CPSC's Ethics-Review Process For Travel Criticized by Experts

Ethics experts who reviewed the documents took issue with Nord's overall defense of industry-financed travel.

"It's never a good idea to have your expenses paid for by a party or parties who will be advocating on a matter before your agency," said a career ethics lawyer at another government agency who requested anonymity because he was not cleared to comment for the record. "It's legal . . . but it is clearly an abuse of discretion. . . . It exhibited at best enormous insensitivity, and at worst outright disdain for the ethical principles of government service."

Agency lawyers also signed off on a private jet trip for Stratton and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) to tour a Zippo lighter plant in Pennsylvania and to meet with industry lobbyists, according to the documents. The agency's formal request for an ethics review listed the jet service, not the regulated industry, as the provider of the free flight.

Written legal clearance for that trip was granted more than a week after the visit, although the agency said yesterday that the travel was also approved "orally" by its general counsel. The commission valued the private jet flight at $461, a fare predicated on the cost of the commercial fare back to Washington. At prevailing jet charter rates, the cost would have exceeded $1,500.

Listing the name of the jet company as a sponsor of the travel "raised tons of red flags," said the government ethics lawyer. "It would be like taking a trip to Paris and giving the names of the airlines and hotels as my sponsors."

In April 2004, Stratton took an $11,000 trip to China at the expense of the American Fireworks Standards Laboratory, which said in a letter that it wanted him to "see firsthand the challenges facing the U.S. industry in importing fireworks that comply with CPSC regulations." Stratton has said his nearly 25 industry-financed trips were good opportunities to be in contact with manufacturers. The CPSC said yesterday that it does not regulate that fireworks entity.

In February, Nord, who was a corporate lawyer before taking her post, was asked to recruit paying attendees for a meeting of lawyers who defend manufacturers in product-liability cases. In offering to pay for her trip, Defense Research Institute lawyer Steven Coronado wrote: "I do ask that you assist in marketing by using the brochures you have received and getting them into the hands of people you think might be interested in attending."

Danielle Brian, who directs the Project on Government Oversight, called the request "creepy." After reviewing documents for several trips, she said: "It's as if they're tone-deaf. . . . In every explanation for why 'it's not a conflict,' they make a forceful case for why it is."

In February, the International Consumer Product Health and Safety Organization -- a broad-based professional group -- balked at the agency's request that it pay for six commission employees to attend its meeting in Orlando. "We totally understand that the presence of the Consumer Product Safety Commission at our meetings is important to our success," the group's chief, Ross Koeser, wrote in an e-mail.

But "ICPHSO is a non-profit organization with an extremely tight budget," and Koeser countered with an offer to "pay for all the Chairman's expenses" and partial expenses for one staff member.

R. David Pittle, who was appointed by President Richard M. Nixon to help found the agency in 1973 and served as a commissioner until 1982, said: "The CPSC is the only thing standing between a consumer and a potentially dangerous product. . . . For me, it doesn't matter if these trips and gratuities pass some legal test -- it's highly inappropriate public policy."

Staff researchers Rena Kirsch and Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.