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President Obama Nominates Two to CPSC Posts

Agency leadership to expand, will receive 71 percent more funding

Kids Today Staff -- Gifts and Dec, 5/12/2009 12:53:00 PM

Washington — President Barack Obama Tuesday announced his intent to nominate Inez Moore Tenenbaum as chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and Robert S. Adler as a new commissioner. Furthermore, in the President’s budget, the CPSC receives $107 million, a 71 percent increase in resources since fiscal year 2007. This is almost three quarters of the way to meeting the President’s goal of doubling CPSC’s funding.

According to a media release, Obama believes strongly in the mission of the CPSC: To protect the public, especially children, from unreasonable risks of serious injury or death from consumer products, including children’s products such as toys and strollers.

For more than 15 years, CPSC has operated with three commissioners. To revitalize the agency, Obama is going to expand the commission later this summer, adding two commissioners. If confirmed, Adler would fill one of these new posts.

“It is a top priority of my administration to ensure that the products the American people depend on are safe. We must do more to protect the American public — especially our nation’s children — from being harmed by unsafe products,” Obama said. “I am confident that Inez and Bob have the commitment and expertise necessary to fill these roles and raise the standard of safety. 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.”

Tenenbaum was elected South Carolina’s state superintendent of education in 1998 and completed her second term in 2007. During her tenure as 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. At the end of her tenure, the prestigious journal Education Week ranked South Carolina number one in the country for the quality of its academic standards, assessment, and accountability systems.

Commissioner nominee Adler has a breadth of experience in consumer product safety issues and an extensive knowledge of the CPSC. He is currently a professor of legal studies and the Luther H. Hodges, Jr. Scholar in Law & Ethics at the University of North Carolina 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 1973 to 1984 as an attorney-advisor to two commissioners at the CPSC in Washington, D.C. One of the commissioners for whom he worked was David Pittle, an original appointee at the inception of the CPSC.

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