[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 144 (Thursday, October 6, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: October 6, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                      ANN BROWN REVITALIZING CPSC

                                 ______


                          HON. CARDISS COLLINS

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, October 5, 1994

  Mrs. COLLINS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, over the years, the Consumer 
Product Safety Commission [CPSC] has unfortunately gained the 
reputation of being ``the little agency that can't.'' But under the 
leadership of Ann Brown, the Chairman appointed by President Bill 
Clinton, the agency has been revitalizing itself. Chairman Brown's 
efforts are detailed in the following column by Hobart Rowen, which 
appeared in the Washington Post last Sunday, October 2:

                [From the Washington Post, Oct. 2, 1994]

      CPSC's Ann Brown Is Pragmatic, Persistent on Product Safety

                           (By Hobart Rowen)

       When Ann Brown, chairman of the Consumer Product Safety 
     Commission, was a 12-year-old Washington schoolgirl in 1949, 
     she took her homework to Erlebachers', her parents' F Street 
     NW clothing store, instead of going directly home.
       ``I learned there how small business should work,'' Brown 
     told me last week. Her father, Jules Winkleman, would 
     demonstrate for his sales staff how to be as concerned in 
     dealing with a customer who brought in a return, as in making 
     the original sale.
       ``My father would play out the role of the customer. He 
     wanted to make sure his sales force understood that consumer 
     satisfaction came first,'' Brown recalled. And well ahead of 
     his time, Winkleman encouraged his daughter to think of a 
     business career. ``He told me a woman could go ahead and do 
     anything a man could do.''
       It was an easy progression for Brown to become a consumer 
     activist by profession and--by her own evaluation--one who 
     was an aggressive advocate who viewed most business people as 
     too focused ``on short-term profits'' and not enough on 
     consumer needs or safety.
       Now, at 57, in her first-ever government job, she finds 
     that ``times have changed and I have changed.'' She sees her 
     role as ``a regulator for the '90s,'' who can work with 
     industry groups for compromises that pay off. Business, too, 
     has changed, she believes, because ``many large and small 
     companies have had to update and upgrade their own missions 
     and strategic marketing plans.''
       Brown has gotten across her message that however tough an 
     activist she was in her private incarnation, she has no 
     horns; rather, she portrays herself as a pragmatist willing 
     to work things out with private industry.
       A case in point relates to drawstrings in the hood and neck 
     portions of children's garments, long a hazard for small 
     children. Yet, in 1993, 12 children were strangled and 
     another 27 were injured by such drawstrings, easily 
     replaceable by buttons, snaps or velcro. One of the first 
     things Brown did as chairman was to get the industry to 
     agree voluntarily to redesign 200 million garments to 
     eliminate this hazard by next year.
       Industry leaders agree that safety in children's garments 
     must become a priority focus. Brown has started a national 
     award program for a company's commitment to safety first, 
     with the first coveted honor going to Procter & Gamble Co. 
     for developing safety caps for drugs that are both child-
     resistant and easy for seniors to open.
       For more than two decades, Brown had been a recognized 
     leader in lobbying for consumer safety and consumer rights. 
     From 1979 until this year, she was vice president of the 
     Consumer Federation of America. From 1983 to 1994 she had 
     also been chairman of Public Voice, a pro-consumer lobby 
     aimed at improving consumer health and nutrition. In 
     addition, from 1972 until joining the Clinton administration. 
     Brown headed consumer affairs for Americans for Democratic 
     Action.
       In her Bethesda office, chock-full of consumer products--
     notably children's toys and garments--that have been modified 
     to make them safe, Brown says: ``I'm not trying to be a cop. 
     I don't believe that you can regulate everything that moves, 
     or that you can make every product absolutely safe.'' But she 
     also knows that not even the most dedicated parents or most 
     conscientious consumers can always guarantee their children's 
     or their own safety.
       As government agencies go, you could skip right over the 
     CPSC in the federal budget unless you were using a magnifying 
     glass. Before Bill Clinton appointed Brown in March 10, 1994 
     to chair the CPSC, it had become a moribund and almost 
     disowned backwater under presidents Reagan and Bush. David 
     Stockman, as director of the Office of Management and Budget, 
     wanted to junk it altogether, but never quite succeeded. It 
     dwindled under the Reagan-Bush years from 978 to 487 
     employees; Brown's budget for fiscal 1995 will be $41.3 
     million, down $1 million from 1994.
       Occasionally, a startling event makes the headlines, as did 
     the recent untimely death of tennis star Vitas Gerulaitis of 
     carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty heater. CSPC has 
     accelerated its efforts to make carbon monoxide detectors as 
     common in homes as smoke detectors.
       All told, more than 15,000 consumer products come under 
     CPSC's jurisdiction, excluding most forms of transportation 
     or workplace-related equipment. A rising concern is sports-
     related injuries. For example, roller-blading accidents 
     zoomed from 38,000 in 1993 to an estimated 83,000 in 1994.
       In a recent pep talk to employees, Brown recalled an old 
     Washington Post article that referred to the three-member 
     commission as ``the little agency that can't.'' Under her 
     guidance, Brown pledged, the agency will become ``the little 
     agency that could.''
       ``It's still a dangerous world out there,'' Brown says with 
     conviction. ``Unintentional injury is the leading cause of 
     death in the nation.'' One-fourth of those 96,000 deaths 
     annually are related to consumer products. With industry's 
     help, Brown intends to get that number down.

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