How Republicans used Senate delays to make changes at U.S. product safety regulator. Critics call it a ‘power grab’ that puts public at risk.

A short-lived Republican majority atop the nation’s product safety regulator — the result of Senate delays in confirming Democratic nominees — recently pushed through dozens of last-minute changes to the agency’s annual plan, slowing work on some safety rules and abandoning at least one enforcement effort altogether.

The changes mean the Consumer Product Safety Commission no longer plans in the coming year to draw up new mandatory rules for preventing suffocation in infant nursing pillows or carbon monoxide poisoning from gas appliances. The amended plan also canceled a pilot project...