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October 31, 2007

CPSC's Nord issues Statement on Letter To Congress

Read all of the statement here at the CPSC [although for the original letter, the link below loads faster than the CPSC link]. Here is an excerpt:

This week, several members of Congress publicly called for my resignation as CPSC Acting Chairman, citing a letter I recently sent to the Senate Commerce Committee expressing my views on pending legislation before that committee. In the letter (pdf), I respectfully pointed out what I think are several unwise proposals in a bill to reauthorize and expand the mission of the CPSC. However, despite media reports to the contrary, nowhere in the letter (or anywhere else) did I assert that the CPSC does not need additional resources. In fact, quite to the contrary, the main message of the letter is that if CPSC resources are diverted to new missions and mandates, we will need a dramatic upsurge in our personnel and funding, far beyond what either the House or Senate are proposing for our pending budget.
Well, read the letter yourself, and you'll find that the acting chair opposes attorney general enforcement of the law, opposes increasing civil penalties on wrongdoers, opposes whistleblower provisions, etc. In our view, all these provisions are resources. And she opposed them all, and more. And at the committee hearing she refused Senator McCaskill's and Senator Bill Nelson's requests that she ask for more money. I was there. I was the next witness. So it is disingenuous for her to claim that she is for more resources, even if the letter points out that some of the CPSC improvements that the bill calls for will cost money. I am sure that the Senate will be happy to provide that money needed to implement S. 2045, in addition to all the other resources and money that she didn't want, which they're also providing, even though she refused to ask for it.

Posted by Ed Mierzwinski at October 31, 2007 05:26 PM


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