Hal Stratton, the chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, traveled to West Virginia, Alaska and New Mexico last year to conduct hearings on the dangers of all-terrain vehicles, which have been linked to nearly 1,000 deaths and 316,000 injuries between 2000 and 2002.
"It occurred to us that we don't see many ATVs driving around Washington," Stratton was quoted as saying in Albuquerque, his hometown. "So we decided to go to places where people are actually using them."
Some consumer advocates are critical of Hal Stratton's CPSC.
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In the year since the last hearing, the three-member commission has not acted on a 2002 petition by a coalition of consumer, safety and environmental groups that wants to ban the use of ATVs by children under 16.
To consumer and safety advocates, the ATV hearings are a good example of Stratton's two-year tenure at the CPSC: a lot of motion, but little to show for it.
They note that Stratton has taken dozens of other trips, many paid for by industry groups. His travels included visits to China, Costa Rica, Belgium, Spain and Mexico. During the same period, critics add, the commission has held few public meetings -- three so far this year -- and issued only one new safety rule.
"There has been a paucity of regulatory activity, even meetings leading up to regulatory activity," said Sally Greenberg, senior product safety counsel for Consumers Union.
"Instead of a culture of consumer protection, it seems there is a culture of caution and delay," Rep. Janice D. Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said at a recent congressional hearing on the agency's safety standards. At the hearing, five consumer and safety activists complained that the agency, which has 471 employees and an annual budget of about $60 million, has been hampered by both weak laws and a hesitant leader. The result, they said, is that the commission is not moving quickly enough to remove unsafe products from the marketplace and is failing to sufficiently publicize recalls when it does.
To Stratton and many industry groups, his tenure has been a success. Officials from regulated industries praise him for running the agency without the antagonism they say characterized the term of his predecessor, Democrat Ann Brown, who frequently appeared on morning news shows criticizing manufacturers while alerting the public about unsafe products.
"He's gone out there and tried to stress that the agency is not one to be feared but one to work with," said Frederick Locker, general counsel of the Toy Industry Association in New York.
Stratton cancelled an interview last week and responded to questions only by e-mail through spokesman Eric Criss. Criss cited the creation of a recall Web site (www.recalls.gov) as one of the chairman's accomplishments, as well as "tough enforcement of safety regulations through civil penalties." Yesterday, the agency announced two $500,000 fines, one on Sears, Roebuck and Co., the other split between treadmill manufacturer Johnson Health Tech Co. and importer Horizon Fitness Inc., for allegedly failing to report defects on products that were eventually recalled.
