Watchdog Blog

More Information Means Safety for Consumers

Anyone who has been following the progress of the consumer product safety reform legislation, H.R. 4040, closely knows that a proposed database housing consumer complaints has been one of the major points of contention during the legislative process.  (We have previously discussed the database here.)  While the conference committee negotiates the contours of the safety database, we have this story:

In 2002, engineers from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) privately warned nail gun makers that the nail gun industry’s efforts to reduce the rising number of injuries with its tools wouldn’t really work; this, according to recently disclosed federal documents.

For some reason, the CPSC engineers’ views, warnings, and requests for additional study of nail guns safety features, were not addressed or disclosed publicly to US consumers.  Meanwhile, thousands of workers and home consumers continued to buy or rent nail guns at giant hardware stores nationwide during the country’s most recent housing boom.  Because of this, those sent to hospitals—both workers and home consumers—with hand, foot, knee, and head injuries that were caused by air-powered nail guns climbed to 42,000 in 2005, up significantly from 12,982 in 2000, according to federal hospital injury data.

This is a perfect example of the necessity of a public repository of consumer safety complaints.  If the proposed database had existed at the time of these nail-gun injuries, the hospital injury data would have been entered in the database and available to the public.  Consumers could have seen the upward trend in nail gun-related injuries and known to avoid that particular product.  This is not a one-time story.  As one of our recent reports demonstrates, industry and the CPSC are failing drastically to warn consumers promptly about serious product hazards.

With a product safety database available on the Internet, consumers will not have to rely as much on the manufacturers or the CPSC to protect them.  They will be able to help themselves by doing their own research.  A free exchange of information will save government resources and make everyone safer.

Time for Congress to Pass Strong Consumer Protection Law

By Joe Newman
Cross-posted from CitizenVOX

Right now, leaders in the House and Senate are preparing to make decisions behind the scenes that will have a tremendous impact on consumer protection in this country. If they can put aside partisan differences and ignore the lobbyists from the manufacturing industry, they have a chance to craft a bill that should help to stem the flood of life-threatening, hazardous products that led to a record number of recalls last year. On Thursday, parents and consumer activists rallied near the Capitol to urge Congress to pass the strongest protections possible. It’s especially an important issue for parents. Last year some 25 million hazardous toys and children’s products, many laden with high concentrations of lead, were recalled.

The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have each passed a version of the Consumer Product Safety Reform Act (S. 2663/H.R. 4040) and senior members from both houses of Congress are meeting in conference to negotiate a compromise bill.

The Senate and House bills take important steps toward better protecting American consumers by giving the CPSC more resources, improving product testing standards and increasing the penalties manufacturers face for violating the law, among other improvements.

You can take action by writing your member of Congress and urging them to pass the strongest bill possible.

Stroll for Safety in DC Tomorrow

Dangerous toys are still on the shelves. We need your help to make sure Congress enacts the kind of toy safety our children deserve by banning phthalates and significantly reducing levels of lead in kids’ toys.

Bring your kids -- America’s littlest consumers -- to a stroller rally tomorrow at the Capitol to tell Congress toys should be safe enough for kids!

With your help, we recently pushed the House and Senate to pass legislation that will make consumer products safer.  Now a conference committee is reconciling the differences between the two bills, including banning the use of lead and phthalates -- an industrial plasticizer and a powerful reproductive toxin -- in children’s products.

Join us TOMORROW at the Capitol to tell Congress to get tough on toys!

Also, if you haven’t already, please send an instant email now to your members of Congress! 

The rally and press conference will start at 10 AM TOMORROW, Thursday, May 15, 2008 at the Upper Senate Park on Constitution Ave between New Jersey and Delaware Avenues, in Washington, DC.

Questions?  Send an email to action@citizen.org for more information, or to let us know you're coming.  Don't forget to tell your family and friends with kids in the DC area!

Heritage Foundation Opposes Consumer Information, Well-Working Markets

This piece from Heritage is really rich -- it argues against Senate legislation that would require the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to host a public database of consumer complaints.

[Background: Product safety legislation has passed both the House and Senate and is being negotiated in an informal conference. The House provision on the database would require CPSC only to create a plan for the database, then report back to Congress. We and other consumer groups support the Senate bill over the House bill because CPSC should have the authority -- even the requirement -- to create the database as soon as possible, not just develop a plan to create it and then await further instruction. Making this information available to the public would help consumers protect themselves when the CPSC fails to act -- and the agency is notoriously slow to act, whether by informing the public about hazards or issuing new safety rules. With a public database, consumers could do their own research on products to see whether problems exist.]

There are several serious flaws in Heritage's argument, starting with its surprising conclusion. The piece criticizes the Senate's database provision by arguing that the CPSC should not host a database at all, but then it concludes by promoting the House provision, which would require the CPSC to "craft a detailed implementation plan" for a database -- presumably so the agency can implement it. If Heritage really believed its argument, we could expect it to oppose the database all together, not to support the crafting of an implementation plan.

Manufacturers Lose Bid to Evade New Lobbying Law

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) lost round one of their attempt to overturn the part of last year's landmark lobbying reform law which requires it to reveal the businesses funding the goliath lobbying organization.  Public Citizen, the Campaign Legal Center, and Democracy 21 filed an amicus brief [pdf] explaining how the disclosure requirement is constitutional, and should be kept intact.  U.S. District Judge Kollar-Kotelly agreed with us.

Judge Kollar-Kotelly dismissed NAM’s constitutional challenge, stating in her opinion:

The Court has conducted a searching review of the NAM’s opening brief, the Opposition filed by Defendant Taylor and the Opposition filed by the Legislative Defendants, the two amici briefs filed in this case by Citizens for Reform and Ethics in Washington (''CREW'') and Campaign Legal Center, Democracy 21, and Public Citizen (jointly the ''CLC Amici''), and the NAM’s Reply brief, as well as the relevant statutes and case law.

A Win in the Senate!

Today the Senate passed the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) Reform Act by a vote of 79-13.  After about three and a half days on the Senate floor, the bill emerged a bit stronger than it was going into the week.  This is a real victory for consumers.  You can read our coalition press release here and my press statement here.

We hope to see more changes at the CPSC than this bill provides, but we'll leave those for another day.  Tonight, we can relax and celebrate a little!

Consumers Are Winning on Product Safety in the Senate

by David Arkush

Here's an update on the CPSC bill (S. 2663) on the Senate floor this week.  The short story is, consumers are doing very well in the Senate so far this week.  Here are some highlights:

• On Tuesday, pro-consumer senators fought off the first attack on a strong CPSC bill: an attempt to replace the current Senate bill with weaker bill that passed the House in December.  You can view our comparison of the House and Senate bills here.  The attempt lost 57-39.  Not only did this stop a broad frontal assault on the Senate bill; it showed that opponents of the bill cannot muster the 40 votes they would need for any major blocking action.

What is the Hold Up with Product Safety?

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has been "working on" several rules to ensure product safety since at least 2004 (two since 1994!). These rules cover hazards that the agency itself blames for more than 900 deaths and more than $460 million in property damage every year.

These unfinished rules would help protect the public from:

• Bed rails, crib slats and baby bath seats that can suffocate, strangle or drown infants;
• Excessively flammable upholstery, bed linens and clothes that are among the leading causes of fire-related death in U.S. homes; and
• Cigarette lighters that, by the CPSC’s own analysis, fail to meet an industry-created voluntary standard at least 60 percent of the time.

Current law requires the agency to produce a final rule within 14 months of adopting an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR), a standard the agency has met only once since President Bush took office in 2001. Since 1990, the CPSC has completed 38 rules; just four of those were during the Bush administration.

Public Citizen’s new report, “Held Back: Incomplete Consumer Product Safety Commission Rules, Class of 2007,” details each of the rules that are in development and the reasons for the delays.

The CPSC is hamstrung by rulemaking procedures that are far more burdensome than those of most federal agencies. The rulemaking procedure established by Congress during the Reagan era requires the agency to provide double the usual amount of notice and opportunity for public comment, to explain repeatedly why it is not deferring to industry’s voluntary proposals, and to prove that any rule imposes as little burden as possible on industry.

Moreover, the agency’s procedures call for it to halt any rulemaking if industry creates a voluntary standard that appears likely to address the problem – even though such voluntary standards are unenforceable. Not surprisingly, industry often derails the CPSC’s efforts by strategically adopting voluntary rules.

These problems point to the need for Congress to reform the CPSC to fulfill its mission of protecting the public from hazardous products.  The Senate is considering a bill now that would give the CPSC some much-needed muscle.  You can write your senators here now.

Learn more and read the report at www.ToyingWithSafety.org.

Industry and Republican Allies Gear up to Fight Moderate Consumer Health and Safety Bill

by David Arkush and Graham Steele

Republicans and Democrats in the Senate recently spent weeks negotiating a moderate, bipartisan consumer product safety bill, the “CPSC [Consumer Product Safety Commission] Reform Act of 2007” (S. 2663). After these negotiations concluded, and with the bill cued go to the Senate floor soon, industry is making a last-ditch effort to derail or further weaken it. This week, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) and a few other Senate Republicans, apparently playing the role of mouthpiece for industry, circulated a strategy packet for defeating the CPSC bill. The packet includes a list of “Top Ten Reasons to Oppose the CPSC ‘Reform’ Act,” which is riddled with misstatements about the bill. Apparently, industry knows it can’t win an honest debate against an important consumer safety law, so it’s going dirty.

Time to Put Safety First

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 just 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.  Some of 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 must ask permission from manufacturers to get vital safety information to the public.  What's more, the agency can't fine companies enough to make sure that they comply with the law.

The status quo is unacceptable - the CPSC should protect American consumers, not manufacturers!

The Senate commerce committee recently reported out the Consumer Product Safety Reform Act of 2007 (S. 2045), a bill that would give the CPSC much-needed muscle.  Now it goes to the full Senate for approval.  But, as happens all too often in Washington, D.C., bills that are carefully honed in committee become unrecognizable after amendments, concessions and the inevitable congressional horse trading take their toll on a proposal’s original intent.

Please urge your senators to ensure that the Senate bill passes intact - without weakening changes - for everyone's health and safety. 

New Study Shows Deadly Delays in Notification of Dangerous, Defective Products

Today we released a new report showing that despite a law requiring manufacturers to provide the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) with "immediate" notification of dangerous products, there are long delays before the public learns of dangerous, defective products.

The study, Hazardous Waits: CPSC Lets Crucial Time Pass Before Warning Public About Dangerous Products, covers 46 cases since 2002 in which the CPSC fined manufacturers for failing to adhere to the law requiring prompt reporting.  In addition, companies fined for tardy reporting took an average of 993 days - 2.7 years - between learning of a safety defect in their products and notifying the CPSC.

Perhaps as shocking, the CPSC then took an average of 209 additional days before disclosing the information to the public - even though each case concerned a product defect so dangerous that the item was recalled.  Under current law, the CPSC cannot disclose information about dangerous products without court approval or manufacturer agreement.

Among Public Citizen's findings:

• Graco waited 11 years to report its faulty infant swing, which was linked to reports of 181 falls that resulted in six deaths and nine serious injuries, including bone fractures and concussions. Graco made the report only after CPSC staff contacted the company.
• Hoover waited five years to report a vacuum cleaner with a faulty switch that had caused at least 96 fires. The CPSC then took another 279 days before negotiating a recall and informing the public.
• By February 2000, Polaris Industries had received 1,147 reports of faulty oil lines on its ATV, including 42 instances where the hot oil started a fire and 18 cases in which the oil seriously burned a rider.  But the company didn't report the defect to the CPSC for another year.

It's time to change the law to give the CPSC the authority to truly protect consumers.  Read the study and more about the problems with the CPSC.

A Holiday Wish: Safer Toys

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is supposed to monitor and protect us from dangerous toys and thousands of other products.  Instead, it has been notoriously cozy with the manufacturing industry.  The result: deadly toys and products on our shelves and in our homes.

On Thursday, December 12, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce failed to adequately strengthen the “Consumer Product Safety Modernization Act” (H.R 4040).

The House bill does not do nearly enough to strengthen the agency, which presently doesn't have the same power as other regulatory agencies.  Many improvements in authority and standards are needed.  Congress at the very least should require CPSC to give consumers an “early warning” about potentially dangerous products, mandate broader pre-market testing requirements of toys, provide for more timely product recalls, and allow CPSC to stop potentially hazardous imports at ports of entry.

Representatives Edward Markey (D-MA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA) should be commended for their efforts in trying to improve the bill.  But the committee has rejected their sensible amendments - including one by Eshoo to reduce the allowable level of lead in children's products.  It seems the Democratic leadership on the committee has cut a deal with the Republicans to pass a watered-down, industry-friendly bill. 

Are most of the committee members really more interested in protecting industry profits and their campaign contributions than consumers?

It’s not too late for the committee to put safety first, as they will resume consideration of the bill again Tuesday, Dec. 18.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has been giving many gifts to industry. Now it’s time for Congress to go back to the workshop and put something better under the tree for consumers.

RECALL Nancy Nord

While parents were in panic over the lead paint on their children's toys (like "Robot 2000"), what was the head of the government agency in charge of protecting us doing?  Traveling - on the dime of the very industries she is supposed to be regulating.

Nancy Nord, the interim Chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), has not shied away from that fact that she accepts lavish trips from the industries she regulates and even claims that it is perfectly ethical. 

The CPSC is charged with monitoring thousands of products that we use everyday, including toys, but has been systematically gutted by lack of funding and industry-friendly political appointees.  A proposed bill, the CPSC Reform Act of 2007, would help fix that.  It would more than double the agency's funding, give it new powers to punish those who sell dangerous products, and offer protection to government whistleblowers who courageously report wrongdoing within the agency.

Guess who isn't a fan?

Nord. She is also opposed to a bill that would make her agency more effective and better protect consumers from dangerous products. Could her position having anything to do with a recent free trip to New Orleans?  Or maybe she is just more interested in protecting industry profits than consumers.

You can tell your senators to "RECALL" Nancy Nord and to PASS the CPSC Reform Action of 2007 with additional ethics reforms to prevent staff from accepting industry-sponsored travel.

The Power of People Over Profit

After our activists helped to defeat Michael Baroody as the once-dangerous nominee for the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), we put out another call asking for letters-to-the-editor on the urgent need to have the agency represent consumers, not manufacturers.  One of our more moving and inspiring responses came from Lisa Lipin, a mother and consumer advocate from Skokie, Illinois.

Lisa has since been published in the Chicago Sun Times (“Bush should put people before profit”):

I am a Chicago mother who became a consumer advocate in June 2003 after my son was nearly strangled by a dangerous toy that already had been recalled in countries around the world.

I have been urging the Consumer Product Safety Commission to ban the Yo-Yo Water Ball for years. I successfully lobbied Illinois lawmakers to ban this toy effective Jan. 1, 2006, with Senate Bill 1960. I gained the support of U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky and Senators Richard Durbin and Barack Obama -- all of whom sent letters to the CPSC urging that the agency ban the toy. Unfortunately, the CPSC refuses to take action and sits idle on the issue.

I was so relieved to hear that Michael Baroody, executive vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers, had withdrawn his nomination to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission under immense public pressure. Baroody was clearly the wrong person for this position, given his background as an industry shill who spent the last 13 years of his career trying to disable the CPSC.

However, we must not forget that Baroody represents a regular practice by the Bush administration of promoting unqualified cronies and anti-government hacks to public office.

It is imperative that President Bush nominate a real advocate for consumers, rather than a spokesperson for big-business interests.

It is high time that the administration put people before profit!

The Chicago Parent also picked up a piece by Lisa, in which she challenges: "Who does the Consumer Product Safety Commission protect?" 

We congratulate Lisa on reaching thousands of readers!  We also thank her for being a relentless advocate for the safety of our children and all consumers.

Bye, Bye Baroody

Yesterday, Michael Baroody withdrew his nomination as head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Baroody, executive vice president and a chief lobbyist for the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), was the latest in a parade of Bush cronies nominated to oversee their former industries.

Baroody withdrew just before what would likely have been a tumultuous hearing this morning on his nomination, amid mounting opposition from Senate Democrats who were rightly concerned that Baroody's appointment presented a clear conflict-of-interest. Sens. Bill Nelson of Florida, and, Dick Durbin and Barack Obama of Illinois had all spoken out against Baroody's appointment.

Also adding substantially to concerns about where his loyalties lay, the New York Times revealed last week that Baroody would have received a $150,000 windfall severance package from NAM following his appointment.

Baroody was a stunningly inappropriate choice. His career included stints as a partisan political operative, pushing to elect pro-business and anti-consumer candidates. He has spoken out against numerous safety and health regulations, including ergonomics rules to prevent worker injuries, efforts by the Environmental Protection Agency to curb pollutants and regulations to mandate fire-safe cigarettes and prevent the 700 to 900 deaths that occur each year from home fires started by cigarettes and other smoking products.

Many of the companies overseen by the CPSC are NAM members or affiliates. In fact, as Public Citizen has shown, these industry groups accounted for more than half of the penalties the agency assessed in the past ten years for violating its most important rule, a requirement that companies inform the agency when they discover dangerous defects in their products. NAM successfully pushed last year to weaken that rule. Given Baroody's strong ties to the industries he would have had to regulate and his past positions, he would have faced unavoidable conflicts.

As with other appointments made by this Administration, choosing Baroody was clearly an attempt to undercut regulations that protect consumers in favor of fatter corporate profit margins. Thankfully for consumers, in this case it was an attempt that failed.

NAM weakened accountability for its members

We’ve had a lot to say recently about Michael Baroody, President Bush’s nominee to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Today, Public Citizen released a report that shows just how poor a choice he is for such a critical agency.

Last year, while Baroody was running the National Association of Manufacturers’ (NAM) lobbying and advocacy efforts, NAM and its allies pressed the CPSC to weaken the agency’s primary enforcement regulation, which has been responsible for more than 80 percent of the agency's fines since 1997, about $33 million.  NAM members and affiliates have paid more than half of those penalties, about $18 million in fines.

The safeguard in question requires companies to report when they find out about dangerous products defects.  It helps the agency decide when a recall is needed.

The report describes a number of cases where manufacturers allegedly defied the requirements.  Graco Children’s Products paid a record $4 million penalty in 2005, settling charges that it failed to report numerous possible defects in its products, which killed six babies and caused injuries including skull fractures, concussions and broken bones in others.  General Electric’s vice chairman is on NAM’s board.  It paid $1 million for not reporting possible defects and problems with some of its dishwashers, despite knowing about more than 100 incidents, including nearly 50 fires, between 1992 and 1998.

It seems simple enough – consumers, especially parents, should be informed when merchandise they purchased is dangerous.  Especially if children are getting killed, companies shouldn’t be allowed to bury reports that their products are dangerous.  But the changes that NAM and its allies sought will almost certainly do just that, reducing the number of reports from companies, leading to more deaths and injuries due to defective products.

The upshot is that a Baroody confirmation would put consumers in harm's way while NAM member companies remain unaccountable.

Tell your senators that Baroody is a bad choice for consumer safety.

Bush Steps Up His Attack on the Regulatory System, Endangering Important Health and Safety Protections

When Democrats won control of the Senate and the House of Representatives in November, President Bush was backed into a corner.

For the first time since he took office in 2001, the all-powerful president, who appeared to have a blank check from lawmakers to do as he pleased, finally has had to worry that Congress would challenge his policies, launch investigations into his actions and harshly question his agency heads.

One of his latest and most disturbing power grabs is his stepped-up attack on the federal regulatory system - which establishes critical health, environmental, occupational, vehicle and other protections for citizens.

Toothless in Washington: CPSC Stalls While Children Die from Dangerous Toys

A two-part series that ran today and Saturday in the Chicago Tribune tells of the outrageous neglect of child safety by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and toy makers. 

Super-powerful magnets hidden in Magnetix and other toys fall out of the plastic pieces and have almost irresistible attraction for young children, who swallow them. The magnets attract each other as they move through the intestines, ripping bullet-like holes in the intestinal wall and admitting deadly bacteria. The toy defects have led to more than two dozen life-threatening injuries and at least one death. Kenny Sweet, Jr., a Seattle toddler, was killed by nine magnets in his intestines.

Despite the efforts of parents and caregivers to repeatedly call the issue to the attention of federal regulators who could initiate a recall, the CPSC at first ignored the seriousness of the complaints. When it did finally act, its authority to take decisive steps was muddled by Reagan-era laws that badly weaken the agency, handcuffing its ability to require a recall.

It also appears that the toy makers were aware of the complaints about the severe injuries from the magnets, yet the recall notices they finally sent following negotiations with the CPSC were weak and confusingly worded. The Tribune’s investigation found that many of the recalled versions remain on toy store shelves even today.

The article is a wake-up call to Congress to fix CPSC’s authority so that it can mandate recalls of hazardous products.  It also makes it painfully clear that confirmation of Bush’s nominee, manufacturing association lobbyist Michael Baroody, would be nothing short of a cataclysm for the safety of American families.

Wrong Man(ufacturer) for the Job

You've read here about Michael Baroody, the latest in a parade of industry cronies nominated by the White House. This time it’s to fill the empty chairman’s seat at the critically important Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Baroody, who was in charge of lobbying for the 14,000-member National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and has a long career as an industry shill and anti-regulatory politicker, spent most of his career working to tilt the playing field away from consumer safety and keep corporations from being held accountable for any damages they cause.

Today, a coalition of consumer groups, including Public Citizen, released highlights of Baroody’s record and of NAM’s actions during his time with them, showing why he is a bad choice to head up an agency dedicated to public health and safety. The story was also picked up in The Hill.

Under Baroody, NAM repeatedly pushed to weaken the CPSC, which safeguards consumer products, including most children’s products.

Take, for example, baby walkers – a source of numerous accidents involving infants. The paper released today details NAM’s hostility to basic safety protections on baby walkers, among other issues. The walkers’ original design lacked any locking mechanisms or other protective devices. Babies in them could, and did, injure themselves by falling down stairways and off ledges.

NAM’s “solution”? Blame parents for improper supervision – and fight new standards that would correct obvious, serious and potentially fatal shortcomings in the walkers.

We chronicled stories involving the victims of harmful products as well. What happened to four-year-old Lee Ann Gryc is a particularly tragic example. Lee Ann has scars on more than a fifth of her body after her pajama top burst into flames while she was reaching across an electric stove. The pajama maker had cut costs by not treating the clothing with flame-retardants, although the fabric they use is almost as flammable as newspaper.

The Flammable Fabrics Act, which CPSC enforces, makes it illegal in most cases to peddle flammable sleepwear. NAM and other groups often tried to gut that rule and others, blaming parents or consumers for injuries and deaths.

Check out our information page on why Baroody is not the right man(ufacturer) for the job. Then tell your senators that you don’t want child safety jeopardized by a “loyal Bushie” and industry shill like Baroody.

More on Fox for Henhouse

Yesterday Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook announced our opposition to the nomination of Micheal Baroody as the head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).  We also released a short summary of some of the reasons he's so wrong for the job.

Baroody’s nomination reflects an arrogant Administration attempt to further gut the CPSC by filling positions designed for public-minded honest brokers with the Administration’s corporate cronies. His nomination should be rejected by the Senate.

You might have read our first shot across the bow on this blog a few days ago . . . so stay tuned . . . and thanks for taking action.

Easter Recess... And Rotten Eggs

The Senate is out for Easter recess now.  Which means the White House might be planning to hide some rotten eggs — by giving out recess appointments that would give a lot of power to some unacceptable special interests.

Rotten Egg #1: Susan Dudley

One of them might be Susan Dudley.  You might remember Dudley: she spent her career arguing that if we truly valued protections like air bags or privacy rights, then corporations would already be giving them to us… so there’s no need for any regulation to protect us.

Bush nominated her to an office where she would have power to weaken and eliminate all those pesky regulations, like air bags and privacy rights, which Dudley thinks we don’t really need.

Your calls and letters to the Senate last year were successful:  the Susan Dudley nomination wasn’t even allowed to leave the committee.  And the Republican Senator who chaired that committee last year actually told the press that the president would be within his rights to send the nomination back in 2007… but it would just be a waste of time.

So did Bush learn his lesson?  Nope.  Bush is at it again in 2007 – nominating, once again, Susan Dudley to become the regulatory czar.  But even that wasn’t enough:  while the Senate is looking again at her nomination, Bush decided to put her in power through the backdoor, by making her a “senior advisor,” so that she can go ahead and do the job that the Senate decided last year she shouldn’t be allowed to do.

Remind the Senate that Dudley is unfit to have such enormous power to ruin your health and safety, and tell the White House not to use the Easter recess to give her a recess appointment.

Rotten Egg #2:  Michael Baroody

President Bush would be hard-pressed to find a more inappropriate nominee to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CSPC), the government agency charged with protecting consumers from dangerous products, than Michael Baroody.  Why?  Because Baroody has spent the past decade lobbying to undermine consumers’ rights.

As the head of advocacy efforts for the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), Baroody has spearheaded campaigns at both the federal and state levels to limit the ability of regulatory agencies like CPSC to protect us, and to bar consumers who have been injured from being able to go to court and demand justice.

NAM advocacy efforts include a wide-ranging strategy to influence elections. In conjunction with the Business Industry Political Action Committee (BIPAC) and other groups, NAM helps run the “Prosperity Project,” an effort to elect pro-business candidates.  2004 was a busy time for NAM and its “Prosperity Project” – which NAM claimed was a neutral voter education effort, although University of Minnesota political scientist Lawrence Jacobs thought otherwise:  “This is not nonpartisan, evenhanded campaign material,” he said, about literature distributed by Prosperity Project companies and associations.  “It’s material that’s subtly but clearly promoting one candidate at the expense of another.” While Baroody told the National Review that NAM did not endorse candidates, Baroody slammed 2004 Democratic nominees John Kerry and John Edwards as being “virtually in a league by themselves,” in terms of their credibility gap with manufacturers.

The White House has likely calculated that Baroody won’t pass the smell test in the Senate.  Tell the White House that a recess appointment of Baroody stinks.