Critics call U.S. consumer agency toothless

By Diane Bartz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The agency charged with protecting the American public from dangerous consumer products is toothless and understaffed, according to its critics.

These critics say that it would take a complete overhaul of the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission's mission and a huge increase in its $63 million budget to give it the clout needed to scrutinize the trillions of dollars in goods that are made in or imported into the United States each year.

While this may not happen, Congress is expected to take some steps to strengthen the agency after a barrage of recent recalls of Chinese-made toys, tires and other consumer goods.

Most recently, on Tuesday, Mattel Inc said it would recall more than 800,000 toys for excessive lead levels, its third such recall this summer.

Experts point out that the CPSC was designed to cooperate with corporations rather than police them. And the fines it can levy are limited to $1.25 million even for companies with billions of dollars in annual revenues.

Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, says the agency is outmanned and outgunned.

"The laws are written sadly in a way to make it next to impossible to protect consumers," he said. "401 (CPSC) employees today trying to manage trillions of dollars in products ... Even with a strong law, they do not have enough cops on the beat."

Durbin has proposed a bill to increase the maximum penalty for companies failing to quickly report hazards to the CPSC to $20 million -- perhaps resolving at least one of the issues.