Lawmakers want CPSC's chief to step down
— -- There's no end in sight to the infighting over the new product safety law.
Disconnects between the legislators who write laws and the regulators who implement them are nothing new. But observers of the acrimony between the Consumer Product Safety Commission and Congress over this issue say it runs deeper and has become more damaging than anything in recent memory.
On Wednesday, four key members of Congress requested in a letter that President Obama ask CPSC acting Chairwoman Nancy Nord, a Bush appointee, to step down immediately because of what they describe as the mishandled implementation of the new product safety law.
"The CPSC has been limited by leadership that has philosophically contradicted strengthening and improving this agency for far too long," wrote Sens. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Bobby Rush, D-Ill.
In a statement, Nord said the agency "has risen to the challenge and worked ceaselessly to implement its new responsibilities, meeting every statutory deadline to date. Unfortunately, some have failed to understand that it is beyond the authority granted to the agency to resolve certain problems that we are now seeing with the new law."
Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and one of the bill's sponsors, and other legislators have refused to introduce legislation to move the law's effective date. But he told the commission in a Jan. 16 letter that it has the discretion not to enforce the testing provisions. But even if it chooses non-enforcement, any of the 50 state attorneys general offices will have authority to do so.
CPSC's action last week "does not affect the lead limits in the law. But the stay does delay testing, which is a critical provision for identifying dangerous toys," Waxman says.
Another issue looming is funding, which Nord addresses in her statement. Along with overwhelmingly passing the new law, Congress authorized millions of dollars in additional funding for CPSC for fiscal years 2008 and 2009.
