[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 152 (Tuesday, October 9, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H11339-H11340]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DANNY KEYSAR CHILD PRODUCT SAFETY NOTIFICATION ACT
Mr. RUSH. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 1699) to direct the Consumer Product Safety Commission to
require certain manufacturers to provide consumer product registration
forms to facilitate recalls of durable infant and toddler products.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 1699
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 ``Danny Keysar Child Product
Safety Notification Act''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death
among children, and for every such injury that is fatal,
approximately 18 children are hospitalized and 1,250 are
treated by emergency departments for such injuries that are
nonfatal.
(2) According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, an
average of 50 children under the age of 5 die each year in
incidents associated with nursery products, and about 16 of
these deaths each year are associated with cribs.
(3) In 2003, an estimated 60,700 children under the age of
5 were treated in United States hospital emergency rooms for
injuries associated with nursery products, and there were
10,700 injuries to children under the age of 5 years
associated with strollers alone.
(4) Of the 397 recalls issued by the Consumer Product
Safety Commission in fiscal year 2005, 109 (or 27 percent)
were children's products. Children's products were recalled,
on average, over 2 times per week, and accounted for
19,635,627 individual units.
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) Commission.--The term ``Commission'' means the Consumer
Product Safety Commission.
(2) Durable infant or toddler product.--The term ``durable
infant or toddler product''--
(A) means a durable product intended for use, or that may
be reasonably expected to be used, by children under the age
of 5 years; and
(B) shall include--
(i) full-size cribs and nonfull-size cribs;
(ii) toddler beds;
(iii) high chairs, booster chairs, and hook-on chairs;
(iv) bath seats;
(v) gates and other enclosures for confining a child;
(vi) play yards;
(vii) stationary activity centers;
(viii) infant carriers;
(ix) strollers;
(x) walkers;
(xi) swings; and
(xii) bassinets and cradles.
SEC. 4. CONSUMER PRODUCT REGISTRATION FORMS.
(a) Rulemaking.--Not later than 1 year after the date of
enactment of this Act, the Commission shall, pursuant to its
authority under section 16(b) of the Consumer Product Safety
Act (15 U.S.C. 2065(b)), promulgate a final consumer product
safety rule to require manufacturers of durable infant or
toddler products--
(1) to provide consumers with a postage-paid consumer
registration form with each such product;
(2) to maintain a record of the names, addresses, email
addresses, and other contact information of consumers who
register their ownership of such products with the
manufacturer in order to improve the effectiveness of
manufacturer campaigns to recall such products; and
(3) to permanently place the manufacturer name and contact
information, model name and number, and the date of
manufacture on each durable infant or toddler product.
(b) Requirements for Registration Form.--The registration
form required to be provided to consumers under subsection
(a) shall--
(1) include spaces for a consumer to provide their name,
address, telephone number, and email address;
(2) include space sufficiently large to permit easy,
legible recording of all desired information;
(3) be attached to the surface of each durable infant or
toddler product so that, as a practical matter, the consumer
must notice and handle the form after purchasing the product;
(4) include the manufacturer's name, model name and number
for the product, and the date of manufacture;
(5) include a message explaining the purpose of the
registration and designed to encourage consumers to complete
the registration;
(6) include an option for consumers to register through the
Internet; and
(7) include a statement that information provided by the
consumer shall not be used for any purpose other than to
facilitate a recall of or safety alert regarding that
product.
In issuing regulations under this section, the Commission may
prescribe the exact text and format of the required
registration form.
(c) Record Keeping and Notification Requirements.--The
standard required under this section shall require each
manufacturer of a durable infant or toddler product to
maintain a record of registrants for each product
manufactured that includes all of the information provided by
each consumer registered, and to use such information to
notify such consumers in the event of a voluntary or
involuntary recall of or safety alert regarding such product.
Each manufacturer shall maintain such a record for a period
of not less than 6 years after the date of manufacture of the
product. Consumer information collected by a manufacturer
under this Act may not be used by the manufacturer, nor
disseminated by such manufacturer to any other party, for any
purpose other than notification to such consumer in the event
of a product recall or safety alert.
(d) Study.--The Commission shall conduct a study at such
time as it considers appropriate on the effectiveness of the
consumer registration forms in facilitating product recalls.
Not later than 4 years after the date of enactment of this
Act, the Commission shall report its findings to Congress.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Illinois (Mr. Rush) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns) each
will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois.
General Leave
Mr. RUSH. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include
extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Illinois?
There was no objection.
Mr. RUSH. Madam Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may
consume.
Madam Speaker, H.R. 1699, the Danny Keysar Child Product Safety Act
was introduced by the vice chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Commerce,
Trade and Consumer Protection, Ms. Schakowsky, and Mr. Upton, a senior
member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. The bill is named after
16-month-old Danny Keysar, who tragically and senselessly died when his
defective portable crib collapsed and strangled him to death.
Unbeknownst to Danny's poor parents and caregiver, the crib was subject
to a voluntary recall 5 years earlier.
H.R. 1699 directs the Consumer Product Safety Commission to require
manufacturers of certain nursery products to create a voluntary
registry to facilitate the efficacy of recall of those products when
they occur. Under the bill, when a consumer buys one of 12 types of
everyday durable nursery products as defined by statute, such as cribs,
high chairs, bath seats and strollers, the manufacturer must provide
the consumer with a postage-paid postcard. Parents will have the option
to fill out the postcard and register with the manufacturer by mail or,
alternatively, by e-mail so that they can be immediately notified if
the product is the subject of a recall. The information on these
postcards cannot be used for marketing or any other purpose than to
notify consumers of the recall. It's worth noting, Madam Speaker, that
this registry is based on an existing successful program for child car
seats maintained by the National Highway Transportation Safety
Administration.
It's also worth noting that this bill is extremely timely, given the
recent recall of infant cribs made by the company Simplicity, because
of the strangulation hazard the defective cribs posed to young
toddlers. Moreover, numerous press reports have recently cited just how
ineffective product recalls can be. Unfortunately, parents are often
unaware of defective recall products, and they remain in homes posing
danger to children, as was the case with Danny Keysar. Indeed, in
recent years, the CPSC has increasingly issued expanded recalls of
products that have already been the subject of recalls, because the
Commission continues to be vigilant and to receive injury reports on
defective products. H.R. 1699 will go a long way towards remedying this
problem and empowering parents to become aware of infant product
recalls immediately after they are our initiated.
Madam Speaker, I urge all of the Members of the House to vote for
this excellent bill.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. STEARNS. Madam Speaker, my colleagues, this bill aims to improve
[[Page H11340]]
the recall process of children's products such as toys and furniture by
requiring the inclusion of a product safety registration card with each
product at the point of sale. The program is modeled on the car seat
registration program mandated by the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, better known as NHTSA.
Now, my colleagues, this legislation creates a new mechanism for
keeping consumers informed of child product recalls. To the extent we
can improve the recall process, we should, and we think it's a good
idea. Parents should know as soon as possible, if they own a product
that's dangerous to their child's safety.
Children have been injured by the continued use of a recalled product
simply because the parents were simply unaware of the product's
dangerous nature. Our hope is that this registration program will
render these type of accidents preventable.
Now, my colleagues, of course children's products are often passed
along to other friends or family members once their child is grown,
outgrows its use. We all know that. We put it up in the attic, then we
hear a friend at church says they have a new child and we bring down
this particular product. So many products are donated to charity
outlets for resale, or sold at secondhand stores, online or at yard
sales. No registration program will reach these parents in the event of
a recall. They'll have to depend upon media.
This legislation will attempt to reach these legacy owners by
permanently marking each product with the manufacturer's name, model
number and other information used in consumer product recalls. A parent
can simply research the item on the Internet or call the manufacturer
to verify a product's safety if he or she gets this product either in a
yard sale or it's given to them by a friend. This is good.
To the extent this measure improves notification to parents of
potentially dangerous products, all of us should support this bill. At
the same time, we all know that nothing is more important to a child's
safety than vigilant parental supervision. I hope the good intentions
of this legislation proves effective for both the consumers who
purchase the products and the companies who will have to maintain these
databases.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. RUSH. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the
sponsor of this legislation along with Congressman Upton, the
gentlewoman from Illinois, the vice chairman of the subcommittee, my
friend, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, I'd first like to thank the chairman
of the Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection subcommittee, Mr. Rush,
for his support and help.
I also want to thank Mr. Stearns for his support of the legislation,
as well as full committee Chairman Dingell and Ranking Member Barton.
{time} 1600
It is clear that our system for recalling dangerous products is
simply broken. It is failing American families. The recall system
relies on the media to pick up the story and spread the word, but many
times the stories are not picked up and the news does not reach the
owners of defective products. In fact, some estimate that the recall
effectiveness rate for products under jurisdiction of the Consumer
Product Safety Commission is a mere 16 percent. Notification targeted
to owners of the product is rare, and many parents remain unaware of
the dangers.
And that's why I rise in strong support of H.R. 1699, the Danny
Keysar Child Product Safety Notification Act, which I was proud to
introduce with my good friend from Michigan, Congressman Upton. This
bill will begin to close the significant gaps in the recall system by
requiring that durable children's products such as cribs and strollers
and high chairs come with a postage-paid postcard that parents or
caregivers can mail in to be notified if a product is recalled for
safety reasons.
This legislation is a commonsense solution to a very real and
pervasive problem. Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of
death among children. According to the Consumer Product Safety
Commission, an estimated 64,700 children under the age of 5 were
treated in emergency rooms across the country for injuries associated
with nursery products in 2003 at a cost of $2.5 billion, and that
figure has almost certainly risen in the last 4 years. And even more
tragically, an average of 50 children under the age of 5 die each year
in incidents associated with nursery products, and about 16 of these
deaths each year are associated with cribs.
And this bill is a tribute to one such child. On May 12, 1998, 16-
month-old Danny Keysar was strangled to death at his licensed day care
facility when a portable crib collapsed, turning the horizontal side
rail into a V-shaped wedge that squeezed his throat and strangled him.
Imagine what Danny's parents must have felt when they learned that the
crib that killed their son, a Playskool Travel-Lite crib, had been
recalled by the government and the manufacturer 5 years earlier.
And, sadly, Danny's parents aren't alone. More than 1.5 million
portable cribs like the one that killed Danny were made with a similar
design by different manufacturers. The crib that took Danny's life had
already killed four children. A 10-month-old New Jersey baby became the
sixth child to be strangled to death by the Playskool crib just 3
months after Danny died.
Despite the recall, neither the day care center nor State inspectors
who had been to the facility just a week before Danny's death knew that
recalled products were being used there. And they are not to blame. It
was not the State agency's mandate to inspect for recalled materials;
and unless someone who worked in the center happened to catch the
recall story on the news, there was virtually no way to know that the
cribs they used were death traps. And, by the way, Illinois did change
its law.
But in case anyone might think this was an isolated incident, think
again. In 2005 children's products were recalled on average two times a
week. Just over 2 weeks ago, the Consumer Product Safety Commission
issued the largest recall of full-sized cribs in the agency's history,
recalling almost a million of the Nation's most popular cribs because
of design flaws that have already killed at least three more children.
And a week later, Kolcraft, the company that manufactured the Playskool
crib that killed Danny Keysar, recalled 425,000 infant play yards
following the death of a 10-month-old child.
Congress needs to act to make sure that these kinds of senseless
tragedies don't occur again. When Danny's parents, Linda Ginzel and
Boaz Keysar, learned that the crib that had killed their son had been
recalled in 1993, they turned their grief into action and founded Kids
in Danger, a Chicago-based nonprofit that is dedicated to protecting
children by improving children's product safety. It is because of their
dedication that we are here today, and I am honored to represent them
here today and thank them for their work. I hope with the passage of
this legislation no more parents will have to endure what they did.
I believe that H.R. 1699, which allows people to send in a card or e-
mail to make sure that the manufacturer will let them know, just as is
done with car seats in the National Highway Transportation and Safety
Administration, a provision that has been so successful that there has
been a tenfold increase in recalls and recall repair rates have gone up
by 56 percent, that at a cost of a handful of pennies per card, this
legislation will save lives of children.
I would appreciate support.
Mr. RUSH. Mr. Speaker, this is a commonsense piece of legislation. It
takes a giant step toward protecting our Nation's most important asset:
our children.
I urge Members of this body to pass this legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Cohen). The question is on the motion
offered by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rush) that the House
suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 1699, as amended.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the
rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________