CPSC's Thomas Moore worries about the future of the agency

Consumer Product Safety Commissioner Thomas H. Moore usually keeps a low profile, letting the agency’s chairmen take the lead in publicizing product safety issues. But the commissioner, who has filled a democratic slot at the commission since 1995, is now speaking out on the future of the agency, urging Congress to beef up the CPSC’s funding and staffing as well as strengthen many of its underlying statutes.

As Moore noted in a recent statement,  “The U.S. Product Safety Commission is at a crossroads. Two years of significant staffing cuts and other resource reductions have limited the commission’s ability to carry out its mission and have left the agency at a point where it is now doing only what is absolutely necessary for it to do and little else. … Many employees at the agency are looking for other jobs because they have no confidence the agency will continue to exist (or will exist in any meaningful form) for many more years. ... The commission can either continue to decline in staff, resources and stature to the point where it is no longer an effective force in consumer protection or, with the support of Congress, it can regain the important place in American society that it was originally designed to have.”

Moore’s comments come as several congressional leaders have signaled stronger support for the agency—and just days after Acting Chairwoman Nancy Nord called for several key changes in the CPSC’s statutes. Although both Moore and Nord agree that the statues need reform, they have different views on how these reforms should be carried out. Moore, for example, is wary about Nord’s proposal to alter the agency’s rulemaking process -- and the possible unintended consequences of doing so. For example, Nord has proposed treating certain voluntary industry standards as mandatory if they are deemed effective. “We should move carefully in this area,” Moore said. “The ability to too easily transform voluntary standards into mandatory ones could remove any incentive manufacturers have to develop voluntary standards to avoid federal regulation. (There would likely be no effective voluntary baby walker standard today had there not been the real threat of mandatory regulation.)”

Here are some of Moore’s key proposals:

• Give the CPSC the authority to enforce the total elimination of lead or other toxic substances from children’s products.
• Make product complaints public. Unlike the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) , the CPSC cannot disclose  to the public any information consumers report into the Commission. NHTSA’s complaints are “not censored, nor are they verified, and they do not necessarily result in a recall.” The CPSC can only alert consumers to a safety problem by issuing a recall, and then the agency can release only what the company has agreed to make public. Moore said, “I cannot think of any good reason why there should be a difference with what a consumer could be aware of when he is thinking of buying a particular car ... and what a prospective or current all-terrain vehicle owner could know about ATVs."
• Require manufacturers to put identifying information on products, such as date marks, so the item can be easily distinguished from safer versions in the event of a recall. 
• Designate importers who routinely ignore U.S. mandatory standards as repeat offenders and refer those names to customs officials so their import licenses can be pulled permanently.

Moore also urged Congress to reexamine this country’s export policies to prevent the shipment abroad of products recalled in the U.S. The CPSC, Moore said, “cannot claim much moral superiority over the Chinese, or any other foreign country, when it comes to our own export policy. As long as a product has not been offered for sale in the United States, but is only made for export, our statue gives us practically no authority over it.” Currently, foreign receiving countries have to be notified if a product made solely for export does not comply with one of the CPSC’s mandatory standards or is a banned hazardous substance. But, Moore said, products that have been recalled by the CPSC can be exported to other countries without any notification to the receiving countries. “A ‘do as I say, not as I do’ policy is hard to sell.” 

Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, is currently studying both Moore’s and Nord’s proposals. Along with other consumer groups, CU has been asked to give Congressional leaders its thoughts on improving the effectiveness of the CPSC. So please, watch this space, to learn our thoughts on these—and other—proposals.