CPSC Launches E-Newsletter
The first edition of "The Safety Review," a new electronic newsletter from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, is now available at www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/pubs/tsr0508.pdf. This issue is dated May 2008 and includes reports on the agency's new Import Surveillance Division, news and photos illustrating recently recalled products, and a SIGN UP NOW! link that allows visitors to sign up online to receive some or all CPSC press releases, the e-newsletter, recalls, and the CPSC Public Calendar.
Page 6 of this edition features a profile of the CPSC Laboratory's Chemistry Division and its director, Dr. Joel Recht, who have been hit with an unprecedented level of work recently, according to the profile, which says the division's personnel have completed lead testing on more than 1,800 items in the past nine months.
Today at 3 p.m. Eastern time, Acting CPSC Chairman Nancy Nord and Commissioner Thomas H. Moore are scheduled to testify before a U.S. Senate Appropriations subcommittee about their agency's FY2009 budget request for $80 million -- about $17 million more than the agency requested for FY2008. When Nord testified on March 11 before a similar U.S. House of Representatives panel (her testimony is available at www.cpsc.gov/pr/nord03112008.pdf), she discussed progress in working with Chinese authorities to ensure the safety of products exported from China to the United States, needed IT improvements, the import surveillance initiative, and plans to complete a new CPSC laboratory this year.