, the agency is unable to sue a manufacturer or demand a recall, allowing dangerous products to remain on the market. The Consumer Product Safety Act stipulates that in the case of a vacancy, two members can constitute a quorum for six months, but the Bush administration declined to appoint a third member for much of 2007. This lack of authority became glaring in the case of the Kazuma Meerkat 50, an all-terrain vehicle designed for children. Despite finding the Meerkat plagued by failing brakes, the CPSC could only issue a news release deeming the product “defective and dangerous.” In August 2007 Congress passed legislation to grant the two-member quorum another six months, but the agency still refrained from taking any serious action against the product. After the six-month time period expired, the seat remained vacant, and the agency was left, yet again, without a quorum to enforce safety standards or hold manufacturers accountable. A CPSC spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment, but acting chairwoman Nancy Nord maintained that “the agency was able to make progress on a number of fronts” while without a quorum.

Follow-up:
The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 was signed into law on August 14, 2008. It allows for a temporary two-member quorum to carry out official business for one year and also expands the commission to five members instead of three to prevent a future lack of quorum. The third commissioner seat remains vacant.

Photo: Former CPSC chairman Hal Stratton. Photo credit: Consumer Product and Safety Commission