Consumer product safety risks would be concealed and influence peddling in government contracting would remain out of public view under the provisions of the fiscal year (FY) 2012 spending bill approved today by the House Financial Services and General Government appropriations subcommittee.

The bill would prohibit the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) from expending funds on its consumer product safety database. Congress required CPSC to establish the database in the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, in response to a string of high-profile product recalls. The bill passed both houses with overwhelming support and was signed into law by President George W. Bush.

CPSC launched the database at SaferProducts.gov on March 11. In spite of the recent congressional support for the database, corporate allies have attacked the database because they want to shield their products from scrutiny, ostensibly due to information quality concerns.

The same provision was included in the House spending bill for FY 2011, H.R. 1, which passed in February but which the Senate rejected. The bill which ultimately became law, H.R. 1473, did not include such a restriction. However, H.R. 1473 did require the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a study on the database's information quality, which GAO has not yet completed. Apparently the subcommittee isn't waiting for the facts.

The bill also would prohibit agencies from expending any funds to implement President Obama's draft executive order on contractor disclosure should he sign it. The move would head off the draft order, which would require potential federal contractors and vendors to disclose their political contributions to the public as a condition of bidding on a government contract.

The anti-disclosure rider is one of several approaches pushed by big business, including a provision in the House defense authorization bill and standalone bills introduced in both houses of Congress. The draft order would help to root out pay-to-play in government contracting and cover part of the gaping hole created by the Citizens United case, which allowed a deluge of undisclosed corporate money into elections.

The same bill contains the E-Gov Fund, which would be slightly restored after deep cuts in FY 2011, but which might not be enough to save important transparency sites such as USAspending.gov and Data.gov.