US safety chief under fire to quit after Halloween toy scare
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Top Democratic lawmakers demanded Tuesday the resignation of the US consumer product safety chief and unveiled plans for stiffer enforcement laws after Halloween toys became the latest tainted made-in-China goods to be recalled.
Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi led her colleagues from the Democratic Party in calling on Nancy Nord, the chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), to quit amid more discoveries of tainted toys.
"I call on the president of the United States to ask for the resignation," Pelosi told a news conference at Capitol Hill with other lawmakers by her side.
To drive home her message, she displayed a collection of tainted toys and particularly waved a colorful top, whose lead content was found to be 200 times higher than permitted under law.
Also Tuesday, the CPSC came under fire in a expert report for lack of staff -- it has only one full-time toy tester -- and capability in examining imported items.
Nord, an appointee of President George W. Bush, has stood firm against proposed legislation seeking to increase the agency's authority and staff, double its budget and increase the maximum penalties for safety violations.
Her stand was largely in line with the broadly deregulatory approach of the Bush administration.
"The agency's toy-testing department consists of one man who drops toys on the floor in his office to see if they break," said the expert report by liberal advocacy group Campaign for America's Future.
The CPSC also has only 15 port inspectors, "not enough to protect a continent-sized country" that imports nearly two trillion dollars in goods every year, said the report "Toxic Trade - Globalization and the Safety of the American consumer."
"The understaffing and the increasing imports create a toxic combination," the report said, calling for an urgent review of laws and inspection methods to protect children from risks.
Pelosi said, "Any commission chair who ..., in the face of the facts that are so clear, says we don't need any more authority or any more resources to do our job, does not understand the gravity of the situation and does not understand the concerns parents have for the safety of their children."
In a scary run-up to Halloween, the CPSC has recalled a record number of products for lead violations, including buckets to collect candy and costume teeth for children for the fun festival.
The Toy Industry Association claims that 80 percent of the toys Americans buy are Chinese imports and this year, Chinese imports cost American consumers 40 cents of every dollar they spent on toys.
The value of toys and puzzle parts from China rocketed from 1.2 billion dollars in 1990 to 7.4 billion dollars last year, it said.
The CPSC reports that more than half of its product recalls are of products originating in China.
Jean Halloran, a director at Consumers Union, another advocacy group, said that over the summer, more than 20 million toys manufactured in China were recalled in the United States because of lead paint and other hazards, despite the fact that lead paint was banned on toys 30 years ago.
The Democratic-controlled Congress expects to introduce a wide-ranging toy and child product safety legislation "in a matter of a few days," said Bobby Rush, the head of a House panel on commerce, trade and consumer protection.
The "Comprehensive Consumer Product Safety Bill" will ban lead from children's products and paint, require mandatory testing of such products by independent third-party laboratories and ban unsafe and untested imported products, congressional aides said.
One Democratic lawmaker, Rosa DeLauro, has proposed quadrupling penalties from 250,000 dollars to one million dollars on companies linked to tainted products.
