The agenda-setting New York Times has been absent without reporting on the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act after agitating on its editorial pages (and in the news columns, really) for the CPSIA’s passage in 2008. If you’re going to sell a law, shouldn’t you report on its harmful effects?

Walter Olson at Overlawyered.com has been following the Times’ journalistic dereliction and today he reports the latest editorial bizarreness — a feature on the new-found chicness of used children’s products that doesn’t mention the CPSIA:

The New York Times, which to the amazement of many has printed scarcely a word about the catastrophic effects of the law it still defends, now runs a Fashion & Style story applauding what it identifies as a trend among affluent urban parents toward buying used products for their kids rather than always insisting on new (Sarah Wildman, “For Firstborns, Secondhand Fits the Bill“). But it never mentions the reason why those parents will find the selection of kids’ goods around the nation’s thrift shops to be much, much sparser than it was a year ago.

We need to figure out a PR strategy to tear off the editorial blinkers of the Times’ editors. Here’s an idea: Take the letter from the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s professional staff responding to questions from Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) about the CPSIA’s implementation. Stamp “Top Secret” over it, slip it into an envelope with stamps from Albania and Jordan (rendition!) and then have somebody from the CIA slip it to a Times reporter surreptiously.

It will be Page One, guaranteed.

Rep. John Dingell to former Vice President Al Gore, House Energy and Commerce Committee:

Nobody in this country realizes that cap and trade is a tax, and it’s a great big one.

Dingell asks: Cap and trade or a carbon tax?

Both, Gore replies.

(Hat tip: The Chilling Effect, which has video.)

As always, insightful commentary from Kim Strassel of the Wall Street Journal today looking at the excesses of Congress, in this case on global warming and cap-and-trade. In “Global Warming Overreach,” Strassel describes the resistence of House Democrats, Blue Dogs and others from energy and manufacturing states, to the coastalists, Chairmen Waxman and Markey.

Cap and trade was already going to be a brawl, but the two upped the ante by including tougher targets and restrictions. If that weren’t enough, they rolled in every other item on the green wish list: a renewable electricity standard; a low-carbon fuel standard; a broader renewable fuels policy; new efficiency standards. Any one of these is a monumental fight on its own. Put together they risk an intra-party committee mutiny.

The political risks are great for the Administration and Congressional Democrats, both.

The Obama team is aware it has trouble, which explains last week’s well-timed Environmental Protection Agency “finding” that carbon is a danger. The administration is now using this as a stick to beat Congress to act, arguing that if it doesn’t the EPA will. (Reality: Any EPA actions will be tied up in court for years.) It also helps explain EPA’s Monday analysis claiming the legislation won’t cost all that much. (Reality: The agency could only make this claim by assuming an endless recession.)

The real risk to the president is that his bill goes down at the hands of his own party — with nary a Republican to blame. Whether Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Waxman considered this as they crafted their gem is unclear. But the overreach has made it a possibility now.

Meanwhile, Chairman Waxman continues to work on a cap-and-trade bill based on sound science political favors. From The Examiner, “To get votes, Waxman offers cap-and-trade breaks.”

P.S. The Journal also editorializes, “Reckless ‘Endangerment‘”: “President Obama’s global warming agenda has been losing support in Congress, but why let an irritant like democratic consent interfere with saving the world? So last Friday the Environmental Protection Agency decided to put a gun to the head of Congress and play cap-and-trade roulette with the U.S. economy.”

And with the American people, too.

P.P.S. Both Strassel and the editorialists evoke the more balanced approach of former House Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell (D-MI). NAM President John Engler also talked about Dingell’s perspective on cap-and-trade during an interview this week on the Hugh Hewitt radio show. See transcript.

Wall Street Journal’s lead editorial today is on the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, “Pelosi’s Library Quarantine“:

It looks like “Jumanji” in local libraries these days, after the classic children’s book about chaos unleashed by the failure to heed warnings. In February, an overzealous law governing lead in products resulted in toys going from store shelves to the trash heap. Now, confusion over how the rules affect children’s books has led some libraries to rope off kids’ sections.

And the conclusion,

Nancy Pelosi boasted last summer that the toy safety law would mean products weren’t merely made differently in the future but would be removed from the shelves today. That’s the real source of this mayhem, as she was amply warned at the time by Democrat John Dingell, among others. Ms. Pelosi prevailed, and now the harm to thousands of businesses, charities and even public libraries is manifest. Since the House Speaker won’t admit a mistake and fix the law, the CPSC must do what it can to prevent more damage to the already challenging economy.

H.R. 4040 passed the House last year with just one no vote and three nays in the Senate. So let’s concede that passage of this extreme, unclear and economy-damaging legislation was a bipartisan mistake. And then let’s fix it.

Walter Olson at Overlawyered.com notes that while ATVs have drawn the most notice, kids bikes are also affected by the CPSIA’s inflexible, unreasonable lead standards.  And in the Bookroom Blog entry he links to, “Bikes and Kids,” the writer Valerie makes an important point about who’s being hurt by the CPSIA:

This wouldn’t occur to many in Washington, but in America the wide and ready availability of all kinds of used children’s products–books, educational supplies, clothing, toys, bikes and more–really is a mercy to low income families. Low-cost, minimally used children’s products can go a long way toward closing the gap between the wealthy and poor, in terms of childhood experience. CPSIA directly attacks one of the greatest blessings that disadvantaged families now enjoy in our advantaged country. Please, think about it.

Commissioner Thomas Moore of the Consumer Product Safety Commission on Friday submitted his own, separate letter in response to Rep. John Dingell’s request for information on the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act’s implementation. Moore, a Democratic appointee, did not join in signing the letter sent by Acting Commission Chairman Nancy Nord, a Republican.

Obviously, politics is at play. The CPSC is now split 1-1, with a vacancy for the third, Democratic appointee. Now that we see Moore’s letter, we’d guess Nord asked him to sign a joint letter and he declined. (See earlier post on Nord and the staff’s response.)

Unfortunately, Moore’s letter lacks the value of Nord’s communication, or rather, her submission of a 20-page, detailed assessment by the professional staff of the CPSIA’s critical flaws. His letter reads as if it were designed primarily for political self-preservation and to serve the purposes of Moore’s patrons on Capitol Hill. Bureaucratic CYA, in other words. For example:

[I] think that when the agency gets the third Commissioner we will be better able to address some of the concerns voiced by staff and by industry. Until then any legislative “fixes” are premature. Only the Commission should recommend what, if any, changes should be made to the CPSIA and no assumptions should be made that there are no other solutions than legislative ones until all three Commissioners have a voice in the matter.

Moore letter does not acknowledge the main issue: The CPSIA is a dismal failure, causing tremendous economic harm, destroying businesses and harming consumers. He’s telling small business owners, retailers, manufacturers, consumers, people forced to discard inventories, etc., that the CPSC will address their concerns soon enough, maybe, if the agency ever gets a chairman.

Billions of dollars being wasted but there’s no need for a legislative fix? That’s just not a serious response.

The text of the letter follows:

Dear Chairman Dingell:

Thank you for your letter of March4, 2009, regarding the Commission’s implementation of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA).

Nearly two years ago I stated that the CPSC was at a crossroads. We would either get more funding and more staff or we would continue a decline that would eventually result in the agency ceasing to be an effective force in consumer safety. At that same time, wave after wave of press stories about hazardous products that the agency hard purportedly not acted on in a timely manner were appearing and recall after recall involving lead were being announced. In response, Congress, and the citizens it represented, decided that not only should the agency survive but it should regain its lost stature. (continue reading…)

In a letter Friday to Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), the Consumer Product Safety Commission provided a detailed critique of the Consumer Product Safety Implementation Act, acknowledging the serious costs and obstacles the CPSIA has caused manufacturers, retailers and consumers. Every page carries a damning fact. Implementation of the law has “severely overstretched” the CPSC’s staff and resources, according to the commission, and the law itself is the source of the problems.

The CPSC’s frank assessment of the law’s burdens represents a clear justification for action by Congress. Congress simply can no longer pretend the disaster of the CPSIA is just a problem of agency implementation or a confused public.

The 20-page report carries extra weight because it comes from the agency’s top professional staff, whom Acting Commission Chairman Nancy Nord asked to respond to a March 4th letter from Dingell, a key subcommittee chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Nord, a Bush appointee, has been under fire from some Congressional critics and “consumer” groups, and she obviously realized having the career staff attest to the law’s many harmful results would remove any taint of politics. [For more on the bureaucratic/political dynamics of the commission, see this later post.]

Rep. Dingell’s questions covered all the major issues the public has been protesting: the high cost of product testing, extraordinarily broad definitions that cast too wide of a regulatory net, the lead limits that have no relationship to risk, the definition of children’s products as affecting kids as old as 12, and the law’s retroactive impact on already manufactured goods. There are discussions of ATVs, thrift store sales, and the handling of pre-1985 children’s books.

The many deadlines are unrealistic for both the public and the CPSC, the commission argues. One concludes that the law has no connection to its supposed raison d’etre — the minimizing of risks to children.

As with any regulatory agency, CPSC’s safety work must be prioritized to deal with the most significant risk; however, the deadlines mandated in the CPSIA have jeopardized our ability to meet Commission priorities and proven to be too much for a relatively small agency to handle all at once. Timely implementation is important, but the flexibility to prioritize our work to deal with the serious risks is equally important to maximize effectiveness and do the greatest good with the resources that we have been given.

What’s to be done? The CPSC’s staff recommends many things the NAM has called for, including the ability to provide product exemptions and extended deadlines.

There was really no excuse for Congressional inaction to begin with, but now the record explains in great, authoritative detail the terrible damage being caused by Congress’ refusal to act. Thanks to Congressman Dingell, Commissioner North and the CPSC’s professional staff for getting us to this point — finally.

From the CPSC conclusion:

In our view, we have been confronted with three major issues in implementing the CPSIA: (1) the retroactive application of requirements to inventory; (2) the broad reach of the legislative mandates given that “children’s product” is defined as a product for children 12 years of age or younger; and (3) the impact of the new testing and certification requirements for all consumer products and the third-party testing requirements for children’s products. (continue reading…)

Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) last week sent a letter to the Consumer Product Safety Commission asking 10  questions about the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. As chairman of the House Commerce Committee, Rep. Dingell was a voice for a little real-world balance last year when Congress considered H.R. 4040, the CPSIA. Unfortunately, the imbalanced Senate version wound up playing a bigger role in the writing of the final bill.

Which make Rep. Dingell’s inquiries good questions, but belated. For example:

4. Does CPSC have any suggestion for how to mitigate any such economic impact of the Act on small manufacturers of children’s products (e.g., component testing for lead and phthalate content) that, in accordance with the intent of the Act and the CPSC’s mission, will not compromise the health and safety of children using them?

5. What information has CPSC received about the impact of the Act on the availability of second-hand products for children, especially clothing?  It is my understanding that many second-hand stores now refuse to sell children’s products.  Does CPSC have any suggestions for how to mitigate any negative effects of the Act on second-hand stores for children’s products, especially in light of the recent economic downturn and the consequent increased need for low-cost sources of children’s clothing?

6. Does CPSC believe that the age limit contained in the Act’s definition of “children’s products” (i.e., 12 years and under) is appropriate?  If not, what should the age limit be?  Further, should CPSC have the discretion to lower the age limit for certain groups of children’s products for which the risk of harm from lead or phthalate exposure is remote to non-existent (e.g., snaps or zippers on children’s clothing)?

7. Although some youth all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) and youth motorcycles are intended for use by children under 12 years of age, does CPSC believe it is necessary that these products be tested for lead and phthalate content?  Similarly, does CPSC believe that these products present a risk to children for the absorption of phthalates or lead?

There has been an effort by some responsibility-shifting members of Congress to make the CPSC and especially Commissioner Nancy Nord the fall guy for the CPSIA’s many, many excesses. But ultimately, it’s the lawmakers who made the law, and it’s up to Congress to fix it.

To the extent Rep. Dingell’s questions and the answers due this Friday help in the writing of that law, good. Late, but good.

The Huffington Post is a good site for reviewing the thoughts of the left-leaning commentariat, slightly more sophisticated in its venting of spleen than more “community” blogs a la Daily Kos. On the topic of Rep. Henry Waxman’s selection to be Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee…

• Waxman Defeats Dingell, Blue Dogs Get Spanked

Jane Hamsher, 11.20.2008

This week the Senate voted to remain an exclusive club of self-protection and entitlement by letting Bush enabler Joe Lieberman keep his gavel, but the House has voted for progress.

Read Post | Comments (158)

• Will Waxman the Big Tobacco Fighter Take on Big Oil?

Kevin Grandia, 11.20.2008

Waxman is now in a position to haul the energy executives onto to the floor and expose this campaign just like he did with Big Tobacco.

Read Post | Comments (12)

• Obama’s Big Congressional Victory

Jacob Heilbrunn, 11.20.2008

Rep. Dingell, as the chair of the House energy and commerce committee, was nothing more than a shill for the auto industry, working overtime to suppress any attempts at controlling pollution or raising mileage limits.

Read Post | Comments

• Dingell to the Junk Yard: Henry Waxman Deposes John Dingell on House Energy Committee

Pete Cenedella, 11.20.2008

House Democrats voted 137-122 yesterday to elect Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, replacing the current chairman, Rep. John Dingell (D-MI. The move was significant in terms of practice, with Dingell’s seniority being trumped, as well as in terms of politics and policy, as Waxman is much more willing to aggressively regulate and direct the economy. So, a sample of the reaction…

• San Francisco Chronicle, “Waxman win boosts state’s clout in Congress“: “After years battling the Bush administration and Dingell over the state’s efforts to set the nation’s toughest limits on greenhouse gases, Californians now control both House and Senate committees that will be writing climate-change legislation. They will have key allies in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and President-elect Barack Obama, who just this week pledged rapid action on global warming.”

• Detroit Free Press, “Dingell’s ouster as committee chair a sea change in Michigan’s clout“: “In a historic week that saw Michigan’s prestige in the nation’s capital rapidly dwindle with automakers spurned in their request for billions of dollars in aid, Dingell, the state’s most powerful voice in the U.S. House of Representatives, was stripped of a key committee chairmanship….For decades, the post had allowed the Dearborn Democrat to promote and protect Michigan’s interests — especially the automotive industry….Rep. Thad McCotter, a Livonia Republican, characterized it as ‘a body blow’ to Michigan families.”

• Detroit News editorial, “Dingell’s defeat a victory for California extremists“: “The Democrats didn’t choose Rep. Henry Waxman to replace Dingell because the California Democrat is more charming or politically persuasive. They picked him because he advocates a radical approach to combatting global warming and other environmental threats, while Dingell has insisted on a more deliberate approach that balances the needs to protect both jobs and the environment.”

• Wall Street Journal editorial, “The Waxman Democrats — What the coup against Dingell means for business“: “We should add that Mr. Dingell is hardly some business apologist. At Energy and Commerce in the 1980s and early 1990s, Mr. Dingell would burn the paint off the committee room walls with his interrogations of energy, insurance and drug company executives. The irony is that Democrats have found, in Mr. Waxman, an even more extreme antibusiness tribune, who will no doubt use his new powers to go after any concern that turns a profit but refuses to pay his party the obeisance of campaign cash and regulatory submission. In short, the Democrats have ousted the dean of the House for the spleen of the House.”

  (continue reading…)

Big news day up on Capitol Hill.

Reuters, “Four U.S. senators reach bipartisan car aid deal”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Four U.S. senators have reached a bipartisan agreement on a bill to assist the struggling automotive industry, the lawmakers announced in a joint statement on Thursday.

A news conference was planned for 2.30 p.m. (7:30 p.m. GMT) “to discuss the details of a bipartisan agreement on a bill to support the auto industry,” the statement said.

The lawmakers involved are Michigan Democrats Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, as well as Ohio Republican George Voinovich and Missouri Republican Christopher Bond.

Would guess it deals with the $25 million already appropriated for “green”purposes, making its use more flexible, which seems a reasonable compromise. (NAM President John Engler yesterday issued a statement encouraging passage of an aid package.)

Elsewhere, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) defeated Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) in the Democratic caucus election — secret ballot! — for chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee. The seniority system suffers another blow, and it’s safe to say that the committee will take a substantially more environmentalist and pro-regulatory turn under Waxman’s leadership. (Frank O’Donnell of Clean Air Watch is delighted.)

Funny, though, how little is being written about the implications for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Under Rep. Waxman’s chairmanship, the committee represented an important base for various “consumer” groups and environmental activists and trial lawyers, a foundation from which they could gin up attacks against the Bush Administration decisions and be certain to get sympathetic news coverage.

One assumes that oversight of the Obama Administration is not high on the priority list for the House Democrats, and the environmentalists, regulatory fans and trial lawyers are more than satisfied with their access to both the Legislative and Executive Branches. House Oversight could well be one of the sleepiest backwaters in Congress next session.

That’s the consequence of elections.