Surrender, Nancy!

Yesterday I argued [1] that Consumer Product Safety Commission acting chair Nancy Nord really should resign. Today, what can I add? That she really, really, really should resign.

Today's Washington Post. [2] Page A1: "The chief of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and her predecessor have taken dozens of trips at the expense of the toy, appliance, and children's furniture industries and others they regulate.... Some of the trips were sponsored by lobbying groups and lawyers representing the makers of products linked to consumer hazards."

I love the excuses. There was an $11,000 junket to China and Hong Kong by the "American Fireworkds Standards Laboratory" (a "laboratory" based in an office suite in Bethesda). The fireworks folks say it was entirely kosher, because "the group had not pending regulatory requests." But then they brag in their organization newsletter about their pending regulatory requests.

The contrast with the Clinton Administration is revealed to be stark: back in the days before E. coli conservatism ruled the White House, government consumer regulators paid for their trips out of government budgets.

I love this detail, too: "50 percent of the CPSC budget is used for children's products." Then why does the CPSC hire but a single tester for toys? [3]

I love this one, too: Nancy Nord got a $2,000 trip to New Orleans to attend a meeting on "product litigation trends" before a group of corporate defense lawyers. It only makes sense. Before becoming the government official responsible for regulating the behavior corporate defense lawyers, she was executive director of the American Corporate Counsel Association. [4]

President Bush, just give her a Medal of Freedom and be done with it already.