Nancy Nord is the worst kind of government official: more interested in protecting the businesses she is supposed to regulate than protecting the consumer. Surprisingly, the Chicago Tribune editorial board agrees with me.
Nancy Nord, the acting chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, has to go. If she won’t quit, fire her.
Nord ought to be too embarrassed to stay on the job. She spent the last few months working to weaken Congress’ efforts to strengthen her own agency. Fortunately, Congress didn’t listen to her. The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act was approved overwhelmingly in the House and Senate.
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The act authorizes more money for the commission, hikes fines for companies that violate product-safety rules, and makes more information about potentially dangerous products available to consumers.
It virtually bans lead in toys. It requires manufacturers to test the safety of toys and baby products—through independent third-party labs—before they hit store shelves.
Nord argued against many of those provisions. She doesn’t want the commission to have more power to do its job.
and the real reason Nord should be forced to resign sooner than later:
Nord is far too cozy with manufacturers, lobbyists and industry lawyers to lead the oversight work of the commission. As the Tribune’s Patricia Callahan reported, Nord, and her predecessor, Hal Stratton, went on dozens of junkets that were paid for, at least in part, by the industries her agency regulates.
In a speech last May, as a conference committee was crafting the compromise safety bill, Nord urged the National Retail Federation to push back. Among the things she suggested they fight: The provision to make product safety information available to the public in a searchable Internet database.