Consumer Safety Chief Leaves a Small Agency With Bigger Powers

By the end of her four-year term, which came to a close on Friday, she can say that she has presided over a significant increase of the agency’s powers. And Ms. Tenenbaum, 62, has not been shy about using them. The agency recently leveled its highest fine ever — $3.9 million — against Ross, the discount retailer, because it continued to sell what the commission said was defective children’s clothing, even after warnings from the agency.

She and the safety commission also waded into one of the most contentious topics in the sports world: protecting football players from head injuries. The result was the Youth Football Brain Safety initiative, which called for the replacement of youth league helmets with safer models paid for by the National Football League, the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the N.F.L. Players Association.

“I just felt like it was something that needed to be done,” she said.

But before she could make much headway on issues, Ms. Tenenbaum had to persuade consumer advocates that she would work for them while reassuring manufacturers that the agency would not be unfair in carrying out its new powers. It was a difficult juggling act that some industry officials say Ms. Tenenbaum has managed to pull off.

“What I was most glad about is that she treated us and others in the industry as a resource, rather than the enemy,” said Carter Keithly, president of the Toy Industry Association. “We didn’t agree on everything, but she was always fair.”

For the Youth Football Brain Safety initiative, the N.C.A.A., the N.F.L. and the players association kicked in a total of $1 million to pay for the helmet replacements. “The support of Chairman Tenenbaum and the C.P.S.C. played an important role in making our helmet replacement initiative a reality,” Roger Goodell, the N.F.L. commissioner, said in a statement. “We really appreciated her personal involvement and the agency’s in the work to make our game better and safer.”

Yet the commission under Ms. Tenenbaum’s leadership has not been exempt from criticism. Some of the biggest complaints followed the decision by agency lawyers to hold Craig Zucker, the chief executive of the company that made Buckyballs, liable for the recall of the magnetic children’s toy, even after the company was dissolved. Manufacturers have argued that holding an individual responsible for a widespread, and expensive, recall sets a disturbing example, and would discourage companies from being open in their dealings with regulatory bodies.

Ms. Tenenbaum said she could not comment on the case because it was continuing.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission, one of the smallest agencies in government, was created in 1972. With a budget of about $120 million and 530 employees, the agency annually monitors more than 15,000 imported and domestically made products. Before Ms. Tenenbaum took the reins, it had been increasingly criticized in the light of deaths and injuries that critics said were the result of the agency being too close to the industries it regulated.

Ms. Tenenbaum, a lawyer, had no product safety experience when she was nominated for the job by President Obama. She had come up through the Democratic ranks in South Carolina, a state dominated by Republicans, serving as a legislative staff member as well as the state’s superintendent of education. In 1994, she ran an unsuccessful primary campaign for lieutenant governor, and 10 years later lost to Jim DeMint, a Republican, in the race to replace Ernest Hollings, a Democrat who was retiring, in the Senate.

Before her arrival at the safety commission, the Bush administration had sought to ease what it considered costly rules that placed unnecessary burdens on businesses, and the agency’s budget was largely gutted. Staff was cut and safety initiatives were stalled or dropped.

In 2007, a Washington Post investigation found that Nancy Nord, who was then the agency’s acting chairwoman, and her predecessor, Hal Stratton, had taken dozens of industry-sponsored trips that were paid for in full or in part by trade associations or manufacturers of products that were regulated by the agency. Ms. Nord said the trips were legal.