[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 130 (Wednesday, September 5, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11091-S11092]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     DEFECTIVE PRODUCTS FROM CHINA

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, over the August recess, my wife and I were 
invited to a friend's house for a barbeque. A number of young couples 
were there with their toddlers. It was a lot of fun watching these kids 
take their first steps and laughing as they played with one another. 
One of the fathers turned to me during the course of the barbecue and 
said, ``Well, it looks like it is going to be a Christmas without toys; 
there is nothing safe that we can buy anymore.'' I thought to myself 
that many of the headlines that occupy our attention here in the 
Congress are headlines ordinary families are not watching closely. But 
when it comes to something as basic as the toys they buy for their kids 
and whether they are safe, a lot of families are tuned in.
  All across America, there is a growing concern. What this father said 
to me was, ``Dick, I thought if they put the stuff on the shelf, it had 
to be safe, right?'' I wish I could answer yes. The honest answer is 
no. What is put on the shelf across America isn't necessarily safe. We 
are learning that over and over again. It comes down to some basic 
concepts of whether Government has an important role to play when it 
comes to toys and other parts of our lives. We can certainly ask the 
people who live, or used to live, in New Orleans, whether Government is 
important. When Hurricane Katrina hit and the levees broke and they 
lost their homes, families had to move hundreds of miles away. They 
understand that when Government fails you, as it did in New Orleans, 
life can be very difficult. Or, of course, you can go to Minneapolis 
now and see what is left of an interstate highway bridge built to 
Government standards, subject to Government inspection, which 
collapsed, killing innocent people and causing havoc all across that 
great part of our Midwest.
  The same thing, unfortunately, is true when it comes to the Consumer 
Product Safety Commission. This is a commission created back in the 
1970s when people started asking hard questions about things they were 
buying and driving, whether they were safe. A movement started that led 
to passage of legislation creating this watchdog agency. There was a 
huge mandate we gave them: Make sure the things we put on the shelf for 
Americans are safe, that the products are not defective or unsafe. That 
may be too big a task for any one agency.
  Over the years, what has happened is that this agency, instead of 
growing to meet the challenge, has been shrinking as the challenge 
grows. Today, there are 401 people working at this agency, responsible 
for reviewing trillions of dollars worth of products made in the United 
States and imported into the United States to make certain they are 
safe. I am familiar a little with this agency because I recently became 
chairman of a subcommittee that handles its appropriation. When you 
look at the amount of money we are spending there, the President asked 
for about $63 million for the Consumer Product Safety Commission. This 
agency has been limping along for years with hardly any money being 
infused into it and very few employees being added to the payroll. So, 
as a result today, the 401 employees have a huge mandate. I am hoping, 
in the next appropriation cycle, to improve and include additional 
money for this commission. In fact, our full committee reported $70 
million, which is about a 10-percent or more increase in the 
appropriation for this agency. Seventy million dollars is still not 
enough, but it is significant at a time when we are spending $12 
billion a month in Iraq--$12 billion a month. Here we are arguing about 
what is small change--what is lost with single-bid contractors in Iraq 
every day. We are worrying about whether we can come up with $10 
million for an agency that is responsible for the safety of products we 
buy.
  The Consumer Product Safety Commission finds that of the defective 
and unsafe products sold to Americans, two-thirds of them are imported, 
and two-thirds of those come from one country, which is China. Over and 
over again, month after month, year after year, China continues to send 
us defective products. This isn't a new thing. It reflects what is 
going on as the Chinese economy moves from the Dark Ages into the 21st 
century global economy and tries to accommodate differences in culture 
and taste and consumer appetite around the world. So we see a lot of 
problems. The problems didn't come to our attention until earlier this 
year. It is interesting how that happened. The first thing that caught 
our attention was pet food, the dog and cat food we were giving to our 
pets. Families across America found out it was unsafe, and these 
helpless animals were dying. A little investigation found out it was 
traced back to a food product sent from China that was injected with 
the chemical called melamine for the purpose of making it appear to be 
more valuable. It was economic fraud. Somebody in China put this 
melamine chemical into this protein product to make more money, even 
though melamine is unfit for human or animal consumption. Well, all 
across America, millions of pet owners went into a panic. They pulled 
pet foods from the shelves and worried about whether there was more in 
the chain and whether more animals were going to die. It was an 
interesting psychology there. We knew all along that the Chinese were 
sending us suspect products. But at this point in time animal owners 
across America, feeling a special responsibility to that helpless pet 
they loved and is a member of their family, were up in arms. Why are we 
letting the Chinese do this, send these products to America?

  Then do you know what came next? Toothpaste. This was a good one. We 
discovered antifreeze in toothpaste made in China. Antifreeze. It turns 
out that they used, instead of glycerin, a form of glycol--close 
enough, I guess--which is a component of antifreeze. When the Chinese 
were confronted with toothpaste with antifreeze in it being sold around 
the world, they had an ingenious response. They said: As we understand 
it, you are not supposed to swallow toothpaste. What a great defense 
that was.
  Then more scandals followed. Along came the toy scandal, which we are 
in the middle of right now. The Chicago Tribune ran a lengthy series 
about a toy that caught my attention because I bought one for my 
grandson, called Magnetix. It is kind of cool. It looked like old 
erector sets with magnets. My grandson jumped on it, making elaborate 
creations because the magnets stuck to one another. The tiny magnets 
were about the size of a little pill. If you looked at them, you might 
mistake them as something you could eat if you are a 1- or 2-year-old. 
You might pop them in your mouth. If you swallow one, no problem. If 
you swallow two, it is a big problem because the magnets would adhere 
in your intestines, requiring surgery and, in some cases, cause death. 
It turned out to be a design flaw in the product. I know my kids and 
grandson are pretty tough on their toys. If you were tough on the 
Magnetix toys, these magnets would pop out, and toddlers, not knowing 
better, would stick them in their mouths and swallow them like candy, 
not knowing the dire consequences that could follow.
  The Consumer Product Safety Commission was called into the case and 
the Chicago Tribune story tells us that what happened was not 
encouraging because the laws are so weak in America, and the commission 
had to sit down and negotiate with the company that made this deadly 
toy on a press release announcing that the toy should be recalled. The 
lawyers for the commission sat down with the lawyers for the toy 
company and got into this long battle about what exactly they would say 
in the press release to recall the toy. Meanwhile, of course, it is 
still being sold in America while the debate continues. So the laws 
fundamentally, when it comes to the protection of American consumers, 
are not strong enough. They don't require the kind of notification of 
defect and danger we should expect as consumers. They don't put the 
burden on the manufacturer of a defective product to recall it 
immediately. They give that manufacturer

[[Page S11092]]

too much leeway when it comes to even taking a product off the shelf or 
putting a warning label on the shelf. It turns out that with this 
administration, the Bush administration, they have appointed people to 
the Consumer Product Safety Commission who have been leaning more 
toward the makers of toys and products and away from protecting 
consumers. There was a gentleman--a former attorney general of New 
Mexico named Harold Stratton. He came on and, frankly, reassured the 
National Association of Manufacturers that they didn't have to worry 
about this Consumer Product Safety Commission getting out of hand. He 
appointed a Mr. Mullan as the agency's general counsel, who time and 
again seemed to find reasons not to recall defective products and give 
those making them a little more time to make more money off of 
something that may be a little dangerous. The commission didn't do too 
much in terms of helping consumers.
  Today, it is a commission that limps along because it doesn't have 
the three commissioners it needs to operate. It only has two. 
Promulgating new rules and coming up with new initiatives is hampered 
because they don't have enough people to do it. Had the Bush 
administration tried to fill the vacancy? Who did they send? A person 
who, unfortunately, had a resume that showed he was following on in the 
tradition of Mr. Stratton and Mr. Mullan. He was a person with a 
background on the manufacturing side and not the consumer side.
  This is an agency for consumers that we have to count on. So when the 
administration doesn't fill the vacancy, it creates a problem in the 
administration. I have been disappointed by the Consumer Product Safety 
Commission recently. Mattel today has a third toy recall. They are 
recalling millions of toys because of lead paint and other dangers. Bob 
Eckert, the CEO of Mattel, made a special trip to meet with me in 
Chicago over the break. I respect him. He understands that if his 
company is going to succeed, parents have to trust the products they 
buy with the name Mattel on the box. He gave me his assurance--proven 
by today's press release--that they are going to pull every unsafe and 
dangerous toy off of the shelf that his company had anything to do 
with.
  You might ask yourself, why do we have lead paint coming in on toys 
from China? Let's get down to basics. It is not because lead paint is 
cheaper in China. No. It is because the workers who are making the toys 
are paid about $75 or $80 a month. It is because those workers have no 
idea what those toys are all about. They never see these in the world 
they live in. They don't have any idea what America is about. They may 
not have any concept of what we consider to be safe and healthy. They 
are being told to make this toy, paint it, and move it down the line. 
The companies have a responsibility to watch these workers and have 
certain standards, but the bottom line is this: When we go to the 
lowest cost workers in the world to make our products, we should not be 
surprised when oftentimes those products are unsafe, unhealthy, and 
defective. With the Chinese, the list of products they send to us that 
are unsafe goes far beyond those that are the jurisdiction of the 
Consumer Product Safety Commission.
  The Food and Drug Administration looks at food products, such as pet 
food and other food products, imported from all over the world, and 
each month they report to Americans which countries are sending the 
most dangerous food products to America. Guess which country ranks No. 
1 or No. 2 every single month? China. Same issue. Time and again, we 
find that the Chinese are not living up to standards we expect in 
America.
  When I think back to this barbecue I attended, most American families 
think the Senate and the House, Congress and the President are 
protecting them, that we are doing our job. When 1 out of every 100 
shipments coming into this country is inspected, when we have some 
ports where the volume of imports overwhelm the one or two inspectors 
on the job, then, frankly, we are not keeping faith with the American 
people, and that is the reality.
  I say to my colleagues in the Senate that we have voted for expanding 
global trade, and I think we must. America cannot get rich doing 
business just among ourselves and doing one another's laundry, but we 
never voted to compromise the health and safety of American families, 
and we shouldn't now.
  The Consumer Product Safety Commission has to accept its 
responsibility to be more forward thinking, to use their statutory 
authority to protect people, particularly children. Families who walk 
into toy stores in America should not have to play Chinese roulette 
when they are buying toys for Christmas, and that is the reality today. 
It is time for the Consumer Product Safety Commission to use their 
statutory authority effectively. It is time for the President to fill 
the vacancy on that Commission with a person who is truly a consumer 
advocate. It is time for Congress to put the resources into the 
Consumer Product Safety Commission so it can start doing the job it 
promised it would do when it was created almost 40 years ago. Until 
then, we are going to have to rely on importers, manufacturers, and 
retailers in America to restore the confidence of American families in 
the toys they will buy for this holiday season.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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