CPSC to Focus on FY2014 Plans; Nord Eyes Rule Review Plan

CPSC especially seeks input on three questions: “What are the priorities the Commission should consider emphasizing and dedicating resources toward in the fiscal year 2014 Congressional Budget Request?” “What activities should the Commission consider deemphasizing in the fiscal year 2014 Congressional Budget Request?” and “How should the Commission consider measuring its progress toward achieving its priorities in the fiscal year 2014 Congressional Budget Request?”

More information is in the June 4 Federal Register.

Nord Seeks Discussion of Review Plan

Meanwhile, Commissioner Nancy Nord May 31 on her blog (nancynord.net) urged that CPSC’s agenda include its regulatory review plan. She wrote, “I have asked that the rule review plan be put on the Commission’s agenda so that we can discuss it collegially and openly as a Commission. We have a public meeting on another matter scheduled for late June. While I hope that we can take up a regulatory review plan sooner, at a minimum, I hope that this item can be added to the agenda for the June meeting.”

She explained that her focus would be on how the agency can make broad changes rather than tweaks, comparing the latter to mere housekeeping, asserting:

“Minor regulatory housekeeping should be part of our everyday activity. That doesn’t require a major plan; major repairs do. The Commission’s plan should be an ‘ambitious and unprecedentedly open process for streamlining, improving, and eliminating regulations,’ to use the words of Cass Sunstein, director of the President’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. The end of this process should be a regulatory regime that protects the public’s health and safety while ensuring that American consumers, employers, manufacturers, and innovators face the lowest reasonable burden.”

She was referring to a series of executive orders seeking regulatory streamlining. Sunstein’s office is spearheading that effort. Though CPSC and other independent agencies were exempt, the White House has urged their participation. CPSC’s last October (PSL, 10/10/11, p. 1) thus launched an initiative to review its rules based on an earlier agency policy discontinued due to CPSIA-related resource constraints.

During its development, Nord wrote Sunstein (PSL, 9/12/11, p. 1) saying that the agency’s approach insufficiently looked at cost-benefit issues. When CPSC solicited feedback on the plan, one source of contention among commenters (PSL, 3/5/12, p. 1) was a proposed provision that only rules in place at least 10 years would get attention. That limitation, some wrote, would exclude CPSIA-related rules, which they said were those most in need of such attention.