Trouble at the top for safety agency

Nancy Nord, the country’s top cop when it comes to consumer product safety, is troubled. I know that because she repeatedly said so when we spoke the other day.

“I’m terribly troubled by all this,” she said.

What’s all this? All this is legislation approved by a Senate panel last week that would significantly beef up the Consumer Product Safety Commission with more money and more power.

With about 20 million kids’ toys being recalled in recent months because of lead paint and other hazards, critics say the commission is in dire need of overhaul.

They say the commission lacks the resources to adequately oversee the thousands of products under its jurisdiction -- and to save lives, such as two infants who died in defective cribs, prompting the September recall of a million Graco and Simplicity baby beds.

Yet Nord, who was appointed to the commission by President Bush, said thanks but no thanks to the Senate’s offer. She warned in a recent letter to lawmakers that the provisions of the bill “would harm product safety and put the American people at greater risk.”

Nord’s background suggests that the interests of consumers haven’t always been her primary concern. Along with having worked for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, she previously was employed by the law firm Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson & Hand, one of Washington’s top lobbyists.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the firm’s clients as of 2002 included General Electric, General Motors and other leading manufacturers and retailers.

Nord’s opposition to greater product-safety enforcement powers prompted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats to call last week for her to resign as acting chair of the commission. Pelosi said Nord “does not understand the gravity of the situation.”

This troubled Nord.

“I am troubled that the congressional leadership would call for my resignation just for calling it as I see it,” she told me. “For me to be questioned for doing my job is very troubling.”

The bill, SB 2045, covers a lot of ground. It would boost the commission’s budget from about $63 million to nearly $142 million by 2015 and increase its staff by 20%.

It would raise the cap on penalties for safety violations from $1.8 million to a more-attention-getting $100 million, ban lead in kids’ products and make it illegal to sell recalled goods.

The bill also would provide new protections for industry whistle-blowers -- without whom many potentially lethal defects might never come to light -- and make it easier to prosecute corporate executives who willfully violate safety laws.

If you’re in the product safety business, what’s not to like?

“My concern is that the legislation imposes a number of new requirements on the agency but it doesn’t fund them,” Nord said. “It doesn’t increase our budget. All it does is give us permission to increase our budget.”

Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), who sponsored the bill and heads the Senate’s subcommittee on consumer affairs, responded that this makes no sense. He said the way it typically works in Washington is that funding for a program is approved and then actual funds are appropriated from the budget.

“What Nord’s saying is a bogus argument,” Pryor said. “There are authorizing bills and then there’s appropriation. That’s always the case.”

He said he can’t fathom how a product safety regulator would turn up her nose to an offer of more cash and more resources.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is responsible for overseeing more than 15,000 types of products. It now has about 400 staffers, fewer than half the number on hand when the agency was established in 1973.

“We’re trying to give the Consumer Product Safety Commission the tools it needs for today’s marketplace,” Pryor said. “Our marketplace has been flooded with products that don’t meet U.S. safety standards.”

He added: “The commission is an agency in distress. We’re trying to help it.”

The Consumer Product Safety Commission needs all the help it can get. Yet the Bush administration, which also opposes Pryor’s bill, has consistently demonstrated that consumer safety is low on its priority list.

The three-person commission has been without a chair since July 2006, when Bush appointee Hal Stratton left to take a job with a law firm that specializes in attacking class-action lawsuits filed by consumers.

As of Jan. 15, the commission lacked a quorum and was restricted from taking action on regulatory matters or civil penalties. That power was temporarily restored in August but only for the remainder of the year.

In March, Bush nominated Michael Baroody, a top manufacturing-industry lobbyist, to serve as chairman of the commission. Baroody withdrew from consideration two months later, after senators demanded copies of his severance agreement with the National Assn. of Manufacturers.

On Friday, the Washington Post reported that Nord and Stratton took “dozens of trips at the expense of the toy, appliance and children’s furniture industries and others they regulate.” The Post’s story cited internal commission documents.

Commission insiders tell me that it’s possible Bush won’t bother nominating another candidate to fill the open chair. They say the administration may instead run out the clock with only two product safety commissioners and potentially limited authority to regulate consumer goods.

For her part, Nord says she’s not going anywhere. And she’s not going to change her tune.

“I am going to continue to speak out on public policy issues that impact the country,” she said.

After she says her piece, though, Nord may want to devote a bit more attention to keeping people safe. That’s all anyone’s asking for.

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Consumer Confidential runs Wednesdays and Sundays and frequently in between. Send your tips or feedback to david.lazarus@latimes.com.