Consumer Product Safety Modernization Act--Conference Report

Floor Speech

CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY MODERNIZATION ACT--CONFERENCE REPORT -- (Senate - July 31, 2008)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I am pleased that the Senate is taking up the conference report on legislation to accomplish the urgent task of preventing dangerous consumer products--especially those intended for children--from entering the country or reaching store shelves. The conference report contains a wide variety of measures that, taken together, deserve our support because they will greatly bolster defenses against hazards that must not reach American homes.

I want to commend the chief sponsor of the bill, Senator PRYOR, for his leadership on this issue. It has been a pleasure to work with him.

We all remember last year's alarming and, too often, tragic stories of product hazards and recalls that demonstrated the need to strengthen protections for consumers, particularly children. Unfortunately, those dangers continue. In 2008, new Consumer Product Safety Commission, CPSC, recalls have included 19,000 baby rattles that present choking hazards, 685,000 wireless helicopter toys whose batteries can catch fire, and 91,000 horseshoe-shaped magnet toys whose coating contains high levels of lead.

Lead, as we know, is a particular concern because of its use in plastics and paints can expose children to the risk of serious nervous system damage and other health effects. The conference report's dramatic reduction in the permissible lead content in products marketed for children under 12--starting at 600 parts per million and ratcheting down to 100 parts per million over 3 years--is just one example of the bill's aggressive pursuit of safety.

Even with these tighter restrictions on lead content, we must continue to pay special attention to imported products that violate our safety rules. As we have seen with the lead issue, the bulk of toys sold in American stores come from China, where cases of careless or unscrupulous factories or suppliers using cheaper lead paints in violation of factory or official standards make clear the need to upgrade our ability to police safety violations in global supply chains.

I am, therefore, pleased that the conference report contains four key provisions from the Senate-passed bill, S. 2663, that emerged from an in-depth investigation conducted by my staff on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Combined with important enhancements to CPSC authorities and funding provided in the conference report, these four provisions will ensure that unsafe imported consumer products, including toys and clothing that endanger our Nation's children, are effectively screened at the border and, when necessary, destroyed.

Last August, I asked my HSGAC staff to review the effectiveness of Federal safety standards governing children's toys and clothing. The committee investigators conducted numerous interviews of manufacturers' representatives, retailers, consumer advocacy groups, and Federal regulatory agencies, and visited a manufacturer's testing lab and two ports. Their findings confirmed several weaknesses in our current consumer product safety regime; namely; the CPSC is understaffed, inadequately resourced, and lacks crucial authorities needed to fulfill its mission; voluntary standards applicable to many classes of products can be useful in quickly addressing safety issues, but lack the full force of law; and the inability to effectively enforce safety standards at our ports limits our Nation's ability to stop hazardous imported products from entering the American marketplace.

My staff investigation made it clear that our border inspections regime must target and intercept foreign products that fail to meet U.S. safety standards. As our committee found, Customs and Border Protection currently lacks the authority to seize and destroy dangerous imported products even if the agency suspects that an unscrupulous importer turned away at one port might attempt to bring these products in through another U.S. port.

The committee's investigation also revealed that coordination and information sharing between CBP and CPSC were often ad-hoc--providing CBP with little useful information that would allow its agents to target shipments that are more likely to contain dangerous goods.

The provisions that I authored, and worked with Senators INOUYE, STEVENS, and PRYOR to include in the bipartisan reform bill that the Senate passed, specifically target problems with unsafe imports by ensuring that CPSC and U.S. Customs and Border Protection work effectively together to keep unsafe consumer products out of our country. These provisions: authorize CBP to seize and destroy dangerous consumer products entering our ports, long before they reach store shelves or American homes; enhance information sharing between CPSC and CBP so that inspectors at our Nation's ports can focus their resource on the most risky shipments, targeting products, manufacturers, and importers with poor consumer-safety records; task CPSC with developing a comprehensive risk assessment tool to help CBP quickly evaluate imported products that might violate our Nation's safety standards; and direct the CPSC to develop a plan to ensure that Commission employees are assigned to the National Targeting Center at CBP to increase interagency collaboration in evaluating the potential risks of inbound shipments for potential safety issues.

I am pleased that the conferees retained these provisions in their report. They will help the CPSC and Customs and Border Protection identify dangerous products that enter our ports and prevent them from reaching American homes.

Other measures in this conference report--increased staffing and funding for the CPSC, tougher civil and criminal penalties for violations of safety laws, a ban on reselling recalled products, enhanced whistleblower protections, safety certifications, and product tracking labels--will also strengthen the Consumer Product Safety Commission's ability to protect American consumers. With the new authorities in this bill, the CPSC will be able to work more effectively with importers, retailers, consumers, and industry associations to develop and enforce product-safety standards.

This legislation will make a real difference in protecting America's children and other consumers from hazardous toys and other products.

I urge my colleagues to adopt the conference report.

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