Hillary targets husband's nominee for CPSC post

Human Events, Aug 6, 2001 by D'Agostino, Joseph A

Clinton Crusades Against Would-Be Consumer Product Safety Commission Chairwoman

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D.-N.Y.), picking her first fight with the Bush Administration, may have succeeded in killing the nomination of Mary Shelia Gall as chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). She is doing this even though her husband renominated Gall to the commission in 1999.

"Sen. Clinton has always had the greatest possible concern for children, and she believes that Mary Shelia Gall has not protected the interests of children as aggressively as she should have," said Clinton's spokeswomen, explaining the senator's crusade against the nominee. Others say, however, that Clinton is acting at the urging of the CPSC's current liberal activist chairman, Democratic socialite Ann Brown.

On August 2, the Senate Commerce Committee rejected Gall on a party-line vote, 12 to 11. When ranking Republican member John McCain (Ariz.) moved to have the nomination sent to the Senate floor anyway, that motion was also defeated on a party-line vote.

Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R.-Miss.) said after the committee action, "It's not over." Earlier in the week, he had said, "I think part of what's going on here is that there are some Democrats that want to keep the current chairman, Ann Brown, in place at the Consumer Product Safety Commission. I have urged the administration to take steps to remove her."

According to the Republican staff of the Senate Commerce Committee, the President could remove Brown as chairwoman of the CPSC, though not from the CPSC itself. Then Vice Chairman Thomas Moore, a Democrat, would become chairman. But, instead, it might be possible for Bush to make a temporary recess appointment of Gall as chairwoman-an act sure to infuriate Senate Democrats.

The White House did not return calls seeking comment. In 1999, no Senate Democrat objected when President Clinton renominated Gall, who was first appointed to the commission in 1991 by the first President Bush.

The basic Democratic argument against Gall is that she is not reflexively anti-business.

Her two commission votes that have drawn the most fire focus on children's cribs and bunk beds and revolve around her belief that voluntary safety standards ought to be given time to work before mandatory federal regulation are enacted.

In 1996, said Sen. McCain in the committee, Gall voted against a regulation on crib slates "commenting that the voluntary standards process had not been given time to work, but cautioning that regulation might still be required if the voluntary process proved inadequate." Voluntary standards were subsequently adopted.

Consumer Alert and Democratic CPSC Vice Chairman Thomas Moore have endorsed Gall's nomination.

At her hearing, Gall defended her vote on the bunk-bed regulation. "It pertained to a voluntary standard that was being introduced automatically, to be accepted by the commission as a mandatory standard. Our regulations and our law tells us we must look first to voluntary standards before, to see if they cover the issue and deal with the problem, and secondly, if there's substantial compliance," she said.

"When the issue was brought to the commission in a briefing, there was over 90% compliance with the voluntary standard- over 90%. 1 asked the staff if they were aware of a single instance of where a company was not in compliance with [the] voluntary standard, and they said no."

"Mary Gall," said White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer, "is a committed consumer advocate, and the Senate Commerce Committee has lost its opportunity to confirm a fair and dedicated chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission."