It’s Time to Stop Toying with Safety - Political Opinion
March 3, 2008
NEW REPORT - “Held Back: Incomplete Consumer Product Safety Commission Rules, Class of 2007,” shows that the CPSC is hamstrung by rulemaking procedures that are far more burdensome than those of most federal agencies. The CPSC has taken an average of nearly a decade to produce safety rules for products that have caused more than 900 deaths annually.
Defective and dangerous products - from lead-painted toys to vacuum cleaners that catch fire - are being allowed onto our store shelves and into our homes. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has failed to do its job and protect American consumers.
Public Citizen recently released a study showing that manufacturers often wait nearly three years before telling the CPSC about defective products that can kill people - and the agency typically takes another seven months to warn the public. These products include infant swings implicated in six deaths.
We need a strong, effective agency that can warn the public quickly about dangerous and defective products - and enforce the law against violators. Under current law, the CPSC can’t do either effectively.
Congress currently is considering legislation to make the CPSC more effective. The Consumer Product Safety Reform Act of 2007 (S. 2045) would give the CPSC much-needed muscle, but it could be improved more, and it must be defended from industry’s attempts to weaken it.
After a year in which the CPSC oversaw nearly 500 product recalls, with 61 of those involving dangerous children’s products, the Senate must improve this legislation.
Source: Public Citzen
Net News Publisher
The biggest reason congress has a problem passing legislation for safer products is that there are toooooooo many peices to any particular bill being presented. So while lead-free toys shouldn’t even be debated…other “little” wordings are hidden in the same bill that requires review and debate. Senators like “Durbin” sneak in provisions to a much needed law…causing that same law to be put on the back burner. Ridiculous! That like not eating your fresh strawberries because your bananas have gone bad. Ridiculous! This is a no brainer for the average American. Why are senators allowed to sneak provisions in the bills? Lead poisioning in toys should not be in the same legislation as vaccum cleaner safety…hello!