The Need for Regulation: For All of the Nation's Imports

Editorial New York Times Article
The Need for Regulation: For All of the Nation’s Imports
Published: September 16, 2007
To allay rising fears over imported products, the Bush administration has issued a “strategic framework” for improving import safety. The 22-page document contains some sensible ideas that could, if vigorously carried out, help provide better control over the flood of goods and foods that enter this country from abroad.
Editorial: The Need for Regulation: And Especially Our Children’s Toys (September 16, 2007)
Whether this is a genuine reform effort or mostly public relations will become clear in November when more detailed plans are released. The administration’s record provides grounds for skepticism.
The new plan, the product of an interagency working group, leaves little doubt that reforms are needed in the current haphazard, underfinanced and understaffed system for protecting the public. Officials are powerless to order retailers to stop selling a product that has been recalled by its manufacturer. Incompatible information systems prevent government agencies from readily sharing information.
The group’s most important proposal would shift the first line of defense from inspections at the border to broader surveillance along the supply chain: from the original grower or manufacturer to distributors abroad to American importers, manufacturers and retailers.
There is little doubt that it would be better to build safety into products before they reach our shores than to try to pick out unsafe products here. That will require a concerted effort to persuade foreign governments and companies to police themselves and provide access to American inspectors, buttressed by a willingness to reject goods from countries or companies that will not cooperate or cannot meet American standards. Under American pressure, China has belatedly signed an agreement to prohibit the use of lead paint on toys exported to this country and to inspect more of its exports.
The strategic plan is right to urge that the system be organized to identify products that pose the greatest risk, like those from a country with a record of exporting unsafe goods. It makes sound proposals for upgrading computers and devising new screening technologies.
What is worrisome is the administration’s reluctance to make any commitment to provide the additional money and staff that is needed. It has been cutting food inspection budgets and staff for many years, and it is fair to wonder how it will manage a far broader regime.
The new plan stresses the importance of cooperation with industry but leaves room to worry about officials’ willingness to get tough if voluntarism fails. Indeed, the document says the federal government lacks the resources to pursue legal action against all wrongdoers and will use targeted enforcement as a deterrent.
Congress will have to ensure that this needed reform gets enough money and clear authority. The strategic plan asserts that “it is impossible to inspect our way to safety,” which is right in the sense that inspections are not enough. That mantra must not be used as an excuse for doing less rather than more.