Next week, Understanding Government will be rolling out a highly entertaining and trenchant look at the Consumer Product Safety Commission's stormy history. There might even be pictures.

The cliche about the CPSC is that they're "the little federal agency that couldn't" -- a tiny bureaucracy that's been politically marginalized. But that ...

The Wall Street Journal's Melanie Trotman took an in-depth look yesterday at the Consumer Product Safety Commission's notoriously ineffective recall process. In a nine-month period ending in June, the federal product safety agency announced a record-setting 415 product recalls. Yet consumers ...

The New York Times' editorializes today in support of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act that easily passed the House and Senate last week, and will soon be signed by the President. The editorial largely focuses on the improvements made in children's safety, ...

After thirty-five years of taking a backseat to industry, the Consumer Product Safety Commission may finally have the resources and legal tools necessary to, um, do something about consumer product safety. Understanding Government will soon be releasing an elephantine report on the agency, but that report has a new twist: ...

Understanding Government will soon issue a major report by Matthew Blake on the Consumer Product Safety Commission, pinpointing the CPSC's unwillingness to confront manufacturers even when their products are clearly causing death and grievous injury.  When it comes to a product like nail guns, you would think CPSC would want ...

It's not the News & Commens section's M.O. to cite pieces from www.consumerffairs.com. But Joseph S. Enoch deserves a link for laying out a compromise apparently hashed out by the House and Senate last night over the Consumer Product Safety Commssion Reform ...

The Wall Street Journal's Melanie Trotman and Elizabeth Williamson tell us that Mattel and other toy industry giants are scrambling due to a "confusing patchwork of state regulations" absent a national standard for the amount of lead in toys. This ...

The Huffington Post’s Linda Cronin-Gross flags a report that recalls done by the Consumer Product Safety Commission are at an all-time high this year. According to the advocacy group Consumers Union, the independent federal agency is on track to recall 800 products this year—70 percent more than in ...

When Congress returns to Washington next week, a top priority will be agreeing upon a Consumer Product Safety Modernization Act they can send to the President. Consumer safety advocates are crossing their fingers that the bill will essentially replicate the Senate version that passed 79-13.

A Congressional re-authorization of an independent federal regulatory agency is not the first place to turn for exciting sociopolitical changes. But implementation of the Senate’s CPSMA would both transform the Consumer Product Safety Commission and signal a clarion call for a government that is both bigger and stronger.

The Washington Post leads today with the Senate passing a bill to reform the Consumer Product Safety Commission. With a 79-13 vote and no threatened Presidential veto, the bill has a very good chance of becoming law. On the other hand, the Senate now must reconcile its bill ...