[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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