<DOC>
[110th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:41686.wais]
PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN: CURRENT ISSUES IN CHILDREN'S PRODUCT SAFETY
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, TRADE,
AND CONSUMER PROTECTION
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 15, 2007
__________
Serial No. 110-44
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
energycommerce.house.gov
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
41-686 PDF WASHINGTON DC: 2008
---------------------------------------------------------------------
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512ÿ091800
Fax: (202) 512ÿ092104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402ÿ090001
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan, Chairman
HENRY A. WAXMAN, California JOE BARTON, Texas
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts Ranking Member
RICK BOUCHER, Virginia RALPH M. HALL, Texas
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York J. DENNIS HASTERT, Illinois
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey FRED UPTON, Michigan
BART GORDON, Tennessee CLIFF STEARNS, Florida
BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois NATHAN DEAL, Georgia
ANNA G. ESHOO, California ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky
BART STUPAK, Michigan BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois
ALBERT R. WYNN, Maryland HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico
GENE GREEN, Texas JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado CHARLES W. ``CHIP'' PICKERING,
Vice Chairman Mississippi
LOIS CAPPS, California VITO FOSSELLA, New York
MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania STEVE BUYER, Indiana
JANE HARMAN, California GEORGE RADANOVICH, California
TOM ALLEN, Maine JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania
JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois MARY BONO, California
HILDA L. SOLIS, California GREG WALDEN, Oregon
CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas LEE TERRY, Nebraska
JAY INSLEE, Washington MIKE FERGUSON, New Jersey
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin MIKE ROGERS, Michigan
MIKE ROSS, Arkansas SUE WILKINS MYRICK, North Carolina
DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma
ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania
JIM MATHESON, Utah MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
CHARLIE MELANCON, Louisiana
JOHN BARROW, Georgia
BARON P. HILL, Indiana
______
Professional Staff
Dennis B. Fitzgibbons, Chief of Staff
Gregg A. Rothschild, Chief Counsel
Sharon E. Davis, Chief Clerk
Bud Albright, Minority Staff Director
(ii)
Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection
BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois, Chairman
JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois CLIFF STEARNS, Florida,
Vice Chairman Ranking Member
G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina J. DENNIS HASTERT, Illinois
JOHN BARROW, Georgia ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky
BARON P. HILL, Indiana CHARLES W. ``CHIP'' PICKERING,
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts Mississippi
RICK BOUCHER, Virginia VITO FOSSELLA, New York
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York GEORGE RADANOVICH, California
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania
CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas MARY BONO, California
MIKE ROSS, Arkansas LEE TERRY, Nebraska
DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon SUE WILKINS MYRICK, North Carolina
ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
JIM MATHESON, Utah MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
CHARLIE MELANCON, Louisiana JOE BARTON, Texas (ex officio)
JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan (ex
officio)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hon. Bobby L. Rush, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Illinois, opening statement................................. 1
Hon. Cliff Stearns, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Florida, opening statement.................................. 2
Hon John Barrow, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Georgia, opening statement..................................... 4
Hon. Michael C. Burgess, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Texas, opening statement.............................. 6
Hon. John D. Dingell, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Michigan, opening statement................................. 7
Hon. Marsha Blackburn, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Tennessee, opening statement.......................... 8
Hon. Jan Schakowsky, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Illinois, opening statement................................. 9
Hon. Baron P. Hill, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Indiana, opening statement.................................. 10
Hon. Edward J. Markey, a Representative in Congress from the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, opening statement............... 11
Hon. Jim Matheson, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Utah, opening statement........................................ 12
Hon. Darlene Hooley, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Oregon, opening statement................................... 14
Hon. G.K. Butterfield, a Representative in Congress from the
State of North Carolina, prepared statement.................... 14
Hon. Tammy Baldwin, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Wisconsin, prepared statement............................... 15
Witnesses
Nancy A. Nord, Acting Chairman, U.S. Consumer Product Safety
Commission..................................................... 16
Prepared statement........................................... 19
Answers to submitted questions............................... 207
Alan Korn, director, public policy and general counsel, Safe Kids
Worldwide...................................................... 52
Prepared statement........................................... 55
Rachel Weintraub, director, product safety and senior counsel,
Consumer Federation of America................................. 70
Prepared statement........................................... 72
Answers to submitted questions............................... 226
Frederick B. Locker, general counsel Toy Industry Association;
Locker, Brainin and Greenberg, New York, NY.................... 93
Prepared statement........................................... 95
Marla Felcher. adjunct lecturer, public policy, Kennedy School of
Government, Harvard University................................. 105
Prepared statement........................................... 107
Answers to submitted questions............................... 149
James A. Thomas, president, ASTM International................... 111
Prepared statement........................................... 113
Nancy Cowles, executive director, Kids in Danger................. 124
Prepared statement........................................... 127
Submitted Material
Hon. Allyson Y. Schwartz, a Representative in Congress from the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, submitted statement.............. 146
Thomas Moore, Commissioner, Consumer Product Safety Commission,
answers to submitted questions................................. 156
PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN: CURRENT ISSUES IN CHILDREN'S PRODUCT SAFETY
----------
TUESDAY, MAY 15, 2007
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade
and Consumer Protection,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in
room 2123, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bobby L. Rush
(chairman) presiding.
Present: Representatives Schakowsky, Barrow, Hill, Markey,
Gonzalez, Hooley, Matheson, Dingell, Stearns, Fossella,
Radanovich, Terry, Burgess, Blackburn.
Also present: Representative Baldwin.
Staff present: Judith Bailey, Christin Tamotsu Fjeld,
Valerie Baron, Will Carty, and Matthew Johnson.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BOBBY L. RUSH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLIONOIS
Mr. Rush. The subcommittee will come to order.
I yield myself 5 minutes for an opening statement.
The jurisdiction of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and
Consumer Protection is multifaceted and covers a broad area,
but there is nothing more important than our mission to look
out for our children's safety. If the Federal Government cannot
deliver on this basic responsibility to help parents keep their
children away from avoidable hazards and unsafe products, then
we are not doing our job.
I hold in my hand a two-part series that appeared in the
Chicago Tribune on May 6 and May 7. The Tribune articles are
disturbing, to say the least; and they depict the worst
nightmare that any parent might have.
A 20-month-old child, Kenny Sweet, Jr., swallowed numerous
tiny but powerful magnets that fell out of a popular toy kit
called Magnetix. Inside the toddler's stomach these magnets
stuck together and cut a hole through his bowels. Unbeknownst
to his parents, these tiny magnets were camouflaged in with the
carpet, only to be found and swallowed by the young toddler.
Kenny Sweet, Jr., died on Thanksgiving Day, 2005. He died of
what was equivalent to a gunshot wound to the stomach.
This child's death is tragic. What is even more infuriating
is the possibility that Kenny's death was preventable.
According to the Tribune articles, both the company that
manufactures Magnetix, Rose Art, and the Consumer Product
Safety Commission were notified of the loose magnets and
possible dangers they posed to young children, but neither
acted in a timely manner to prevent Kenny's death.
What I want to take away from this hearing and what I want
to understand is why it took the Chicago Tribune doing
athorough investigative story on Magnetix to finally get this
product off the shelves. This story makes clear that the toys
were still in some stores as it went to press. And I want to
know why the Rose Art Company and the CPSC did not take the
necessary steps to protect our children.
Ladies and gentlemen, I don't want to engage in a blame
game, and I am not looking to initiate a consumer product
witch-hunt. I fully appreciate and respect the efforts of the
Consumer Product Safety Commission, and I am not attributing
incompetence or negligence to their staff or to Acting Chairman
Nord. The Commission did the best it could, given the resources
they had. However, I do want to find out how the system broke
down; and, more importantly, I want to find out how to repair
the breach. From this hearing, I want to come away with an idea
of what steps this subcommittee should take to ensure that
something like this never happens again.
Today's hearing is not just about the Magnetix case. This
subcommittee will hear testimony of numerous witnesses and
explore a broad range of children's product safety issues. Many
Members of Congress, including members of this subcommittee and
full committee, have specific bills and legislative priorities
when it comes to children and product safety. This hearing will
serve as a forum to discuss and to deliberate on those
individual bills.
I know my friend and colleague from Chicago, Ms.
Schakowsky, the vice chairman of this subcommittee, has long
been a champion of children's safety; and she has several
proposals to strengthen and empower parents to protect their
children.
I am not naive enough to think that we can protect all
children from all the dangers that lurk in the world, but I do
know that the regulatory regime that we have set up under the
CPSC must be improved. I hope the members of this subcommittee,
both Republicans and Democrats, are willing to roll up their
sleeves and join with me and make the necessary reforms to the
Consumer Product Safety Commission so that the number of
preventable future deaths are minimized.
Kenny Sweet, Jr., should be alive today; and I would like
to enter into the record by unanimous consent the two Chicago
Tribune articles. The reporter, Patricia Callahan, should be
commended for her tremendous work.
With that, I recognize the ranking member of this
subcommittee for 5 minutes for an opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CLIFF STEARNS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA
Mr. Stearns. Good morning and thank you, Mr. Chairman. I
applaud you for having this hearing.
I think all of us are champions of children. I have raised
three boys; and I realize how difficult it is sometimes to
supervise them, particularly after Christmas when they are
playing with all the new toys under the tree and the day goes
on and they sometimes can get hurt. So we are all very
sensitive and conscious of this, and I applaud the Chicago
Tribune for their article.
With that being said, I would like to also tell my
colleagues that we need to focus more on child product safety
issues and the effectiveness of the current regulation. This is
an agency, my colleagues, that has been underfunded. This is an
agency that still does not have a commissioner. It does not
have a way to actually vote and provide a majority. And this is
an agency that has regularly been operating with less money and
doing twice as much work.
So if you look at the history of this agency, considering
the circumstances, it has been very successful. So I applaud
Commissioner Nord and her predecessor for all that they did.
But I am interested, obviously, as most of us are, to hear
from the diverse panel of witnesses today about current
concerns and what is working and what isn't working. But I also
have to remind my colleagues that there are over 300,000
complaints plus that comes into this agency every year. In this
case, the Magnetix toy was manufactured in China; and, also, it
was distributed out of Canada. So, obviously, when you go to
look for standards, it is going to be difficult for us to
enforce standards on China as well as Canada. But we can set
standards and be sure that people comply, and if they don't it
is against the law.
We have other problems dealing with people who want to buy
toys over the Internet. What are we going to do about that?
And, third, what about innovations? Some of the new
technology that is coming, including nanotechnology, that would
create even more difficulty for the CPSC.
This is a very important agency. Its task by statute is
protecting the public against unreasonable risk of injuries
associated with consumer products, it has jurisdiction over not
one, not two but 15,000 kinds of consumer products used in and
around the home. As I understand, the agency has a budget of
about $63 million. Obviously, that is underfunded.
So I agree with you, Mr. Chairman. This is an agency we
need to strengthen, provide more money and get the next
commissioner approved. It then could be much more effective in
distributing information on dangerous products subject to
recall and for providing important consumer education.
Their hardest task is to determine whether there is a trend
from one complaint, two complaints or 10 or 100 complaints, and
is that trend so significant that they have to do something and
implement it. And I imagine, when you consider you have over
300,000 complaints, that is an arduous task.
If an individual company is breaking the law and putting
the public in danger, the Commission obviously should take
action swiftly and decisively. Moreover, the job of the CPSC is
to actively enforce the laws enacted by Congress. Thus, if the
Commission believes that the Consumer Product Safety Act needs
to be changed, we certainly welcome their suggestion today; and
we are here to act.
The U.S. toy and children's product industry is a large
business, with many tens of billions of dollars in sales each
year; and, in 2006, the CPSC initiated 94 product recalls of
toys and children's products involving millions and millions of
product units. Sadly, every year, however, there are a small
number of toy-related deaths and hundreds of thousands of
injuries. While I applaud the Commission's work in
investigating product complaints and getting dangerous products
off the market, the agency must remain ever diligent in
pursuing its mission to protect the public.
Mr. Chairman, with that, I would like to make the remaining
portion of my opening statement part of the record; and I just
would like to conclude.
The number of children's products that are imported has
grown dramatically, and the Commission should explore ways of
enhancing its oversights. I hope Ms. Nord today will talk about
that. But, by and large, American manufacturers of children's
products adopt industry safety standards and are responsible
corporate citizens, but imported products do not always abide
by these standards, my colleagues. The Commission must work
closely with industry standards setting organizations in
general and with an international forum specifically to enhance
the safety of imported products.
I would like to thank Acting Chairman Nord for being here
today and look forward to her report, and I would also like to
thank the second panel of the witnesses.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rush. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Georgia,
Mr. Barrow.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARROW, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF GEORGIA
Mr. Barrow. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This is the first oversight hearing of this Commission, I
understand, since 2004. This is the first step in a long
overdue trip of a thousand miles that has been postponed for
years now. It gives us an opportunity to take stock and to
survey just what has been going on.
I want to amplify what Mr. Stearns has said and put it in
human terms. When it comes to Commission resources, we have
gone from a high of a thousand people working for this agency
at the beginning of the Reagan administration way back in 1981
to just 400 people policing the consumer marketplace today in
2007. The consumer marketplace has not become a safer place in
the meantime.
I would agree with the Commissioner's testimony that
children are safer today than they would be but for the work of
the Commission. But I think, in all fairness, we have to
attribute that to the work of Commissions before us, certainly
not to the work that is being undergone today.
With globalization, with the marketplace being opened up to
designers and manufacturers who are abroad, the traditional
civil law tort system is less and less able to police the
marketplace by making manufacturers and designers pay for the
damage that they do. That is already a very imperfect weapon in
the first place. Just to make manufacturers compensate folks
for the harm that they do is hardly an effective deterrent. It
should make them pay the full price of what they put into the
stream of commerce.
But with designers and manufacturers residing abroad today
and with most States in this country and this Congress
contemplating in passing vendor legislation, which I think
wisely, on the whole, exempts mere distributors from the
consequences of bad design and bad manufacturing, it becomes
that much more important that we police the marketplace in the
first place, not leave it to private attorneys general to try
and make sure that those who do harm pay for the consequences
of their bad design and their bad manufacturer. So, in a global
marketplace, it becomes that much more important that the
police on the beat be up to the job.
And I don't think anybody can say that the world is as
safe, the consumer marketplace is as safe as it needs to be if
we have only 400 people policing the global marketplace,
whereas we had a thousand people policing our own national
domestic marketplace just 26 years ago.
So something is wrong here. In terms of Commission powers,
I think we have gotten pretty far off the beaten path. When the
maximum penalty that the Commission can levy is a fine of $1.65
million and that is a violation of a regulation, if there is a
regulation on the books, seems to me that for many folks it is
a whole lot easier to get forgiveness than it is to get
permission. And it should not be easy to get forgiveness for
killing our children or for putting consumers at risk. They
should not get permission to do that that in the first place.
In matters of legislative matters, it concerns me that the
Commission is not being more proactive to deal with known
defects, known hazards, known risks that can be eliminated in
the ordinary course of business.
Take the Pool and Safety Spa Act that Congresswoman Debbie
Wasserman Schultz has made such a heroic effort in pushing
through the last Congress. I am one of the co-sponsors of that
bill in this Congress. Something that keeps children from being
trapped and brain damaged or killed in a product as widely
available as the backyard swimming pool should not be an
option. Basic safety should not be an option in the marketplace
that folks have to figure out and shop for. It should be
something that they get as a matter of course in the commercial
marketplace.
I do not understand why the Commission does not take a more
proactive stance and essentially require folks to do the right
thing, rather than leaving it up to folks to find out that the
products they purchased do not incorporate the basic safety in
its design and manufacture. This is long overdue.
I appreciate your coming here today, but, as I say, this
Congress has a lot of catching up to do; and we need to begin
by assessing the resources that you all have to bring to bear,
the powers that you have to bring to bear in the marketplace
and the necessary legislation that we need to take if y'all
won't take the proper steps yourself.
So, Mr. Chairman, with that, I will yield back.
Mr. Rush. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas,
Mr. Burgess, for 5 minutes.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL C. BURGESS, A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS
Mr. Burgess. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I will submit my written statement for the record so as not
to take so much time.
I want to make a couple comments, and I appreciate you
holding this hearing today. I think one of the valuable
exercise of these congressional hearings is to shine the bright
spotlight, to use the bully pulpit, as you are doing today, Mr.
Chairman, on an issue that, quite frankly, probably doesn't
come to the attention of many people in this country.
When I first became aware that we were having this hearing
today, I thought there must be some mistake, that the danger
from a swallowed magnet didn't seem to be that great. So I went
to my usual sources on the Internet and checked it out with the
New England Journal of Medicine and put ``ingested magnets'' in
the search engine and found no matches. I went to one of my
other Web sites that I frequently look at when posing questions
of medical importance, and my good friends at MayoClinic.com or
at the Mayo Clinic Web site also had no matches.
But it was the Consumer Product Safety Commission that did
show a match, and their press release from last month really
highlights the danger from these toy sets and these magnets.
And even going to Google, the company that sells the magnetic
toy devices from the Toys ``R'' Us Web site does state clearly
on the Web page that came up that it is recommended for
children 6 years and up and does have a safety warning.
Now this is not a black box warning like we might ask the
FDA to do. But it does have a safety warning: This product
contains small magnets. Small magnets can stick together across
the intestines, causing serious infections and death. Seek
immediate medical attention if magnets are swallowed, ingested
or inhaled.
I was a physician before coming to Congress; and, again, I
don't think I was aware of the seriousness of the injury that
could result from a swallowed magnet. Reading the stories in
the Chicago Tribune was very moving, and I could only put
myself in the position of perhaps a physician who might be the
recipient of a child who presented with those symptoms in the
middle of the night and not think about the involvement of a
magnet that fell out of a toy manufactured in the People's
Republic of China.
So I am grateful for you doing this today, Mr. Chairman. I
think it does help to expand the knowledge base for caregivers
across the country, and I hope people are paying attention to
the hearing we are having today.
Sure, there are a lot of issues with the Consumer Product
Safety Commission that need to be dealt with. There are a
number of Federal agencies that haven't been authorized or are
well past their expiration dates for reauthorization that, of
course, we need to get to and we should get to. It is our
obligation to get to. But I think in the broader context
expanding the knowledge base in the country about the danger of
these small magnets, which are much more powerful than the
refrigerator magnets that we all grew up with, I think it is
important to get that information out there to the general
public. So I appreciate the chairman for holding the hearing.
Mr. Rush. I want to thank the gentleman.
The chair now recognizes the dean of the Congress, the
chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from Michigan,
Mr. Dingell, for 5 minutes.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN D. DINGELL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN
Chairman Dingell. Mr. Chairman, thank you for recognizing
me. I commend you for holding a very important hearing today.
Our country's highest responsibility is to protect its
children, and I am fearful that our country is falling short in
this very important duty. It appears that we are tolerating way
too many preventable deaths and injuries to America's children
caused by defective, unsafe and hazardous consumer products. I
fear that the regulatory system, which is critical, is also
broken and in desperate need of serious reform.
All of us are saddened and outraged by the consequence of
these product failures. When we hear about such incidences
occurring, we can ask, how can this ever have happened?
Incidents such as children who die or are maimed simply because
the parents put them to sleep in a crib, a product we all
thought was designed to protect the children; swimming pools
with dangerous drains that can entangle a child's hair and
cause drowning; toys in children's jewelry made with high
quantities of lead when we know that everything goes straight
into the small child's mouth. We believe such tragedies are
preventable.
Hearings will explore the reasons why our children are so
at risk. Among the questions I believe that should be asked
are: do we need more exacting safety standards for children's
products? Do we need stiffer penalties for violations of these
standards? Do we need stricter and swifter law enforcement so
that manufacturers know that we are dead serious about
preventing dangerous products from reaching the marketplace? Do
we need to improve the recall system so it effectively removes
hazardous products from store shelves and also alerts those who
have already purchased such products? Do we need more
comprehensive educational programs so that families are better
informed about products they buy for their children?
And, finally, are serious improvements to the CPSC needed
so that the agency can do a better job of protecting our
children? Is the agency too small to carry out its
responsibilities? Does it have enough money? What barriers
stand in the way of its effectively regulating hazardous
products?
Mr. Chairman, like the other members of the committee, I
look forward to working with you in answering these critical
questions and determining what more needs to be done to protect
our young people. This hearing starts us on a road towards
fixing a system that appears to be broken and badly in need of
repair. For the sake of our Nation's children, this committee
and all of us must work with all deliberate speed to fix it so
that our country fulfills this important and crucial
responsibility.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman; and I yield back the balance of
my time.
Mr. Rush. I want to thank the gentleman.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Nebraska, Mr.
Terry, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Terry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will waive my opening
statement. Thank you.
Mr. Rush. The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from
Tennessee, Mrs. Blackburn, for 5 minutes of testimony.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARSHA BLACKBURN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TENNESSEE
Mrs. Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that.
I want to welcome Ms. Nord and the guests, our witnesses,
for the second panel.
And, Mr. Chairman, I would like to take my time and express
my disappointment in the manner in which the hearing was
organized. I think all of us, especially those of us who are
moms, are deeply concerned about children's products and the
safety of children's products and the uses, the appropriate
uses and education thereof. This committee has always worked on
a bipartisan basis and worked on issues that affect the
consumer on a bipartisan basis, and that spirit I think is
critical to conducting the type of proper oversight that is
necessary as we look at the issues under this committee's
jurisdiction.
Today's is no different. Yet it is hard for the members of
the subcommittee to work together in that manner when they
don't have access to the information, including testimony and
the background memos, that will allow them to play a
constructive role in this process. I don't know what the reason
was for this not being distributed in a timely manner, but no
documents were provided to my office, and I expect probably to
the rest of my colleagues on this side of the dais, less than
24 hours before the start of the hearing. They didn't get to my
office until 4:15 yesterday afternoon.
I would hope that on issues that are so important to our
constituents and especially dealing with children that we would
see that handled a bit differently in the future. We are all
concerned about what is in the marketplace and the
understanding of those products; and I hope that we will work
in a bipartisan manner to address these issues, to deal with
consumer safety, whether it is dealing with the way the
consumer protection agency carries out its mission or whether
it is dealing with some of the legislation that is before us.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman; and I yield back.
Mr. Rush. I want to inform the gentlelady from Tennessee
that this Chair goes out of his way to include Republicans in
all deliberations. We scheduled a meeting yesterday with the
Republican ranking member.
This Chair really takes it personally when he is accused of
not being fair to the minority. I intend to be bipartisan. I
conduct myself in a bipartisan manner. I conduct this
subcommittee in a bipartisan manner. I think the gentlelady
would have been well positioned to engage in this hearing if
she had simply asked the question, when did the subcommittee
get the materials in order to distribute? You can be assured
that as soon as we got it, you got it; and that is the way we
will conduct this hearing.
Thank you.
The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from Illinois, Ms.
Schakowsky, for 5 minutes.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAN SCHAKOWSKY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you, Chairman Rush.
I appreciate the spirit of bipartisanship that you have
acknowledged and always carry out, and I thank the ranking
member.
Really, I am grateful for this hearing on an issue that I
have worked on for a long time and now under your leadership is
coming to light. I want to thank all our witnesses. Especially,
I want to welcome Nancy Cowles from the advocacy group Kids in
Danger, which is based in Chicago.
Two days ago, we celebrated Mother's Day; and while many
families were rejoicing for many others, Mother's Day is and
always will be a day filled with sorrow and a reminder of their
grief for a child lost to unsafe children's products.
For example, Mother's Day will never be the same for Linda
Ginzel, who lost her son Danny when a portable crib collapsed
around his neck and strangled him. This year had to be
especially tough because May 12, the day before Mother's Day,
was the ninth anniversary of Danny's death. But even more
disturbing is that four children died after Danny died from
that same collapsed portable crib.
Penny Sweet and her son Kenny Jr.'s story are chronicled in
the Chicago Tribune series on children's products by Patricia
Callahan. Kenny died after swallowing magnets from a Magnetix
set. The magnets were so powerful that the ones he swallowed
were connected to each other in layers of his intestines and
set off an internal reaction which resulted in what one
pediatrician described as a hidden, quote, gunshot wound, end
quote. Not only must Mother's Day be emotionally taxing for
Penny but so must be Thanksgiving Day, the day she lost Kenny
to a toy.
Since Kenny died, other children have had major surgery as
a result of the same incident which she reported. Those two and
many other mothers who lost their children went to and still go
to other great lengths to protect their other children of harm.
However, we fail them if we allow manufacturers to put unsafe
products on the shelves and don't provide strong mechanism to
get dangerous items off the shelves and out of homes.
A Coalition for Consumer Rights survey in Illinois found
that 75 percent of adults believe that the Government oversees
pre-market testing for children's products. Seventy-nine
percent believe that manufacturers are required to test the
safety of those products before they are sold. For most
products, neither is true. In fact, there are no mandatory
safety standards for the majority of the children's products
being sold today.
The majority of the standards that are in place are
voluntarily set by the industry that looks to make profits.
They are also allowed to police themselves about whether their
standards are enforced.
So where is the Government? Where is the Consumer Product
Safety Commission?
I am looking at the testimony of Commissioner Nord, and it
says that the Commission is tasked with the important mission
of protecting the American public from unreasonable risk of
injury and death associated with consumer products. It says,
while the Commission and the staff work very hard to reduce
injuries to consumers of any age, we pay particular attention
to products used by vulnerable groups, especially children.
But then you say, with a total nationwide staff of just
over 400, an annual budget of just over $60 million, we simply
can't be at all places at all times. That is true no matter how
much money you have, that is for sure, but with the total
compliance staff of approximately 150 you mentioned, so those
who are actually dealing with compliance we are talking about
even fewer. That is a concern as well as the cap on civil
penalties of $1.825 million, which could be the cost of doing
business for many companies.
Additionally, the few mandatory and all the voluntary
standards are of questionable significance because there are no
testing requirements. What that means is that our children end
up being the guinea pigs in potentially deadly experiments
every time we bring a new product for them into our homes.
Because I believe that we must do much more to protect
children, I have introduced two bills, and there are many more
offered by various Members of Congress, that would help prevent
needless deaths and injuries of young children.
H.R. 1698, the Infant and Toddler Durable Product Safety
Act, would require that products are tested and have a stamp of
approval; and, in honor of Linda's son, H.R. 1699, the Danny
Keysar Child Product Safety Notification Act. These bills would
help us protect infants and toddlers from dangerous products
before they arrive on the shelves and after they end up in our
homes. I am looking forward to your comments on those and hope
for their quick passage.
Thank you.
Mr. Rush. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Indiana,
Mr. Hill, for 5 minutes.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BARON P. HILL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF INDIANA
Mr. Hill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me thank you for
holding this hearing on protecting our children. It is an
important hearing to have.
There is an issue that has affected families across this
country--and, Chairman Nord, I also thank you for being here as
well.
But there is an issue that has affected families across the
country and has the potential to affect many more if this
committee does not act, and that is accidental drowning of
children. In 2004, there were 848 American casualties in Iraq.
In that same year, 761 children ages 1 to 14 drowned in this
country. It is hard to believe. Nearly as many children were
lost in backyards and swimming pools as there were soldiers
lost in the war zone.
According to a report issued by Safe Kids Worldwide, my
State of Indiana ranks 36th among the States for the safety of
children. There has been improvement in my State. More can be
done to protect Hoosiers. Unintentional drowning is the second
leading cause of accidental death in Indiana. I don't know
where it is countrywide, but, in Indiana, it is the second
leading cause of death among children.
There are two significant factors that increase the
likelihood of drowning accidents. One is that young children
wander too close to a body of water and fall in and, being
unable to swim, they quickly sink to the bottom. The other
problem is the powerful suction devices that regulate the
contamination in pool water.
Without a doubt, supervision is the first line of defense,
parents must be responsible and watch their children at all
times. As any parent can tell you, there are always moments
when a child can wander away from a watchful eye and an
accident can occur.
One thing we can do is direct the Consumer Product Safety
Commission to develop Federal anti-entrapment drain cover
standards. Through innovation and appropriate standards, we can
save families from having to endure these tragedies.
In addition to addressing the drainage issue, we must
educate individuals about the potential dangers of pools and
spas. Furthermore, we can provide guidelines and incentives to
encourage States to further the cause of drowning prevention.
Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz has introduced the Pool and
Spa Safety Act, which will address all of these issues. This
piece of legislation, as I understand it, according to
Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz, was passed by the Senate,
passed by the House but never became law because we ran out of
time. So this is really a moot issue.
I think we are probably going to pass it again; and I hope,
Chairman Nord, that you will lend your support for this
important piece of legislation. As the summer months approach,
there will be an unfortunate increase in incidences throughout
the Nation. As we face this reality, I encourage parents to be
vigilant in their supervision; and I encourage this committee
to be vigilant in efforts to ensure that we work towards
eliminating this tragedy.
Again, Chairman Nord, I appreciate your attention here this
morning. I hope we can do something about this very important
piece of legislation that will reduce the number of drownings
of children throughout this country.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rush. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Massachusetts, Mr. Markey, for 5 minutes.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
Mr. Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much.
Today's hearing is particularly important in light of a
series of recent reports about dangerous children's products,
including Magnetix building sets, lunch boxes with linings
containing high lead levels and baby bibs with unsafe levels of
lead in the fabric. As the summer season approaches, we are
also reminded today of the need for Federal oversight over
amusement park rides at fixed sites around the country where
millions of children and their families will visit in the
coming months.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has an enormous
responsibility to protect the public from unreasonable risk of
serious injury or death of the more 15,000 consumer products
under the agency's jurisdiction. With thousands of different
product categories within this jurisdiction, the Commission
faces significant challenges as it works to accomplish its
mission.
With a meager $63 million budget requested in fiscal year
2008, only about 400 employees are statutory constraints and
limit its effectiveness; and with the current lack of a quorum
of commissioners, the CPSC has been unable to adequately
perform many key functions. Unless it receives additional
resources and adjustments to its enforcement and regulatory
authorities, CPSC will no longer stand for Consumer Product
Safety Commission but, instead, CPSC will stand for ``Cannot
Properly Safeguard Children''.
The activities and responsibilities of the Commission are
too important to permit the continuation of the status quo. I
am hopeful that with today's hearing and the important consumer
product safety bills introduced by my colleagues we will begin
the process of restoring the Commission's vitality.
Later today, I will reintroduce the National Amusement Park
Ride Safety Act to provide the Commission with the authority to
enforce safety regulations at amusement rides located at fixed
sites. My bill would give permission to Federal safety experts
at the Consumer Product Safety Commission to gain access to
accident sites to find out what happened and what needs to be
fixed, give authority to the CPSC to issue and enforce a safety
plan to prevent the same accident from recurring on the same
ride, allow the CPSC to share what its investigators learn
about safety problems nationwide so the same accident does not
reoccur on the same rides in other States, and to provide the
CPSC with $500,000 per fiscal year to carry out these new
responsibilities.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for having this hearing. I think
it is really an important service that we can provide to
protect children in the country, and I yield back the balance
of my time.
Mr. Rush. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Utah, Mr.
Matheson, for 5 minutes.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JIM MATHESON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF UTAH
Mr. Matheson. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think it is
important you are holding this hearing.
In the hearing announcement, we talked about two issues we
wanted to look at today. One is oversight of the Consumer
Product Safety Commission. The other is to talk about issues of
concern to members who legislate proposals for child safety.
Both of those are very commendable to be covering today, and I
want to associate myself with the opening comments of the
chairman of the subcommittee and the chairman of the full
committee in terms of highlighting the need for a more
aggressive effort.
We have heard from a number of the opening statements how
the staffing levels have been reduced, we have heard about the
budget numbers that have been reduced, but we have also heard
about this new new phenomenon that has really affected us now.
In a world of globalization and products coming from all over
the world, how is this agency set up and structured and
positioned to deal with that challenge in terms of ensuring
consumer product safety?
I think that is a very critical issue for us to try to
address today and learn what the agency needs and if there are
legislative fixes, and authority has to come from the
legislative branch to give the agency the flexibility and the
capability to address that new challenge.
That probably didn't exist when I was a little boy. You
mentioned, Chairman Nord, in your statement that in some ways
kids are safer today. They are. I am sure the crib my son
sleeps in now is much safer than the one I slept in. So we have
made progress, but these new challenges we are talking about
clearly mean we have got more to do.
We also have an agency, as Mr. Markey pointed out, right
now, that lacks a quorum. We have had an acting chairman since
last July. I think it is very important this committee conduct
this oversight right now, because I am not sure what is going
on in this agency in the last few months. We don't even have a
full-time quorum, we don't have a full-time chairman, the
budget seems to be dropping, and I think there will be
questions that ought to be answered.
Now when it comes to specific issues, Mr. Hill gave a very
good description of the need for the pool and spa safety
legislation that was introduced by Congresswoman Wasserman
Schultz, H.R. 1721. Accidental drowning is, in fact, the second
leading cause of death nationally. In addition to what Mr. Hill
stated in his own State, second leading cause of death of
children ages 1 to 14.
This is legislation of which I am personally a co-sponsor.
I think that there is bipartisan support for this matter, and I
would encourage that legislation to move quickly.
Second issue, I know the American Academy of Pediatrics has
raised the issue to this committee about lead content in toys.
Toy jewelry, lunch boxes, In this world of globalization in
particular we need to get our arms around that issue and figure
out there are better ways to ensure safety for our kids.
I also note that the American Academy of Pediatrics has
raised the safety of all-terrain vehicles. These are vehicles
that are used a lot in my home State. They are getting bigger
and more powerful than they were over the past few years.
Questions about children's operation of those vehicles ought to
be asked, and we ought to look for opportunities to create a
more safe situation for our kids. So, Mr. Chairman, again, I
just want to cover both those issues.
The need for oversight is clear. There is some important
issues there that we need to face, and I applaud you for
holding this hearing. I look forward to continuing the
legislative effort through this Congress, and I will yield back
my time.
Mr. Rush. I want to thank the gentleman.
The Chair now recognizes Ms. Hooley of Oregon for 5
minutes.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DARLENE HOOLEY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OREGON
Ms. Hooley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be very, very
brief so we can get to Ms. Nord.
First of all, thank you for being on the panel today; and,
second of all, Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this
hearing.
Although I am new to the Commerce, Trade and Consumer
Protection Subcommittee, it was actually a child safety issue
that first got me involved in politics. My son fell off the
swing at the park and cracked open his head on the asphalt
below the swings, and I was wondering why anyone would put a
hard surface below playground equipment. Well, they did because
they wanted to save a little money and thought that was a great
idea.
In the process of figuring out how that decision could have
happened and making sure it didn't happen again, I ended up on
the park board and eventually city council; and we did get rid
of the asphalt under the playground equipment. It was one
little incident.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with the
enormous task of protecting the public, including children,
from unreasonable risk associated with consumer products. Right
now, I understand you are trying to do this with 400 employees,
in contrast to a thousand that you had in 1981; and yet we know
there are many more products out there today that need to be
tested. Clearly, this is not sufficient. You also seem to lack
the statutory authority to protect consumers. I would look
forward to hearing from both panels on how we should address
these very serious problems. I also look forward to hearing
concerns regarding specific products that are still on the
shelves that could injure or even kill children.
Again, I applaud the subcommittee for their diligent work
on child safety and look forward to working on this issue with
you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rush. I want to thank the gentlelady. Any other
statements for the record may be included at this time.
[The prepared statements follow:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. G. K. Butterfield, a Representative in
Congress from the State of North Carolina
The oversight hearing the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade,
and Consumer Protection held nearly a month ago on the Consumer
Product Safety Commission shed light on the understaffed and
underfunded conditions at the Commission. It was an extremely
productive hearing that was successful in laying out a
framework for potential improvements. The CPSC is charged with
protecting the public from unreasonable risks of serious injury
or death from thousands of consumer goods. Many of these
products have a direct safety implication for children.
While the safety of all Americans is of critical importance
to lawmakers, the safety of children is of particular interest
for this hearing. The Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and
Consumer Protection will discuss several important legislative
initiatives aimed at improving the consumer product safety for
children. Not enough is being done to protect consumers--
particularly children.
H.R. 2474 introduced by Chairman Rush aims to increase the
maximum civil penalty for violations under the Consumer Product
Safety Act. The current limit the CPSC can assess is $1.825
million--the bill seeks to increase the limit to $20 million.
Unfortunately, the current penalty is so low that some
businesses see it simply as the cost of doing business. So
these companies continue to violate CPSC safety violations,
putting our children at risk.
The Danny Keysar Child Product Safety Notification Act--
H.R. 1699 was introduced by Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky.
Mirroring the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's
recall for car seats, H.R. 1699 requires everyday nursery
products to come with a prepaid postage registration card for
easy dissemination of recall information. Through this
legislation, if a product is recalled, more consumers and
children will be protected.
The Children's Gasoline Burn Prevention act--H.R. 814 would
require that the CPSC disseminate standards for portable
gasoline caps for gasoline containers. Over 1,000 children are
treated for burns related to gasoline on an annual basis. By
streamlining these standards far less children will be harmed
by gasoline.
Finally H.R. 1721--the Pool and Spa Safety Act vastly
increases the safety for consumers who use pools and spas. Over
250 young children drowned in US pools and spas last year. This
is a troubling number considering the total amount is much
higher. The bill requires that all pools and spas sold in the
United States adhere to anti-entrapment standards which are
layers of protection that include barriers and safety vacuum
releases. It also calls for CPSC to establish a grant program
for the States to encourage successful passage of pool and spa
safety laws.
I strongly support these important legislative measures and
urge passage. This is clearly a substantial first step in
ensuring our children are properly protected although more must
be done. The budget for the CPSC needs to be increased and we
as lawmakers should have an increased vigilance for our
country's children.
----------
Prepared Statement of Hon. Tammy Baldwin, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Wisconsin
Thank you Mr. Chairman and I appreciate the opportunity to
participate in today's subcommittee hearing on children's
product safety. I applaud the chairman for holding this very
timely hearing and I join my colleagues in welcoming the Acting
Chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission as well as
other witnesses.
It has been over 2 years since the death of my constituent
Collin Barberino that first alerted me to the dangers of
furniture tipping. Collin was only 3 years old when a dresser
that belonged to his new bedroom set fell on top of him and
crushed his chest. The dresser was about 4 feet tall and
weighed about 150 pounds. Almost exactly a year later, on
Christmas Eve 2005, Courtlynn Schneider, also 3 and also from
my Madison-based district, died when she climbed a dresser to
reach the television on top, causing the TV to fall and
crushing Courtlynn's head and chest.
These two tragic incidents made it clear to me that the
current voluntary furniture tipping standard is insufficient to
protect young children. In fact, according to CPSC's own
estimates, approximately 8,000 to 10,000 people, mostly
children, are injured every year when household furniture, such
as dressers, bookcases, and TV stands, tip over on top of them.
When issuing a September 2006 warning about the dangers of TV
and large furniture tip-over, the CPSC cited more than 100
deaths reported since 2000 and twice the typical yearly average
for the first half seven months of 2006.
While I applaud the CPSC for issuing the warning last
September recognizing the dangers of furniture and TV tip-over,
the Commission has otherwise consistently resisted any
regulatory improvement that would more effectively protect
children. It is true that section 7(b) of the Consumer Product
Safety Act requires the Commission to rely upon voluntary
consumer product safety standards rather than promulgate a
mandatory safety standard whenever such voluntary compliance
would eliminate or adequately reduce the risk of injury
addressed and that it is likely that there will be substantial
compliance with such voluntary standards. However, it is also
equally clear to me that in the case of furniture tip-over,
compliance with voluntary standard by the furniture industry
has not been substantial and the risk of injury continues to be
significant, if not expanding. I will enter into the record an
article from March 2006 issue of Consumer Reports magazine
discussing testing done on common furniture in a child's room,
as well as TV stands, to see if the furniture met the voluntary
standards. The results greatly concern me. One of five dressers
failed the test, one broke, and three others passed, but all
three tipped when drawers were open all the way and a weight
was applied. Clearly the voluntary standards are not
satisfactory, and many furniture manufacturers knowingly do not
meet them.
I wrote to then Chairman Stratton of the Commission last
February discussing the need for mandatory standards and
bringing to his attention the testing results from Consumer
Reports. In response, CPSC once again rejected mandatory
standards but cited progress in working with ASTM to promulgate
a new, voluntary, furniture tip-over standard that would
incorporate standards on anchoring devices and warning labels.
While this is a positive step, there continues to be no
requirement that furniture manufacturers must adhere to such
standards. It is the reason why I plan to once again co-sponsor
a legislation, to be introduced by Congresswoman Schwartz, that
would mandate warning labels and anchoring devices for
furniture at risk of tip-over.
I know that the existing vacancy on the Commission has
created a quorum issue prohibiting the CPSC from promulgating
new rules, but the issue of furniture tip-over predates the
current leadership vacuum. It seems to me that the CPSC has
allowed bureaucracy to undermine common sense and strayed from
its mission to protest consumers from unreasonable risk of
injury. If the Commission finds its current governing statutes
too restrictive, it should have come before Congress and
requested an update; if it finds the extensive mandatory
rulemaking process too cumbersome, it should have sought ways
to simplify such process. Just last week a 2\1/2\ year old girl
from New Jersey was killed by a fallen television when she
attempted to climb a bureau. I do not understand how many more
deaths must occur before the Commission considers the risk of
furniture tip-over unreasonable.
I will continue to work with Congresswoman Schwartz and
other members of the Committee to move a legislation that would
establish mandatory standards to prevent furniture tip-over. I
hope today's hearing will help impress upon the Commissioners
just how important this committee regards children's product
safety. I look forward to the testimonies from our testimonies
today, and thank you again Mr. Chairman for giving me the
opportunity to participate.
----------
Mr. Rush. Now the Chair recognizes the Commissioner of the
Consumer Product Safety Commission, Chairman Nancy Nord.
Chairman Nord was appointed to the CPSC in 2005 to a term that
expires in 2012. She has served as CPSC's Acting Chairman since
July, 2006.
Chairman Nord, welcome to this subcommittee; and we
recognize you for 5 minutes for opening testimony. Thank you
very much for coming.
STATEMENT OF NANCY A. NORD, ACTING CHAIRMAN, U.S. CONSUMER
PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION
Ms. Nord. Thank you so much.
Chairman Rush, Congressman Stearns, distinguished members
of the subcommittee, I am very pleased to be here to testify
before you today. Indeed, if I could even start on a personal
note, one of my very first jobs as a young lawyer fresh out of
law school was to be counsel to the House Energy and Commerce
Committee where I did consumer protection activities, including
oversight of the CPSC. So for me to come full circle and to be
testifying before you as the acting chairman of the Agency is
an incredible honor. So I thank you for inviting me up here to
testify today.
As you know, the CPSC is a bipartisan, independent Federal
regulatory agency. It was created in 1973, and it has the
enormous task of protecting the public from unreasonable risks
of injury associated with consumer products. We pay particular
attention to those products that are used by our most
vulnerable population groups, especially our children, as
Congresswoman Schakowsky pointed out.
I am pleased to report to the committee that the overall
rates of death and injury from children's products have been in
the decline since 2001. Indeed, since its inception, the CPSC
has led the way in dramatically reducing injuries to children
in a variety of areas, including crib deaths, household
poisonings, small parts hazards, stair falls and baby walkers,
to name just a few.
But we cannot and will not rest on past accomplishments.
Every day new children's products and product lines are
introduced that represent new designs, new materials, new
technologies and, as a result, new hazards. Recent media
reports have highlighted one of these new product areas, and
that is small magnets in toys and their potential to cause
intestinal damage to children if swallowed.
I met with Chairman Rush last night and, as we discussed at
that point, our statutes and the fact that we have an ongoing
open investigation really prevents me from getting into the
specifics of product cases in an open hearing. I am happy to
talk with you about the specifics of these privately or in
writing.
Nevertheless, I can tell you that this new and still
emerging challenge is being met head on by the CPSC. We have
been aggressively seeking to recall defective products, those
where small magnets can be easily separated from the toy. We
have been seeking to alert both parents and pediatricians of
this potential hazard, and we have been working with a variety
of stakeholders to ensure that new product standards are put in
place to help prevent this problem from occurring again.
Another area where we have been very active is that of lead
in children's metal jewelry, jewelry which is frequently
mouthed and pieces of which are sometimes swallowed by
children. We have started a rulemaking to ban lead in
children's jewelry and in the last 3 years have recalled more
than 150 million pieces of children's metal jewelry found to
have excessive lead levels.
Mr. Chairman, I could go on; and I am happy to discuss with
you specific product categories later. However, it must be
realized, as several members have pointed out, that with a
nationwide staff of just under 400 people, the Agency does not
now have--and frankly it has never had--the resources to fully
investigate all the hundreds of thousands of individual product
incidents of which we become aware. To serve the American
people as efficiently and as effectively as possible, we have
to establish priorities, we have to identify incident patterns
and, based on the best data available, move as quickly as
possible to prevent unsafe products from entering the stream of
commerce and to recall those that do.
It should also be realized that the large majority of
juvenile products that are purchased in the U.S. today are
imported from overseas and a majority of those from China. As
is the case with many other product categories that we oversee,
these products have become relatively cheaper and more
plentiful as a result of this unprecedented growth in imports.
As this has occurred, we have struggled to ensure that overseas
producers as well as their U.S. partners understand and adhere
to both our statutory and our voluntary product safety
standards. We have established an Office of International
Programs, we have entered into 12 separate agreements with our
foreign counterparts to work to reduce unsafe products, and we
are increasing our cooperation with the Bureau of Customs and
Border Protection and other relevant U.S. agencies. In fact,
next week I will be in China to meet with our counterparts
there to discuss in detail a number of concrete proposals that
we have made to reduce the importation of unsafe products in
several key product categories including toys.
Mr. Chairman, the resources available to our Agency are
modest; and, basically, we are charged to do more with less.
Frankly, I think by objective standards we have met that
challenge. The number of recalls that we did last year was up,
it was a record high, and we are on record to meet and exceed
that number.
We are investigating a record number of section 15 reports.
We have got going 14 rulemakings. That is more than we have
ever had in the history of the Agency, and these are showing
results. As I mentioned earlier, the number of child-related
deaths and injuries is down significantly from 2001.
As several members have observed, the CPSC was last
authorized by Congress in 1990. Obviously, the marketplace has
changed significantly since then. Explosion of imports, the
safety challenges presented by counterfeit products, new
emerging technologies such as nano materials, our governing
statutes need to be modernized; and I look forward to working
with this committee to do so at the appropriate time.
Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for inviting me to testify;
and I look forward to working with you over the coming months
to address the issues that are of interest to you at the CPSC.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Nord follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.002
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.003
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.004
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.006
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.007
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.008
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.009
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.010
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.011
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.012
Mr. Rush. Thank you, Chairman Nord.
Mr. Rush. The Chair recognizes himself for 5 minutes of
questioning.
Chairman Nord, does the Consumer Product Safety Act provide
the CPSC with sufficient tools to protect the American public,
especially children, from unsafe products? And what statutory
changes should Congress consider to help you do your job
better? You alluded to that during your testimony. Please help
us to help you.
Ms. Nord. Sir, the Consumer Product Safety Act sets out a
fairly comprehensive and rather complicated regulatory
framework under which we work to regulate specific product
areas; and I think, by and large, the authorities of the Act
give us the tools we need. However, it is important for this
subcommittee to recognize that the Agency administers five
different statutes, not only the Product Safety Act but four
other statutes that address specific areas of jurisdiction.
Frankly, the regulatory requirements of each of those acts is
somewhat different, and you can end up with different results
based on what act you are using.
So I think that it would be very helpful for the committee
to go through the examination with us at the Agency about why
that is true and is there some way to harmonize, if you will,
some of the provisions of these various acts so that we can
have a comprehensive safety regimen.
Mr. Rush. The CPSC is slated to get what I consider a very
paltry increase in this budgeting fiscal year, 2008; and I
understand that this increase will require a drop of 19 full-
time employees to an actual total of 401 employees. How can
this Agency cope with that reduction and what CPSC activities
will be sacrificed to work from a lower staffing figure?
Ms. Nord. Sir, actually, we are already at that staffing
level. We moved down over the past year have been working with
that particular reduced staff number. We have done this in a
couple of ways.
First of all, it is important for you to understand that
the Agency has been working very aggressively use technology
tools to the extent that we have the resources to acquire them
and implement them and use them in a way that helps us do our
work more efficiently. I think you can see by the results--some
of the figures that I mentioned in my testimony--that that
technology has been incredibly helpful to us.
As I said, as you know, we were double our current size 20-
some years ago, so we are investigating over double the number
of incidents that we were investigating in 1982 when our
numbers started to drop. So that is just one example of how,
with technology tools, we can achieve greater efficiency.
Another example, we have gone out and leveraged our safety
mission with all 50 States; and, right now, we have people who
are State employees who are basically working with us to extend
our eyes and ears out in the States. They basically help us
with policing the marketplace, looking for hazards, looking for
recalled products; and they report in to us.
Another example of how we have used technology to be more
efficient here, those people were sending in paper reports; and
the reports, one didn't look like the other. So somebody on our
staff was trying to have to make sense of that. What we have
done now is made this a Web-based reporting system so all the
information comes in to us and in a much more useable manner.
That is just one small example of how we have tried to be more
efficient with technology.
Mr. Rush. My time is up; and I will recognize the ranking
member, Mr. Stearns, for 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Stearns. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Commissioner Nord, I just went through the Chicago Tribune
story here; and it appears that your Agency reacted pretty
quickly after it was brought to your attention in December. In
March, you issued a voluntary recall of 3.8 million Magnetix
sets. Is that true? So in a very short amount of time you did
an investigation and you did almost 4 million recalls of the
toy sets.
Ms. Nord. We did. Actually, we have done a couple of
recalls; and, again, please understand that I have some legal
constraints on me with respect to getting into the details of
all this.
Mr. Stearns. But it is just as a matter of fact. You can
say yes or no.
Ms. Nord. Absolutely, we recalled it.
Mr. Stearns. It appears to me that after you do the recall
how are you going to get the people to voluntarily take it off
the shelves? If you make a formal finding like, as you did, you
say the product is defective, then the implication is a company
must recall the product. But if it is made in China, you can't
really force it to do that. So all you are left with is trying
to get a voluntary recall at Wal-Mart, at Kmart and all these
things. How is that going? How effective is a voluntary recall?
The Chicago Tribune is saying when you sent out your press
release about it asking for the recall there was some confusion
about retailers and consumers. So I guess the question is, do
we have an effective way to get the information out; and, two,
what can you do to make sure the voluntary recall is
implemented?
Ms. Nord. Addressing the question in general terms, one of
the things that I am really interested in and have spent a lot
of time thinking about as a commissioner at the CPSC is how to
make recalls as effective as they can possibly be.
Let me tell you generally what happens in a recall. And let
me preface this discussion by indicating to you that virtually
all our recalls are voluntary in the sense that we haven't had
to go to a mandatory court-type proceeding since 2001. So
virtually all of our recalls are voluntary. However, having
said that, product sellers have a great deal of incentive to
cooperate with us in making sure that we are happy with----
Mr. Stearns. What is the incentive for Wal-Mart to take it
off?
Ms. Nord. Basically we will make them do it if they won't.
Mr. Stearns. How do you make them do it? Suing them?
Ms. Nord. Certainly we can do that. We can certainly do
that, sir. But the marketplace, the fact that Wal-Mart does not
want to be having out there on its shelves recalled products,
the fact that if they do indeed sell recall products, well, we
will have our people in those stores and making them pull it
off is good incentive.
Mr. Stearns. But just sending a press release is not going
to do that.
Ms. Nord. We do much more than that.
Mr. Stearns. If you were told about a product today, you
send a mass e-mail, you send a notification. Just give me in
the time remaining--because I am worried about if we give you
all of the money and the people you needed and you knew
immediately what the problem was--I am not sure you are going
to get 4 million toys off the shelf soon enough to stop it.
So I think the next step that we ought to realize is there
has got to be a clear way for you to implement this recall
notification whether it is through a press release or e-mails
or whatever, or notifying the neighborhood safety network. But
I am not clear that that is as strong as it should be.
Ms. Nord. What we require companies to do at a very
minimum--this happens in every single recall--is that we first
of all require them, if they know who the individual consumers
are, they must individually notify those consumers. There is a
joint CPSC-company press release that goes out. That may be
enhanced by video, news release, and other kinds of press
coverage. We require them to put the notice on their Web site.
We require them to post notice at retail. We require them to
put in place a plan to pull the product off the retail shelves.
And then once we get it off the retail shelves, then the
biggest challenge, frankly, is getting consumers to pay
attention to it and getting it out of children's hands, and
that is one of the challenges that I have been spending a lot
of time working on.
Mr. Rush. Thank you.
The Chair now recognizes Ms. Schakowsky for 5 minutes.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Nord. I would like to suggest a way that I think we can
be helpful in making recalls more effective. And that is H.R.
1699, the Danny Keyser Child Product Safety Notification Act.
Here is what this would do: For durable products, high
chairs, cribs, strollers, durable children's products, there
would be attached to that a postage-paid recall registration
card. And this would allow the manufacturers to directly
contact each parent who bought their products should any
problem arise.
Now we mentioned that after the National Highway and
Transportation Safety Administration's recall system for car
seats, that ended up with a tenfold increase in the number of
families registering and the recall repair rates have gone up
56 percent.
You are shaking your head no.
Ms. Nord. That is information that is rather contrary to
the information I have. But I am interested to hear.
Ms. Schakowsky. But the recall we have now went up by 56
percent and that cost about 43 cents per item. Are you
suggesting that that is not a workable solution?
Ms. Nord. As I said, that information is new to me, and I
am interested to know it.
Ms. Schakowsky. This came from the 10-year study by NHTSA.
Ms. Nord. We were petitioned, gosh, back in the early
1990's, well before I was at the Agency to look at product
registration cards. The staff did a fairly exhaustive
examination, and the recommendation from our staff was that
registration cards did not have a particularly effective return
rate. We had the NHTSA information, and it is in our record. I
have looked at it. And I would love to sit down with you,
perhaps.
Ms. Schakowsky. Why don't we look at that?
The other thing in the Callahan report, in the Tribune, I
just want to quote, I think this may have been the editorial:
``a captive of industry, the Consumer Product Safety
Commission, lacks the authority and manpower to get dangerous
products off store shelves. And section 6(b) says that it
requires that the CPSC negotiate with manufacturers on the
warning of a press release announcing a recall.'' And at the
end of the discussion about magnetics, a recall notice that
went out says there is no required action for retailers.
Now, at the time, the company had convinced the CPSC that
their new product did not have that same kind of magnet, that
it was more reenforced. However, there was no capacity to
distinguish on the shelf between the old and the new. And in
fact, the reporter of the series bought the old product.
No wonder there was confusion. Mr. Stearns said how quickly
you reacted, but the reaction, as described by the former head
of enforcement of the CPSC, was a non-recall recall. I mean, if
it says there is no required action for retailers, it means
exactly nothing. And in the meantime, more children had severe
problems and major, major surgery.
I would like to ask you about the requirement that you
negotiate seems on its face to put the power into the hands of
the manufacturers rather than your experts at the CPSC.
Ms. Nord. With respect to the Magnetix situation, there
were--well, I would welcome the opportunity to address these
issues in closed session or with you individually.
Ms. Schakowsky. Let us talk about the general policy that
the manufacturers have the final say about a press release that
goes out on a dangerous product for children when your mission,
as you stated, is to protect children. Why would the final say
on what the language is----
Ms. Nord. Well, first of all, I think it is not a correct
statement to say they have the final say. We are constrained by
section 6(b) which Congress enacted, and basically the purpose
of that was to give us a tool to get information about a
product and about----
Ms. Schakowsky. The manufacturer can sue the CPSC if we----
Ms. Nord. If we make inaccurate statements.
Ms. Schakowsky. So they could tie up the CPSC if they say
what you say is inaccurate. In other words, you really do need
to get a check-off from the manufacturer.
Ms. Nord. Ma'am, the purpose of 6(b) was to give us a tool
that we could use to get information into the Agency that we
could use. There is a provision in 6(b) that requires us to let
the manufacturer know if we intend to release it and to give
them 30 days' opportunity to correct the information if it is
inaccurate.
Now, I would suggest to you that 30 days may have made some
sense in 1980. But in today's world, with instant
communications, this may be an area that you would like to
address, understanding there was and remains an underlying
policy issue that Congress was addressing when it enacted 6(b).
Mr. Rush. The gentlelady's time is up.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Burgess,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Burgess. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Ms.
Nord, for being here with us today.
Currently what would you regard as being the top targets
for dangers for children? What are the things out there that we
ought to be looking at?
Ms. Nord. When you look at death and injuries to children,
frankly, sir, in spite of the fact that they have been coming
down over the last 5 years, the biggest killer of small
children are balls. One quarter of the children who died last
year choked on balls. The second one was balloons, the third
was tricycles. And with respect to tricycles, one of those
children rode the tricycle into a swimming pool and drowned.
The other two were in traffic. So with respect to death, those
are the three biggest killers of children.
With respect to injuries, we are looking at motorized
scooters, bicycles, toys that allow children to go fast and end
up in traffic.
Mr. Burgess. Is the reason that those fall into the top
tiers is because those are in such wide usage, or because of
inherent danger in the design?
Ms. Nord. Balls, small balls are ubiquitous, and unless
Congress tells us that we need to get rid of marbles and jacks
and that kind of thing. It is a problem. I mean, small children
getting ahold of these balls that they can choke on remains a
problem.
Mr. Burgess. Let me ask you this, because I alluded to it
in my opening remarks. If you find that there is something
that, oh my gosh, this is just unparalleled danger that we had
never anticipated, how do you get the word out about that? How
do you make health care personnel aware of that? How do you get
emergency rooms into the loop? What are the mechanisms at your
disposal to get that information to the public?
Ms. Nord. We work very closely with the medical community,
and indeed have a very strong relationship with the Center for
Disease Control, which gives us a well-developed entry into the
medical community. We also have various stakeholders, and
indeed the chairman alluded to one earlier, or perhaps it was
Mr. Stearns, and that is our neighborhood safety network.
Basically our neighborhood safety network is something that was
set up a couple of years ago to give us entry into communities
that might not either listen to or welcome messages from the
Federal Government.
It is working with community groups, it is working with
various local stakeholders to try to get the message out and we
have got, gosh, I think around 5,000 participants in our
neighborhood safety network, and they then build on their own
contacts and----
Mr. Burgess. I don't know how effective it is. Do you have
like a blast fax or blast e-mail that you send to the emergency
rooms around the country so they know about the dangers of
these little magnets? Because, again, I wasn't aware of them,
and I will admit they were rudimentary searches on some medical
Web sites that I check regularly, I found no mention of dangers
from ingested magnets when putting ``ingested magnets'' into
the search engine.
Part of my concern is you have got these things, again that
are manufactured in the People's Republic of China, so we can
only guess to the quality control of the manufacturer.
Presumably the magnets fall out. I don't know with what kind of
regularity but that is the problem. The magnets fall out and
the children then eat them.
In your press release here, these older sets that were
manufactured in China contained 250 plastic building pieces and
half-inch steel diameter balls. There are one-inch squares,
triangles, reflectors, connectors, extenders, curves, and come
in an assortment of colors that are translucent and glow in the
dark. It sounds like fun.
But the problem is, again, we have products coming from
overseas that are perhaps not well made and is very appealing
to young children and yet poses an enormous hazard to them. And
again, I am concerned about the ability to get that knowledge
out there so that some poor child and some poor emergency room
nurse or doctor doesn't miss a very important diagnosis and
very important clue.
Ms. Nord. Well, you have put your finger on a problem that
we think about a lot, sir.
With respect to this particular hazard, many doctors did
view it as just the same thing as children swallowing metal so
it was not recognized..
The CPSC, frankly, the Agency that brought this to the
medical community's attention, and one of our experts has
written the leading article on this--it was published by CDC
and distributed widely by CDC to the medical community. But
nevertheless, sir, that is very difficult.
We were having a conversation with a very well-known
pediatric emergency room surgeon to enlist him to help us on a
public service announcement that we have just done on magnets.
And he was not aware of the issues. So it is a sense of
frustration that we haven't figured out how to get the message
out to every pediatrician.
Now, one of the things that I do want to mention to you,
because I think this is really important and indeed I would, if
possible, like to enlist your aid on this; and that is, when we
have recalls, it is really important not only to get the
product off the manufacturer's shelves but also to make sure
that consumers are aware of it.
We have just initiated something called the ``Drive to 1
Million.'' We have a Web site. We send out e-mail notices on
CPSC recalls. People can sign up to get those e-mail notices.
You don't have to get all of our recalls. You can indicate the
kind of recall that you want to hear about. We are not going to
be spamming anyone.
But we are trying over the next year to get 1 million
people signed up on our Web site to get CPSC recall notices,
and it would really be very helpful to us if this is something
you could bring to the attention of your constituents.
Mr. Burgess. I will put it in my next newsletter.
Mr. Rush. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Hill from Indiana.
Mr. Hill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I will return to accidental drowning.
What do you think is the most effective thing that we can
do to prevent children from drowning in swimming pools?
Ms. Nord. Drowning is one of those hazards that is very
important to the Agency. We have ongoing projects dealing with
various aspects of drowning. But, frankly, sir, the two most
important things are multiple barriers around the pool and
constant supervision.
We are just now starting a drowning safety campaign, and
sir, the point that we are making in this campaign is that
drowning is often a silent death. You don't hear splashes. You
don't hear people crying for help in a pool. The child can
slide under the pool silently and be gone in seconds. And I
think parents don't understand that, caregivers don't
understand that. They feel that a child--you can turn your
attention away for just an instant.
Constant supervision, multiple barriers, are really the
most important things in addressing this issue.
Mr. Hill. I was reading the testimony that Jim Baker's
daughter gave to a committee that almost made me cry.
Ms. Nord. It was awful.
Mr. Hill. It was awful. Do we need to do something about
these drainage vessels?
Ms. Nord. I think in today's technology for pools and spas
that are being manufactured, that has been addressed. And, of
course, the problem is old, old pools and also making sure that
when these things are installed, that building codes are
complied with. Of course, the CPSC does not enforce local
building codes, but that is something that localities need to
take a look at.
Mr. Hill. But you don't have the authority to require pool
operators to use safety devices, right?
Ms. Nord. No.
Mr. Hill. Let me ask you a final question then.
Do you support Congressman Wasserman-Schultz's bill that
she has introduced, that was passed, but ran out of time last
year?
Ms. Nord. Sir, if you get it to us, we will enforce it.
Mr. Hill. OK. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will
yield back the remainder of my time.
Mr. Rush. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
California, Mr. Radanovich for 5 minutes.
Mr. Radanovich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to the
committee.
I didn't hear on the top three--I have got a 9-year old boy
who is playing baseball right now. They are using aluminum
bats. Isn't that becoming an issue right now with the desire to
kind of get those out and go back to wood bats, because the
impact that they have on chest impacts, because they are harder
hitting than wood bats and there is a hard ball going with a
lot of speed in those games. Do you care to elaborate on that?
Ms. Nord. This is an issue we are aware of. We have been
working with the NCAA to put in place informal requirements or
voluntary requirements that the non-wood bats would have the
same performance characteristics as the wood bats. However,
having said that, even though within college and high school
and school performance or school sports, you would expect to
see the NCAA-certified license bat.
Other ones are still available on the marketplace. We have
not undertaken formal regulatory activity on that area, but we
are very much aware of the issue. We are looking at it. And if,
indeed, we see an increase of injuries, we would certainly want
to take a further look at that.
Mr. Radanovich. That is all of the questions.
Mr. Rush. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Utah. Mr.
Matheson.
Mr. Matheson. You mentioned in your testimony--I just
wanted to clarify--what actions has the Commission taken on the
issue of the lead content in toys?
Ms. Nord. The Agency has a very long history of dealing
with this issue. You should be aware that the CPSC is the
Agency that banned lead in paint. And we have banned lead in
paint on children's toys and indeed, unfortunately, do have to
recall toys, generally imports, that end up with lead paint.
You are aware that we have recalled millions of pieces of
jewelry that had excessive levels of lead.
We have a rulemaking underway to deal with lead in
children's jewelry, the hazard being that children swallow it
and when it is in their systems, it raises their blood levels.
So we have a long history.
I will tell you, sir, that we have also now gone to the
voluntary standards group that deals with children's products,
and we have asked them to open up an activity to look at how
lead is used in vinyl with the notion of is there some way to
either lower the level of lead in vinyl or ultimately get the
lead out.
Mr. Matheson. And with that long history and you couple
that with my opening statement with where these things were
coming from offshore 20 or 30 years ago, under the current set
of rules and statutory capabilities that you have, how capable
is the Agency of dealing with this, and are there changes that
you would recommend that Congress needs to do to help you
better address this issue in a globalized environment?
Ms. Nord. Well, with respect to lead, sir, I think that the
Agency has acted responsibly, and I am not here to suggest to
you that we need to change the statute with respect to that
particular product.
You raise an issue, and I am hesitating as to whether I
really want to get into it in this setting; but, gosh, I think
I will.
And that is we issue mandatory product safety rules which
we, as an Agency, write. That is a very long, drawn-out
process. And Congress put in place that process for good, solid
reasons.
However, Congress did include a provision, section 9(b) of
the Product Safety Act, that let us sometimes rely on voluntary
standards. And there is some confusion, I think both in the
Agency and out in the regulated community, as to what happens
if we rely on a voluntary standard.
And I think that the statute takes you to the conclusion
that in appropriate instances where you go through the shortcut
process that is outlined in 9(b), you end up with a standard
that you can put on the books, that you can use to address
imports coming into the United States.
I would be happy to give you an example of how this could
work. But I think it is a tool that is available to us that the
Agency really hasn't used. I would like us to start using it
because I think it gives us a really good way of dealing with
imports where you have U.S. products meeting voluntary
standards, but imports that do not, and you that is the product
that you are trying to get to, sir.
Mr. Matheson. I think it is an issue to look at.
I have one more question.
I just want to mention, testimony before the Senate last
year from the American Academy of Pediatrics noted that CPSC's
own undercover inspections--this is with relation to all-
terrain vehicles--revealed sort of a variable compliance with
your requirements that noted a decline in the amount of
compliance; where in 1998 compliance was 85 percent, in the
years 2000 to 2003 they dropped down to 63 percent and moved up
to 70 in 2004.
So we are sitting with about a third of dealers not in
compliance.
Do you know why these compliance rates have declined, as
shown as by your investigations, when it comes to the ATV
manufacturers?
Ms. Nord. I would like to get back to you with the
specifics of those statistics. But one of the things that I
know is of big concern to us right now with respect to ATVs is,
first of all, their popularity has just skyrocketed, and the
number of imported ATVs coming in from China and Taiwan,
specifically, has gone up as well.
The Agency has action plans negotiated with the big
domestic manufacturers. We don't have action plans with these
small foreign manufacturers, and it is a problem that the
Agency is very much aware of. We are trying to get a handle on
it and it indeed is being addressed in rulemaking right now.
Mr. Matheson. Seems like it is being a recurring issue with
imported products.
I yield back.
Mr. Rush. Thank you.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Nebraska, Mr.
Terry, for 8 minutes.
Mr. Terry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that.
Just to kind of work through, somewhat historically, your
duties, the products aren't presented to your office presale
and distribution?
Ms. Nord. No. The Congress made it very specific they did
not want us to be doing that.
Mr. Terry. You don't reverse-engineer a product and then
put your seal of approval before it hits the shelf.
Unfortunately, the way that your office becomes aware of a
potential problem with a product is through hearing of a
terrible situation where a child has been severely hurt or
injured, correct?
Ms. Nord. We become aware of issues through incident
reports that we get in. We get in data from a variety of
sources. We have something called the national electronic
information surveillance system, or NEIS's system, which is a
scan of hospital emergency rooms. We get in, oh, gosh, 350,
sometimes 400,000 reports in any given year from the NEIS's
system.
We also get in information coming over the Web site and
over the consumer hotline. We have field investigators who are
out there looking at the marketplace. We read newspapers. We
get in reports every night from, again, a scan of newspapers
looking at incidents that are reported. We also get coroners'
death certificates and then, again, we scan them for a
relationship with products.
Mr. Terry. Sounds like your office is fairly aggressive in
trying to obtain information. You are continually exploring
other ways of covering information to get a bad product off the
shelf sooner. Seems like you can't start it until,
unfortunately, something happens.
Ms. Nord. Yes. One of the things I didn't mention also was
a brand-new process that we have put in place in the last
couple of years called a retailer reporting model, where the
big retailers are now reporting to us on a weekly basis, on the
incidents that they see.
But, sir, you have touched on a point. We get in an awful
lot of information. We want a lot of information, because by
having that information we can then, I think, better pick up
the patterns that we need to see in order to determine if
something is a tragic fluke or if it is the start of a new
pattern hazard. And it is making that distinction as early as
you can in the process that really is the challenge for us. And
that is what we are trying to do every day. It is a daunting
challenge but I think we do it well.
Mr. Terry. And that is a difficult position with that first
incident report to determine if it is one of those just one of
those things that happens versus a real safety issue that you
need to start the process.
You may have said this in your testimony, but let us say
that you reach a conclusion fairly instantaneously after you
become aware of an incident. How long does it take to be able
to remove that product from the shelf and/or start the recall?
Ms. Nord. Well, again, every recall is different, so it is
hard to generalize. We have a category of recalls that we refer
to as fast-track recalls where we can get a recall accomplished
within 20 days of becoming aware of the problem. In fast-track
recalls, the manufacturer basically comes to us and says we
think we have a problem. We take a look at it, and our
requirement is that we get it done within 20 days.
Now about half of our recalls are fast-tracked recalls. So
the committee should be reassured that in an awful lot of these
things, we are getting the product out of the marketplace
quickly.
With other situations, we need to analyze the problem to
make sure that there really is something that needs to be
recalled, or that it really is the kind of hazard that we have
the authority and responsibility to----
Mr. Terry. I appreciate that.
And when you do a recall or a big announcement of an unsafe
product, I think that is how everyone visualizes your office.
But there is an education component, too, that I want to bring
up and discuss, because as we talk about balloons, small
Superballs, that kids--especially my three boys--all grew up
with that, but we knew that was a safety issue as parents.
So when you are dealing with water balloons--not
necessarily water balloons--but water balloons and things that
are just inherently dangerous. I am not sure that Congress
wants to eliminate Superballs and balloons. So therefore there
is an education component here.
Can you describe that part of your office? And how you are
using that?
Ms. Nord. Yes. Information and education is one of the main
responsibilities of our Agency.
We issue press releases, we do safety campaigns. For
example, this month is electrical safety month. We have just
put out an alert warning consumers on counterfeit electrical
products. We are also next week going to be issuing a series of
PSAs on drowning safety hazards. Again, focusing this year on
the fact that drowning is such a silent killer and people just
really don't understand that. They think, again, that you are
going to hear shouts and splashes, and that is just not the
reality.
May is also Bicycle Safety Month, and we are doing a series
of campaigns on that as well as helmet safety. So we have a
very active consumer education component to the Agency.
Finally, we also will put in place focused campaigns when
the need arises. For example, the Congressman from Utah asked
about ATVs. One of the things that we are doing with respect to
ATVs is we have created an independent Web site called a
ATVsafety.gov, and along with that Web site we have a whole
series of PSAs that go along with that Web site and that push
our safety message. We investigate every ATV death and, again,
are prepared to move into the State with a PSA when an ATV
death occurs.
So we really work hard to carry out the information and
education component of our mission.
Mr. Rush. Thank you.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Massachusetts,
Mr. Markey, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much.
Welcome.
What year did you work here on the committee?
Ms. Nord. This is embarrassing to say, but in the late
1970's and early 1980's, and I did consumer protection issues.
Mr. Markey. Well, now this is like the amazing shrinking
agency that you work on. It just keeps getting cut back and
back and back, and you said you only have now two members of
the Commission.
Ms. Nord. Yes. It would be very helpful to have a third.
Mr. Markey. Just amazing.
Now you have jurisdiction over bicycles.
Ms. Nord. Yes.
Mr. Markey. But you don't have jurisdiction over roller
coasters. So if a child is strapped into a roller coaster,
hurtling at 75 miles an hour around curves 100 miles in the
air, the risk to a child's safety are probably greater than
those associated with riding a bicycle.
But in the case of bicycles, you have jurisdiction where in
the case of a fixed-site amusement ride, the CPSC does not have
authority to investigate accidents, issue or enforce safety
plans, or share information about accidents with other
operators of the same ride in other States, which is a
dangerous double standard that puts children's lives at stake.
Would you support legislation to provide the CPSC with the
authority and the resources to regulate amusement rides at
fixed sites?
Ms. Nord. Again, sir, Congress has looked at this issue and
they have spoken on it. Believe me. If Congress changes the
law, you can count on the CPSC to enforce it.
Mr. Markey. Actually, that was just a prohibition but
actually you did have regulation to regulate. David Stockman
stuck it into the legislation bill in 1981. It was something he
stuck in.
Ms. Nord. I do remember that.
Mr. Markey. Without letting anybody have any notice of it
at all, which was a common practice at that time.
In February 2007, Congressman Dingell and I wrote to you
after a news story reported on dangerous lead levels in some
children's vinyl lunch boxes. According to an AP report, the
results of the first type of tests on the lunch boxes, looking
for the actual lead content of the vinyl, showed that 20
percent of the bags had more than 600 parts per million of
lead. The highest level was 9,600 parts per million, more than
16 times the Federal standard.
In your response to our letter, you noted that under CPSC
Federal law, total lead does not dictate action. Instead,
designs must consider real-world interaction of child and
product and the accessibility of lead from the product.
And in testing for accessible lead in vinyl lunch boxes,
CPSC staff did not bind levels to indicate the basis for taking
action.
Now, when the FDA determines the lead in lunch boxes could
be a danger, which it has, it is called an unsafe food
additive, the lead in the lunch boxes could migrate to the food
inside and be ingested by a child. Isn't that lead therefore
accessible to a child?
Ms. Nord. The FDA enforces a very different statute from
the one that the CPSC administers. And the standards under the
Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act for food additives are very, very
different. I mean, they are pretty starkly zero. And, indeed, I
think you have to go through a process to have a food
additive----
Mr. Markey. But you are saying in your determination, if
lead could seep into the food that children eat in the lunch
box, that you are not allowed to protect children.
Ms. Nord. That is not what the FDA found, and that is not
what we found, sir. When we did our tests to see how accessible
was the lead, that is not what we were finding, sir.
The amounts of lead that were accessible and determined by
our swipe tests were so minimal that our health scientists felt
we did not have the statutory authority to proceed.
Mr. Markey. So can you take note of what the FDA found that
the lead could migrate into the food? Is that not something
that you could note?
Ms. Nord. They didn't say that it did. They said that it
could. They didn't make any finding. They were basically using
our test----
Mr. Markey. They sent letters to you in the past. Have you
sent letters to anyone in your jurisdiction?
Ms. Nord. Sir, no. Of course not. No.
Mr. Markey. ``of course not,'' did you say?
Ms. Nord. I said no, we have not. We have taken no
regulatory action, because we did not have a statutory basis to
do that.
Mr. Markey. Well, again, that is kind of disturbing to me
that----
Ms. Nord. Sir, if I could expand a little bit here.
When we looked at this, we felt we did not have statutory
authority to address the issue that you and Chairman Dingell
raised.
Let me tell you what we have done. And that is that we are
concerned----
Mr. Markey. Do you have statutory authority----
Mr. Rush. I must remind the gentleman that his time is
completed.
We move on to the next witness. My friend from Tennessee,
Mrs. Blackburn is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Blackburn. Thank you. Ms. Nord, I appreciate your time
with us today. Being someone that has spent much of her
professional career in retail marketing and consumer marketing,
I have an appreciation for the job that is in front of you, and
I want to talk with you briefly during my time about two
specific things, looking at your processes and procedures.
We have talked a little bit about your education and I
appreciate that in your testimony on page 8, you talked about
that as a big part of your mission. And you have talked
primarily about your reactive end of that, once something
happens and how you work on it. And then I guess the proactive
end, primarily you are initiative-driven with the Bicycle
Safety month or a ``this'' or a ``that,'' trying to get
information out. And I know you have upped the number of people
that are going to your Web site. But when you look at 20
million hits in the course of a year, that is still not what
you would call market penetration by any stretch of
imagination.
So very quickly, because this is question No. 1, and I do
want to move on to No. 2, how many of those 401 employees are
given to the task of informing the American people that you
exist?
And then other than just specific initiative-driven events,
what are you doing to make, with other Federal agencies, with
the public as a whole, with industry, to basically partner to
get the word out that you are there and you can help them?
So, very quickly. We have got 3 minutes on the clock.
Ms. Nord. OK. In our Office of Public Affairs, I think it
is five or six people.
Mrs. Blackburn. Five or six out of 400.
Ms. Nord. We also have about a hundred people in the field,
and they are certainly there to interact with the consumer.
We have relationships with other Government agencies that
we try to leverage. I talked about the one with the CDC, and
that is a very important one. But we also interact with Federal
regulatory agencies. For example, I just did an event with
Nicole Mason over at NHTSA on car seat safety.
Mrs. Blackburn. So you have those as ongoing relationships
that you work with on a daily basis?
Ms. Nord. Absolutely.
Mrs. Blackburn. I think that is maybe not transparent to
us. It is not something that we are seeing, and I don't think
it is something that the public sees.
Now moving on to the second part of my question, and if you
want to submit anything additional in writing, please feel free
to do so.
Walk through the process. Again, on your procedure end,
when you find out there may be just cause for reviewing a
recall, that there is a problem with a product and you are
getting anecdotal information, you may have a little bit of
industry information, go through what a time line, the period
of time that would lapse between recognition of an instance and
then the issuance of a recall, just to give us, as we go
through the next panel, kind of what we are talking about as
what that time span would be.
Ms. Nord. OK. Recalls happen in a couple of different ways.
First of all, companies are required to report to us when
they became aware of an incident. Companies, about half of our
recalls are these fast tracks where companies come in, they say
to us we think we have got a problem here. We take a look at it
and within 20 days initiate the recall.
Mrs. Blackburn. Within 20 days?
Ms. Nord. Within 20 days.
With other kinds of recalls, we basically are looking at
information that comes in through these information sites that
I described to Mr. Terry. And we will then contact the agent,
the company, ask for information, we will sit down, we will go
through a process of analyzing what the risk is and does this
require a recall.
Mrs. Blackburn. OK. And those take you how long?
Ms. Nord. Every one of those is different. They can take a
couple of days, a couple of weeks to a year.
Mrs. Blackburn. So half of the recalls you initiate on your
own and half are industry initiated?
Ms. Nord. That would be a----
Mrs. Blackburn. OK. And some of them can go--be turned
around as quickly as a week, and some may take 3 weeks.
Ms. Nord. Or 3 months or 90 days or 6 months. Every recall
is different.
Mrs. Blackburn. So there is no standard procedure.
OK. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Rush. The Chair recognizes Ms. Hooley for 5 minutes.
Ms. Hooley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and again I thank you
for being here today.
I know that your organization deals with over 15,000
different categories and virtually all products for children.
I would like to get a better idea on how you decide what
tests, what products, you are going to test at your lab. I am
following up on Mrs. Blackburn's question. How many of your
employees, your wonderful employees, are dedicated to testing
products and what time do you spend reacting to what is on the
market versus proactive, where you look at products and get
them off the market before they--get them off the shelves
before there is a problem?
Ms. Nord. OK. We have a testing laboratory out in
Gaithersburg, Maryland. We have about 35 people out there, of a
variety of disciplines, but mainly engineers. And so that is
the answer to that first piece of the question.
But stepping back a little bit. Because we have such a
broad jurisdiction, because there are so many issues, we really
have to prioritize. And in the Code of Federal Regulations, we
have published regulations that describe how we go about this
prioritization process.
Right now we have two strategic goals: one dealing with
reducing the risk of residential fires, which certainly impact
children; and the second is reducing the risk of carbon
monoxide poisoning. Again, impacting children.
And so with respect to those two strategic goals, we have a
number of projects that we have initiated proactively to drive
down the numbers in those two areas. And I am happy to get into
detail with you if you wish.
With respect to other hazards and risks. We have a number
of ongoing programs, for example, with respect to drowning. The
biggest issue I see--we are a Federal regulatory agency to
regulate products. With respect to drowning, we don't have a
product to regulate. But we have got to address it, and we have
to deal with educating consumers, getting people to understand
the need for multiple barriers of protection, the need for
constant vigilance.
So that is an example of a program that we have that we can
consider, devote considerable resources to. But it is a little
bit outside our typical focus as a regulatory agency.
Ms. Hooley. How do you decide which products to test?
Ms. Nord. We test products that we are concerned may be a
safety hazard. If there is an allegation that it violates a
mandatory safety standard, we would obviously test that to see
if that is true.
If we are concerned about the effectiveness of a voluntary
standard, we would test products to see if indeed they do
comply with the voluntary standard. If there is a recall, or if
we suspect that there is a recall product out there on the
shelves, we would test that information as well.
Ms. Hooley. How many products come to your attention that
you think need some testing but you can't test because of your
staffing or funding issues?
Ms. Nord. We don't test products unless we have a
particular reason to test them.
Ms. Hooley. So any product that you think you have a reason
to test you can do. It is adequate.
Ms. Nord. Ma'am, we can always do more.
Ms. Hooley. I just wanted a sense of the products that you
think you need to test, you are able to do that with 35
employees at your testing labs and those labs have everything
that you need.
Ms. Nord. Again, every agency needs more resources and we
would do more with more. But right now, if we have an issue
with a product, we think we need to test it to make sure it is
either complying or that it has a defect, we have the
capability of doing that in our lab. It is not a modern
facility by any means, but it is adequate.
Ms. Hooley. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5
minutes. Mr. Gonzalez.
Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And Chairman Nord, thank you for your service. I don't
think there is any doubt about your dedication or sincerity
regarding your duties. I think the problem arises, obviously,
from what you have to work with.
And earlier, another Member alluded to the memo that is
provided as usually the day before. That hasn't changed,
whether it is Republican or Democrat. As a matter of fact, that
meeting that takes place around 1:00, 1:30 on the preceding day
of the hearing, where the Republicans used to have that staff
meeting more like 4:00 or 4:30. I am not sure where the
complaints are coming from.
But regardless, this memo gives us some background. I
understand whoever authors it may have certain information or
may have their own feelings about things.
But it appears that you have problems, not yourself,
obviously, but the Commission with budget and personnel, that
has been abundantly clear; the voluntary nature of the safety
standards, not necessarily mandatory; the lack of real-life use
or testing with children's products; and the limited facilities
that you have by your own admission--and again, not to question
anyone's dedication--limited sanctions when, in fact, someone
violates some standards and such, and then recall
ineffectiveness.
And I think Congress had a point. What do you do with your
resources? I guess you can divide it into being proactive and
reactive. My theory is you don't have the resources to be
really proactive, and you may need to concentrate on the
reactive.
And what I am getting at is the notice and the recall of
dangerous products. And this is what the memo reads: Recall
ineffectiveness. The CPSC has limited power to mount effective
recall campaigns, first, because of limitations in section 6(b)
of the Consumer Product Safety Act on the Agency's ability to
make negative statements about specific products. The Agency
must negotiate with the manufacturer on the wording of a press
release announcing a recall. The CPSC may issue a press release
over the objections of the manufacturer provided only if it
first goes to court.
Is that accurate?
Ms. Nord. No. That is not accurate.
Mr. Gonzalez. That is not accurate.
So if you decide--and I know you had an expedited recall--
but that is basically where you have a manufacturer coming to
you, and I am sure that is streamlined because you have an
individual identifies their own product as posing a problem.
How do you determine the wording, how do you determine the
recall schedule and stuff? Is there anything that you must do
in gaining the permission of the manufacturer before you would
be able to proceed on the wording of the recall, on the
imposing of the recall? Because that is what it appears to
represent as far as materials I have. And I may be misreading
it.
Ms. Nord. As I indicated, virtually all our recalls are
voluntary. The last time we did an involuntary recall was in
2001. And that was the Daisy air rifle case.
However, having said that, companies do have incentives,
big incentives to cooperate with us, and they generally do.
The notion that somehow companies control the recall
process is just inaccurate, and I think it just does a terrible
disservice to the whole notion of product safety.
When we go through the recall process, we have to get
information in. We have to understand what the problem is. And
that is what 6(b) allows. It allows companies to give us
information on the basis that we will not then disclose that
information unless we give them prior notice and we can assure
that it is accurate. And it is the accuracy that----
Mr. Gonzalez. Let me ask you, what is the incentive for
self-disclosure? You just said you have a tremendous incentive.
Ms. Nord. The incentive is the fact that it is in the law,
it is required to do so. If they don't come to us and talk to
us about these issues, they are in violation of section----
Mr. Gonzalez. What are the consequences? Is it serious
enough to gain their attention?
Ms. Nord. We fine them. We take them to court. We issue
penalties.
Mr. Gonzalez. Are the sanctions adequate, in your opinion?
Ms. Nord. The sanctions are considerable, sir. And it is
not the level of sanctions that gets in the way of us enforcing
the law, sir.
Mr. Gonzalez. Your own admission, though, is that you all
have not had anything at recall that was initiated by you in a
number of years. So what makes you feel so comfortable that we
have the manufacturers voluntarily coming to you because of
fear of some sanction that may be serious but maybe not that
serious? I mean, I guess there seems to be almost a conflict.
They don't have to worry about being found out, in essence.
So what is the real incentive?
Ms. Nord. Sir, the genius of the Product Safety Act, the
thing that Congress did so well when you enacted the statute
back in 1973 was to create that incentive. Basically what you
have said is that if a product seller thinks that they may have
a problem--not that they do have a problem but if they may have
a problem--they have to come to us and they have to report to
us. If they don't, then we can impose fines on them and,
frankly, we do impose fines on them and they are considerable
fines. But basically what that does is allow us to get
information in the door so that we can analyze it, and that
section 15(b) which is in the Product Safety Act really
provides the incentive and is the key for an awful lot of the
things we do.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman's time is up.
Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Rush. The chairman now recognizes the gentlelady from
Wisconsin. She is not a member of the subcommittee but we
invite her to ask questions. Ms. Baldwin is recognized for 5
minutes.
Ms. Baldwin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
opportunity to participate in today's hearing and I join in
this hearing because of a personal interest and a commitment to
the issue of furniture tipping. And it has been a little over 2
years since the death of my constituent Colin Barbarino who
first--this is what first alerted me to the dangers of
furniture tipping. Colin was only 3 years old when a dresser
that belonged to his brand-new bedroom set fell on top of him
and crushed his chest, and the dresser was about 4 feet tall
and weighed about 150 pounds.
It was almost exactly a year later, on Christmas Eve 2005,
when Courtlynn Snyder, also 3, from my district in south
central Wisconsin, died when she climbed a dresser to reach the
television set that was on top, causing the TV to fall and,
again, crushing Courtlynn's head and chest.
And these were two tragic incidents that made it clear to
me that the current voluntary furniture tipping standard is
insufficient to protect young children. In fact, according to
CPSC's own estimates, approximately 8,000 to 10,000 people,
mostly children, are injured every year when household
furniture such as dressers and book cases and TV stands tip on
top of them.
When issuing the September 2006 warning about the dangers
of TV and large furniture tipovers, the CPSC cited more than
100 deaths reported since 2000, and twice the typical yearly
average for the first 7 months of 2006. So while I applaud the
CPSC for issuing the warning last September that recognizes the
danger of furniture and TV tipovers, the Commission has
otherwise consistently resisted any regulatory improvement that
would more effectively protect children.
It is true that section 7(b) of the Consumer Product Safety
Act requires the Commission to rely on voluntary consumer
product safety standards rather than promulgating mandatory
safety standards whenever such voluntary compliance would
eliminate or adequately reduce the risk of injury addressed,
and that it is likely that there will be substantial compliance
with such voluntary standards. However, it is also equally
clear to me that in the case of furniture tipover, compliance
with voluntary standards by the furniture industry has not been
substantial, and that the risk of injury continues to be very
significant, if not expanding.
And I want to enter into the record an article from the
March 2006 issue of Consumer Reports magazine discussing
testing done on common furniture in a child's room, as well as
TV stands, to see if that furniture meets the voluntary
standards, and the results greatly concerned me.
One of five dressers failed the test. One broke, three
others passed, but all three tipped when the drawers were open
all the way and the weight was applied.
So, clearly, in my mind the voluntary standards are not
satisfactory and many furniture manufacturers knowingly do not
meet them.
So I have just basically two sets of questions for you.
One, the commission has cited section 7(b) of the Consumer
Product Safety Act as a statutory barrier inhibiting the
Commission from promulgating mandatory safety standards, and it
has also described a rather protracted rulemaking process to
create any mandatory standards. So I ask if you would support
modifying 7(b) of the act to grant the Commission more
authority in moving ahead with mandatory standards.
And since I only have a couple more seconds, let me just
get to the second major question. We have written to the CPSC,
me and my colleagues, concerning the danger of furniture
tipping, and you are probably familiar with our legislative
attempts to address this matter. Have you reviewed legislation
introduced by Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz last Congress that
creates mandatory safety standards that include warning labels,
anchoring devices, and weight requirements. Would you generally
support that bill?
Ms. Nord. Thank you for the question. With respect to the
bill, I am not familiar with the bill. However, I am familiar
with the fact that the Agency staff is now working with ASTM.
They have initiated a new process to look at the existing
voluntary standard to look at its adequacy.
Going to the bigger question, ma'am, the Product Safety Act
does set out a regime under which it really directs the Agency
to look at issues in the marketplace that are not being
adequately addressed by the voluntary standards writing
organizations. And again, that is a way for us to focus the
resources of the Federal Government in areas that are not
otherwise being addressed. If there is a voluntary standard in
place that is indeed adequate, then I do not believe that we
would be able to meet the statutory requirements of the act
dealing with addressing unreasonable risks that are not being
met.
If, however, there is a voluntary standard in place and it
is not adequate or it is not being complied with, then we have
no statutory prohibitions on proceeding. And we do indeed
proceed, and we will in the future.
Mr. Rush. I thank the gentlelady. Your time is up.
The Chair is going to beg your indulgence. We want to have
a second round, and it will be a brief second round. We will
give each member 3 minutes to ask a question. And the Chair
gives himself 3 minutes now for an any additional questions.
Madam Chairlady, there was a follow-up article to the
article in the Tribune--the original series, investigatory
series, dated I think May 6 and 7. There was a follow-up
article dated Friday, May 11 that says recalled magnetic toys
are still in stores. Are you familiar with this article in the
Tribune?
Ms. Nord. I have read the Tribune material----
Mr. Rush. It says that the Illinois attorney general's
office has found stores across Illinois selling recalled toys
linked to the death of one child and severe intestinal injuries
of more than two dozen others. It also says that--and I am
quoting from a statement from Ms. Kerry Smith, who is a deputy
chief of staff for policy and communications for the Illinois
attorney general's office. It says: ``Ideally, these products
are recalled. Promptly, recalls make their way to the retail
level and the kids are kept safe. That process needs to be
airtight and it clearly is not.''
Do you agree with that? And are there any suggestions that
you have that would make recalls more effective today or
tomorrow?
Ms. Nord. OK. If there is product that has been recalled
and the manufacturer intentionally puts it out there or the
retailer intentionally sells it, then we have got the authority
to go after that product seller, and we have in the past.
Indeed this past spring we, initiated or issued a fine against
somebody who did precisely that. And frankly, sir, as long as I
am on the Commission we will aggressively undertake those
actions.
With respect to how can we make recalls more effective, the
thing I want to emphasize here is that our first objective is
to get the product off the store shelves and out of consumers'
hands. That is the thing we are focusing on first when we do a
recall. After we have accomplished that, then we step back and
say, OK, is this a situation where we want to look at a
potential further action? Is 15(b) applicable here? Do we need
to bring an action against the manufacturer? And we do that
with some frequency.
However, I will tell you that one of the, I think,
weaknesses in the current system and where I think it would be
useful to have some further discussion with you is the fact
that there is no place in the statute that makes it a violation
of the statute if a product seller makes a commitment to us to
do something and then does not live up to that commitment. If
they commit to undertaking certain kinds of actions to get the
product out of the marketplace, and if they don't do that, then
there is no specific violation of the statute for that kind of
activity, and there might be some useful conversations that we
could have about that kind of improvement in the statute.
Mr. Rush. Thank you so much.
Now the Chair recognizes Mr. Gonzalez for an additional 3
minutes.
Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Chairman
Nord, you have indicated that, of course, a lot of toys are now
coming over from China and they may pose a problem. My sense is
that those toys usually will end up in certain types of stores,
and these certain types of stores--and I guess I will just name
one of them, the Dollar Stores. And if you look at where they
are actually located, that is going to be lower-income
neighborhoods, and then you can maybe see established patterns
and you know that there are certain markets that you want to
address regarding those particular toys that you know probably
pose a real risk.
What are you doing to address that particular aspect of the
Chinese imported toys?
Ms. Nord. Well, sir, a couple of things, starting on sort
of the global level and then working down, if you will. The
Agency, for the first time 3 years ago, negotiated a memorandum
of understanding and an action plan to implement that
memorandum of understanding with our counterpart agency in
China. And as a part of that, we set up four different working
groups under that plan of action dealing with the import of
fireworks, electrical products, toys and cigarette lighters.
So we have developed a whole series of activities in each
of those four different product areas that we are going to be
talking with the Chinese about to see if we can implement some
specific activities to address this. And indeed that is one of
the reasons that I am going to be meeting with my Chinese
counterpart next week. And that will all lead up to a Chinese-
United States safety summit that will be held here in
Washington in the fall of 2007.
So on the global issue, we are trying to address it,
although this is a huge problem and it is a real hard problem
to get our arms around. And I am not going to sit here and
pretend to you that we have got our arms around it. We are
working on it, but we don't yet. So that is what we are trying
to do to stop the manufacture of this unsafe product.
Then the next issue is, OK, if it is manufactured, it gets
on the boat, then what do you do to stop it at the port? We
have a good working relationship with the Customs Bureau, and
we have got, again, a memorandum of understanding with them.
They are implementing a new automated system that allows them
to look at the contents of cargo containers with a lot more
precision than they have in the past.
We are part of that, or we are going to become part of that
whole process so that we will have access to that data and our
compliance people will be able to see it before--to see what is
in the containers before it arrives, again, to focus our
efforts in problem areas. If something gets into the stream of
commerce, then it is our responsibility to remove it from the
stream of commerce.
I am very much aware of the issue that you raised. There
are certain stores and certain retailers that we spend more
time focusing on because we see the kinds of incidents you deal
with. But again at that point, it becomes a task of trying to
pull it out of the stream of commerce, and that is a much
harder task.
Mr. Gonzalez. I just wondered, is there any outreach that
you are doing to those identified neighborhoods where these
particular retailers set up shop? Because that is pretty easily
identifiable.
Ms. Nord. This is done specifically through our
neighborhood safety network, which is basically a network of
local and community-based organizations that are working with
us to try to disseminate safety messages. And we do talk
through the neighborhood safety network to these kinds of
communities. All the materials that we put out to the NSN are
translated into Spanish. We do specific periodic outreach to
them but, again, you know we work at this, sir, and I am sure
there is more that we could be doing, and we do the best we
can.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you.
Mr. Rush. Madam Chairman, before we go to our final series
of questions, would you please make available to the members of
this committee a listing of the neighborhood associations'
safety networks?
Ms. Nord. I would be delighted to.
Mr. Rush. So we can distribute them by districts for
members of the subcommittee. Thank you so very much.
The gentlelady from Wisconsin is recognized.
Ms. Baldwin. Thank you. I believe I heard some
encouragement in your answer to my questions on furniture. I
want to press just a little further because it does sound--if I
heard you correctly, you said that you didn't view section 7(b)
as an impediment to moving to a mandatory standard, assuming
that our voluntary standard has not adequately reduced the risk
of injury or has not resulted in substantial compliance. And on
this issue in particular you also expressed that you had not
had a chance to review our legislation authored by
Congresswoman Schwartz on this issue.
Basically what it does is require a mandatory standard
rather than a voluntary standard on this issue. But what I
would ask you is, what sort of help can we provide you in
moving ahead to a mandatory standard on this issue in reaching
the conclusion that the voluntary standard has not resulted in
substantial compliance throughout the industry and has not
served to adequately reduce the risk of injury?
Ms. Nord. Well, as I mentioned earlier, we have been
looking at this issue as it is being implemented by the
voluntary standards organization. Well, let me back up again.
ASTM has issued a voluntary standard dealing with furniture
tipover that requires warning labels and anchors. They have
revised that standard. They are now in the process of revising
it again. And our staff is working very closely with ASTM on
this revision process. Once the standard is put into place,
then what we would need to do is look to see is it being
implemented, and is it being effective? And that is what
Congress is basically directing us to do.
Ms. Baldwin. Can they keep on pushing the data off as they
make a little revision here and a little revision there? When
do we say voluntary hasn't worked and we need to have a
mandatory standard? If I am pressing you do anything, it would
be to look very seriously. I think a mandatory standard is
absolutely needed in this case.
Ms. Nord. Ma'am we will look very seriously at it. Again,
the statute outlines the things we look at and directs us to
make findings, very specific findings. So when we go through
this process, that is what we do. And as a part of that, if we
think that there is an unreasonable risk of injury and it is
not being addressed by a voluntary standard, or if there is a
voluntary standard out there and it is not being complied with,
then, again, under the statute we can proceed. But when we
proceed we also have to make these other kinds of findings
under the Product Safety Act, and that is what we do.
Mr. Rush. The gentlelady's time has expired. Madam
Chairlady, we really appreciate your time today. You have been
most gracious with your time. We thank you so much for
appearing before this committee, and we will commit to working
with you to ensure that our children are safe in the future.
Thank you so very much.
Ms. Nord. Thank you so much, sir.
Mr. Rush. We will call the next panel, panel II, to appear:
Mr. Alan Korn who is the public policy director and general
counsel for Safe Kids Worldwide. Ms. Rachel Weintraub who is
director of product safety and senior counsel for the Consumer
Federation of America. Frederick Locker who is with the firm
Locker, Brainin and Greenberg, from New York City.
Dr. Marla Felcher, adjunct lecturer at the Kennedy School
of Government at Harvard University. She has a Ph.D. She is the
author of a book, ``It Is No Accident How Corporations Sell
Dangerous Baby Products.''
Mr. James A. Thomas who is the president of ASTM
International.
And Ms. Nancy A. Cowles, executive director of Kids in
Danger, from Chicago Illinois.
We want to thank you for your patience. We will ask that if
you have opening statements please be mindful of the fact that
you have a 5-minute limitation on your opening statements and
we will begin with you, Dr. Korn.
STATEMENT OF ALAN KORN, DIRECTOR, PUBLIC POLICY AND GENERAL
COUNSEL, SAFE KIDS WORLDWIDE
Mr. Korn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Gonzalez. We want to
thank the committee for holding this hearing. We are
particularly pleased that you are doing it so early in the
110th, which we believe is a comment on your leadership and
hopefully bodes well for children in this country which is
something that Safe Kids Worldwide cares greatly about.
With the chairman's permission I would like to note that my
written testimony discusses many of the issues that were
discussed here today: civil damages, voluntary standards, some
of the bills that are pending, ways to improve effective
recalls.
But I would like to take the short time I have in oral
testimony to speak just about the Pool and Spa Safety Act which
I believe significantly--it passed the United States Senate
last year by unanimous consent, and came so close in the House
of Representatives just at the end of the 109th--in fact, it
was the very last bill that was voted on in the 109th and it
came just a handful of votes short of passing. You have the
numbers. I won't go through them in detail.
Suffice it to say that far too many children are dying from
injury as it relates to drowning. Of these drowning deaths it
is estimated that about 40 percent, even a little bit more in
some areas of the country, including your region, die in pools
and spas. Many of these deaths are due to children having
unfettered or very easy access to pools or spas, or as the
result--that has been discussed--of not properly supervising
children while swimming. But I would like to point out, sir,
that there is a hidden hazard related to pools, and that is
called drain entrapment.
You heard the story of Secretary of State James Baker
losing his granddaughter, Graeme Baker, at the bottom of a pool
spa. I must say this to you: I have been doing this for 12
years, and only one other death that I have heard of in my time
here was more disturbing than that one.
It is a very difficult job I have, an interesting job to
think about, talk about all the time, about how children die.
That story in particular was very disturbing. The risk is
associated with the circulation system of the pools, and the
risk, unlike the more common forms of drowning which I
mentioned early on--the unfettered access to pools--has nothing
to do with lack of proper adult supervision but has everything
to do with the way pools are built and maintained in this
country. Far too many children, not as many as regular
drowning, are dying from this entrapment. It happens very much
like if you put your hand on the end of a vacuum tube or a
vacuum cleaner, that suction--that is what happened. It took
two adults well more than 5 minutes to break Graeme Baker off
the bottom of that pool spa. Suffice it to say it was too late
by then. A really really horrible story.
Thankfully there is a solution to the problem, and I will
try not to read my testimony and just kind of talk you through
it. First is four-sided fencing, which is very important. It
has been mentioned by several of the members here already. That
is fencing that goes completely around the pool that prevents
that unfettered access to children who either wander from
another yard or wander from out of their home into a
neighborhood backyard pool.
Same thing applies, by the way, to commercial pools. The
same type of fencing is required. We think that 50 to 90
percent of the drownings could be prevented just by that single
act alone.
The Wasserman Schultz and Frank Wolf bill--and I think many
members of the subcommittee are already cosponsoring the bill
that would address that issue.
Second is anti-entrapment drain covers and I brought a
visual with me, if I could. This here is the dangerous drain
cover. You see it is flat and flush to the bottom of a pool. A
child forms the suction. This is not unlike what happened to
Graham Baker, the Secretary's granddaughter. And you could make
the seal.
Well there is a better product on the market now that is--
although these are still around and still can be purchased.
These, as you can tell--I am not an engineer, but you can tell
there is a different shape to that that prevents that seal from
happening. If a person sits on this or gets sucked on this, you
can't get that seal. So this is a very important device and,
again, the Pool and Spa Safety Act addresses that.
I would also like to mention a safety vacuum release
system, another thing that the bill addresses, and this detects
any unnatural source or any blockage at the drain and
automatically shuts the system off. That kind of prevents that
panic that you have by the pool that happened in the backyard
pool in the Baker neighborhood. It automatically shuts the
suction system off so the child can break free.
There are dual drains which I will also mention is very
important. The more drains you have at the bottom of the pool,
in particular for new pools, the less single-source suction you
have.
And then, finally, pool alarms, which is kind of that last
protection there. The chairman mentioned someone riding a
tricycle into a pool. Well, I have seen this particular pool
alarm demonstrated and an alarm would have went off both in and
outside the house immediately. It takes 6 seconds from the fall
into the pool for this alarm to go off.
So we like those types of layers of protection, as you
heard the chairman of the CPSC mention. If I could, I will just
conclude by saying we are very supportive of the pool and spa
safety grant, which does a number of things, one of which is it
requires a standard for these. So let's get rid of these in the
marketplace, so only that this is provided as you go out to
build and maintain and service your pools.
The other is to address those pools that are already
existing by way of incentive grants, to get the States to pass
laws that require four-sided fencing, drain entrapment safety
vacuum release systems, and pool alarms.
I see my time is up. I will say that it is not--many of
these incentive grants in the past originated in this committee
for other safety devices: booster seats, safety belts. So it is
a way to motivate States to do the right thing.
I am happy to answer your questions on any of these things
and certainly the other issues that have been discussed today.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Korn follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.013
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.014
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.015
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.016
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.017
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.018
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.019
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.020
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.021
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.022
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.023
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.024
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.025
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.026
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.027
Mr. Rush. Thank you very much.
The Chair recognizes Ms. Rachel Weintraub, director of
product safety and senior counsel for the Consumer Federation
of America.
STATEMENT OF RACHEL WEINTRAUB, DIRECTOR, PRODUCT SAFETY AND
SENIOR COUNSEL, CONSUMER FEDERATION OF AMERICA
Ms. Weintraub. Chairman Rush and members of the
subcommittee, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak
today. Thank you for holding this hearing, and please accept my
written comments as the full extent of the breadth of what I
wish to discuss today.
The CPSC is an incredibly important independent Federal
agency with jurisdiction over all consumer products, which is
really--the estimation of how many products it has jurisdiction
over is low-balled by 15,000 products--it is at least 15,000,
and likely thousands more. The CPSC statutes give the
Commission the authority to set safety standards, require
labeling, order recalls, ban products, collect data, and
collect death and injury data, inform the public about consumer
product safety, and contribute to the voluntary standard
setting process.
CPSC was created to be proactive. Unfortunately, that
proactivity has been thwarted by a diminished budget and
limiting statutory provisions. CFA doesn't always agree that
CPSC is acting in the best interest of consumers. However, we
do believe that a stronger CPSC can better serve the public
than a less robust one.
In addition, CFA has deep respect for CPSC staff. They are
dedicated, hardworking, and have worked diligently while
weathering the storm of budget cuts and lack of quorum.
What does CPSC need? First, an increased budget. Over 30
years after it was created, the Agency's budget has not kept up
with inflation, has not kept up with its deteriorating
infrastructure, has not kept up with the changes in product
development, and has not kept pace with the increase of
consumer products on the market. CPSC staff has suffered
repeated cuts during the last two decades, falling from a high
of almost 1,978 employees to just 401 in this next fiscal year,
the fewest in the Agency's history. The 2008 budget would
provide only a little bit more than $63 million.
While every year an estimated 27,100 Americans die from
consumer product-related causes, an additional 33.1 million
suffer injuries related to consumer products. This Agency is
limited by what it can do. It is for this reason that CFA
believes two of the most important things that this committee
can do is to increase the budget and provide increased
oversight for CPSC.
The CPSC's authorizing statute, the CPSA, requires that the
Commission rely upon voluntary consumer product standards
rather than promulgate another mandatory standard when
compliance of a voluntary standard would adequately solve the
problem and when there would likely be high compliance with
that voluntary standard. But this can act as a shield,
preventing the Agency from taking critical steps to initiate
mandatory rulemaking proceedings.
In addition, the Commission does not always police the
market adequately to ascertain whether the voluntary standard
is working. For this reason, CFA supports H.R. 1698 introduced
by Representative Schakowsky.
Due to limited resources and a reliance upon voluntary
standards, the Commission has not issued mandatory standards
for numerous products posing risk to consumers. I would like to
highlight just a few:
Furniture tipovers are an incredibly important problem. At
least 8- to 10,000 people require emergency treatment each year
as a result of furniture or appliance tipovers resulting in an
average of at least 6 deaths. Most of these injuries and deaths
occur to children when they climb onto, fall against, or pull
themselves up on furniture and appliances such as stoves. We
support the legislative efforts undertaken by Representative
Schwartz, whose bill would require CPSC to promulgate safety
standards for these products.
All terrain vehicles are another issue CFA is very
concerned about and we are currently very dissatisfied with
CPSC's rulemaking proceedings. Serious injuries requiring
emergency room treatment would increase to 136,700 in 2006 and
deaths in 2005 reached an estimated 767. CPSC's rule changes
the way ATVs have been categorized, by engine size, to a system
based on speed, which is highly flawed.
Increasingly, lead has been found in children's products,
including jewelry, lunch boxes, bibs, cribs, and other
products. Serious acute and irreversible harm can result to
children after a resulted exposure to lead. And we urge CPSC,
in congressional action, to improve CPSC statutes. We recommend
that recalls be made more effective through direct consumer
notification. We support Representative Schakowsky's bill on
this issue. We suggest that the cap on civil penalties be
eliminated; $1.85 million is a paltry amount, not doing an
adequate job. We urge the repeal of section 6(b) of the
Consumer Product Safety Act. We urge Congress to restore
authority over fixed-site amusement parks. And we also support
H.R. 1893, to require the same warning labels on toy packagings
that are required to also be posted on the Internet.
In terms of imports, CPSC and consumers, as well as
Congress--specifically, really, Congress--and CPSC need to work
to hold all major children's product manufacturers responsible,
both large and small manufacturers responsible for unsafe
products imported into the market. CPSC and Congress must
assure and prohibit the export of products that don't meet
voluntary or mandatory safety standards, no matter where the
products are made, whether here or anywhere else.
In conclusion, this subcommittee must make sure that the
Federal Government lives up to the commitment it made when it
created CPSC to protect consumers from product-related deaths
and injuries. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Weintraub follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.028
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.029
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.030
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.031
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.032
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.033
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.034
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.035
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.036
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.037
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.038
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.039
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.040
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.041
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.042
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.043
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.044
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.045
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.046
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.047
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.048
Mr. Rush. Thank you. Our next witness is Mr. Frederick
Locker. He is with the law firm of Locker, Brainin and
Greenberg, from New York.
STATEMENT OF FREDERICK B. LOCKER, GENERAL COUNSEL, TOY INDUSTRY
ASSOCIATION; LOCKER, BRAININ AND GREENBERG
Mr. Locker. Yes sir, we act as general counsel to the Toy
Industry Association. I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman and
members of the committee, for allowing us to appear today and
to talk about a longstanding commitment to children's product
safety.
We certainly all shudder at the tragic loss of any child's
life. Whether it is a child involved by accident or some other
problem, we are just saddened by that loss. We are in a
business to provide fun and joy and pleasure and learning to
children. They are our most valuable resource. They are our
most valuable customer.
In connection with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety
Commission and the important subject of children's product
safety, we want to be clear that we have acted for decades to
promote the development of significant children's product
safety standards. This is done under the auspices of ASTM, ANC
and ISO. These are not just consensus standards that govern
children's products. The regulation of children's products
accounts for approximately 40 percent of all the existing
regulations, or perhaps more, at the CPSC. There are a
tremendous breadth and scope of mandatory toy safety
regulations and children product safety regulations. None has
been more effective, for example, than the small parts
regulation which has prevented death from choking and
aspiration or ingestion from millions of kids. It has been a
remarkably effective standard. It is not voluntary. It is
mandatory.
We support the strict enforcement of mandatory regulations
against any importer that violates the CPSC regulations. Now,
CPSC activity has certainly increased with fewer resources.
During the past decade they have conducted more than 5,000
recalls, and they have needed to resort to litigation rarely.
And let me explain something about that. One of the reasons is
it is not a question of people being dragged, kicking and
screaming; it is a question of people, particularly in the
children's product industry, want to do the right thing. If you
have a reputation for selling an unsafe product in this
business, you are soon out of business.
It is in everyone's economic motive and, in particular,
American manufacturers who produce these products, to ensure
the safety of children. But, nevertheless, when we find
mandatory regulations lacking or in need of quick and swift
action we take action. That is why we have worked to develop
these many voluntary standards that deal with children's
products, whether they are nursery products or toys or a whole
range of products.
And encompassing the standard, as perhaps Mr. Thomas will
touch on, you will find that there is an enormous complexity of
issues that are dealt with in a rather rapid length of time.
This can be accomplished quickly because CAST in process is a
living, breathing, consensus process. It forces us to
reevaluate the assumptions upon which those safety regulations
are based, over and over, and adjust them accordingly.
CPSC is completing over 214 voluntary standards, while
issuing 235 mandatory standards, while shrinking resources and
using the leverage collaboration of their staff over the past
decade.
Now, our ASTM standard, the standard consumer safety
specification on toy safety, is clearly recognized globally. It
was the basis for the European regulations of toy safety. It is
the basis for the International Standard Organization 8124
which is a global toy standard. It is increasingly being used
by every country in the world, including China. We work to
develop these standards because children, as I have noted, are
a priority.
Now, keep in mind when analyzing all this recall data, what
are we talking about? Recalls involving children's products
actually account for the vast majority of product recalls
conducted in cooperation with the Commission. As I have
mentioned before--half of CPSC's regulations already
specifically directed at children's products and the heightened
awareness of obligations to children, companies are responsible
for a higher percentage of recalls and corrective actions
undertaken, almost one-third.
Of course, there are still occasions where the Commission
may seek to act to remove unsafe products from the marketplace
and set standards where those private standards either do not
exist or are clearly inadequate. We have touched on that in
connection with section 7 of the act. I want to be very clear:
That act does not act as a bar to the regulation of products by
the CPSC. CPSC has only formally recognized voluntary standards
on two occasions. All those other 214 standards are there and
subject to further enforcement or mandatory imposition of
regulation, if required. And the key word is ``if required.''
it is important for them to monitor the marketplace to make
sure the standards are in conformance, and they have been doing
this.
So we know, for example, that the voluntary standard
dealing with cribs has resulted in 89 percent reduction of
fatalities since its inception. For walkers it is 84 percent,
and it has been lauded by the American Academy of Pediatrics as
a model standard.
Mr. Rush. Your time has expired.
Mr. Locker. I just want to make a few recommendations,
however. What can the CPSC do better? What does it need to do
better? Retain experienced personnel and prevent the so-called
brain-drain to analyze those emerging hazards that may be
difficult to discern; prioritize risks for children; work to
develop standards, consensus, if effective, or mandatory to
address such risks; create information and education campaigns
that reinforce safety messaging to the public; recognizing
changing demographics of our society, including dealing with
pool safety and drowning risks; support rulemaking on lead in
children's metal jewelry, ATVs, upholstered furniture; continue
to monitor effective compliance with----
Mr. Rush. Your time has expired. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Locker follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.049
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.050
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.051
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.052
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.053
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.054
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.055
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.056
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.057
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.058
Mr. Rush. The Chair now recognizes Dr. Marla Felcher. She
is an adjunct lecturer at the Kennedy School of Technology at
the Harvard University, and she is the author of a book, ``It
Is No Accident How Corporations Sell Dangerous Baby's
Products.''
Welcome to the committee. You have 5 minutes, please.
STATEMENT OF MARLA FELCHER, ADJUNCT LECTURER, PUBLIC POLICY,
KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Ms. Felcher. Good morning. I guess I should say ``good
afternoon'' by now. I would like to thank you for inviting me
to participate in this important hearing. Most of all, I would
like to thank you for even having this hearing.
I have been working in this area, product safety, for over
8 years, and for the first time I am hopeful that we are going
to move beyond talking and finally act.
I would like to start by making a few comments about how I
got interested in this topic. I worked for most of my career in
marketing for Gillette and Talbots, the retailer; as a
marketing consultant for Nabisco, M&M, Mars, Ben & Jerry's, and
other companies that make really good things to eat. And I also
worked as a marketing professor at Northwestern University.
I have an M.B.A. and I have a Ph.D. in marketing, yet the
first time I ever heard about product recalls was when my
friend's son Danny Keyser was killed by a recalled portable
crib in 1998. Watching my friends bury their 16-month-old son,
I vowed to learn how watching the child of two safety-vigilant
University of Chicago professors could have been killed by a
crib that had been recalled 5 years ago. This is how I learned
about CPSC, and this is how I got involved in this work.
I would like to spend what brief time I have today talking
about what I believe are the two most insidious problems faced
by the Agency.
Number 1, companies that flout the Agency's hazard self-
report rule which is section 15(b) and section 6(b) censorship.
I will start with a story that is true. I have changed the
names of the victims. One October night in 1998, Shannon
Campbell was awakened at 2 a.m. by the screams of her children,
13-year-old Sarah and 10-year-old Max. Shannon jumped out of
bed, opened her bedroom door, and ran into a thick wall of
black smoke. In a desperate attempt to flush the house with
fresh air, she ran back into her bedroom and opened a second
story window. Then she jumped. Unable to stand after she broke
her leg, the 31-year-old mother crawled on her hands and her
knees to a neighbor's house. She banged on the front door and
when no one answered, she kept going, crawling down the
driveway into a cul-de-sac. She collapsed on her back and
screamed until someone heard her and called the police. By the
time the fire department arrived, plumes of smoke were spewing
from the house's windows. The firefighters crashed through the
locked front door and made their way to her children's
bedrooms. There they found Max lying on his back in bed,
entangled in the bedding. Sarah was on the bed with her
brother, curled into a fetal position. Both children were dead.
A family dog lay at the foot of the bed, also dead. Shannon's
husband Jack was out of the country at the time on a U.S.
military mission. When he returned home, his children were dead
his wife was in the hospital. His home had been destroyed. A
few days later a fire department investigator told Jack that
the fire had been caused by the family's 3-year-old big screen
television. Engineers working for the company had discovered a
design flaw in the TV, a flaw that created the potential for
the sets to burn, 6 months before Max and Sarah were killed.
But there was no way the parents could have known this.
The morning after the fire, the TV manufacturer safety
officer flew to Washington to meet with CPSC about a recall.
The safety officer, however, did not even know about the fire
that had occurred the night before. What had prompted the trip
was a call he had received from a North Carolina grandmother
who had seen her TV go up in flames while she was babysitting
for her granddaughter. The grandmother's complaint had not been
the first. Reports of burning televisions had been landing on
this safety officer's desk for years. Dozens of similar sets
had smoked or ``charred'' which is the word the company prefers
to use, or burst into flames.
Sears, Allstate Insurance, Rent a Center, and multiple
homeowners have filed claims with the company. Two TVs have
even caught fire on retailers' showroom floors.
Now, I have worked in marketing for most of my life and I
can tell you, that is not a good sales strategy. Section 16(b)
of the Consumer Product Safety Act required the safety officer
to notify CPSC within 24 hours of learning of a product defect
that posed a substantial hazard or created an unreasonable risk
of injury or death.
The documents that I have uncovered suggest that he flouted
this rule. The manufacturer agreed to recall the sets with
CPSC, but it did not agree to publicize the recall. Instead,
the safety officer promised CPSC staff he would mail safety
notifications to everyone who owned the TV.
It will come as no surprise that the safety notification
did not reach all TV owners. They kept burning, and CPSC
eventually learned about at least 45 more burning sets.
In 2003, 5 years after Sarah and Max were killed, CPSC
recalled the sets for a second time. This time CPSC and the
manufacturer issued a press release. It read, I quote: No
injuries have been reported.
In 2004 I got a grant from the Fund for Investigative
Journalism to report on this story. I filed a Freedom of
Information Act request with CPSC asking for documents related
to the recalled sets. What did I get back? Nothing. Request
denied. And what happened when I called CPSC last year in 2006
and asked the public affairs officer why the recalled press
release said ``no injuries have been reported,'' a statement
that officially denied that Sarah and Max had been killed? He
told me to file a request for an answer. What happened when I
did? Request denied. So was my appeal.
So what I would like to leave you with today is the
knowledge that for every Chicago Tribune story like the one on
magnets that gets written, there are dozens, perhaps hundreds,
that never get written. This is the legacy of section 6(b).
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Maria Felcher follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.059
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.060
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.061
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.062
Mr. Rush. The Chair recognizes Mr. James Thomas who is the
president of ASTM International.
STATEMENT OF JAMES A. THOMAS, PRESIDENT, ASTM INTERNATIONAL
Mr. Thomas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the
subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to be here.
ASTM is an organization with a proud history of over 100
years. It is an organization that provides a forum for
energized and dedicated volunteers that represent Government,
industry, academia, and consumers to work together to solve
problems through voluntary standards. We are very fortunate to
have, as very active members of the ASTM standards-writing
committees in the consumer product area, talented experts from
the Consumer Product Safety Commission as well as other Federal
and State agencies who contribute to the development of these
voluntary standards.
The ASTM has over 140 different technical committees
writing standards in a wide range of subject areas. One of
those was actually organized approximately 32 years ago in
direct response to the creation of the Consumer Product Safety
Act. That is our committee F15, and over the years that
committee has developed many standards, some of which have been
mentioned here, and others are mentioned in my fully prepared
statements.
Many of our activities are initiated at the request of the
Consumer Product Safety Commission. And, in fact, approximately
90 percent of the work of our Consumer Product Committee is a
direct result of the Consumer Product Safety Commission
providing information and seeking the involvement of ASTM to
develop voluntary standards to address a consumer issue.
We have developed standards for playgrounds, standards to
prevent strangulation by clothing, drawstrings, bunk beds, baby
walker standards. We have developed standards to eliminate the
toxicity of crayons and other art supplies. We have standards
to enhance the fire safety of candle products and many more.
We are currently working on CPSC requests to establish
standards for powered scooters, above-ground inflatable
portable pools, and infant bathtubs. And legislation currently
referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, such as
the Pool and Spa Safety Act and the Children's Gasoline
Prevention Act, reference ASTM safety standards to achieve
their goals of protecting children.
In the area of toy safety, ASTM has a standard that has
received a great deal of global recognition, which is our toy
safety standard F963 that establishes safety requirements for
toys intended for use by children under the age of 14. This
ASTM standard protects children in countless ways as it relates
to possible hazards that may not be easily recognized by
consumers. But through the numerous tests and technical
requirements of this document, many hazards are addressed
before a toy reaches the shelves of a retailer. Like all of our
ASTM standards, F963 is reviewed and revised, as necessary, to
address newly identified hazards.
Most recently, the ASTM toy safety standard was revised to
address the incidents of magnet ingestion. And in order to
address that and to provide information on how to address the
manufacturer of the toy and the components and to the
development of the warning statements that would be used on the
products, that revision was approved and made available March
15, 2007. And this may not sound quick. But in the voluntary
standards world, the fact that it only took 9 months to
complete a voluntary standardization process is something that
we are very, very proud of.
Consumer safety advocates, industry representatives, and
CPSC staff recognized the urgency of the need, and they spent a
great deal of time developing these standards. While the toy
safety standard has been revised, our work on magnet ingestion
may not yet be finished. Representatives of ASTM will be part
of the Consumer Product Safety Commission Magnet Safety Forum
in June, which may serve as a springboard for additional
revisions or new standards activities.
And in summary, I would just draw your attention to the
outstanding work that is being done by volunteer members from
125 countries from around the world to develop the standards
that are making a contribution to improve quality of life and
safety for consumers and all mankind around the world. And I
appreciate the opportunity to be here today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Thomas follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.063
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.064
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.065
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.066
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.067
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.068
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.069
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.070
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.071
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.072
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.073
Mr. Rush. I want to thank you so very much.
Mr. Rush. Our final witness is Ms. Nancy Cowles. She is the
executive director of Kids in Danger, a Chicago organization.
It is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to protecting
children by improving children's product safety.
I want to welcome you, one Chicagoan to another Chicagoan.
Ms. Cowles. Yes. Several are here today.
Mr. Rush. Yes. Congresswoman Schakowsky also represents
Chicago. Welcome to the committee.
STATEMENT OF NANCY COWLES, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, KIDS IN DANGER
Ms. Cowles. Thank you so much for letting us present our
views on children's product safety here today. As you
mentioned, we are dedicated to protecting children from unsafe
products. We were founded in 1998 after the death of Danny in a
very poorly designed, inadequately tested, and feebly recalled
product. It was recalled 5 years before his death.
Our mission is to promote the development of safer
children's products, advocate for children, and educate the
general public about children's product safety. We work with
States to implement the Children's Product Safety Act which
prohibits the sale or lease of recalled dangerous children's
products or their use in child care. We provide educational
materials to health care professionals, parents, and caregivers
to alert them to the dangers facing children, and we are also
working with engineering programs to increase the knowledge of
safety standards that tomorrow's designers will bring to
children's products.
We are doing all we can to protect children, and we are
here today to talk to you about what we believe Congress and
the CPSC can better do to protect children. Congresswoman
Schakowsky mentioned an Illinois poll that was taken in 1999
that showed that the overwhelming number of parents and other
people believe that children's products are tested for safety
before they are sold and that the Government oversees that
testing. Both statements are not true. To one, the parents,
caregivers, and health care professionals believe if they buy a
stroller, high chair, baby swing or playpen, someone,
somewhere, has made sure that that product is safe. They are
shocked to learn that the U.S. has no law requiring safety
testing before a product is sold, and that the Government only
takes action after a product is manufactured, sold, and proven
to be unsafe, a very backwards approach in most people's eyes.
Marla Felcher and I are both involved in product safety
because of the same child. Danny Keysar died in 1998 when the
portable crib he napped in at child care collapsed around his
neck. While the first death in a Playskool Travel Lite portable
crib like the one that killed Danny was in July 1991, just
months after it went onto the market, the final product with
that same design, the Evenflo Happy Camper, was not recalled
until 1998, after the third child had died in that particular
product; 16 children in all died in cribs of the same design.
And another portable crib player with a different latching
mechanism wasn't recalled until 2001, after a child died in it,
despite earlier breakage reports that could point to what was
about to happen to that child.
And now we hear new reports of similar lackluster responses
to new hazards, and we are very troubled. We learned of Kenny
Sweet's death from ingested magnets from the Magnetix toy in
December 2005. We immediately covered it in our monthly e-mail
alert to parents and caregivers, and in January asked ASTM
International to put it on the agenda of the February meeting.
In June, at the following meeting, they did establish the
task group that led to the new voluntary standard that Mr.
Thomas had mentioned. That standard requires that toys with
magnets that are small enough to be swallowed need to be
labeled that they have those magnets in them and what the
danger is, and that the toys need to be tested so that if the
magnet falls out, they can't sell that product. Because that is
what happened with Magnetix. They were selling a product that
was basically faulty, the magnets were falling out. However,
the standard still allows magnetic toys with larger components
to be sold without the warning about magnets and still allows
toys with loose magnets, small enough to swallowed, to be sold.
In my opinion, no toy that contains small magnets,
accessible or not, should be sold without the warning for the
parents. And CPSC needs to look at the danger of these very
small, powerful magnets to see if they need to be banned in
children's products.
Also in the news, baby bibs, lunch boxes, jewelry,
flashlights, all children's products containing lead. As of
last Friday, CPSC has recalled 19 lead-tainted products just
this year, surpassing last year's 17 recalls.
In the best-case scenario, parents have tossed these
products and they are now in our landfills, potentially, I
suppose, getting into our groundwater. In the worst-case
scenario, and more likely, they are still being used and worn
by children in thousands of homes across America.
Ask yourself, would anyone in their right mind knowingly
hang a neurotoxin around their child's neck and repeatedly
scrape food off of it? Of course not. And yet while Illinois,
which has a strong lead safety law and a children's product
safety act, forced Wal-Mart to recall this lead-tainted bill,
CPSC could only offer a weak suggestion to throw away torn
bibs.
Again, there is no requirement that children's products be
tested for safety before they are sold and no provisions for
CPSC to monitor testing of children's products. Instead we rely
on the voluntary industry standards that we have heard about
here today set by the very manufacturers that are subject to
their provisions.
I have been on the Standards Setting Committee since 2001.
In a room full of 40 to 50 people, two to three of us at most
represent consumer organizations. The vast majority of members
are manufacturers. The system doesn't work fast, it doesn't
work well, and it isn't complete. New product types, new
hazards, and even age-old problems such as hardware failures on
cribs are slow to be addressed and even slower to be remedied.
Most committee members seem to be well-intentioned, but some do
seem only to obstruct the process and slow it down. And even
where there are mandatory standards as for full-sized cribs,
there is no requirement to certify that it met the standard
before it is sold. So we would urge CPSC to do more in terms of
recalls, in terms of mandatory testing, in terms of making sure
that our products are safe. Thank you.
Mr. Rush. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Cowles follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.074
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.075
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.076
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.077
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.078
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.079
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.080
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.081
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.082
Mr. Rush. The Chair recognizes himself for 5 minutes of
questioning.
Dr. Felcher, in your opinion, what is the absolute worst
constraint on the CPSC? And if you could change one feature of
the way that it operates, let's say if it contains one or two
features of the way it operates, what would it be?
Ms. Felcher. The top one by far is 6(b). I would rescind
section 6(b) of the Consumer Product Safety Act. I mean,
without the information getting out there, which is what 6(b)
is doing, there is no way that the public can know about these
risks.
I have spent the last 8\1/2\ years of my career devoted to
this, and I don't know, I would say, 99.9 percent about what
goes on in terms of which products are unsafe. There is just no
way to know.
Mr. Rush. How does 6(b) function? Can you explain how it is
supposed to function?
Ms. Felcher. I am not a lawyer but I will give you my
interpretation and I will let you know how it has affected me
in the work I have done.
Basically, I think someone mentioned earlier, the first
panel, about the press releases, the recalled press releases,
and I am sorry the acting--Chairman Nord isn't here to continue
this discussion. But it is my understanding, and I have seen
many, many internal documents from CPSC that every word of a
recalled press release is hashed out and negotiated between the
manufacturer and the CPSC. I would like to believe that the
CPSC has all of the power in the system and I would like to
believe, as the Acting Chairman suggested, that what CPSC
wants--which is to have a very strongly worded recall press
release that really gets the point across that people should
stop using these products--is what occurs. But from what I have
seen, that does not occur. These press releases too often are--
it is watered down language. There is no other way to describe
that. I have seen some of these documents that--these internal
documents that I have managed to get when Chairman Ann Brown
was running CPSC. You see the industry has literally crossed
out the language that CPSC wants to use. And I can share some
of those documents with you.
So I think that that is No. 1. It is basically secrecy. As
I mentioned before, I was a marketing professor when I got into
this. I knew nothing about--and I am not proud to say this--but
I knew nothing about regulation. The first request that I made
with CPSC that was fulfilled--boxes and boxes of information
showed up at my house, it might not be a surprise to you who
are in this work, but there were these memos about dangerous
baby products, there were pictures of dead children that wound
up in my house, and the incident reports describing how those
children were killed had thick swatches of black magic marker
through them so I could not tell which manufacturer made that
product. And I, as a product safety reporter at that point,
could not warn parents about the danger. So 6(b) I think is the
biggest problem that I would like to see fixed.
Mr. Rush. Thank you very much.
Mr. Korn, the cap on civil damages that the CPSC can impose
for violations is right now currently at $1.83 million. In your
opinion is this adequate? Or is that an amount that
manufacturers easily can write off as a, quote, cost of doing
business, end of quote?
Mr. Korn. Yes. I believe the cap should be increased and I
will tell you why, Mr. Chairman. Let's say that a manufacturer
has got $50 million worth of product in the marketplace and has
a problem with that product, an unreasonable hazard, it catches
on fire, spontaneous combustion, you can make up your own
hazardous risk. There are plenty of examples. I believe that
the small cap adds an extra factor in their decision as to
whether or not to follow the rules of the Consumer Product
Safety Commission. And that is, if they know they only have
$1.85 at stake, they may add the economic concern instead of
the safety concern in their factor as to whether or not to
follow the rules of the CPSA, the Consumer Product Safety Act.
So we would prefer to have some higher cap so it is more of
an economic hit, so to speak, to promote good behavior. We do
believe that it does not have to be the same cap for every
company. Bigger companies can have bigger caps, smaller
companies can have smaller caps. Or section 19 that lists the
prohibitive act that triggers a civil damage charge, some of
them are more egregious than others in my view. Maybe those
that are more egregious have the higher caps, those with the
lower caps. So certainly the flexibility to increase that; $1.8
5is not enough in our view.
Mr. Rush. Thank you very much.
The Chair recognizes the ranking member, Mr. Stearns, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Stearns. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Locker, I just was talking to the staff and we were
trying to figure out--we have heard the example of these toys.
But isn't it true that most injuries involving toys are not
necessarily caused by toys? If I can repeat that, is it true
that most injuries involving toys are not necessarily caused by
toys?
Mr. Locker. I think that what you are talking about is that
toy-associated or -related injuries are different from toys
causing the injury.
Mr. Stearns. If you could just explain that.
Mr. Locker. Sure. Fifteen percent of the injuries occur
when people trip over toys on the steps, and those get reported
into the database. Or many of the injuries might be extremely
minor, and the CPSC data has determined that toys are among the
safest products in the household, as they should be, and that
most of the injuries involved when children--minor lacerations
when kids hit each other with them. So those types of issues
when they get reported, perhaps there is a disservice in terms
of the accuracy of the information. It should really be toy
``caused'' injuries that can be directly related to the toy
product as opposed to the general term ``related.''
Mr. Stearns. So I guess what happens is doctors or
emergency rooms report this to the CPSC? If a child or parent
steps on a toy and falls, how does that work that the CPSC
would get a----
Mr. Locker. Well, actually, the CPSC is a remarkable array
of sources of information. There is the Internet now which is
the Web. There is the National Emergency Room Injury
Surveillance System, which gets reports from participating
hospitals. There are consumers. And then, of course, there are
the manufacturers who are under the section 15 obligation to
report data as well.
And that all gets compiled and then it is actually an
extrapolation, it is really an estimate of injuries. If it
involves a toy, if the toy is in the vicinity and somehow it is
alleged that it somehow be involved or is nearby, it gets
reported as a toy-related injury.
Mr. Stearns. Mr. Thomas, can industry and consumer
advocates reach consensus on rulemaking? And can they perhaps
do it as fast, if not faster, than the CPSC? And I guess,
obviously, the value in this is the speed at which there is
potential for an unsafe product that is taken off the market.
Mr. Thomas. First thing is that ASTM, we are not part of
rulemaking. It is a process of building a voluntary standard,
and essentially the process benefits from a very very broad
cross-section of stakeholders in that process. So you have the
manufacturers, you have the Government representation, you have
consumers, you have academics that are part of that process.
That process can move very quickly when there is consensus
around the issues, and there can be resolution of some of the
complex technical issues that have to be addressed during the
standards development process.
Like on the magnet, although it may not have reached the
point where it is completely satisfactory to all, there is a
revision that was processed in 9 months that attempted to
address the issue that was brought to the committee, and we
believe that that is a very, very quick way of addressing
problems as they are surfaced.
I would wonder how rapidly a regulatory solution could have
been reached in order to address what essentially was a real
problem in the marketplace.
So we are fairly proud of the fact that we are able to
respond in a timely fashion to the changing dynamics of the
marketplace, to the changing way in which products are used,
and the way in which new products are introduced. So it is a
process that can be very responsive. And can there be
improvements in the future? Absolutely.
Mr. Stearns. Mr. Korn, whenever I come to these hearings, I
ask questions. I always want to know, is there a better mouse
trap somewhere else? And I guess the question for you is, do
you think our standard or standards in the United States are
the best in the world? If not, what other countries have a more
effective system, and should we adopt that?
Maybe you could elaborate on those countries that perhaps
employ a voluntary standard in a manner that is similar to
ours, or improved, and then we could benefit from their
efforts.
Mr. Korn. Congressman, I have participated in the voluntary
standards process, and on several occasions I have seen it
work. I have seen good consensus, good balance on the
committee, the Standards Committee; everyone with a good
exchange of ideas; one that was referenced earlier as one that
is about to come out on portable pools that I think is very
good.
In other cases, I have seen the voluntary standards process
or the makeup of the committee work against the development of
a good standard that makes a product safer. And this is how it
usually happens. I will be sitting in a room with 35 people who
make coffee mugs, and there will be 28 coffee mug manufacturers
in the room, and three or four people of other interests. So
when a standard comes to the vote, the vote, not surprisingly,
is 26 to 4, or we don't get our opinions--or our motivations
are not included in the standard.
I do not know, Congressman, as much about the international
standards. I am also certain we can learn something from our
countries in how to do things better. History tells us that. I
don't know enough to speak intelligently on it. I don't like to
pretend to know things I don't. So I would defer to some of my
other colleagues on the panel.
Mr. Rush. The gentleman's time is expired. The Chair
recognizes the gentlelady from Chicago. Ms. Schakowsky, is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am actually not
that interested in whether or not standards in other places--
except to the extent that we may be able to learn from them.
But I think that it is relevant to say that we can do better.
Mr. Thomas, why is it that when Kids in Danger approached
you, your organization, and tried to get the Magnetix on the
February agenda it took until June to get on the agenda?
Mr. Thomas. I don't know.
Ms. Schakowsky. We are talking about timing here. And we
are talking about--am I right, Ms. Cowles?
Ms. Cowles. It was actually on the February agenda, only
that no action was taken at that time. And we had decided to
get more information from the Consumer Product Safety
Commission, which, I assume, arrived sometime before June, but
it was not distributed to the group at the June meeting. So,
really, when we say it took 9 months from June, in fact it
could have started in February, and been done sooner had we hit
the ground running, appointed a task group that day.
It was almost a year, almost a year and a half since
Kenny's death.
Ms. Schakowsky. I notice that six times as many durable
products are responsible for even six times as many deaths as
toys. My legislation would require pretesting of those durable
products.
Let me first ask Mr. Thomas. These appear, really, in every
household when a new baby is born or where you have a toddler.
There is rarely a household without a stroller and a high chair
and a crib, or maybe a smaller crib. And there is the
assumption that someone, somewhere, as Ms. Cowles said, has
decided that this is safe, and yet the products are tested but
they are tested on our kids.
What would be the objection, if there is one, of having
these durable products actually repretested and have a stamp of
approval, so that we know when they go on the shelf that they
are safe?
Mr. Thomas. We at ASTM would have absolutely no objection
to that, because what we are doing is providing a standard that
could serve as a basis for such certification or approval
process. You will, in fact, find, I believe, that in the
industry, the Juvenile Product Manufacturers Association has a
hang tag certification program that if you go into a store to
purchase, I think, high chairs, playpens, baby walkers, some
other products, durable products as you are talking about, that
there is an indication of a certification that is being made by
the manufacturer with a recognition by the Juvenile Product
Manufacturers Association that that product has in fact been
tested. They are making a self-declaration based on the
certification from JPMA that the product meets the safety
standards that were produced.
Ms. Schakowsky. Let me hear Ms. Cowles' comments on that
process.
Ms. Cowles. That is true. There is a JPMA process; however,
it is not required. Many manufacturers do test to it. Some do
not. Some products, in fact, that may have been safe, say they
meet the higher European standard for cribs or the Canadian
standard that includes a different test----
Ms. Schakowsky. Actually, some other countries do have
higher safety standards.
Ms. Cowles. They have different tests, especially on the
crib standard, that we believe would more adequately address
the hardware failure, which is where a lot of deaths come in
cribs. And so there is a JPMA program, but there is nothing to
say that a product with a JPMA certification is any safer than
one without it at this point. What we would like to see is
something that the CPSC monitors, such as your bill provides
for, so there is like a UL label that has to be there before it
could be sold.
Ms. Schakowsky. I am very concerned Dr. Felcher, about the
FOIA requests, Freedom of Information Act. You are saying that
you have never gotten a response to those requests?
Ms. Felcher. No, I haven't. And I haven't gotten a
response, basically, to any requests that I've made over the
last couple of years. I have had to go to other sources to get
the material that I am using to write a book on product safety.
Ms. Schakowsky. We are going to look into that. Is there
any sort of request that was denied?
Ms. Felcher. Exemptions--I can show you the letters I have
gotten, but I can tell you that the most troublesome denial
that I got had to do with the denial that those two children
had been killed, and I have thousands of pages of documents
that say----
Ms. Schakowsky. Let me get one more question for Ms.
Weintraub. First of all, I thank you for supporting the
legislation I have introduced. But I wondered if you could give
us your priorities in terms of what CPSC needs to do to improve
its activity.
Ms. Weintraub. Thank you for your leadership on these very
important issues. In terms of priorities our No. 1 request
would be that CPSC be appropriated more funds. Almost every
single problem, among other things, can be linked to the fact
that CPSC is working with diminished resources at every single
level. It is really a tragedy, the way in which our country has
been prioritizing protecting children and all consumers from
unsafe products, and they prioritize us in terms of funding the
Agency to such low levels that they have to shed staff and shed
experienced staff.
CPSC, it has been said, does not have a very deep bench.
And a lot of the staff they have been losing through attrition,
and these are staff that have been at the Agency, some of them
from the inception of the Agency, and they have knowledge that
no one else in the country has. And it is a loss. It is a loss
for children especially.
Other priorities are to do what we are doing today,
increase oversight of the Commission. I think that through
sunshine, shedding the light in, we cannot only highlight
problems but find solutions. We also have a number of
recommendations for CPSC statutes. We also believe that the cap
on civil penalties is absurd. That cap should be lifted, $1.85
million.
Ms. Schakowsky. Just lift it.
Ms. Weintraub. We believe, yes, that ideally there should
not be a cap. We would agree to reasonable caps. For example,
the Senate actually passed a cap that unfortunately the House
didn't act on, a cap of $21 million, a number of years ago. And
we would support that provision.
There are other issues in terms of reporting under 15(b).
There was a guidance issued this summer that we are concerned
will provide a safe harbor for manufacturers, retailers, and
importers not to report incidences that they know of. We have
concerns with section 7(b) in terms of reliance upon voluntary
standards, acting as a shield for stronger CPSC action. We have
concerns about 6(b) amusement parks among others, toys sold on
the Internet.
Mr. Rush. The gentlelady's time has expired.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Burgess,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Burgess. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to get on
the record, your Ph.D. Is from Northwestern but your M.B.A. is
from where?
Ms. Felcher. University of Texas, hook them horns.
Mr. Burgess. Now we can continue.
On the question about the crib, when you started your
testimony you talked about the deaths that occurred as a result
of the cribs in 1998. You said the product was recalled 5 years
earlier. What is the problem there? Is it these registration
cards that consumers don't fill out? I am as bad as experts
about filling out the warranty cards. I never do it.
Ms. Felcher. You should.
Mr. Burgess. What is the problem?
Ms. Felcher. The problem is lack of overall awareness. The
problem is CPSC is not doing, and still is not doing, enough to
get the word out. The problem is with the recall press releases
that are not worded strongly enough so that parents know they
should act. And at the time, the problem was that this
information was not even going to child care providers--which I
think through the efforts of Kids in Danger, that has been
changed.
Mr. Burgess. I am just drawing from my own experience. I
know when my children were very young in the 1970's, getting
information about a type of crib that had some sort of finial
on the top where a baby could get entrapped, and that
information was disseminated. Has there been a change in how
things have been handled?
Ms. Felcher. I am not sure what was going on. What year did
you say that was?
Mr. Burgess. In the 1970's.
Ms. Felcher. I can tell you it has been happening since
1998. And I can tell you that 80 percent of--let me flip that.
Recalls are not effective. Recalls of children's products are
not effective, for a variety of reasons, which I am happy to
have a private discussion; 10 to 20 percent of recalled
children's products wind up getting out of circulation.
Mr. Burgess. If there is time, I want to get into that a
little bit. Now, on the issue of a 6(b), that provision, was
that part of the original consumer product safety law in 1972,
or has that been added?
Ms. Felcher. My understanding is it has been strengthened
considerably. It was strengthened considerably in the early
1980's.
Mr. Burgess. On the foreign manufacturer, say the People's
Republic of China, that makes something that is unsafe, cannot
our Customs service interdict that product before it comes into
this country?
Ms. Felcher. You are outside of my area of expertise. But I
will say, though, that----
Mr. Burgess. But the Customs Service would have to comply
with 6(b)?
Ms. Felcher. I don't know anything about the Customs
service, I am sorry.
Mr. Burgess. Mr. Thomas, if I could ask you, throughout my
life I have just always relied on things to have the Seal of
Good Housekeeping, and someone already referenced the
Underwriters Laboratory Seal. Is that what ASTM provides?
Mr. Thomas. No, we don't. We don't provide any
certification program. We developed a standard, and the
standard is applied by various industry groups, Government--
about 1,000 ASTM standards are referenced in Federal
regulations.
Mr. Burgess. Where does your funding come from?
Mr. Thomas. Through primarily distribution of technical
information all around the world.
Mr. Burgess. Of course this committee, not this
subcommittee but the full committee, has jurisdiction over the
Food and Drug Administration. I think we already heard
reference that--well, the Food and Drug Administration is
allegedly proactive. Something has to be approved and deemed to
be safe and effective.
For the consumer safety products, it has to be after the
fact. It is a reactive organization after a problem is
discovered. And I gather that is the source of some of the
tension.
In a perfect world, would it ever be possible for, say,
these little magnets to have to be certified ahead of time
before they come onto the market? Is that even doable? Is that
even feasible?
Mr. Thomas. I don't see why it would not be. It is the same
kind of issue that FDA is looking to address. They are
essentially dealing with premarket testing and access. I would
imagine that if the laws were written in that way and there was
a regulatory program for implementation, that, sure, probably
anything is possible. We do standards in the areas of FDA, the
standards are referenced by FDA----
Mr. Burgess. Excuse me for interrupting, I am running out
of time.
Even if it were voluntary, if some organization was able to
put its mark on the product that this has been tested and
deemed safe by again whoever. Now, in the FDA hearings we are
talking, of course, about things like the prescription drug
user fee assessment and medical device user fee assessment.
These are funds paid by the industry to facilitate the testing
of their products that come through the FDA.
Has anyone ever given any thought to that occurring with
the Consumer Product Safety Commission?
Mr. Thomas. I have no idea.
Mr. Burgess. Mr. Chairman, my last 3 seconds as a public
service. These are the little magnets, and they really are a
lot of fun. You have seen me playing with them, but apparently
they have improved them and the edge is crimped so the magnet
will not come out. That is a good improvement. But even the toy
itself strikes me as being inherently dangerous for children
who are apt to put things in their mouth.
The other thing is these magnets are significantly strong,
and the reason I bring this up is a group of realtors who met
me outside said, oh, yes, we have these new pins that have the
same kind of magnets in them. These things are becoming
ubiquitous. And, again, I am concerned that health care
providers, emergency room personnel, doctors and nurses are not
aware of the problem that can be encountered. This thing is not
strong enough to go through my full finger, but I can
understand how the magnetic attraction could cross through the
wall of the small intestine, particularly of a child, and the
result could be catastrophic, even worse than a gunshot injury,
because there is no external evidence that you have a problem
of that catastrophic nature going on inside.
Thank you for that indulgence, Mr. Chairman. I will yield
back and I will give these back to their rightful owner.
Mr. Rush. Thank you.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Fossella for 5 minutes.
Mr. Fossella. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you and the
panel for your time.
And I think we all support the noble goal of ensuring that
no child suffers, as too many have, and I guess in large
measure we constantly grapple with what is the appropriate role
of government--State and local and the Federal level--court
system, public awareness and education, personal
responsibility?
Personally, I do feel that there is a significant role of
government at least to bring attention and punish those who put
into the stream of commerce things that can lead to damage of
young children.
Question for Ms. Weintraub and Mr. Korn. First, with
respect to furniture tipovers. In your opinion, have things
progressed over the last several years--we have had children, I
know, in Staten Island who have died as a result of pulling
entertainment centers and whatnot back and, regrettably, losing
their life.
While there is legislation before us, is the industry
moving aggressively enough, whether it is through the anti-tip
brackets, and are there better companies out there than others
that we should bring attention to, short of legislation,
assuming legislation is not passed?
Ms. Weintraub. I think it is a complicated question but
ASTM has been moving--ASTM, which is the organization which Mr.
Thomas represents, is the voluntary standard setting
organization. And within ASTM there is currently a committee
that has been working on setting standards for furniture
tipovers. It has been an incredibly arduous task, though it
seems that something strong and adequate will be coming out of
that subcommittee. So that is progress.
However, in terms of furniture tipping over, there are sad
stories, just what occurred in Staten Island, that occurred
throughout the country. And not only is it furniture, it is
also appliances such stoves. Horrendous stories where children
and the elderly get trapped and burned when the stoves tip
over.
Unfortunately, requiring brackets alone is not at all
sufficient. In terms of stoves, in terms of some information
that we have learned about, brackets are supposed to be
installed in stoves upon delivery. However, the vast majority
of them, over 90 percent of them, have not been installed with
these anti-tip brackets. Retailers don't always do that.
Sometimes they may leave them for consumers. Sometimes they may
not. Consumers often have no idea whether the stove either
meets a standard that doesn't require the brackets or should be
connected to the wall through a bracket, and is not. So it is
still an incredibly problematic, pervasive, and hidden hazard.
Mr. Fossella. I have less than 2 minutes left. I would like
to follow up, but let me shift gears to the issue of pools and
spas.
And for Mr. Korn and Ms. Weintraub, I notice in your
testimony, Ms. Weintraub, the notion that a young child could
die in a drowning, and it could be prevented. Obviously we
should do everything we can to prevent it.
I notice, Ms. Weintraub, in your testimony you say you
support legislation regarding tipovers, yet you say you support
the goals of the legislation for the Pool and Spa Safety act.
And if I heard you correctly Mr. Korn, you are satisfied
with the most recent efforts on safety of pools and spas or did
I mishear you? And I guess the question is, again, is the
private sector moving fast enough and what would this
legislation do? I have supported this legislation in the past.
I am just curious if anything is involved.
And what is the nuance or the difference between supporting
the legislation and supporting the goals of the legislation?
Mr. Korn. We are wildly supportive of the Pool and Spa
Safety Act. We think it is a nice practical approach that
addresses both new pools as they come to the market, giving the
CPSC the ability to craft a standard that addresses the dangers
associated with these drains; and then, second, crafts a
legislative scheme, for lack of a better word, that gets to
address those existing pools in which the CPSC has no
jurisdiction, no mandate, only incentivizing States to use some
of these devices along with four-sided fencing, similar to
legislation that is in New York, so that we would protect kids
from that unfettered access.
So if I was unclear, let me be very clear. We are very
supportive of the Pool and Spa Safety Act. And thank you for
your cosponsor of it.
Mr. Fossella. What is the difference between supporting
legislation and the goals?
Ms. Weintraub. For us there is a distinction. CFA currently
has not yet come to a final decision about where we are on the
pool bill. As I said in my testimony, and as you very
accurately assessed, there is a distinction for us, whether we
are supporting the legislation or supporting the goals.
Our hesitation has been, and our decision is not yet final,
but our hesitation is whether the mechanical way that the bill
goes about assuring that the very meaningful standards get
implemented is the best way to go about it.
As you know as a cosponsor, the bill goes about it through
a grants program that would go through CPSC, and States that
would pass and implement a very strong pool and spa safety bill
would get money through CPSC.
And what our concern about is whether this grant program
through CPSC, who doesn't have experience, who has diminished
resources, whether that program is the best way to go about it.
Mr. Fossella. Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rush. Thank you.
The committee has completed its testimony. I want to thank
the witnesses. I really want to thank you for your patience,
for your testimony, for your contributions on the problem. This
is not the final hearing on the issue of children's product
safety. We will have additional hearings. We will try to get
some legislative remedies passed through this Congress so that
our children will be safe in the future from products that are
manufactured and that are sold to the American people.
I want to indicate that the record will be open for 30 days
to accept statements. And I would ask the witnesses to be
prepared to answer further questions that may be submitted in
writing by the members of this committee for this record.
Thank you so very much and the committee now stands
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:35 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.083
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.084
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.085
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.086
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.087
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.088
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.089
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.090
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.091
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.092
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.093
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.094
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.095
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.096
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.097
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.098
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.099
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.100
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.101
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.102
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.103
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.104
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.105
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.106
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.107
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.108
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.109
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.110
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.111
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.112
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.113
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.114
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.115
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.116
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.117
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.118
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.119
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.120
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.121
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.122
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.123
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.124
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.125
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.126
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.127
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.128
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.129
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.130
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.131
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.132
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.133
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.134
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.135
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.136
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.137
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.138
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.139
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.140
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.141
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.142
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.143
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.144
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.145
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.146
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.147
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.148
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.149
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.150
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.151
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.152
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.153
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.154
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.155
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.156
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.157
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.158
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.159
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.160
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.161
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.162
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.163
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.164
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.165
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.166
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.167
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.168
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.169
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.170
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.171
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.172
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1686.173