Chicago Tribune Editorial: To Your Safety
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Printable FormatChicago Tribune Editorials
The U.S. Senate was in rare bipartisan agreement last week when it voted 79-13 to pass a broad reform of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The Senate said that the commission -- the agency responsible for ensuring the safety of everything from baby cribs to electric chain saws -- needs more staffing, more money and greater openness.
The legislative overhaul was spurred in large part by the Tribune's "Hidden Hazards" series, which detailed how the severely underfunded and understaffed commission stalled on investigations into evidence of dangerous toys and cribs. While the commission stalled, other children were killed or injured.
Now Congress is on the verge of putting an effective reform bill into law. Sen. Dick Durbin has been a leader in this effort.
There is still work to do, though. The Senate bill is more expansive than a similar measure passed by a 407-0 vote of the House in December. Several provisions that appear only in the Senate measure need to be protected when lawmakers meet in conference committee.
Three common-sense provisions, in particular, must be protected.
*Creation of a public Internet database where consumers can post and search for information about potentially dangerous products. The House legislation calls only for studying whether consumer complaints should be included in the database. But as "Hidden Hazards" detailed, children have died in accidents involving products that were known to be dangerous but hadn't been subject to recall by the lead-footed commission. That's not acceptable. Consumers should be allowed immediate access to information about potentially hazardous products. That way, they can make informed purchasing decisions.
*A ban on agency staffers going on junkets funded by companies or industries they regulate. As the Tribune reported last year, Nancy Nord, the acting chairwoman of the commission, and her predecessor, Hal Stratton, went on dozens of trips funded at least partially by manufacturers, lobbyists or lawyers associated with regulated products. Congress needs to require a no-junket policy.
*A mandate that recall notices include the names and locations of factories where dangerous and defective products have been produced. This provision, pushed by Sen. Barack Obama, would provide U.S. importers with information on factory safety records and ensure that foreign facilities that churn out dangerous products can't shift their wares to another unwitting distributor.
House and Senate members understand that a beefed-up Consumer Product Safety Commission will be good for the public. Their job now is to get a bill to President Bush that includes the essential provisions championed by the Senate.