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Obama Names New Consumer Product Safety Chair, Boosts Budget

Embattled agency would get enhanced funding, more commissioners

May 5, 2009

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President Obama is nominating a South Carolina educator to chair the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and is proposing a 71 percent increase in the struggling agency's budget, the White House announced today. Obama also wants to expand the commission by adding two additonal commissioners.

Inez Moore Tenenbaum, former Superintendent of Education in South Carolina, is Obama's pick to head the commission, replacing interim chair Nancy Nord, a Republican holdover who has criticized new consumer safety regulations as being too broadly written. Obama is also nominating Robert S. Adler, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, to fill a new seat on the three-member commission.

"It is a top priority of my administration to ensure that the products the American people depend on are safe," Obama said. "We must do more to protect the American public – especially our nation’s children – from being harmed by unsafe products."

In a final favor to industry, Nord's CPSC is allowing retailers of youth-model all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) to sell their existing inventory even if it does not meet new safety standards. The ATV industry has said it should not have to meet the new standards which regulate the amount of lead that is permissible in children's products.

If the CPSC receives the $107 million Obama is proposing, it would be "almost three quarters of the way to meeting the President's goal of doubling CPSC’s funding," the White House statement noted.

Later this summer, Obama will expand the commission to include five commissioners, with Adler tagged to fill one of those slots. Although she is being replaced as chair, Nord is expected to serve out the remainder of her term as commissioner.

"The addition of extra Commissioners is tangible evidence of President Obama’s commitment to restoring the health of the agency, and will ensure opportunity for additional viewpoints to be expressed at the top of the agency," the White House said.

Tenenbaum

"Tenenbaum has been an energetic and determined advocate for children and families and has extensive experience in administrative and regulatory matters," the White House statement said. "During her tenure as South Carolina's State Superintendent of Education, student achievement in South Carolina improved at the fastest rate in the nation, with scores increasing on every state, national, and international tests administered."

Tenenbaum also ran as the Democratic candidate for retiring Democrat Fritz Hollings' seat in the U.S. Senate in 2004. She previously practiced health, environmental, and public interest law with the firm Sinkler & Boyd.

Adler is currently a Professor of Legal Studies at the University of North Carolina and the Luther H. Hodges, Jr. Scholar in Law & Ethics at Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. Before joining the UNC faculty, Adler served as Counsel on the Committee on Energy and Commerce where he advised on CPSC legislative and oversight issues under the leadership of Henry Waxman. Prior to that, he spent eleven years (from 1973-1984) as an attorney-advisor to two commissioners at the CPSC.

"I am confident this new leadership at the CPSC will revitalize the agency and achieve the high standard of product safety that the American people deserve," Obama said.

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