The Woman Who Has Become the Symbol of Toxic Trade

It hasn't been easy, but Nancy "No Action" Nord has become the symbol of toxic trade, an odd position for the acting chairman of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Yet, she's truly earned the warning red circle and slash over her image and the demands for her resignation that came this week from U.S. Senators and Congressmen.

The lawmakers were outraged because Nord rebuffed their offers to beef up her anorexic agency. She told the Senate Commerce Committee she didn't like and didn't need its Consumer Product Safety Commission Reform Act of 2007 that would more than double the agency's budget over seven years; give her 400-member staff another 100 workers, and increase its fining power from the current $1.85 million to $100 million.

Nord snubbed the committee despite the fact that her budget and staff are just about half of what they were when the agency began operations in 1974. She preferred to refuse help although imports have quadrupled since then, and the CPSC has been inundated recently with recalls of dangerous imports, from tires to toothpaste to toys.

No, thank you, she told the Commerce Committee. If you give me all that money and responsibility, my little old agency will be overwhelmed and unable to even continue the crappy job it's doing.

No question about the crappy job. Consider this: Americans pay their tax dollars to support the CPSC, which then uses that money to conspire with corporations that make products that injure American consumers. It's true. Here's how it works.

Manufacturers and retailers are required to report defects to the CPSC, and the commission may order a recall if the product poses a safety threat or violates a standard, but the CPSC usually does not alert the public to the danger until it reaches an agreement with the manufacturer concerning the recall. In other words, Americans pay the CPSC to negotiate a recall while Americans continue to be endangered.

And that's the way Nord likes it. She told the Commerce Committee she objected to its attempts to lessen confidentiality.

Who is this woman? Well, before the CPSC, she was a lobbyist and an official at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Yes, the Chamber of Commerce, not some chamber of consumers. She's on the side of business. That's how she became the symbol of toxic trade.

Still, she didn't do it all by herself. She had a lot of help from the Bush administration, which, of course, appointed her.

She was part of the Bush plan, which works like this. Get as many free trade deals as quickly as possible so that American corporations can move their manufacturing operations overseas, where labor and environmental regulations are lax or nonexistent. At the same time, gut federal agencies like the CPSC that provide consumers with some protection from dangerous imports. The bottom line for corporations: huge profits. And if they just happened to be big-time Republican campaign contributors, all the better.

The bottom line for the rest of us: lost jobs, lost consumer protection and now, potentially, lost retraining as Bush threatens to veto legislation to provide aid for workers displaced by international trade.

That is what the Bush administration means when it talks about smaller government. That is the outcome it wants.

Well, if Nord is a true believer in small government, she should do us all a favor and accede to those calls for her resignation from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, and Congressmen Bobby Rush of Illinois and Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut

That would at least reduce government by one. The result would be that CPSC, which is supposed to be overseen by a five-member board, would be reduced to a board of one -- Thomas H. Moore. He's a holdover from the administration of former President Bill Clinton.

Only two people serve on the board because small-government, hobbled-oversight Bush failed to name replacements for three members who have resigned. The result was a board without a quorum. As Bush continued to dawdle on appointing anyone, Congress passed special legislation last summer to permit the two-member board to act. Still, it has done nothing under the leadership of acting chair Nord.

It is time for "No-Action" Nord to resign and return to the Chamber of Commerce where she belongs. It is time for Thomas H. Moore to take over the CPSC because he actually believes in its mission. He supported the CPSC Reform Act of 2007, which the Commerce Committee agreed to send to the Senate floor for a vote, despite Nord's opposition. Perhaps Congress can pass special legislation permitting a one-member board to act. It certainly would be better than the Nord "No-Action" board.

Meanwhile. a more comprehensive solution would be negotiating fair trade deals that respect international environmental and labor laws while at the same time putting in place proper mechanisms here to protect Americans from hazardous imported products.

Comments

[drblack]

We wouldn't be trading with China if Bill Clinton had not given Most Favored Nation status to Red Communist China. He was sold out just like Hillary or Bush.
We need some people with real integrity in office and the American people have got to stop buying Red Communist Chinese products whenever possible.
Free trade is no good without Fair trade. That means good pay and decent treatment of workers and high quality of products.
Why are we helping this Communist country become stronger then the USA?

[whimsicalpig]

Why does any of this surprise anyone. Aside from promising to return America to a 1950's Ozzie & Harriet idealsim (which it can't) all the Republican party ever stood for was corporate greed. While libertariansim sounds alot like freedom for the individual, it also means freedom for the corporation to do as it pleases. Wake up!

[DietrichMoody]

Answer me? WHAT YOUNG HAVE BEEN HURT BY LED PAINT??? Whole generations of baby boomers grew up with and surrounded by toxicity, including smoking parents, we are still here. It is just that the standards have changed since the 1950's and 1960's on toys, pretty sounds they are going to have to be organic!!!

I'm with Nord, WE DON'T WANT TO START HIRING A BUNCH OF LAWYERS.. And that's who is pushing for her resignation, the Lawyer's Lobby. So they can start suing and these issue will all be about "pain and damage" and more money for greedy lawfirms and lawyers.

We need to progress with and maintain tort reform.

[tandrmcdonald]

When my kids were little, Mattel and Fisher-Price were pretty much the gold standard in kids' toys. Safe wasn't in the equation. Mattel was a company that could stand tall in the market place on a base of honesty, ethics and that much-flogged term American values. They provided jobs and a good standard of living to a few generations of Americans. They had a reputation they were justifiably proud of. Then something changed. Bottom line ethics took over in the corporate offices and Mattel/Fisher-Price joined the Church of Fatter Profit Margins.
Honesty gave way to plausible deniability.
Ethics were replaced with expediency.
American values were nothing more than a marketing tool.
American jobs were shipped to countries with the cheapest labor rates.
Now Mattel/Fisher-Price has become synonymous with cheap and everything that word implies.
I won't buy their toys for my grandchildren because their toys are not safe.
I'm asking for a nationwide boycott of Mattel/Fisher-Price products that will last until they, literally, clean up their act.
The only thing the Mattel/Fisher-Price executives understand is the bottom line. If their bottom line starts shrinking they might give the quaint notion of safe toys a closer look.
Gramma Rose

[TheHandyman]

Another case of Republicans saying that the government can't do anything right and then proves it by deliberately appointing people who do everything they can to keep the government from doing their job.

Bush screams that Congress is dragging its heels on appointing all those right-wing judges but he can't find anyone incompetent enough, or with the political acumen to gut the CPSC faster by sitting on its board.

Pelosi, I hope you spend an eternity regretting taking impeachment off the table. As much as the shrub and his accomplices have hurt this country, you have helped them continue it by refusing to do the only thing that could have stopped it!

[wm1066]

Nord was on C-span wednesday being asked carefully crafted questions to make her look good. Her legacy is a woman who makes a profit off the pain and damage done to our young.Shame on her!