Consumer Product Safety Modernization Act

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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for yielding to me. And I thank you, Chairman Dingell, Ranking Member Barton and vice chairman of the subcommittee, Mr. Stearns, for bringing this bill to fruition.

This is the season of giving, but parents today are worrying about whether the toys they buy for their children will be safe or a potentially lethal hazard.

The Chicago Tribune recently tested 800 toys and found a wooden butterfly in an Oak Park toy store with 85,000 parts per million of lead, 142 times the legal limit.

A Superman figurine contained 33,000 parts per million. The Associated Press followed up with their own tests, and 35 percent of the toys they looked at were contaminated with lead levels above the legal limit.

We should have a Consumer Product Safety Commission that is aggressive in protecting our children, our most precious resource. We should, but we don't. Unfortunately, the CPSC acting chairwoman seems content with the status quo.

H.R. 4040, the Consumer Product Safety Modernization Act, recognizes that the status quo of daily recalls, injuries and deaths is not acceptable. I support this bill because it provides new authority and resources to make products, particularly children's products, safe.

There are many important provisions in this bill. It would virtually ban lead in products intended for children age 12 and younger. It will mandate independent third-party testing for hazards in children's products and improve the recall process. It includes provisions from legislation I introduced to require long-overdue mandatory safety standards for durable infant and toddler products and strengthen recall effectiveness by requiring them to include recall registration cards.

I hope we can make this bill even stronger. Even with added resources authorized from the bill, a major improvement from the levels requested by President Bush, we could do better, particularly when it comes to monitoring imports. I support measures to add mandatory premarketing testing and other important things. But ultimately, we need to pass this legislation.

I support measures to add mandatory premarketing testing, tough whistleblower protections and the assurance that injured consumers will have full rights to hold wrongdoers accountable. And while I support provisions to encourage manufacturers to report dangerous products, I remain concerned about the effect those provisions would have on criminal liability and hope we can take a further look at this.

Ultimately no legislation will be successful if the CPSC continues to shirk its mandate of protecting consumers. I want to thank Chairman Dingell and Chairman RUSH for their hard work on this bill and for their commitment to holding vigorous oversight of CPSC's activities. I look forward to working with them to make this bill even stronger.

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