Former S.C. Schools Chief Chosen to Be Top Consumer Advocate

President Obama has tapped a politically skilled former schools chief from South Carolina to chair the Consumer Product Safety Commission and said he will boost funding at the agency, which has been struggling greatly with dwindling resources and leadership problems.

Obama yesterday nominated Inez Moore Tenenbaum, a lawyer who was elected by wide margins to two terms as South Carolina schools superintendent. She was an early Obama supporter who helped him win a bitterly fought presidential primary in her home state last year.

Obama also announced yesterday he was nominating Robert S. Adler for one of two additional seats on the commission, which is being expanded from three to five members. Adler, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is well known to consumer advocates. He worked as a lawyer at the commission for 11 years, was a staffer to Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and for the past 20 years has served on the board of directors of Consumers Union, the nonprofit consumer watchdog.

Tenenbaum and Adler must be confirmed by the Senate. Consumer activists and manufacturing groups yesterday expressed support for both.

If approved, Tenenbaum would replace acting commission chairman Nancy Nord, who was appointed by George W. Bush and whose tenure grew so contentious in recent months that several Democrats on Capitol Hill called for her resignation. Nord even wrote to Obama and asked that he replace her as chairman, though she plans to remain on the commission.

Nord, a former Eastman Kodak lobbyist, came under fire for accepting at least three trips, worth thousands of dollars, from industries that her agency regulates. She has said the travel was approved by agency lawyers; critics said it created ethical problems.

Nord was in charge during recent scandals involving tainted animal food, contaminated infant formula and toys coated in lead paint. After Congress passed sweeping changes to consumer product safety laws last summer, Democrats accused Nord of trying to undermine them.

"This commission was absolutely crippled by inattention," said Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), who said Nord rebuffed efforts by Congress to strengthen the agency. "It was absolutely amazing to me that she resisted our efforts to give that commission more authority to deal with dangerous products."

An agency spokesman said Nord expects to remain on the commission to serve out her term, which expires in 2012. But some lawmakers insisted that she go. "The president has signaled it's time for new leaders who are on the side of consumers -- I think it would be appropriate for Nancy Nord to offer her resignation," Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) said in a statement yesterday.