House Committee Pulls Database Funding
On June 23, 2011, the House Committee on Appropriations approved the fiscal year 2012 Financial Services Bill, which included a provision prohibiting the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) from spending money to operate the recently launched consumer product reporting database. The Bill reduces the CPSC’s 2011 budget by $3.5 million based on the Committee’s determination that the $3 million annual investment in the database would be better spent elsewhere.
The Committee found the database to be of little value to consumers and manufacturers due to flawed construction. The Committee explained that the information required to submit an incident report through the database is insufficient to ensure accuracy and reliability and, as a result, the database fails to provide the intended protection to consumers. A 2011 continuing resolution requires the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct an analysis of the database. The Committee encouraged the CPSC to implement any GAO recommendations, promising to reconsider the funding prohibition should the CPSC takes sufficient actions to improve the database.
