Trump Wants Manufacturers’
Representatives Overseeing Product Safety Agency
By
Sarah Okeson
Trump is putting
people with long histories opposing product safety in charge of the agency
responsible for product safety.
He has re-nominated
attorney Ann Marie Buerkle, who is abetting the
portable generator industry as it kills about 70 people a year, to head
the Consumer
Product Safety Commission.
He has also
re-nominated Boston attorney Dana Baiocco to the commission.
Baiocco represented Yamaha in lawsuits brought by
the families of boys injured while riding all-terrain vehicles.
Baiocco’s husband, Andrew Susko, was involved in defending Ikea against three lawsuits filed by families of children who died after the company’s dressers tipped over on top of them.
Baiocco’s husband, Andrew Susko, was involved in defending Ikea against three lawsuits filed by families of children who died after the company’s dressers tipped over on top of them.
“The Trump
administration is filling the nation’s chief consumer product safety agency
with friends of big business whose main
aim is to weaken health and safety standards and increase profits,” said
attorney Remington A. Gregg of Public
Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group.
Portable generators are one of the deadliest consumer products on the market. A 5,000-watt portable generator gives off as much carbon monoxide an hour as 450 idling mid-sized late-1990s cars.
From 2005 to 2016, 849 people died from carbon monoxide poisoning from portable generators. Another 2,800 suffered from carbon-monoxide poisoning but didn’t die.
Buerkle, currently the
acting chair of the commission, was the only commissioner in November 2016 to vote against a
proposal to force manufacturers to cut carbon monoxide emissions.
Sen. Bill
Nelson (D-Fla.) questioned Buerkle in September about deaths
from portable generators. At least 11 people using portable generators died after
Irma, and many more died after hurricanes Harvey and Maria, especially in
Puerto Rico.
“How many more deaths from generators in the aftermath of
hurricanes are we going to have to see before the Consumer
Product Safety Commission, looking out for consumer safety, finally gets around
to saying: enough?” Nelson asked.
The Senate Committee
on Commerce, Science & Transportation committee voted 14-13 along party
lines to approve Buerkle’s nomination and Baiocco’s nomination, but the full Senate
didn’t vote on them.
Joseph Martyak, the
commission spokesman, said he believes the Senate committee will have to vote
again on the two, but confirmation hearings will not be held again. The
nominations weren’t carried over to this year because of opposition from Senate Democrats.
Buerkle, a former New York congresswoman, likes to
say that the Consumer Product Safety Commission under Obama made
decisions based too often on emotion.
“We have to rely on data,” Buerkle told
the American
Home Furnishings Alliance. She also supports voluntary
standards.
Here is some data. The
Consumer Product Safety Commission has estimated that 208 of the 503 deaths from carbon monoxide from 2004 to
2012 could have been prevented if the amount of carbon monoxide
that generators emit was limited.
One
manufacturer, Techtronic Industries, which has been
called a “rogue company” by an employee at a
competitor, is making and selling safer portable generators.
ACTION BOX/What You Can Do About It
Call the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science &
Transportation at 202-224-1251 to tell them you don’t want
Trump to pack the Consumer Product Safety Commission with industry friends who
will stand by as people are killed or maimed by unsafe products. You can write
the committee at 512 Dirksen Senate Building, Washington DC, 20510. A list of
members is here.
Public
Citizen can be reached at 202-588-1000.