CPSC's Northup Concerned over "Wasteful Spending" on SaferProducts.gov
On February 17, 2012, Consumer Product Safety Commissioner Northup stated she voted against the agency's 2013 budget as she disagreed with many of the funding choices it contains, particularly a new investment in Information Technology (IT). Northup's main concerns with CPSC is the wastefulness of the large new investment in the IT program. She states that after already spending over $29 million to “upgrade and improve” its IT systems, CPSC now seeks an additional $7.44 million to continue the work. However, she states that the results of the agency's IT investment so far are not encouraging, as exemplified by the agency's safety incident public database.
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Northup Says Results of IT Investment Not Encouraging So Far, Gives Example
Northup states the public database designed by CPSC on safety incidents (SaferProducts.gov) has "no chance of being useful to consumers" as its public interface is "primitive, cumbersome and limited in the scope of information it contains, that a consumer seeking information on the safety of a product would be far better served by one of the many private sector clearinghouses for consumer product information" than by CPSC's publicly funded portal. Northup believes that the staff time and resources dedicated to CPSC's IT program over the last several years and projected into the future would be better focused on the agency’s core safety mission or on a more efficient and effective approach to upgrading its IT systems.
She states that at a time when every agency is being asked to conserve resources to reduce the national debt and relieve taxpayer burden, CPSC must do its part by performing its safety mission in the most efficient and cost effective manner possible. Instead, she says CPSC is requesting an additional budget increase on top of the last four years of substantial budget increases, and intends to spend the money on priorities that will not enhance consumer safety.
(See ITT's Online Archives 11101715 for summary of an October 2011 Government Accountability Office report which found that CPSC needs to better track product information in its public database.
See ITT's Online Archives 11110931 for summary of the CPSC launching an online hazard reporting tool for business and an electronic correspondence mechanism for CPSC as new features to the public database.
See ITT’s Online Archives 11080230 for summary of H.R. 2715 which revised aspects of the public database requirements.
See ITT’s Online Archives 11080519 for summary stating many CPSC database entries lack model numbers and other observations of the public database.)