Today, we are signed onto testimony of the Consumer Federation of America's Rachel Weintraub before the House Energy and Commerce Committee at its hearing on product safety reform. (Note-- the committee has even posted a front page link to The Year of the Recall, a new Consumers Union report.) Meanwhile, after years of administration attacks (not mere benign neglect) on protecting Americans from product safety hazards, expect the Michael Leavitt-chaired White House import safety working group to back some sort of modest reforms today (New York Times and AP via Washington Post). We expect it will overly rely on self-regulation and the sort of tortured risk analysis favored by the administration over the more sensible precautionary principle, although press reports indicate positively that it will recommend strengthened recall authority at FDA and CPSC. Don't know just what it will say about the hazards to the public of CPSC officials flying around on the industry's planes or the industry's dime. From the Washington Post story today CPSC's Ethics-Review Process For Travel Criticized by Experts by reporter Elizabeth Williamson:

The $3,730 tab for Faulk and Nord's trip was to be paid by the Toy Industry Foundation, whose mission, according to the ethics memo, is to help at-risk children "by meeting a vital, yet frequently overlooked, developmental need often missing in their lives -- play."

The key ethics review memo states at the top that it came from Faulk, whom it describes as the "Designated Agency Ethics Official." But it was signed by someone the CPSC yesterday called "an alternate ethics officer" because Faulk was the traveler.