The CSPC is a federal administration agency. The current executive chairman was appointed by Obama, as were two of its three commissioners. Moreover, in its Feb 2009 Performance Budget report to Congress and the President, we can see that it had 396 employees in FY 2008, and planned to increase that number to 483 in FY 2009. Current reports state that they have over 500 employees (540, I believe). It's workforce has thus increased by about 37% during the tenure of his appointees.
We should also examine how those employees have been allocated.
Code:
2008 Actual:
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Fire Deaths 120 (30.3%) $20,811 (26.0%)
CO2 poisoning 6 ( 1.5%) $ 1,118 ( 1.4%)
Children and Other Hazards 188 (47.5%) $32,572 (40.7%)
Identifying Product Hazards 82 (20.7%) $17,447 (21.8%)
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Total 396 $79,948
2011 Plan:
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Fire Deaths 110 (20.8%) $19,036 (16.1%)
CO2 poisoning 8 ( 1.5%) $ 1,460 ( 1.2%)
Children and Other Hazards 321 (60.4%) $67,598 (57.2%)
Identifying Product Hazards 91 (17.2%) $30,106 (25.5%)
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Total 530 $118,200
You can see that the commissioners have steered significantly more resources into the "Children and Other Hazards" category during this administration, mainly at the expense of the "Fires Death" category.
After 2011, everything was re-categorized making it impossible to compare the current report to the 2008 data. That said, the 2011-2016 Strategic Plan identified its new goals, one of which is "Decisive Response -- Use the CPSC’s full range of authorities to quickly remove hazards from the marketplace." It is described thusly:
Quote:
The longer a hazardous product remains on store shelves and in homes, the greater the potential for that hazard to cause injuries and deaths. Moreover, both industry and consumer groups demand that response and enforcement efforts be predictable and carried out in a consistent manner. The passage of the CPSIA legislation expanded the CPSC’s rulemaking and regulatory authorities, but also increased the number of enforcement functions the agency must now carry out.
- In the U.S., over 500,000 retail firms sell consumer products.
- On average, the CPSC addresses 900 violations of consumer product safety rules each year.
- In 2009, the CPSC negotiated $9.8 million in civil penalties through out-of-court settlements.
You can see that pursuing civil litigation is a key component of their major policy goal to "quickly remove hazards from the marketplace". And if read their other reports, it becomes pretty clear that they equate the CPSIA (which is mostly responsible for their increased funding) almost exclusively with a child product safety mandate. We should not be surprised if the focus of their "Decisive Response" is on child safety. If this isn't the policy direction that Obama wants, then he isn't reading the strategy reports of his own appointees.
It's not inaccurate to describe the CPSC as being part of the Obama Administration. Neither would be inaccurate to say this case is characteristic of a stated policy agenda developed during Obama's tenure and formulated largely by Obama appointees. It also isn't a recent and unexpected change in direction. The shift in agency priorities is pretty easily seen in their various reports as early as 2009. Certainly it is not Obama's responsibility to
develop the policy of every executive agency. However, the purpose of issuing these reports to both congress
and the President is to facilitate feedback on policy. If it isn't the responsibility of the President as the head of the executive branch to steer the high-level goals and policies of federal executive agencies, then whose is it?
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