[Congressional Bills 106th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 3208 Introduced in House (IH)]







106th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 3208

    To amend the Consumer Product Safety Act to improve the way the 
 Consumer Product Safety Commission handles defective products and for 
                            other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            November 3, 1999

   Mr. Blagojevich (for himself, Mr. Berry, Mr. Green of Texas, Ms. 
Millender-McDonald, Mr. McGovern, Mr. Waxman, and Mr. Rush) introduced 
  the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Commerce

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
    To amend the Consumer Product Safety Act to improve the way the 
 Consumer Product Safety Commission handles defective products and for 
                            other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Daniel Keysar Memorial and Childhood 
Consumer Product Safety Act of 1999''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds the following:
            (1) On May 12, 1998, Chicago resident Linda Ginzel and her 
        husband, Boaz Keysar, lost their 16-month old son, Danny, when 
        a defective crib collapsed and strangled him at a Chicago day 
        care home. Although the licensed day care facility had been 
        inspected just 8 days before the incident and the crib had been 
        recalled by the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1993, the 
        day care home was not aware of the recall and it never removed 
        the defective crib. Danny was the twelfth child to die in this 
        type of defective crib nationwide. Moreover, the thirteenth 
        child was killed in Fair Haven, New Jersey just 3 months later.
            (2) The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is an 
        independent Federal regulatory agency created in 1972 to 
        protect the public against unreasonable risks of injuries and 
        deaths associated with consumer products. Although the CPSC has 
        jurisdiction over about 15,000 types of consumer products, its 
        budget is less than the Food and Drug Administration's budget 
        for regulating animal medicines.
            (3) The budget for the Consumer Product Safety Commission 
        has failed to keep pace with inflation. In fact, when indexed 
        for inflation, the Commission's 1974 budget allocation of $30 
        million would be $98 million today, compared to the current 
        level of $47 million.
            (4) Although manufacturers are required by law to report 
        safety problems with their products, on average only about 260 
        reports are filed each year. Yet, annual CPSC inspections of 
        over 2,000 products consistently revealed close to half the 
        products in violation of CPSC regulations.
            (5) On average, the CPSC recalls about 200-300 products 
        each year, the majority of which are children's products or 
        toys.
            (6) In 1998, 38 million individual units of children's 
        products were recalled.
            (7) Although the CPSC is able to have recalled products 
        removed from retail stores, it is more difficult to have 
        recalled products removed from consumers' homes, the secondary 
        market, including resale stores and child care facilities. On 
        average, only 10 to 30 percent of the products recalled are 
        repaired or returned. The number of products destroyed by the 
        consumer is unknown. As a result, children and other consumers 
        are likely to be injured and some killed by recalled products 
        that have not been returned, destroyed, or repaired.

SEC. 3. RECALLED PRODUCTS.

    The Consumer Product Safety Act (15 U.S.C. 2501 et seq.) is amended 
by adding at the end the following:

                          ``recalled products

    ``Sec. 38. (a) Within 180 days from the date of enactment of this 
section, the Commission shall establish a comprehensive list of all 
children's products subject to recall or corrective action under the 
statutes it administers over the last 15 years and shall undertake to 
make the list widely available to the general public, State and local 
governments, and the secondary market, including retail stores and 
child care facilities through its toll free telephone hotline, 
electronic mail, and web site listings. The Commission shall develop a 
strategy for partnering with State and local governments to produce and 
distribute the list under this subsection to individual consumers and 
the secondary market, including resale stores and child care centers.
    ``(b) Section 6(b) shall not apply to Commission announcements of 
corrective actions. All Commission announcements of corrective actions, 
including press releases, shall be identified as `recall'. The 
announcements shall, with respect to the product for which the 
announcements are made--
            ``(1) state clearly and concisely, in the strongest 
        possible language, the nature and extent of the product hazard 
        and any potential risk of injury; and
            ``(2) shall include the number of known deaths, injuries 
        and incidents associated with the product hazard being 
        corrected.
In stating the hazard and risk of injury, the announcement shall use 
clear and unambiguous language intended to motivate consumers to 
participate in the recall. In addition, the Commission shall publicly 
post press releases and other announcements of corrective action, e.g. 
annual report listings in a timely manner.
    ``(c) The Commission shall establish a pilot program to work with 
manufacturers and retailers to obtain the identity of consumers who 
purchase specified juvenile or children's products so the consumer can 
be notified in the event of a product recall.
    ``(d) The Commission shall report to Congress annually on the 
effectiveness of the recalls ordered under section 15(d) for each 
specific product so that the percentage of products sold and subject to 
such recall or corrective action and actually recalled or repaired may 
be determined and made available to the general public through its toll 
free telephone hotline, electronic mail, and website.''.

SEC. 4. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

    The first sentence of section 32(a) of the Consumer Product Safety 
Act (15 U.S.C. 2081) is amended by striking out ``not to exceed'' and 
all that follows and inserting ``$100 million for each of the fiscal 
years 2001, 2002, and 2003.''.
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