CPSC Reform Act

Floor Speech

CPSC REFORM ACT -- (Senate - March 04, 2008)

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, let me thank my colleague from Texas for coming to the floor and offering an amendment. I don't know if I will be able to support it, but I do commend him because the amendment clearly relates to the bill, a very important bill, and it draws us into something perilously close to debate which hardly ever happens on the floor of the Senate. I hope the spirit in which he has offered this amendment will be respected on both sides of the aisle.

I know there are many pressing issues facing us in Congress and few opportunities to bring them up. But I hope this bill can pass this week, that we have an honest debate on the merits of the bill, and then bring it to passage. I support the bill. I thank Senator Pryor.

Senator Pryor of Arkansas has been a leader on this issue. He has done an extraordinarily good job making this a bipartisan bill. All of us read the stories last year about toy safety. Many parents came up to me in Illinois and said: What am I supposed to buy this year? Is everything dangerous? If it says ``made in China,'' am I supposed to stay away from it?

I didn't have a good answer. I couldn't recommend toys. That is not what I do for a living.

I have to tell you, a lot of the stories that were coming out in the newspapers were troubling, not just for parents but for grandparents such as me. Magnetic toys, I never had those when I was a kid. All we had were Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys and all kinds of stuff like that--erector sets. But these were little objects that could stick together with magnets. Kids could build them into huge forms. My grandson loved them. He had boxes full of this stuff and he would make these huge things with his dad, and always wanted more.

Well, I bought it--something to bring around at Christmastime--and did not realize, until the newspaper stories came out, this toy was a danger. Because the reason it worked is, it had these tiny, little, rare earth magnets. It looked like a pill, a little black pill. They were on the end of these sticks of plastic, and that is what kept all this toy structure together.

It turned out in the earliest design of these Magnetix toys, if a kid threw it on the floor, stepped on it, whatever--ran over it with a bicycle--the little magnet could pop out. And that little magnet, for my grandson, who was a little older, was not a problem. But for tiny children, it turned out to be a big problem. If they popped it in their mouth--which little kids, crawling infants would do--and swallowed it, and swallowed more than one, those two magnets could come together inside their body and cause serious obstruction in their intestines, forcing surgery to take care of it, and in the most extreme cases killing a baby.

That was the reality of a badly designed toy on sale in the United States. The Chicago Tribune did a front-page story on it. That is when I first started paying attention to this more closely, because I thought ``I bought one of these for my grandson, and it is a danger''--at least it is for smaller children. The Chicago Tribune told the story in a very good series, about what happened when they discovered this toy was dangerous.

What happened added to my sense of urgency to deal with this issue. Because no sooner did this hazard appear than the lawyers appeared, and the lawyers took these toys and went to their legal playground and played with them for month after month after month, while they were still being sold across America. That has to stop. If there is a dangerous toy in America, you cannot expect every family to do a test. You cannot expect every family to be able to certify safety. They expect the Government to do that. That is what we are supposed to do--the Consumer Product Safety Commission. When they do not do their job, it puts families and children at risk. So this law we are currently trying to amend may have been good many years ago. Today it is not up to the challenge.

Senator Klobuchar of Minnesota has been another great ally of Senator Pryor on this effort. She had a chart earlier, and I want to show you kind of a version of it, if you will. This is a little bit different chart than hers. It indicates the number of imports coming into the United States.

I talked about toys, but we are concerned about the safety of all products--electronic products and so many others--coming into the United States. You can see from the chart, starting back in the 1970s and all the way up to today, this dramatic surge in the number of imports. Now, this may be hard for people to see, but here are the numbers of full-time employees at the Consumer Product Safety Commission--reaching a high number of about 1,000 employees in 1980, it looks like, and then this steady decline of employees, until we are down around 400 employees today. So here is a surge of imported products, and a dramatic decline, by more than 50 percent, of inspectors. Well, what is going to happen? Fewer products are inspected, fewer unsafe products are detected, and there is more danger in the marketplace.

There was kind of a popular cliche on Capitol Hill back in this era: Get Government off my back. Well, this is an example of where a safety agency fell victim to that mentality and dramatically reduced its staff, at a time when it should have kept up with the imports to protect American citizens. That is what I think troubles many of us.

I am the chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee for the Consumer Product Safety Commission. We increased the President's request for this agency, I believe from $62 million to $80 million in this year--that is an $18 million increase in real terms, about 30 percent--and said to the agency: Now staff up. Put the inspectors in place. Protect the consumers across America.

I suppose we could have given them more, but I am a little bit reluctant, having watched the process for a number of years, to put too much money too fast into an agency. I am afraid many times they do not hire the best people and they cannot adjust to change. Thirty percent, I think, is probably tops out of what you can do in any given year without running some real risks, and even that has to be carefully monitored.

So we are hoping in this bill--and I commend Senator Pryor--to see a steady increase in the number of employees and inspectors at this agency in the hopes that when we get this done, at the end of the day we will have enough people to do the job.

When you look at the millions of dollars worth of toys brought into the United States, and all the attention we paid to those toys, there is a legitimate question about: Well, how many people out of about 400 at the Consumer Product Safety Commission were actually inspecting toys? Well, it turned out that when it came to certain types of toys, such as these loose magnets and that sort of thing, there was basically one man. His name was Bob. I had a picture of Bob standing at his inspection station which I had back in the cloakroom and somebody took it. I wish I could have brought it out here because Bob became kind of legendary. Bob has since retired. He is retired from the Federal Government. But we did manage to save a picture of Bob's workspace.

Shown in this picture is Bob's testing laboratory for toys imported into the United States. That is not a real confidence builder. It looks like my work bench in my basement in Springfield, IL. In fact, that work bench looks a little better, when I think about it. This is a mess. His toolbox is over here, and there is a bunch of toys stacked up.

Bob, the Federal inspector of toys for the United States of America--he was making do with what he had, and it was not a lot. What he did was draw this little line on the wall about 3 feet up, and then he drew another one at about 6 feet up, and he would take these toys out of the boxes and drop them on the floor to see if they broke open. That was one of Bob's impact tests in his laboratory. I do not want to make light of Bob's contribution to safety in America, but I will bet you families across America thought it was a little different process that led to an inspection of a toy that might end up in the hands of their child if they bought it in a store in America.

The good part about Senator Pryor's bill that I am happy to cosponsor is that he goes after this whole laboratory inspection process. We should not and cannot build enough laboratories in the United States owned by the Federal Government to inspect every product that comes into our country, but we can certify laboratories in other countries that are recognized to be professional and trustworthy--that is a good investment--and then make sure that the products go through these laboratories, and make sure when they come to the United States we can identify where they came from, when they were produced and, if there is a problem, trace them back.

So Senator Pryor's bill moves in the right direction: more inspectors here, but people also to certify laboratories in the countries of origin. If there is a toy coming from China, as an example, it may go to an underwriter's laboratory that is open in China that has been certified by the United States as a reliable laboratory, and they will have to give a seal of approval before it is shipped to the United States. That, to me, makes a lot of sense. It is a way to use our money wisely and to avoid this kind of sad situation here where you cannot believe this is going to result in a reliable process.

The funding increases in this bill are important, but even more important, from my point of view, is to make sure this Consumer Product Safety Commission is run by people who care, who want this to work. It is sad. There are supposed to be five members of this Commission. Unfortunately, there are only two who are currently serving.

This Commission under current law has to negotiate press releases with companies. If you find a Magnetix toy with a magnet that a child can swallow and can have terrible health consequences and want to take the product off the shelf or recall it, it turns out to be a battle royal between lawyers even negotiating the wording of the press release. While all this is going on, unsuspecting families are buying these toys. Now Senator Pryor in this bill is going to expedite this process.

Secondly--and this is one that I think is essential--we have to fine those who violate this law in a manner where they will pay attention. If you have a product you continue to sell that is dangerous, that is on recall and you sell it anyway but figure: My company will make enough money that I can pay the fine and live through it to see another day, that is not a good outcome--certainly not for the consumers across this country.

So what Senator Pryor in this bill does is to increase the fines to a level where they truly are meaningful, and companies will have to think twice before they would consider selling a product that is facing recall.

This package also over time increases the authorization level for the agency. It strengthens civil and criminal penalties. It requires third-party certification and testing, as I mentioned. It makes it mandatory for manufacturers of toys and children's products to comply with accepted safety standards. It bans the presence of lead in all children's products. My hat is off to Senator Klobuchar. She has been a great leader on that issue. It allows for parents to have faster access to injury reports and other information to help alert parents to product safety risks. It improves the way this Commission conducts its business.

It allows State attorneys general to enforce product safety law in specified instances. I believe it is only injunctive relief they can seek, and only if the Consumer Product Safety Commission and Federal agencies do not move forward to protect the consumers. It restores the Consumer Product Safety Commission to a five-member Commission, which it should be.

I hope my colleagues will look at this bill closely and realize we are doing something that is rare. We are taking a law that has not been touched for 18 years and bringing it up to speed.

Eighteen years ago, as my chart showed earlier, imports were at a very low level. Imported products have risen dramatically. We have to rise to the challenge. It is heartening this bill Senator Pryor brings to the floor, along with Senator Stevens, Senator Collins, Senator Inouye, myself, Senator Klobuchar, and so many others, has a broad coalition of groups supporting it: the Consumer Federation of America, the American Association of Pediatricians, and Consumers Union, to name a few. One of the CPSC Commissioners, Mr. Moore, has endorsed this legislation, and a number of State attorneys general.

Passing a strong, consumer-oriented bill such as this is the next step in safeguarding consumers. I do not think American families should ever have to go through a Christmas or holiday season as they did last year wondering if products on the shelf are safe for their kids. If history is our guide, we may not have the chance to revisit these policies if we do not pass this bill right now.

I want to thank a number of individuals who played a significant role in helping me work on this issue and helping others: Rachel Weintraub, who was at the press conference yesterday for the Consumer Federation of America; Ami Ghadia and Ellen Bloom of the Consumers Union; Ed Mierzwinski with U.S. PIRG; David Arkush and Mike Lemov from Public Citizen; Cindy Pelligrini with the Association of Pediatricians; Nancy Cowles with Kids in Danger; and Patricia Callahan and Maurice Possley with the Chicago Tribune. The last two did an exceptional job as reporters. This was journalism at its best. They told a story--a gripping story--well documented, which caught the attention of this legislator, which led me to take this issue more seriously. My hat is off to the Chicago Tribune, Patricia Callahan, and Maurice Possley for their work on this issue.

Finally, let me say this: Passing this law is not the end of the story. My Appropriations subcommittee is going to call the Consumer Product Safety Commission in. We are going to keep an eye on them. We are going to make sure that taxpayers' dollars are well spent, that there is no question in the minds of those who are running this Commission about what Congress wants to achieve with this new authority and these new resources. If there is push-back and resistance from this agency to change, they are in for a battle. I hope we do not see that.

I think American consumers want to know the toys and products they buy off the shelves across America are safe for their families and safe for their kids.

We focused on toys, but it is not the end of the story. There are an awful lot of products, many products which we buy every day, trusting this Government to put its seal of approval on and some inspection behind it. We have to meet our obligation to people who count on us to make sure that government does its job in an effective, efficient, and dollar-efficient way. Unfortunately, this agency has fallen behind. As it fell behind, so did some of the confidence of American consumers about products on the shelves.

I also think we ought to work with foreign governments. The Chinese came to see me repeatedly during the last holiday season and said: We have gotten the message. We are going to straighten this out. I am hoping they live up to that promise.

Also, in fairness to China, for example, which has been the butt and focus of many of the critiques when it comes to imports, the fact is that many of the toys they sold were designed by American companies, and those companies need to be held responsible for the toy design that the Chinese actually implemented.

The last word I will say is for special recognition to two companies which, during the midst of this toy scandal, did the right thing as corporate citizens of America--one was the chain Toys R Us, and the other, a major toy maker, Mattel--when this story came out. The CEOs of both of those companies contacted my office and said: We are going to work with you. We are not going to run away from this issue. We know that if American consumers don't have faith in our stores and in our commitment to them, it will not only hurt our sales, but it will put families in jeopardy.

Jerry Storch from Toys R Us was at the press conference yesterday. I commented that in the old days, corporate strategy used to be duck and cover. If a scandal emerges involving your company or your products, you duck the press and you try to cover it up. Jerry Storch didn't do that. He stepped right up and said: Toys R Us is going to work with you to make sure the products are safe. He kept his word and came to the press conference yesterday.

The same thing is true with Mattel. I think they are genuinely committed to the safety of kids and families, and I thank them for their leadership, as well as others, but those two really impressed me, that they would do the right thing from a corporate viewpoint. I hope consumers across America will hold them to their promise, and if they keep it, we will reward them with our business. They deserve it.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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