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Thursday, September 13, 2007

Toy Safety Hearing Leaves Questions Unanswered

In today's Washington Post, columnist Dana Milbank reports on yesterday's Senate hearing on toy safety and the Consumer Product Safety Commission's role in assuring it. The hearing, held by an appropriations subcommittee responsible for approving CPSC's budget, featured testimony from Nancy Nord, acting chairman of the commission.

CPSC has been under increasing scrutiny for failing to protect American children from the dangers of lead paint in toys — by no means a newly discovered threat. While most of the tainted products have come from China, the string of recalls has left many Americans wondering why our strong regulatory system is being circumvented by shoddy foreign manufacturing.

Milbank characterizes Nord as evasive and smug and the panel's senators as confounded by the idea our federal regulatory protectors could operate with such complete and utter ineffectiveness.

Of course, as Durbin recognized in the hearing, the agency is not wholly to blame for its troubles. Congress and the White House have slowly let the agency fall into a state of disrepair. Milbank includes a summary of some startling statistics:

Among the nuggets served up at yesterday's hearing: The CPSC's staff, once 978, is down to 401; its budget is half of what it was three decades ago, in inflation-adjusted terms; its toy-testing department consists of one man, Bob, who drops toys on the floor in his office; and its toy-testing lab is an overloaded workbench in its outmoded headquarters.

Another panel of witnesses included Mattel chairman Robert Eckert. Some of Eckert's recent comments in the wake of massive recalls of Mattel products indicate he does not believe federal consumer product laws apply to his company. (See the Sept. 5 post, "Is Barbie above the Law?")

Refreshingly, Eckert was contrite for the dangers posed by Mattel's now-recalled products and expressed full-throated support for a strong and well-resourced CPSC. Unfortunately, none of the Senators pressed Eckert on his comments. It is still unclear if Mattel violated federal law by failing to report potential product defects in a timely manner.