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Carbon Monoxide from Generators Kills 70 Per Year; New Rule to Save Lives is Being Undone by Trump Appointee
While Trump has achieved few legislative victories, his administration is succeeding in broadly decimating federal regulation. After 16 years of efforts, our government’s portable-generator rule to prevent deaths was nearly finalized — and now a Trump-appointee will ensure that never happens.
Portable generators release more carbon monoxide — which is particularly dangerous because it is odorless and invisible — than most cars. As a result, the devices can kill efficiently and quickly, though accidentally. The latest statistics shows that portable generators have killed on average 70 people a year since 2005.... generators rank as one of the deadliest consumer products on the market.... 2,800 people a year suffer from carbon monoxide poisoning caused by the equipment.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission is a tiny government organization with a $126 million budget and 520 employees. Yet it is charged with overseeing almost every product Americans use at home or work. Congressional rules governing CPSC say that they must seek voluntary standards to solve problems first and then if they persist, mandatory rules can be attempted.
The problem of portable generators was so obvious that the little agency felt it needed to make a stand.
Throughout the 16 years the CPSC has been pushing the issue, the portable-generator industry fended off regulations that would have required it to reduce the carbon monoxide emissions of its devices. The industry lobbied hard, and also wielded an arsenal of delaying measures and misdirection, not to mention occasional strong-arm tactics to enforce industry discipline.
However, in late 2016, the CPSC finally took action.
The commission voted in favor of a rule to force manufacturers to lower their generators’ carbon monoxide emissions. The vote was 4 to 1, with one Republican joining the majority of Democrats.
Trump was elected a week later. In January, he elevated the only commissioner to vote against the rule — Ann Marie Buerkle — to be the acting chair of the CPSC.
Buerkle fights hard against corporations making their products safer for the American public, despite that being her job! She does so because she's either a truly terrible person or enjoys significant "inducements" from thecorporations she allows to harm us.
Buerkle has never, in her fellow commissioners’ recollection, advocated for the agency to regulate a product that the CPSC staff thinks is unsafe. She is a government regulator who doesn’t appear to believe in government regulation.
Among her first actions as chair, Buerkle did two things. She sent a letter in August to Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, agreeing with his assertion that the CPSC does not have the legal authority to make a rule about carbon monoxide emissions from portable generators.
In a second move, Buerkle appointed Patricia Hanz to be her general counsel. Hanz comes from Briggs & Stratton....which happens to be one of the biggest portable-generator manufacturers in the world. Hanz also served as the vice president of the portable-generator trade group.
THIS IS THE SWAMP.
This seems like a sick, cruel joke. Except lives are actually being lost so there's nothing to joke about. In Florida, 11 people died in September during Hurricane Irma from carbon monoxide poisoning from generators with countless more from Hurricanes Harvey and Maria.
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