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Singing our tune?

Okay, maybe she wasn’t doing an outright song and dance number but Nancy Nord, the acting chief U.S. consumer protection official, can at least hum a few bars, even if it is out of tune. Responding to questions from reporters at the National Press Club, Nord said the Consumer Product Safety Commission plans on boosting inspections of toys entering U.S. ports, specifically those on the West Coast.

But we wonder how much of that is meaningless rhetoric. It’s not too comforting to hear her say “toys are safer,” according to Hope Yen’s story on the AP wire.

We’re even less comfortable with the weak bill that the House of Representatives passed that reauthorizes the CPSC. That bill falls short in several important areas. The Senate still hasn’t voted on its version.

Still, it was interesting to read Wall Street Journal writer M.P. McQueen’s take on Nord’s plans to bolster toy inspections:

Nancy Nord said the shift in strategy is necessary because many of the 15,000 household products regulated by the agency are made abroad, not in the U.S. as most were when the agency was created in 1973. At that time, most of the agency’s enforcement efforts were focused on product manufacturers.

It’s as if Nord was reading from the Public Citizen script.