SENATOR HUTCHISON DISCUSSES THE CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY MODERNIZATION ACT

I also want to say that on something this hard, the leadership of our committee was the driving force. Senator Inouye and Senator Stevens, the chairman and vice chairman of our committee, worked so hard, along with their staffs, to make sure the process kept going, that we never gave up. The conference lasted for months. I cannot say enough about Senator Inouye and Senator Stevens and the partnership on this committee that produced this great bill.

Then Senator Pryor and Senator Sununu, chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee, also worked diligently and hard to make sure we took everyone's views into consideration. We tried to make compromises, even on some of the very toughest issues. That was just in the Senate. And then we also had the House. I feel very good about this result.

Again, the approval of this bill by very diverse groups shows this is a very good bill. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the Consumer Federation of America, and the Retail Industry Leaders Association all were at the table working with us to try to make sure we accommodated the safety needs of consumers--especially the parents of small children--and the needs of retailers and manufacturers to be able to produce products that consumers can safely purchase.

In this bill, we have a considerable emphasis on children's toys. That is what caused us to start looking at whether we had enough manpower in the Consumer Product Safety Commission. So I think children's toys are a very big part of the emphasis in this bill.

Let me talk about another few points in the bill. We authorize significant upgrading and modernization of the equipment and labs used by the commission to provide for more personnel, including more personnel at ports of entry and in foreign countries, to improve inspection of manufacturing facilities abroad and the products brought into our country from abroad.

We establish the most comprehensive lead safety standards that we have seen to date for toys and the paint manufacturers use on toys. These standards are implemented responsibly to give manufacturers time to adapt, without compromising safety. The standards also allow for use of alternative detection and measurement methods to improve the accuracy and efficiency of testing paint on small surfaces.

We also strengthen enforcement by increasing civil and criminal penalties and providing a limited role for State attorneys general to work in concert with the commission to enforce commission actions in the States. This is a huge improvement--one that Senator Pryor, a former attorney general, was very aware that we could have better information, because the attorneys general in all of the States know, perhaps more urgently and more rapidly, when a product is deficient. So when they can step in and take an action based on the Consumer Product Safety Commission regulations, that is very helpful to expanding the reach.

We can also point to other areas where we made compromises. The bottom line is this is a very good bill. Maybe you don't like everything in it. I agree. I didn't get everything I wanted in the conference, nor did anyone else. But as I said, this was a months-long conference committee. It was a bill that passed the Senate with many amendments.

The Senate bill was vastly improved in the conference. We could not have done that without many hours--and weekend hours--of staff support. The Senator from Arkansas pointed out the number of staff who did such a great job. I want to say that on our side, Christine Kurth, Paul Nagle, Megan Beechener, Rebecca Hooks, and my own staffer, Bryan Hendricks, did a great job of working with the Democratic staff to forge the compromises.

On the Democratic side, I thank David Strickland, Andy York, Price Feland, and Jana Fong Swamidoss. I think we did a great job with the help of the experts on our staffs.

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