[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 38 (Thursday, March 6, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1669-S1697]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        CPSC REFORM ACT--RESUMED

  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask that the bill be laid before the 
Senate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the pending business.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 2663) to reform the Consumer Product Safety 
     Commission to provide greater protection for children's 
     products, to improve the screening of noncompliant consumer 
     products, to improve the effectiveness of consumer product 
     recall programs, and for other purposes.

  Pending:

       Pryor amendment No. 4090, of a technical nature.
       Feinstein amendment No. 4104, to prohibit the manufacture, 
     sale, or distribution in commerce of certain children's 
     products and child care articles that contain specified 
     phthalates.
       Cornyn amendment No. 4108, to provide appropriate 
     procedures for individual actions by whistleblowers, to 
     provide for the appropriate assessment of costs and expenses 
     in whistleblower cases.
       Vitter amendment No. 4097, to allow the prevailing party in 
     certain civil actions related to consumer product safety 
     rules to recover attorney fees.
       Casey amendment No. 4109, to require the Consumer Product 
     Safety Commission to study the use of formaldehyde in the 
     manufacturing of textiles and apparel articles and to 
     prescribe consumer product safety standards with respect to 
     such articles.
       Dorgan amendment No. 4122, to strike the provision allowing 
     the Commission to certify a proprietary laboratory for third 
     party testing.
       Dorgan amendment No. 4098, to ban the importation of toys 
     made by companies that have a persistent pattern of violating 
     consumer product safety standards.
       Cardin amendment No. 4103, to require the Consumer Product 
     Safety Commission to develop training standards for product 
     safety inspectors.
       DeMint amendment No. 4124, to strike section 31, relating 
     to garage door opener standards.


                           Amendment No. 4097

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is now 15 minutes equally divided on the 
Vitter amendment.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, under the circumstances now, I control 
7\1/2\ minutes?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time is divided between Senators Vitter 
and Pryor.
  Mr. STEVENS. I will be pleased to yield that time to the Senator from 
Oklahoma. I only control half of the time.
  Mr. INHOFE. I will postpone my remarks until after the vote.
  Mr. STEVENS. I thank the Senator.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I rise again today in strong support of my 
amendment No. 4097. My amendment is very simple and very 
straightforward and, in fact, it conforms to present law, as well as to 
provisions in the House bill, with regard to the awarding of reasonable 
costs and attorney's fees.
  My amendment simply says that a judge can award reasonable costs and 
attorney's fees from the loser to the winner no matter which side wins 
and loses. So if an attorney general brings an action and prevails on 
that consumer product safety action, then it is in the judge's 
discretion to award costs and attorney's fees from the losing private 
party to the attorney general. But fairly, if the opposite happens, if 
the private party is vindicated, if the private party goes through this 
litigation, which is always significant, lengthy, and costly, and wins 
and is vindicated, then it is also within the discretion of the judge--
it is not mandatory--it is within the discretion of the judge that the 
private party be awarded reasonable costs and attorney's fees from the 
losing side; in that case, the attorney general.
  That, again, is essentially present law. It can go in either 
direction. It is up to the court. The words are a little different, but 
that is essentially the policy embodied by the House bill. I think that 
is even and that is fair. That does not create an undue push in either 
direction.
  Unfortunately, the underlying bill, the bill before the Senate is 
very different. It says that only the attorney general in prevailing 
can get reasonable costs and attorney's fees. The private party, even 
if it goes through very lengthy, very protracted, and very expensive 
litigation and is completely vindicated, can never get reasonable costs 
and attorney's fees, even if the judge thinks that is appropriate.
  I think that is wrong. I think it is imbalanced and unfair. It is 
very important that we act to promote consumer safety. It is very 
important that we pass some of the measures in this bill and many of 
the measures in the House bill which I supported as an alternative. In 
doing that, we need to not make certain problems worse, and one of the 
problems that has existed is a clog of activity before the Consumer 
Product Safety Commission and also in the courts.
  I feel this underlying provision in the Senate bill, which is all in 
one direction, could make that clog worse, could

[[Page S1670]]

encourage lawsuits which are not thought through, and could encourage 
frivolous lawsuits. That adds to the workload of the courts and 
potentially the Consumer Product Safety Commission. We want to 
encourage lawsuits which are needed--not frivolous ones, ones which are 
fully thought through. The Vitter amendment will establish the even 
playing field that will encourage that rather than encourage lawsuits 
which have very dubious merits and could be frivolous.
  It is very reasonable, common sense to say that we are going to leave 
this all up to the discretion of the court, nothing is mandatory, but 
the court can award reasonable costs and attorney's fees to either side 
that prevails and not only in one direction, so that a private party 
who is completely vindicated after a long, expensive, and protracted 
litigation, can never, even if the judge thinks it is appropriate, be 
awarded reasonable costs and attorney's fees.
  I urge all of my colleagues to accept this very reasonable approach, 
the policy of which is embodied in both present law and the House bill, 
and reject creating the imbalance which I think would only clog our 
system with lawsuits of very questionable merit.
  I yield back the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, we think--we are not sure--that the 
chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee may be on his way. I know he 
has a hearing and some other pending business. I know he feels strongly 
about this amendment.
  I rise, in his absence, in opposition to the Vitter amendment. I 
understand the rationale and the reasons Senator Vitter is offering for 
this amendment. In fact, when I saw this amendment, I hearkened back to 
my days in law school. This is a classic moot court competition 
exercise on who should pay the attorney's fees. The classic English 
system is that the loser pays, but the American system has been 
different. It has been different since the founding of our Republic. It 
has been a bedrock of the American judicial system for well over 200 
years that each side pays their own attorney's fees.
  There are a lot of reasons for that system. I don't have to go into 
the history of it. Again, this is a first-year law school topic. I do 
think it is important in this specific instance that the Senate not 
break with American jurisprudence, not break with American tradition, 
and not change this law. It is very important for several reasons. One 
is, in this case, if the loser has to pay the attorney's fees, we know 
who the loser is, don't we? It is the State taxpayers. It is not the 
Federal taxpayers. It is the State taxpayers, our people. Our people 
will have to pay these attorney's fees.
  When you have a matter as important as the public safety and welfare 
of the people of your State, the attorney general should be allowed to 
pursue getting these dangerous products off the shelves, keeping their 
States safe for their people without having to be concerned about this 
change in the American legal system that Senator Vitter is 
recommending.

  The other point we all need to remember is that there is something in 
the world of civil litigation called rule 11. Rule 11 is not only under 
the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, but it is in almost every single 
State's rules of civil procedure I am aware of--maybe every State. I 
hate to say that without knowing exactly. I am sure it is in the vast 
majority of States. Rule 11 allows judges to penalize a lawyer for 
bringing a frivolous lawsuit. That is a very important balanced 
standard and balanced process, that the legal system has to make sure 
that no one brings a frivolous lawsuit, but most of all the attorney 
general.
  We also have to remember, as we said yesterday, these attorneys 
general are not like some lawyer off the street. These are, by and 
large, elected officials. Mr. President, 42 or 44 State attorneys 
general are elected by the very same people who elect us. There are a 
handful who are appointed by a Governor, I think one or two by a 
legislature, and one by a State supreme court. Regardless, the vast 
majority are elected by the very same people who elect us. So let's 
allow the State attorneys general to have the discretion in their 
States to try to keep their States safe and free of dangerous products.
  In closing, there is a compelling interest that these State attorneys 
general have the ability to get these dangerous products off the 
shelves. We have seen this, we have talked with a lot of people about 
this, and we all know that the Consumer Product Safety Commission is 
overworked. They work hard to do these recalls. Sometimes they take a 
long time to do them, but, nonetheless, they work very hard to do these 
recalls. It is beneficial for the whole system to allow the State 
attorneys general to get these dangerous products out of the 
marketplace in their States. With all due respect to the CPSC, they do 
not have the resources to do this, they do not have the people to do 
this, and they are focused on other issues. They are looking at 
present-day concerns, not what they dealt with yesterday.
  It is very important that we have a strong attorney general 
enforcement mechanism. I would hate to see it weakened by changing this 
longstanding American rule of law. I ask all my colleagues to oppose 
the Vitter amendment.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, Senator Vitter has submitted an amendment 
to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, CPSC, Reform Act that would 
discourage State attorneys general from bringing enforcement actions 
against those who violate consumer product safety regulations. This 
amendment goes even further than the Cornyn amendment that we voted on 
last night to gut the enforcement provisions in the bill. The Pryor-
Stevens legislation wisely gives State attorneys general the power to 
protect their citizens from harmful products by pursuing such 
litigation. We should not gut that important enforcement power by 
adding a threat that could shift enforcement costs to taxpayers.
  Senator Vitter's amendment would allow the prevailing party in a 
civil action to recover costs and attorney's fees. This means that the 
taxpayers would bear the costs and attorney's fees of corporations sued 
by a State attorney general if the suit is unsuccessful. Absent 
evidence that State attorneys general are pursuing frivolous litigation 
against corporations, this amendment is not only unnecessary, but it 
presents a departure from our established legal system. The measure 
would have a chilling effect on State attorneys general who would like 
to pursue possible violations of consumer product safety regulations 
but may fear incurring the legal costs of doing so.
  The purpose of the CPSC Reform Act is to ensure that American 
consumers have access to the safest products. By allowing State 
attorneys general to bring enforcement actions against corporations 
that violate consumer safety laws, States are able to pursue those who 
threaten the safety of consumers, even when Federal regulators fail to 
do so. However, Senator Vitter's amendment would tie the hands of State 
attorneys general by making them choose between enforcing the law and 
potentially burdening the taxpayers with corporations' legal fees or 
doing nothing when faced with products that have the potential to harm 
consumers.
  I will oppose this amendment because it discourages enforcement of 
consumer product safety measures.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, the amendment offered by the Senator 
from Louisiana would permit parties sued by State attorneys general 
under authority of this bill to recover attorneys' fees and costs if 
they are successful. This amendment would undermine the purpose of 
giving those State officers that authority. We want their help in 
protecting the citizens of their States. To create the specter of a 
large cost to the taxpayer if a case is unsuccessful will only deter 
aggressive enforcement action.
  There are, of course, situations where litigants against the 
government are given the chance to collect attorneys' fees if they 
prevail in a lawsuit. As both a State legislator in Wisconsin and a 
U.S. Senator I have supported legislation like the Equal Access to 
Justice Act, ``EAJA'', which gives this right to small businesses and 
individuals of modest means. I have even introduced a bill in several 
previous Congresses to amend EAJA to make it easier to collect 
attorneys' fees.

[[Page S1671]]

  That EAJA statute, however, applies to a limited class of individuals 
and small businesses. Whether or not we should extend EAJA to apply in 
those cases where State attorneys general are acting on behalf of the 
Federal Government, we certainly should not impose a broader rule on 
the Attorneys General than we currently apply to Federal agencies. For 
these reasons, I oppose the Vitter amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, since I have 
yielded back my time, to have 30 additional seconds to clarify my 
point, and then I will ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I have one very quick point of 
clarification. My amendment does not mandate that the loser pays in 
every case. That would be a significant departure from tradition in 
American law. My amendment does not do that. My amendment gives the 
judge discretion to decide if the loser pays, only in both directions, 
not just in favor of the direction of the attorney general, as the 
underlying bill does. That is a very simple clarification. It is not a 
mandatory ``loser pays'' rule.
  Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time and ask for the 
yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  Mr. PRYOR. Reserving the right to object--
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. At this time, there is not a sufficient 
second.
  Mr. PRYOR. I yield back the remainder of my time. I move to table the 
Vitter amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion. The clerk will call the 
roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. 
Byrd), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Clinton), and the Senator from 
Illinois (Mr. Obama) are ncessarily absent.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Nebraska (Mr. Hagel) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 56, nays 39, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 40 Leg.]

                                YEAS--56

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cochran
     Conrad
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Martinez
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Salazar
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Stevens
     Tester
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--39

     Alexander
     Allard
     Barrasso
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Coleman
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Craig
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Dole
     Domenici
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Kyl
     Lugar
     McConnell
     Roberts
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Sununu
     Thune
     Vitter
     Voinovich
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--5

     Byrd
     Clinton
     Hagel
     McCain
     Obama
  The motion was agreed to.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and lay that 
motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
recognized for up to 10 minutes to speak as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              Immigration

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, we have gone through a lot of activity and 
a lot of anguish on the floor concerning the immigration bills. There 
was a comprehensive immigration bill that did not work. It was 
something some people thought would be a good idea and, frankly, I 
opposed it.
  But there is something that is happening right now that is a very 
good idea. There are 15 of us in the Senate who have taken different 
elements of concern having to do with illegal immigration, areas of 
specialty, if you will. It happens that 15 of us had a news conference 
yesterday, wherein we talked about approaching this differently--each 
one having his or her own legislation, and then you can support other 
legislation as you see fit.
  It happens that there will be 15 bills that will be introduced. I 
will have one of those, and I will be supporting 14 of the other 15, or 
13 of the other 14. So I think the way we are approaching this is good.
  My area of specialty, that comes as no surprise, is in making English 
the national language. We have been talking about this for a long time. 
The approach we are talking about is a very simple approach. It is 
something that is popular.
  I have had this on the floor of the Senate twice. In 2006, it was 
amendment No. 4064. It passed the Senate by a vote of 62 to 35. Again, 
in 2007, the support was even greater. That was amendment No. 1151. It 
passed--that was last year--by a vote of 64 to 33. So it is something 
that clearly is popular.
  Let me explain the problem we have. One of the last things that was 
done in the Clinton administration was Executive Order 13166. This was 
an effort to make anyone who is receiving any kind of Government 
services to have the documentation in any language of his or her 
choice. It could be Swahili, it could be French, it could be any other 
language.
  Now, the effort to make English the national language is not purely 
symbolic, as some of my colleagues might believe; rather, it will have 
a tangible impact.
  After Executive Order No. 13166, there has been a high burden on 
Government agencies to provide translations for documents for services 
in virtually every language.
  The cost is tremendous. It is quite a range. The U.S. Office of 
Management and Budget estimated the cost of providing these services to 
be between $1 and $2 billion each year.
  The cost is not the only drawback of the entitlements of Executive 
Order No. 13166. It ultimately enables immigrants to avoid learning 
English which, regretfully, hurts their chances of effective 
assimilation into American culture. Historically, one of America's 
greatest attributes is the unity provided by having a language that is 
commonly used throughout the country. It is important for new legal 
immigrants to learn this language so they might communicate and achieve 
success.
  As President Bush said in one of his messages, learning English 
``allows newcomers to go from picking crops to opening a grocery 
[store] . . . from cleaning offices to running offices . . . from a 
life of low-paying jobs to a diploma, a career, and a home of their 
own.''
  I can't think of any issue we have had before the Senate during the 
time I have been here that is more popular than this. A 2006 Zogby poll 
found that 84 percent of Americans, including 71 percent of Hispanics, 
believe English should be the national language of government 
operations. According to a 2002 Kaiser Foundation survey, 91 percent of 
foreign-born Latino immigrants agreed that learning English is 
essential to success. We have polling data going all the way back to 
1996. In each case, 84 to 90 percent of the American people want this 
to take place.
  I ask unanimous consent that these polls be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

[[Page S1672]]

                    National English Amendment Polls

       All types of pollsters of all groups, liberal and 
     conservative, immigrant and non-immigrant, with all wordings 
     show consistently high levels of support for making English 
     the official language of the United States:
       (1) An April 2007 McLaughlin & Associates poll showed 80% 
     of all Americans indicated that they would support a proposal 
     to make English the official language.
       (2) A December 2006 Zogby International poll showed that 
     92% of Americans believe that preserving English as our 
     language is vital to maintaining our unity.
       (3) A June 2006 Rasmussen Reports poll showed that making 
     English the nation's official language is favored by 85% of 
     Americans; this figure includes 92% of Republicans, 79% of 
     Democrats, and 86% of those not affiliated with either major 
     political party.
       (4) A March 2006 Zogby International Poll showed 84% of 
     likely voters support making English the official language of 
     government operations with common-sense exceptions.
       (5) A 2004 Zogby poll showed 92% of Republicans, 76% of 
     Democrats and 76% of Independents favor making English the 
     official language.
       (6) In 2000, Public Opinion Strategies showed 84% favored 
     English as the official language with only 12% opposed and 4% 
     not sure.
       (7) A 1996 national survey by Luntz Research asked, ``Do 
     you think English should be made the Official Language of the 
     United States?'' 86% of Americans supported making English 
     the official language with only 12% opposed and 2% not sure.
       Latino immigrants support the concept of Official English:
       (1) An April 2007 McLaughlin & Associates poll showed that 
     80% of all Americans, including 62% of Latinos, would support 
     a proposal to make English the official language.
       (2) A March 2006 Zogby poll found that 84% of Americans, 
     including 71% of Hispanics, believe English should be the 
     official language of government operations.
       (3) My favorite poll is this one: In 2004 the National 
     Council of LaRaza found that 97% strongly (86.4%) or somewhat 
     (10.9%) agreed that ``The ability to speak English is 
     important to succeed in this country.''

  Mr. INHOFE. People need to understand the significance. When I 
brought this up before, there were three objections. They were really 
absurd. It is almost laughable. One was, we will have to change all the 
State flags because some of them have other languages.
  This has nothing to do with that. This merely says it is not an 
entitlement. It has nothing to do with State flags.
  Another Member said: Inhofe, you will not be able to speak Spanish on 
the Senate floor. I have given several speeches in Spanish on the 
Senate floor. I will not go into why that is good. It has been very 
helpful. This has nothing to do with that.
  Another said: You will have the blood of Hispanics on your hands.
  I said: How is that going to happen?
  They said: There are some strong currents down there in the Potomac, 
and we would not have ``no swimming'' signs in Spanish, so they 
wouldn't be able to read those. So they will go in there and drown.
  If we look back historically, we see that many Presidents had things 
to say about this matter, dating all the way back to Theodore 
Roosevelt, and as recently as a statement by Hillary Clinton in her 
campaign in Iowa in 2007, less than a year ago, where she said: 
``You're going to have to learn English.''
  This one goes back to 1916:

       Let us say to the immigrant not that we hope [they] will 
     learn English, but that [they have] to learn English.

  Theodore Roosevelt was clear on this.
  Bill Clinton said in 1999 in his State of the Union message:

       We have a responsibility to make [our new immigrants] 
     welcome here, and they have the responsibility to enter the 
     mainstream of American life. That means learning English and 
     learning about our democratic system of government.

  So everyone is in agreement. I don't know of anyone, nor any past 
President, who doesn't believe we are doing a great disservice by not 
helping our immigrants learn the English language.
  We will continue to promote this bill until it passes into law. It 
should be one of the easiest of the 15 bills that are going to approach 
the problem of illegal immigrants. It is my intention to continue.
  One of the interesting things about this is, there are 52 countries 
throughout the world who have English as their national language, 
including Ghana in West Africa. All of these countries have it except 
us.
  The bill is very simple. I can tell in one sentence what it does:

       Unless specifically provided by statute, no person has a 
     right, entitlement, or claim to have the Government of the 
     United States or any of its officials or representatives act, 
     communicate, perform or provide services, or provide 
     materials in any language other than English.

  This is the law of some 52 countries around the world, almost 
everywhere except in the United States. It would save ultimately 
somewhere between $1 and $2 billion. And there are the other logical 
reasons for doing this. We will be pursuing this as 1 of the 15 efforts 
to have not a comprehensive bill, but to address the problem of illegal 
immigration. I look around and I see others who have good programs too.
  The Senator from Arizona, Mr. Kyl, has one that would utilize 
electronic evidence for employers so employers don't find themselves 
breaking the law as would have been the case on the previous bill. 
There are others wanting to finish the bridge. We will have 15 bills 
that we will be introducing or we have already introduced. If we can 
get all 15, that would pretty much resolve the problem. But it does 
afford the opportunity for any Member of this body to object to any 
area of interest in terms of these 15 bills.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in 
morning business for up to 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Immigration Reform

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to follow the 
comments made by the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma concerning a 
group of Senators who met yesterday with a variety of proposals on 
immigration reform. One of those proposals was mine, S. 2720. This bill 
seeks to deal with a very serious public safety problem where illegal 
aliens who have been convicted of crimes of violence are permitted to 
walk free on the streets of America where their native country will not 
accept them for deportation.
  This is the factual situation where the matter arises. A person is 
charged, for example, with aggravated robbery, serves 10 years in jail, 
is released from jail on the service of a maximum sentence, then is 
turned over to authorities from the immigration service for 
deportation. Then the efforts to deport the individual are not 
successful because his native country will not take him or her back. 
Under court rulings, the maximum that person can be held in detention 
is 180 days. That means after the service of the sentence, after being 
detained for 180 days, that person is then back on the streets of 
America where the statistics show a very high degree of recidivism or 
repeat offenses.
  The legislation I am introducing would put pressure on native 
countries to take back for deportation their citizens under 
circumstances where they now refuse to do so by denying to those 
countries visas for their people who want to come to visit the United 
States.
  There are currently some discretionary provisions on the books which, 
simply stated, have not worked. This would mandate that procedure. That 
kind of pressure is calculated to at least ameliorate the situation.
  The second provision of the bill provides that foreign aid would be 
conditioned on countries accepting back their native citizens under 
the circumstances which I have just described. The United States has a 
tremendous foreign aid program where allocations are made for a variety 
of what we consider to be in our national interest or in humanitarian 
interest. Here again we have a potentially effective tool for dealing 
with countries who refuse to accept back their own citizens where they 
have been ordered deported by the United States.

  In analyzing the problem further, no matter what we do under these 
circumstances, it is not possible to compel all foreign countries to 
accept their nationals back when they are subject to deportation. We 
are currently examining the possibilities of having some additional 
detention. Candidly, it is difficult to structure consistent with 
constitutional rights, which apply to these individuals, and consistent 
with due process of law. There are some provisions, for example, when 
someone is

[[Page S1673]]

arrested on a charge to be held in preventative detention, where there 
is reason to believe that individual will flee. So the presumption of 
innocence still applies, and detention can be held for a relatively 
brief period of time.
  We are also looking at some possible alternatives under sexual 
predators, where some legislation has been passed, where even after the 
completion of a full sentence there is a form of civil commitment. We 
are examining the ramifications of that kind of legislation to be sure 
it comports with due process and with constitutional protections.


                     Amendments Nos. 4094 and 4097

  While I have the floor, I will comment about the vote we just had on 
the Vitter amendment and the vote we had yesterday on the Cornyn 
amendment. Both amendments raise similar issues.
  The amendment offered by the Senator from Texas, Mr. Cornyn, would 
bar attorneys general from retaining outside counsel on a contingency 
fee basis. The amendment offered by the Senator from Louisiana, Mr. 
Vitter, would impose costs on State attorneys general who lose cases 
brought under the pending legislation. Both amendments have similar 
elements. I believe the underlying reason Senator Cornyn has advocated 
for his amendment is not sufficient for such a broad legislative 
change. Senator Cornyn's amendment arises from a case in Texas where 
the attorney general went to Federal prison for corruption when hiring 
a friend on a contingency fee basis. It may be that the Senator from 
Texas has a valid point. He served as the attorney general for the 
State of Texas and has considerable experience in the field.
  I have had some experience as a prosecuting attorney myself with 
similar kinds of discretion. It is my view that before we undertake 
such a fundamental change in procedure, there ought to be some 
extensive consideration and deliberation.
  The Senate is, by reputation, the world's greatest deliberative body. 
For those who may inadvertently be watching on C-SPAN, a short 
statement of the legislative process is in order. The way we function 
on legislation is that a Member has an idea and puts it in a bill and 
files it. The bill is then referred to a committee. In this case, 
legislation involving courts and attorneys would be referred to the 
Judiciary Committee. The Judiciary Committee holds hearings and hears 
from witnesses who are experienced in the field: attorneys general, 
defense lawyers, lawyers who have been retained by attorneys general, 
judges, and scholars. We listen at length, and we ask the witnesses 
questions.
  Unfortunately, you can't see all of those hearings live because they 
are preempted. However, maybe you can see it on rerun on C-SPAN 3. But 
those are hearings which provide some basis for a judgment as to what 
should be done in the Senate.
  The amendment offered by the Senator from Texas was not referred to 
committee. I think it is a matter which ought to be considered and 
analyzed. Under Senate procedure, any Senator may offer an amendment to 
the bill which he or she chooses. There is a brief time for argument--
it could not have been more than several hours yesterday. I was 
involved in other matters and could not come to the floor. Following 
debate, a vote is called. The first time many of us in this body 
consider the issue is when we are en route from our offices to the 
Chamber to vote.
  For those of you who watch C-SPAN2, you will notice that in the 
course of a 15-minute vote--which is extended by custom to 20 minutes, 
and sometimes beyond--most of the Senators do not arrive here until 
late in the process. Those watching will notice a big huddle by each 
desk. You may wonder, what is going on? Well, what is going on is that 
the Senator walks in the Chamber and takes a look at a yellow or white 
pad with a one-paragraph description of the bill or amendment.
  There is some hasty discussion, sometimes by the proponent of the 
bill and sometimes by the opponent of the bill. There is hardly what 
you call deliberation and not what you have when the legislative 
process is followed. When the legislative process is followed the bill 
is introduced. Following introduction, there are hearings on the bill 
and there is what we call a markup. For example, at the Judiciary 
Committee markup, there have to be at least 10 of 19 members present in 
order to vote the bill out of committee. At the markup there is an 
opportunity for discussion, analysis, and even modification of the 
bill.
  After consideration by the committee, the bill comes to the Senate 
floor with a committee report. The committee report describes the bill. 
Senators have a chance to read the committee report or, to be more 
candid, staff has a chance to read the committee report. It is not 
physically possible to read all the committee reports and all the 
materials that come across a Senator's desk--it just cannot be done. 
But at least you have a staffer who writes you a memorandum 
highlighting the essential points and have a chance to question the 
staffer. You then come to the floor on the debate with some notice 
about what the debate is about.
  It seems to me on matters of importance that we ought to go through 
full Senate procedure. It is my view that Congress has to be very 
careful in what we do by way of mandates to the States. We also need to 
be careful when telling the States how to run their business and by 
telling attorneys general what is best for their State. There are some 
offices of attorneys general in the United States which are not 
elaborately staffed.
  When I was DA of Philadelphia, I had 170 attorneys. I don't know how 
many attorneys general have limited staffs, nor do I understand their 
workload or their backlog. There is no reason for me to get involved in 
the business of state attorneys general. State attorneys general are 
elected by the people of their State or appointed under State 
constitutional provisions. It is up to them to make a decision as to 
how they run their offices. As a basic matter of federalism, we should 
leave it up to the state attorneys general. We ought to consider the 
most serious problems of national import. We cannot get into the 
details of all the State attorneys general offices.
  The Senator from Texas talks about creative ways for lawyers to 
structure contingency fee agreements. Perhaps the amendment of the 
Senator from Texas would be improved if the attorney general had to go 
to court to get judicial approval to hire outside counsel on a 
contingency fee basis. At this time, the attorney general would inform 
the court of his office's resources and his reasons for needing to 
enter into a contingency fee contract. This would allow the matter to 
be decided on a case-by-case basis.
  Now, moving to the amendment by the Senator from Louisiana, Mr. 
Vitter. There is an effort to have the losing party pay for the costs 
of litigation and costs of reasonable attorneys' fees. It is designed--
as the brief one paragraph said--to avoid frivolous lawsuits. I think 
it is a very good idea to avoid frivolous lawsuits.
  The existing rules in Federal court provide for the handling of 
frivolous lawsuits by imposing costs on the losing party. Following a 
motion by the party who is being sued, the judge determines whether to 
dismiss the case under Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
  Senator Vitter wants to impose a blanket rule, where in every case, 
the loser pays. It may be that the United States ought to go to the 
British system, which is a ``loser pays'' system. However, that would 
be a very drastic change in our court procedure. It is even possible 
that we ought to go to a ``loser pays'' system in the conditions 
contemplated under the pending legislation. But that would be a very 
material change if we were to make that sort of a shift at this time.
  Again, we ought to be following the regular Senate procedures. Let 
Senator Vitter introduce the bill. Let it be referred to the Judiciary 
Committee. There will be hearings and thorough analysis. Following 
hearings, there will be a markup and the bill will come to the floor 
with a committee report. The appropriate deliberation would take place.
  If Senator Vitter's amendment were to be adopted, perhaps it ought to 
be modified on a discretionary basis. The court could impose costs on 
the losing party if the judge determines that the case is frivolous.
  You might have a meritorious case with a very close question. That is

[[Page S1674]]

what we do in America with our differences of views between parties. 
Different sides are presented in court and a determination is made. 
There is a necessity for a lot of room.
  The Senate wisely defeated both of these amendments. On their 
surface, there is a great deal to commend Senator Cornyn's amendment to 
eliminate contingency fee arrangements. There is the situation where 
the Texas State Attorney General went to jail for corruption. Of 
course, it is more than contingency fees in that case. People who read 
an abbreviated statement in the newspapers might think the Senate made 
a mistake in rejecting the Cornyn amendment. We need to examine the 
issue closer.
  Here again, on the surface, you might think the amendment by Senator 
Vitter has merit to impose costs on the losing party. After all, if 
they lost, why shouldn't they pay for it? But you have to go beyond 
that and examine the issue further.
  I am prepared to consider both amendments. I am prepared to consider 
the ideas of my colleagues in the Senate. But I want to do that in the 
course of the legislative process, where we follow regular order: a 
bill is introduced, goes to committee, the committee has hearings, the 
committee hears witnesses, the committee sits down with a majority of 
its members, and the bill comes to the floor with a committee report.
  I know the votes have already been cast on the amendments I have 
spoken about, but I thought it might be useful to take the floor and 
give the public a fuller understanding of what we do in the Senate.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota is recognized.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am here today to talk about the bill 
that is pending on the floor. I am very pleased this bill is advancing, 
the Consumer Product Safety Commission bill, that involves so many 
important provisions.
  But in my State, I will tell you this: We are very focused on the 
provision dealing with the toxic toys. I can tell you, after being in 
the Senate for only a year, it is truly an inspiration to see we were 
able to get a bill through our committee--thanks to the leadership of 
Senator Pryor and Senator Inouye and Senator Stevens--and get it to the 
floor.
  The reason it is so important in our State is we had a little boy who 
died, a 4-year-old boy who swallowed a charm that was given to him with 
a pair of tennis shoes. He did not die from choking on the charm. He 
did not die from his airway being blocked. He died when the lead went 
into his bloodstream day after day after day. When that charm was 
tested, it was 99 percent lead. It was from China. His own blood, when 
he died, had three times the normal amount of lead.
  It is a very sad story. But it is some solace to the people in our 
State that after only being here a year, and as a member of the 
Commerce Committee, I was able to work to make sure we have a Federal 
lead standard in this bill. It is rewarding, indeed, that it looks like 
today we may be completing our work.
  I say to the Presiding Officer, I know you have seen this in Ohio. We 
have seen toy after toy recalled in this country. In fact, 29 million 
toys--look at this chart--were recalled in 2007 alone. Look at this: 
This is a calendar of the various dates with the various toys that were 
recalled in the year 2007 and into January and February of 2008.
  We saw the Thomas the Trains that were recalled. We saw Dora the 
Explorer, we saw SpongeBob SquarePants being recalled--these toys that 
are so near and dear to people's hearts. You get a sense of it with the 
calendar, but this list is an actual documentation of all the toys that 
have been recalled in the last year and 3 months.
  You have things such as necklaces, Rachael Rose Kidz rings. You have 
the trains, the Cub Scout badges, ugly teeth that you put in your mouth 
for Halloween, of course, the Aqua Dots that morphed into the date rape 
drug. You can go on and on and on.
  I think it is stunning at this time in our history we would still 
have something such as this happening. I think many people thought in 
the 1970s--when we got our act together in this country about consumer 
protection and we strengthened the laws and we realized kids were dying 
from problems, with everything from cribs to dangerous toys, to 
flammable pajamas--this country got its act together.
  Well, look what happened instead. We have seen a record number of 
imports coming in from other countries that do not have the safety 
standards we do.
  This was brought home to us--and it was more than toy recalls and 
numbers--when a few days ago Senator Pryor and I met with the families 
of two children who almost died from toxic toys.
  The first is Jacob--or Jack, as his family knows him. His mother 
Shelby came from Arkansas to the Capitol. She told her story in a way I 
will never do justice to--a very touching story--where she talked about 
the fear she had on this day. It was a normal day. Any parent can 
imagine this. You start out. You are in the kitchen. It was October 30, 
2007. Jack was 20 months old at the time.
  What happened was, his older sister had these Aqua Dots that you put 
in water and they transform into an animal or something like that. He 
swallowed some of them. All of a sudden, this little boy was standing 
there, throwing up and stumbling around. She immediately took him to 
Arkansas Children's Hospital, where he was treated by a doctor, Dr. 
Jaeger.
  Suddenly, this little boy, Jacob--Jack--went into a coma. They had no 
idea what caused it. Kids swallow things, as we know, all the time. 
They will swallow a penny. They will swallow something. It is not a 
good thing, but they do not immediately go into a coma. He was in a 
coma for about 6 hours. They thought they were going to lose him 
because no one could figure out what happened.
  Well, she said, just like this, he came out of the coma and he was 
fine. The doctor was in shock. The doctor said if he had not been 
there, he would not have even believed it had happened.
  So they got him home. No one figured out what happened. She got on 
the Web site herself--the mom did--trying to figure out what was in 
Aqua Dots. She called the company. Everyone was trying to figure it 
out.
  Finally, they did some testing in the next few days, and they found 
out the coating that was put on these particular Aqua Dots metabolized 
into a chemical compound known as the date rape drug. As a former 
prosecutor, I can tell you we have handled cases involving date rape 
drugs. This is not a little thing. These are used to knock people out 
for hours so crimes can occur, and they take vulnerable victims and try 
to put them to sleep. That is what happened with these Aqua Dots.
  These simple little toys--that are supposed to be pet pals--morphed 
into a date rape drug right in this little boy's stomach. So she came 
and told us this story.
  On November 7, Spin Master--the company that makes Aqua Dots--
recalled the product. The chemical that is in these little beads could 
cause children--they figured out--to become comatose, develop 
respiratory depression or have seizures. Luckily, this little boy 
survived. This is what we were dealing with.

  Then, another family came and talked to Senator Pryor and me. This is 
Colton, also a little boy. He is a little older than Jacob. Their 
family lives in Oregon. The mom told us this story:
  In 2003, when Colton was only 4 years old, he swallowed a little 
trinket they had gotten out of a gumball machine. It was later 
determined--they couldn't figure out why he was so sick. He was having 
trouble. He was not himself. They took him to the doctor. They figured 
out he swallowed this lead. They got the toy out of him, but they 
figured out later that this toy was 39 percent lead. His lead levels--
this little boy, Colton--at the time were considered fatal, but he 
survived. This led, actually, to the recall of 150 million pieces of 
gumball machine jewelry.
  Now, this is not that different from the story I told you about 
Jarnell. This mom told me when we met earlier in the week that when she 
heard about Jarnell, it all came back to her. She spent the last 2 
years trying to be an advocate, all by herself--Colton's mom--to get 
something done on this, and then imagine how she felt when she read 
that this little boy, Jarnell, in Indianapolis had died from exactly 
the same kind of charm, these lead charms;

[[Page S1675]]

something like that went into his system. The one Jarnell had was 99 
percent lead. Luckily for little Colton, the piece he had was only 39 
percent lead. But now, even today, Colton's lead levels, even when he 
is much older, are at 17. They are not where they should be, and they 
are constantly on alert for what might go wrong. If he has a growth 
spurt or if he breaks his bones, his lead levels will increase, and 
they don't know the effect that will have. We all know it is very 
dangerous, the brain damage in children and other things it does.
  The other thing about these charms--and we are very focused on little 
kids swallowing them, but the other thing about them is that necklaces 
can also affect teenage girls because they put these necklaces on, and 
then they are sitting in class or they are with their friends, and they 
chew on them. I have seen little girls actually do this--teenage girls. 
They are cheaper jewelry charms, and they start to chew on them. Well, 
in January 2007, 114,000 necklaces were recalled because the pendants 
contained high levels of lead, these kinds of pendants that continue to 
be recalled throughout this year.
  Another example: In February of 2007, almost 300,000 Rachael Rose 
rings, which were worn by very young kids who wanted to try on a ring 
and have a ring on, were recalled.
  In June of 2007, we had the Thomas & Friends, which was the first 
batch of 1.5 million recalls. This story is one that is worth noting. 
The Presiding Officer will be interested in this one.
  These were toys that were manufactured and painted in China. The RC2 
Company, when they found out about it, called for a recall. They were 
very embarrassed about the safety record. They appropriately apologized 
to their customers, saying they would make every effort to ensure this 
wouldn't happen again, and to help encourage customer loyalty and to 
prompt customers to return the trains, they actually said: You know 
what, we will give you a bonus gift. We are going to replace the toys, 
and we will send you a bonus gift if you send in your toys that have 
been recalled. So all of these parents sent in their recalled toys. As 
you can imagine, they are trying to figure out which toy is recalled 
and which isn't. Is it the caboose or the boxcar? They end up sending 
it back to get this bonus gift. Guess what. This bonus gift backfired 
in a big way. It was discovered that 2,000 of these bonus gift items 
contained lead paint levels 4 times higher than legally allowed, 
leaving the parents of these toddlers to deal with what we call the 
double recall.
  Then, in August 2007, almost 1 million Sesame Street and Dora the 
Explorer toys were recalled by Fisher-Price. In October 2007, 1,600,000 
Cub Scout badges were recalled for extremely high lead levels. Just 
this last Halloween, just a few days before Halloween, 43,000 Ugly 
Teeth toys were recalled that kids put in their mouths for Halloween.
  This is just what I call the ``greatest hit list.'' There were over 9 
million toys recalled by hundreds of different companies in 2007, with 
a total of 27 million toys recalled.
  Yet we have known about this danger for 30 years. That is what is so 
shocking about this. As we advance in this country with technology, 
with BlackBerrys and cell phones, it is unbelievable that we would be 
stepping back. The science is clear. It is an undisputed fact that lead 
poisons children. It should not have taken us this long to take lead 
out of the hands of our children, out of their mouths.
  It is the Consumer Product Safety Commission's job to do this. When 
they started seeing all of these imports coming in, they should have 
done something. They should have come to Congress and said: We think we 
see a problem here. We are going to need more people. We are going to 
need more toy inspectors. It was Congress that had to take the lead to 
get this moving. The burden should not fall on parents or kids to tell 
if a toy train is coated with lead paint. Who is going to be able to 
figure that out? You figure that if you buy a toy from a reputable 
store, it is going to be OK. I think it is shocking for most parents 
when they realize there has never been a mandatory ban on lead in kids' 
toys in this country--never. Until this legislation, there has never 
been a mandatory ban.
  In response to a series of letters I wrote to Chairwoman Nord in 
August about the dangers of lead in children's products, the Chairwoman 
responded on September 11. In this letter, Chairwoman Nord acknowledged 
that:

       The CPSC does not have the authority to ban lead in all 
     children's products without considering exposures and risks 
     on a product-by-product basis.

  Chairwoman Nord went on to say that were the CPSC--the Consumer 
Product Safety Commission--to attempt banning lead in all children's 
products:

       It would likely take several years and millions of dollars 
     in staff and other resources.

  This response makes it clear that Congress cannot wait for the 
Consumer Product Safety Commission to act. They have had years. They 
have known this was increasing, these imports and what was going on for 
years, and they didn't act. That is why we need this bill. According to 
them, to give them the benefit of the doubt, they didn't have the tools 
or the resources to do their job. Now, it would have been nice if they 
had come earlier than this year to act, but they didn't have the tools 
on the books. So that is what this bill is about.
  To talk a little bit more about the specifics, this legislation 
effectively bans lead in all children's products by classifying lead as 
a banned hazardous substance under the Federal Hazardous Substance Act. 
This was a part of the bill that incorporates the bill we wrote out of 
our office. The reason I, of course, was so focused on this was because 
of the fact that this little boy died in our State.
  The bill sets a ceiling for a trace level of allowable lead at .03 
percent of the total weight of a part of children's products, or 300 
parts per million. Some States across the country have put these in 
because of inaction by the Federal Government. Some are set at .04. 
California has .04 for toys and .02 for jewelry. We decided the best 
way to do this is to set it at .03 for the first year, a year after the 
bill takes effect, and then, actually within a few years, go down to 
.01 because the science supports that we should be able to get it down 
to .01 percent of the total weight of kids' toys for lead. The idea is 
that, in fact, as some of the pediatrician groups believe, we can do 
this and we can maybe go lower than that, to trace levels of lead, and 
we allow the Consumer Product Safety Commission to do a rulemaking so 
that if they would like, and the science supports it, they can actually 
go down to zero or go lower if they would like. But these are trace 
levels of lead that are actually more aggressive than you see in some 
of the States.
  The legislation also sets an even lower threshold for paint. Under 
this bill, the allowable level of lead paint would drop immediately to 
90 parts per million. This lower threshold is critical because science 
has shown that as children put products in their mouths, it is the 
painted coatings which are the most easily accessible to kids. Every 
parent of a toddler knows this to be true. On these lead-tainted Thomas 
trains, you can always see, on the ones I have seen that have been 
brought into my office by parents who are worried, those little teeth 
marks of kids who are chewing on these toys.
  I will tell my colleagues that people say: Well, what is the Consumer 
Product Safety Commission doing now? They have a voluntary standard at 
.06. So the standard is higher. The key is that it is voluntary, so 
they have to call and negotiate with the companies if they want to do a 
recall. A lot of our retailers in Minnesota, including Target and Toys 
``R'' Us, have been very frustrated by this because they are 
negotiating with the manufacturer, so it is not clear. They want to get 
the products off their shelves, but they haven't been recalled yet. So 
this makes it much simpler because it is a mandatory Federal lead 
standard.
  The other part of the bill that came out of a bill we drafted and 
which is very important to me--and I think it comes from being a mom, 
and it is practical--is making it easier when there is a recall to be 
able to identify the toys.
  Now, when I talk to my friends, they say: What am I supposed to do? I 
hear about this recall. I go to the Consumer Product Safety Commission 
Web site. I can't tell which caboose, which train. Is it the boxcars? 
Is it the caboose?

[[Page S1676]]

Which brunette Barbie? Which blond Barbie?
  Big surprise: They don't keep the packaging. I don't think anyone but 
my mother-in-law keeps packaging for toys, because she saves 
everything.
  What our bill does is basically says the batch numbers, when 
practical, should be on the toys. They won't be on Pick-Up Sticks, 
obviously, but they can be on the foot of a Barbie or on the bottom of 
these little toys which actually say on the bottom ``caboose'' or 
``boxcar,'' and there can be a batch number. So it will be easier for 
parents to identify which toy they can get out of their kid's box.
  We also have put in this bill a requirement that the numbers be on 
the actual packaging. Even though parents will throw the packaging 
away, we think that is important because the mom-and-pop retail stores, 
the little retail stores, and also the Internet--people will still have 
the packaging. So Target, Toys ``R'' Us, and Wal-Mart are going to be 
able to put into their computer system when a toy is recalled 
immediately so you can't sell it through the line. That is not as easy 
for smaller stores. It may not be as easy for a little drugstore or 
grocery store and also certainly not easy for people buying on eBay or 
selling on eBay. So we also require that the batch numbers be on the 
packaging.
  As we all know, the Consumer Product Safety Commission's last 
authorization expired in 1992, and its statutes have not been updated 
since 1990. That is why what Senator Pryor has done as the chair of the 
consumer subcommittee--and I am proud to be a member of that 
subcommittee and to have worked with him on this bill--is so 
significant.
  You think about how the marketplace has changed in these 16 years and 
what we have seen in the growth for imports from countries that don't 
have our same standards. Yet, at the same time, the Commission is a 
shadow of its former self. Although the number of imports has tripled--
tripled--in recent years and the number of recalls, as I noted earlier, 
has been increasing by the millions, the number of Commission staff and 
inspectors at the Consumer Product Safety Commission has dropped by 
more than half, falling from a high in 1980--as my colleagues can see 
right here--falling from a high of 978 to 393 today. Look at that 
change. Maybe that wouldn't have mattered if we suddenly had fewer toys 
in this country, maybe if we had a third of the imports coming in. In 
fact, we have seen a tripling of imports from countries that do not 
have the same safety standards as we do. In total, the Consumer Product 
Safety Commission has only about 100 field investigators and compliance 
personnel nationwide.
  What this legislation does--and we already started, actually, back in 
December, where we gave the Consumer Product Safety Commission, through 
our omnibus budget bill, some funds to hire more inspectors--this 
legislation more than doubles the Consumer Product Safety Commission's 
budget so that they can get those toy inspectors on board.
  This bill provides some needed help to increase the inspection, the 
research, and regulation staff. It puts 50 more staff at U.S. ports of 
entry in the next 2 years. Some were announced just yesterday as a 
result of the work of this Congress.
  Not only does this bill give the necessary funding and staff to the 
Consumer Product Safety Commission, but it gives the Commission the 
ability to enforce violations of consumer product safety laws. This 
bill finally makes it criminal--criminal--to sell recalled products.
  We have seen too many headlines this year to sit around and think 
this problem is going to solve itself. As a Senator, I feel strongly 
that it is important to take this step to protect the safety of our 
children. When I think about that little 4-year-old boy's parents back 
in Minnesota and I think about the children all over this country who 
have been hurt and the parents who have lost sleep just trying to 
figure out if what they are doing is right or what are they going to 
buy their kids for Christmas or what are they going to do about this 
problem--they shouldn't be thinking about those things in this day and 
age. We can beef up this agency that has been languishing for years. We 
can put the rules in place and make it easier for them to do their 
jobs.
  So this isn't just a matter of banning lead in children's toys. This 
bill is a matter of implementing consumer safety laws and regulations. 
It is a matter of protecting kids from more harmful products. It is a 
matter of helping parents to understand what to do when something has 
been recalled. It is a matter of keeping customers informed and safe 
when purchasing products in the United States. And it is a matter of 
bringing the CPSC back into the 21st century. As I said, all of the 
toys were overseen by a guy named Bob, with a back office full of toys. 
He would be dropping them to see what happened and what didn't. He is 
retired now.
  We are moving into the next century. This is a matter of getting 
serious about consumer safety. We have to say Congress cares about the 
families in this country. People get mad about the Congress because it 
takes so long to get things done. This is a bread-and-butter bill, 
about helping families.
  With the bipartisan help of our Senate colleagues, we can pass this 
meaningful bill that gives the CPSC the tools they need to do their 
job, and it also sets clear and unequivocal standards of what is safe 
and what is not in this country.
  The current system has been broken by years of neglect, by an agency 
that hasn't told the truth about its problems, and by an administration 
that has closed its eyes to what has been going on. This Congress can 
fix this. The Consumer Product Safety Commission Reform Act represents 
some of the most sweeping reforms we have seen in 16 years for consumer 
safety.
  The Wall Street Journal said:

       The Consumer Product Safety Act is the most significant 
     consumer safety legislation in a generation.

  We can pass this legislation today, Madam President.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. McCaskill). The Senator from Oklahoma is 
recognized.
  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
recognized for up to 10 minutes in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              The PATH Act

  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, about an hour ago, I was presenting a 
bill that we had introduced as part of 15 bills to resolve the illegal 
immigration problem. It is one that I have done many times before, 
which is making English the official language, or national language, 
for the United States. I think it is one that has enjoyed a great deal 
of popularity. It has passed this body before by almost a 2-to-1 
margin, in 2006 and in 2007.
  At the conclusion of my presentation on this legislation, I neglected 
to ask that a copy of the bill, S. 2715, be printed in the Record 
following my remarks. I will soon ask that it be printed in the Record.
  Madam President, I am joined by several colleagues, including 
Senators Cochran, Wicker, Domenici, Shelby, and others, in introducing 
the Preserving Access to Hospice Act, a bill to ensure that America's 
terminally ill seniors have access to hospice care by providing 
immediate relief for hospices that are impacted by the Medicare hospice 
cap, through the establishment of a moratorium on the calculation and 
collection of the hospice cap for fiscal 2006, 2007, and 2008, and the 
authorization of a MedPAC study on the cap issue.
  My fellow Oklahoman in the House of Representatives, John Sullivan, 
today introduced the same companion bill on the House side.
  Because of a flawed law, the Federal Government is requiring hospices 
to repay the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, for 
serving eligible patients in prior years. Many small family and 
community-owned hospices will be forced to close, patients will lose 
access to hospice care, and local jobs will be lost. In Oklahoma 
especially, hospice care companies of all sizes service a large number 
of Oklahomans.
  In 1982, Congress initiated hospice as a Medicare benefit for 
terminally ill patients. In the 1980s and 1990s, Congress worked to 
broaden hospice coverage to ensure each eligible beneficiary has access 
to unlimited days of hospice care, regardless of their diagnosis.

[[Page S1677]]

  Medicare pays hospice a flat fee per patient per day regardless of 
the actual cost. The hospice is then responsible for all costs related 
to the care of its patient until their death, regardless of how long 
they remain under their care. However, under the hospice Medicare 
benefit, Medicare caps the number of days they will pay per patient. 
Hospices cannot manage this cap without rationing access of care to 
these terminally ill patients who elect the hospice benefit for however 
long they remain eligible.
  I have to say at this time that some of the best spent money in this 
type of care is the hospices.
  At the end of the care, CMS has been recalculating how much they have 
paid the hospice per patient and what the eligible cap days were for 
each patient. This is something done after the patient has already 
received care. If they paid the hospice more than was allowed under the 
cap, the hospice is required to repay Medicare. Therefore, hospices are 
being contacted by CMS and asked to repay millions of dollars used to 
care for these dying patients. In 1999, very few hospices were hitting 
the cap because Medicare had strict restrictions on who was eligible 
for the benefits. As the eligibility and longevity has increased, 
hospices started to go over the cap.
  In 2005, 41 percent of the hospices providing care in my State of 
Oklahoma received letters from CMS demanding repayment. Obviously, the 
recalculation is unfair and will result in patients being denied 
hospice care, and many Oklahoma hospices are going bankrupt. As 
Congress and CMS examine this issue, temporary relief is needed so that 
the patients can continue to have access to hospice care and hospice 
providers do not face bankruptcy. My legislation provides immediate 
relief for impacted hospices by establishing a moratorium on the 
calculation and collection of the hospice cap for fiscal years 2006, 
2007, and 2008, and authorizing a MedPAC study to determine the best 
way to address this hospice cap issue.
  I have been working since early 2007 to help small community hospices 
in Oklahoma as they face repayment letters from CMS for millions of 
dollars. Without a moratorium, these Oklahoma hospices, as well as 
hospices in numerous other States, will be unable to meet demands for 
repayment. As a result, hospices will be forced to close and discharge 
significant numbers of terminally ill patients, possibly into more 
expensive care.
  So I ask you to join me in supporting this legislation that will 
protect our terminally ill seniors' access to hospice care.
  I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                S. 2715

       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 ``National Language Act of 
     2008''.

     SEC. 2. AMENDMENT TO TITLE 4.

       Title 4, United States Code, is amended by adding at the 
     end the following:

                ``CHAPTER 6--LANGUAGE OF THE GOVERNMENT

``Sec.
``161. Declaration of national language.
``162. Preserving and enhancing the role of the national language.
``163. Use of language other than English.

     ``Sec. 161. Declaration of national language

       ``English shall be the national language of the Government 
     of the United States.

     ``Sec. 162. Preserving and enhancing the role of the national 
       language

       ``(a) In General.--The Government of the United States 
     shall preserve and enhance the role of English as the 
     national language of the United States of America.
       ``(b) Exception.--Unless specifically provided by statute, 
     no person has a right, entitlement, or claim to have the 
     Government of the United States or any of its officials or 
     representatives act, communicate, perform or provide 
     services, or provide materials in any language other than 
     English. If an exception is made with respect to the use of a 
     language other than English, the exception does not create a 
     legal entitlement to additional services in that language or 
     any language other than English.
       ``(c) Forms.--If any form is issued by the Federal 
     Government in a language other than English (or such form is 
     completed in a language other than English), the English 
     language version of the form is the sole authority for all 
     legal purposes.

     ``Sec. 163. Use of language other than English

       ``Nothing in this chapter shall prohibit the use of a 
     language other than English.''.

     SEC. 3. CONFORMING AMENDMENT.

       The table of chapters for title 4, United States Code, is 
     amended by adding at the end the following new item:

``6. Language of the Government..............................161''.....

  Mr. INHOFE. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business for up to 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                              Oral Health

  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, around this time last year, we heard the 
news story of Deamonte Driver. He was a 12-year-old living in Prince 
George's County, MD, a short driving distance from this building.
  Deamonte had a toothache. His family was poor and they didn't have 
health insurance. They could not afford to pay out of pocket for dental 
care. Although in the past they had Medicaid coverage, it was nearly 
impossible, as it is in most places--Missouri, Ohio, Arkansas, and most 
places--to find a dentist who took Medicaid patients. The infection 
from Deamonte's tooth spread to his brain. His family took him to the 
hospital, only to find out that his Medicaid coverage had lapsed 
because the paperwork to confirm eligibility was mailed to a homeless 
shelter where the family had spent some time. Deamonte died after 
surgery, after 2 weeks in the hospital and $200,000 in medical bills.
  Deamonte's death was tragic and needless and that is unconscionable. 
Families across the country were shocked by this story.
  This story illustrates what is wrong with our health care system. 
Several years ago in Cleveland, an 11-year-old girl was missing. She 
had disappeared for some time. When they discovered her body, they 
could not check her dental records because she had never been to a 
dentist. It took some time to identify who she was.
  The story of the girl in Cleveland and the story of Deamonte in 
Prince George's County, MD, illustrates what is wrong with our health 
care system. It also provides a map for how we can make it better.
  This week, with a Congressman from Maryland, I am introducing the 
Deamonte Driver Dental Care Access Improvement Act. The goal of the 
bill is simple: to increase access to dental care for the underserved 
in our country and to tackle access problems for dental care from 
multiple angles.
  This bill strengthens our system of care by providing grants to 
community health centers--they give terrific care in communities that 
are underserved all over the country--so they can expand the dental 
services they provide--not all of them do at this point--including 
mobile dentistry and teledentistry services.
  The bill also provides grants to create dental health professionals 
whose mission is to work with communities to provide care for the 
underserved. People who are not dentists get some training, significant 
training, so they can help dentists and dental hygienists do their job.
  To create incentives for dentists, the bill provides tax credits to 
dentists who serve Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, 
and uninsured populations.
  The bill invests also in prevention. Half of the battle will be to 
increase dental health promotion activities among families.
  Other provisions address maternal health and Medicaid reimbursement.
  In Ohio, dental care is the No. 1 unmet health care need among 
children, unequivocally. In the last year, as I have traveled around 
the State, I held 85 roundtables where I sat down with 20 or 25 people 
from the community and asked them questions about their community and 
what we can do together in this community with the Senate office. I 
have done it in about 55

[[Page S1678]]

counties. I hear stories about how families are struggling with dental 
problems. A lot of these stories are similar to that of Deamonte 
Driver.
  Recently, I learned about the story of Tyler Panko, a 5-year-old with 
autism who lives in rural Ohio. His father is self-employed. He took 
Tyler to four dentists to try to get care for his son who suffered from 
debilitating tooth decay and poor weight gain. No dentist within a 100-
mile radius would accept Tyler as a patient due to his medical 
condition and Medicaid coverage.
  Tyler was ultimately referred to the Ohio State College of Dentistry 
where he was treated under general anesthesia due to the severity of 
his disease.
  Tyler's parents were so distraught about their son's well-being that 
they wanted to stay in Columbus the night before the surgery so as to 
not miss the appointment. They live in a trailer in rural Ohio. They 
could not afford both transportation and lodging, so the pediatric 
dentistry faculty at OSU College of Dentistry covered the family's 
lodging costs.
  Since then, Tyler has been eating, gaining weight, and no longer 
wakes up crying, holding his mouth. Imagine that. The parents of a 
child cannot do anything for their child, and the child wakes up crying 
at night holding his mouth.
  Tyler's story ended well. But how many other children and adults in 
my State and around the country are suffering from lack of dental care.
  Yet it is typically overlooked when policymakers turn to the issue of 
health care access. People often think of health care in terms of the 
physical body from the neck down, and they overlook the importance of 
dental health.
  It is almost as if including dental health in the health care debate 
is a luxury or an afterthought, a minor concern that doesn't merit our 
time. It is a foolish, and sometimes even deadly, misperception.
  Addressing dental care also helps our workforce.
  It is not obvious to most of us in most of our lives most of the 
time, but dental health is an indicator of socioeconomic status in our 
society. Those with beautiful teeth, those who have had the luxury of 
braces, those who have gone to regular dental appointments because 
their families can afford it or their families have dental insurance 
can have the confidence of smiling at a potential employer at a job 
interview.
  For people with missing teeth, many of them at amazingly young ages, 
or crooked teeth or other problems related to the lack of access to 
dental care, their economic struggle shows, and it causes them to be 
treated differently from those who can go to the dentist regularly.
  Again, think about a job interview: You are 24 years old; you are 
looking for a job; you have bad teeth; you know how that makes 
everything much harder.
  People with painful dental problems are also more likely to miss 
school and later on miss work. We need to remove barriers to care for 
every American. We need to address the entrenched racial and economic 
disparities that exist in dental health. I want to keep families from 
relying on emergency rooms for dental care. There is simply no reason 
for that to happen. I want people to know how to prevent cavities and 
gum disease. I want to find ways to encourage dentists to accept 
Medicaid and CHIP and uninsured people. I don't want anyone to be held 
back from their ambitions because of their dental problems.
  I hope my colleagues will help me in reaching these goals by 
supporting this bill. I thank the senior Senator from Mississippi, Mr. 
Cochran, for his cosponsorship of this bill. It is bipartisan. It is 
legislation whose time has come. It is legislation for those whom we 
pretty often ignore in this Chamber.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PRYOR. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. PRYOR. Madam President, I wish to give my colleagues a sense of 
where we are on the bill. Generally, we have good news. I mentioned an 
hour or so ago, maybe 2 hours ago, the fact that Senator Stevens and 
his staff and my staff have worked through a series of amendments. 
There are 12 or more amendments in a managers' package. There is 
language that is being worked on now to maybe add more to the managers' 
package. Various Senators on both sides of the aisle have had 
constructive amendments, and all amendments have been germane. That is 
great news. We thank all Senators and their staffs for keeping every 
single amendment germane. That is very constructive and very positive.
  At the moment, we are waiting on some language on some amendments 
that maybe can be agreed to further without rollcall votes. We would 
love to set up some rollcall votes at some point in the next few hours.
  As I said earlier, I do not want to say this and regret it, but the 
way things are going, certainly this has the feel that we could 
possibly finish this bill this afternoon rather than this evening. If 
we have to work into the night or even into tomorrow, we will do that. 
Given the cooperative spirit and the nature of the amendments and the 
collegiality of Senators on this legislation, I think we can definitely 
finish today. As I said, I know a lot of Senators who would love to be 
able to wrap this up and get out of here earlier than they expected. 
That would be great news if we could pull that off. We are working very 
hard for that result.
  Again, I thank the staff of all the Senators who have been working on 
these amendments with us. I thank the Senators because it has been a 
very productive week and a very constructive process.
  I wish to talk about one of the issues that is outstanding. We may 
have a vote on it later today. We don't know yet. It is a whistleblower 
provision. I wish to inform my colleagues of the goal we had of writing 
into the bill whistleblower protection. We want to make sure that when 
people come across a safety violation and they tell the Consumer 
Product Safety Commission about it, they not be punished for doing the 
right thing.
  We tried to find a balance in this issue. This provision has changed 
quite a bit throughout the course of the life of this bill. We have to 
remember there is a compelling Government interest in the public's 
safety and welfare. So we are trying to find that balance. We are 
certainly trying to protect the public's safety and welfare. We want to 
keep these dangerous products out of the stream of commerce, but at the 
same time, we have heard the concerns and the objections mostly by the 
business community.
  Let me say this about whistleblower protection: I know this has been 
a source of much debate and many votes in the Senate over the last 
several Congresses. I remind my colleagues that whistleblower 
protection is not a novel idea. This is not a new concept. We actually 
see whistleblower protection in many Federal laws this Congress has 
passed.

  Since the year 2000, Congress has passed several whistleblower laws 
that have been very similar to what we have drafted in S. 2663, 
including Air 21, for airline workers; Sarbanes-Oxley, for employees of 
publicly traded corporations; the Pipeline Safety Act, for oil pipeline 
employees; the Energy Policy Act, for nuclear workers; the Implementing 
Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act, for railroad and public 
transportation workers; and even as recently as this year in the 
Defense Authorization Act.
  We have drafted our provision based on existing law. The Surface 
Transportation Assistance Act is the model we use to try to extend 
whistleblower protection under narrow circumstances in this act.
  I will give a few examples. I will limit it to two real-life 
examples. In 2002, a product designer for a lighting manufacturer was 
fired after he informed management about the dangerous conditions of 
certain lighting products, and he refused to violate the law by passing 
the products on to the customers before they were thoroughly tested. 
That person did not have any recourse when he was terminated by his 
company.
  We understand, we are very sensitive to a company's desire to have 
employees who can follow instructions and can be productive, but at the 
same

[[Page S1679]]

time, there is a compelling public interest in the fact that we are 
talking about the safety of our citizens in this country.
  Another example from 1995: An employee of a wire and cable company 
reported there was a shipment of defective wire. He reported that to a 
customer because he was concerned the wire would be used in fire alarms 
in hotels, residences, and high-rise buildings. The employee refused 
the company's directive to ignore the problems with that wire, and he 
was fired.
  Not to get into the details of that case, but we see that 
whistleblower protection, if we build in the right parameters, might 
make sense. What we did through this process is we tried to listen to 
the business community's concern. There has been a myth floating out 
there that if this law passes, then a business will never be able to 
fire a disruptive employee. That is not true. Certainly, we are trying 
to find that balance. Whistleblower protections would not protect an 
employee who is going to be fired anyway. It would not protect a 
disruptive employee who is not a good employee. The employee has the 
burden of proof of establishing a prima facie showing. They have to 
make a prima facie case that they were terminated because they had told 
the CPSC about a problem. The employer has an affirmative defense of 
showing they would have done the same thing with this employee 
regardless of the fact that he or she informed the CPSC of a violation.
  Also, there is a provision in the bill that if the employee files a 
frivolous claim and tries to hide behind this whistleblower protection, 
that employee may have to pay up to a $1,000 penalty throughout the 
course of the whistleblower process.
  We have tried to listen to the concerns of the business community. We 
are trying to get the proper information to the CPSC to make sure that 
if there is a problem out there, it is brought to their attention as 
early as possible. And if an employee wants to do the right thing, with 
these safeguards built in place, he or she will not be terminated 
because they are trying to make sure these products are safe in the 
U.S. marketplace.
  Senator Stevens has walked into the Chamber. So far the news today 
has been good. We are disposing of matters. We encourage any Senator 
who wants to come down and speak on their amendment or any Senator who 
wants a vote to please let us know. So far it has been a very 
constructive process. I thank all my colleagues for their spirit of 
cooperation today.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 4132

  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to call up 
amendment No. 4132 and to set it aside.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to setting aside the 
pending amendment?
  Hearing no objection, the clerk will report the amendment.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Ohio [Mr. Brown], for himself and Mr. 
     Casey, proposes an amendment numbered 4132.

  The amendment is as follows:

  (Purpose: To authorize the temporary refusal of admission into the 
      customs territory of the United States of consumer products 
 manufactured by companies that have violated consumer product safety 
                                 rules)

       On page 103, after line 12, add the following:

     SEC. 40. TEMPORARY REFUSAL OF ADMISSION INTO CUSTOMS 
                   TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF CONSUMER 
                   PRODUCTS MANUFACTURED BY COMPANIES THAT HAVE 
                   VIOLATED CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY RULES.

       (a) In General.--Section 17 (15 U.S.C. 2066), as amended by 
     section 38(e) of this Act, is amended by adding at the end 
     the following:
       ``(j) Temporary Refusal of Admission.--
       ``(1) In general.--A consumer product offered for 
     importation into the customs territory of the United States 
     (as defined in general note 2 of the Harmonized Tariff 
     Schedule of the United States) may be refused admission into 
     such customs territory until the Commission makes a 
     determination of admissibility under paragraph (2)(A) with 
     respect to such product if--
       ``(A) such product is manufactured by a manufacturer that 
     has, in the previous 18 months--
       ``(i) violated a consumer product safety rule; or
       ``(ii) manufactured a product that has been the subject of 
     an order under section 15(d); or
       ``(B) is offered for importation into such customs 
     territory by a manufacturer, distributor, shipper, or 
     retailer that has, in the previous 18 months--
       ``(i) offered for importation into such customs territory a 
     product that was refused under subsection (a) with respect to 
     any of paragraphs (1) through (4); or
       ``(ii) imported into such customs territory a product that 
     has been the subject of an order under section 15(d).
       ``(2) Determination of admissibility.--
       ``(A) In general.--The Commission makes a determination of 
     admissibility under this subparagraph with respect to a 
     consumer product that has been refused under paragraph (1) if 
     the Commission finds that the consumer product is in 
     compliance with all applicable consumer product safety rules.
       ``(B) Request for determination of admissibility.--
       ``(i) In general.--An interested party may submit a request 
     to the Commission for a determination of admissibility under 
     subparagraph (A) with respect to a consumer product that has 
     been refused under paragraph (1).
       ``(ii) Supporting evidence.--A request submitted under 
     clause (i) shall be accompanied by evidence that the consumer 
     product is in compliance with all applicable consumer product 
     safety rules.
       ``(iii) Actions.--Not later than 90 days after submission 
     of a request under clause (i) with respect to a consumer 
     product, the Commission shall take action on such request. 
     Such action may include--

       ``(I) making a determination of admissibility under 
     subparagraph (A) with respect to such consumer product; or
       ``(II) requesting information from the manufacturer, 
     distributor, shipper, or retailer of such consumer product.

       ``(iv) Failure to act.--If the Commission does not take 
     action on a request under clause (iii) with respect to a 
     consumer product on or before the date that is 90 days after 
     the date of the submission of such request under clause (i), 
     a determination of admissibility under subparagraph (A) with 
     respect to such consumer product shall be deemed to have been 
     made by the Commission on the 91st day after the date of such 
     submission.
       ``(3) Compliance with trade agreements.--The Commission 
     shall ensure that a refusal to admit into the customs 
     territory of the United States a consumer product under this 
     subsection is done in a manner consistent with bilateral, 
     regional, and multilateral trade agreements and the rights 
     and obligations of the United States.''.
       (b) Rulemaking.--
       (1) Notice.--Not later than 90 days after the date of the 
     enactment of this Act, the Consumer Product Safety Commission 
     shall issue a notice of proposed rulemaking with respect to 
     the regulations required by paragraph (2).
       (2) Regulations.--Not later than 120 days after the date of 
     the publication of notice under paragraph (1), the Consumer 
     Product Safety Commission shall prescribe regulations to 
     carry out the provisions of the amendment made by subsection 
     (a).
       (c) Consultation With Secretary of Homeland Security.--The 
     Consumer Product Safety Commission shall consult with the 
     Secretary of Homeland Security in carrying out the provisions 
     of this section and the amendment made by subsection (a).

  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PRYOR. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. PRYOR. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator 
Wicker be recognized at 2 p.m. today to speak for up to 20 minutes as 
in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. PRYOR. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Salazar). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 
to speak as in morning business for 20 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Under the previous order, the Senator from Mississippi is recognized 
for

[[Page S1680]]

up to 20 minutes for his maiden Senate speech.


                 Rebuilding the Mississippi Gulf Coast

  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, as I address the Senate for the first time 
today, I could not be prouder of the people I represent. From the 
northeast Mississippi hills and De Soto County suburbs, down through 
the Delta, and from metro Jackson, across to east central Mississippi, 
and down through the Piney Woods, from southwest Mississippi to the 
Gulf of Mexico, my native State of Mississippi is on the move, having 
added over 50,000 jobs in the past 4 years. But we are also in the 
process of recovering from the most devastating natural disaster ever 
to hit North America--Hurricane Katrina. With its nearly 30-foot storm 
surge, its winds of over 125 miles per hour, and an eye that stretched 
the entire coastline of Mississippi, Hurricane Katrina reshaped not 
just the landscape of our Gulf Coast; Katrina reshaped how our public 
officials must approach every quality of life issue in our State, be it 
housing, insurance, economic development, education, health care, or 
public safety.
  While there are a number of issues, accomplishments and challenges 
facing my constituents, today I will speak about the most pressing 
issue facing my State, the rebuilding and renewal of the Mississippi 
Gulf Coast and the ongoing need for this Congress to follow through 
until recovery is indeed a reality.
  Steady progress has been made, but great challenges remain that 
cannot be overcome without a partnership from the Federal Government. 
Continued Federal resources are needed before our State can truly 
recover.
  For most citizens on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Katrina is not just 
one issue; it is virtually every issue.
  Every Mississippian remembers what they were doing on August 29, 
2005. My wife, Gayle, and I were at home in Tupelo, in the path of a 
storm that would cause damage 300 miles inland and in the path of 
thousands of Mississippians and Louisianans fleeing Katrina. Like 
citizens across the country, we joined our community in opening arenas 
and churches, preparing Red Cross shelters and organizing gifts of 
clothing and supplies. Our family and friends were among the foot 
soldiers in the army of compassion that responded to the devastation in 
south Mississippi.
  Days after Katrina's landfall, Gayle and I had the opportunity to 
deliver an 18-wheeler full of supplies to Jackson County. What we saw 
was indescribable to those who had seen the coverage only on 
television. Tens of thousands of homes obliterated. Businesses and 
schools destroyed with no trace of previous existence. Bridges wiped 
away, cutting cities off from one another. And an eerie silence because 
of the lack of electricity for hundreds of miles.
  The Federal Government's response to this disaster has come under an 
immense amount of criticism, much of which is justified. But it would 
be irresponsible for us to ignore what went right.
  The night of the storm, Coast Guard helicopter crews saved hundreds 
of my fellow Mississippians.
  Katrina generated twice as much debris as any hurricane in history, 
but it was picked up in half the time.
  Our school superintendents, principals, teachers, and parents led the 
effort to get every one of Mississippi's public schools open as quickly 
as possible.
  Our business community responded, reopening shops, restaurants, and 
manufacturing plants so our people could get back to work.
  And our citizen volunteers and the faith community shined. Mr. 
President, 500,000 volunteers have offered help to Mississippi since 
Katrina, and that number continues to climb.
  Over the last 2\1/2\ years, a lot of progress has been made. South 
Mississippi is not just recovering; south Mississippi is on its way to 
building back from the worst natural disaster in American history 
bigger and better than ever before.
  As a Member of the other body, I was glad to be a part of the team 
that worked to produce much needed appropriations and economic 
development incentives for our State and others impacted by Hurricane 
Katrina. Our governor, Haley Barbour, our senior Senator, Thad Cochran, 
my predecessor in this body, Senator Trent Lott, and our entire 
congressional delegation--Republican and Democrat--were a part of this 
effort. Katrina was not a partisan storm and in Mississippi, we are 
working in a bipartisan way to rebuild our communities.
  On behalf of a grateful State, I thank the Senate for its support of 
our rebuilding efforts. In return, Senators--and the taxpayers--deserve 
a report on our progress.
  Housing is still being rebuilt, as evidenced by the shrinking number 
of families in FEMA-provided temporary housing.
  The CDC recently announced that those still living in FEMA trailers 
could be exposed to formaldehyde levels 40 times the normal level. This 
news only serves to underscore the fact that while FEMA trailers were 
necessary immediately following the storm, we must redouble our efforts 
to move the remaining citizens from them.
  The State of Mississippi is deploying ``Mississippi cottages,'' which 
are real homes built to HUD standards that are free of formaldehyde 
contamination.
  It is imperative that FEMA work with the State of Mississippi to 
purchase and deploy Mississippi cottages for all individuals along the 
gulf coast who live in FEMA trailers.
  We are also rebuilding our infrastructure. The bridges connecting Bay 
St. Louis to Pass Christian, and Biloxi to Ocean Springs have been 
rebuilt, literally and spiritually reconnecting communities to one 
another.
  The GO Zone economic development incentives have been an essential 
boost to our job creation initiatives. Our State's largest employer, 
Northrop Grumman, has made great progress and is working to get back to 
pre-Katrina employment levels; Chevron has announced an expansion of 
its refinery in Pascagoula; PSL has announced its first plant in North 
America in Hancock County where they will manufacture steel pipe; and 
Trinity Yachts has a new facility in Gulfport.
  Much has been done, but there is much left to do.
  Chairman Donald Powell, the Federal coordinator for the Office of 
Gulf Coast Rebuilding, acknowledged these challenges last week when he 
announced- he was stepping down. He said it would be ``some time before 
the area recovered.''
  I say this to my colleagues in the Senate: Katrina is not over. There 
are tall hurdles still to overcome. And there is more the U.S. Congress 
must do.
  The most urgent issue facing the Mississippi Gulf Coast is insurance. 
If you can't insure it, you can't build it or finance it. The rising 
cost of insurance cripples the efforts of small businesses, increases 
the cost of home ownership, and drives rental rates beyond 
affordability.
  This is not just an issue for Mississippi. From Bar Harbor, ME, to 
Brownsville, TX, millions of Americans live near the coastline, in the 
path of a future hurricane. For many years, insurance companies have 
refused to offer insurance protection for water damage caused by 
hurricanes; this led to the creation of the National Flood Insurance 
Program, which is up for reauthorization soon. After Katrina, the most 
important question for a homeowner or a small business person was 
``wind or water?''
  Wind versus water. That is the debate which still occurs today in 
courtrooms on the Mississippi Gulf Coast between insurance companies 
and storm victims.
  This debate is what necessitated the multibillion-dollar supplemental 
appropriations package this body approved after Katrina, and unless 
Congress changes the law, the wind versus water debate will result in a 
multibillion-dollar supplemental appropriations package after the next 
big hurricane--wherever it may land.
  Even worse, since Katrina, it is also common practice for insurance 
companies to not offer wind insurance at a rate that is even close to 
affordable. This is driving more and more homeowners and business 
owners into a State-sponsored wind pool, which acts as an insurer of 
last resort. But this is not a reasonable long-term solution, because 
too much risk is being placed in a too small of a pool.
  The best solution available is to allow homeowners to purchase wind

[[Page S1681]]

and flood insurance coverage in the same policy.
  This will not only help the storm victims so they can know their 
hurricane damage will be covered; it also will protect the U.S. 
taxpayer. The American people are the most generous in the world, and 
their elected representatives will continue to respond to natural 
disasters, whether it is a hurricane on the east coast or an earthquake 
in California, with supplemental disaster appropriations packages. But 
the size of these packages will be smaller if more people have 
insurance.
  As a Member of the House, I voted for Congressman Gene Taylor's 
multi-peril insurance legislation when it passed last September. I am 
committed to achieving the same success here in the Senate.
  Another key initiative we must focus on in order for the gulf coast 
to continue rebuilding is the extension of tax provisions included in 
the GO Zone legislation. I mentioned earlier the boost this legislation 
has given the gulf coast, and I want to ensure this body that it has 
provided much-needed help.
  However, in order for the legislation to be fully utilized by 
families and small businesses who have not yet been able to begin 
rebuilding, these important tax provisions should be extended.
  Other issues remain, especially at Katrina's ``Ground Zero.'' Hancock 
County, and the cities of Pass Christian and Long Beach in Harrison 
County, bore a direct hit from Katrina, and their issues are not the 
same as the rest of the gulf coast.
  With their property tax base decimated, basic government operations 
are still run out of trailers. Hancock County has no jail, an essential 
part of maintaining public safety. Mayors, supervisors, and other 
community leaders now are forced to completely rethink their economic 
development and planning strategies because the new FEMA flood plain 
maps will make rebuilding next-to-impossible in many areas.
  Ground Zero needs extra help. In many cases, Congress has provided 
the necessary resources, but the Federal Government's current rules and 
regulations do not recognize the reality on the ground. The Federal 
Government needs to be flexible, and if it can't or won't, Congress 
needs to step in. At some point, as Chairman Powell stated, 
``commonsense has to come to the fore.''
  My Senate office has been in existence for only a few weeks, but we 
are already at work trying to help constituents wade through the 
bureaucratic process to receive the permits from Federal agencies, such 
as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, that are necessary to rebuild.
  This is, obviously, not the first time the Federal Government redtape 
has needlessly caused real problems, and it will not be the last. But 
that does not make the problems any easier, particularly when people 
are hurting. For example, affordable housing initiatives developed by 
the State are being delayed needlessly because Congress has refused to 
give the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development the authority 
to waive environmental regulations which require an archaeological dig 
for remnants on each piece of property, property that already had a 
home on it before Katrina. Such redtape does not make sense.
  In this case and in others like it, Congress and the Federal 
Government's bureaucracy needs to get out of the way so the States, 
cities, and counties can use the resources already provided to them. 
But there are other cases where this Congress needs to provide more 
resources.
  Off the coast of Mississippi lies a chain of barrier islands and 
coastal wetlands which provide a first line of defense against the 
storm surge of a hurricane. According to the Corps of Engineers, a 
storm surge is reduced by 1 foot for every 1 acre of wetland. Without 
the barrier islands, the storm surges would be 8 to 12 feet high.
  Hurricanes such as Katrina and Camille before it, two of the most 
powerful storms ever recorded, have caused significant damage to 
Mississippi's natural defense systems. If they are not restored, this 
problem will only get worse, putting more people and property at risk 
during future storms.
  Gulf coast ecosystems are also threatened. The barrier islands and 
wetlands provide a natural regulator of salinity levels, which is vital 
for shellfish and other marine life to have a vibrant habitat.
  I do not hail from Louisiana, but I strongly support the restoration 
of levees in New Orleans. These levees are necessary for the 
restoration and protection of a great American city. Our barrier 
islands provide the same purpose to the Mississippi gulf coast as the 
levees do to New Orleans.
  In the coming months, I look forward to working with my colleagues in 
the gulf region to provide the funding necessary to restore the natural 
habitats that protect not just the environment and its ecosystems but 
also protect our citizens who are in harm's way.
  Through the leadership of many in this body today, the Congress has 
stepped up to the plate and time and again provided assistance to the 
people of the Gulf States after Katrina. It is appreciated, but I must 
simply remind my fellow Senators that we are not finished. We should 
celebrate our progress but keep our eyes on the work that needs to be 
done. When there is a clear and compelling case for additional Federal 
involvement, I will be persistent in making that case. The people of 
the Mississippi gulf coast, who have demonstrated such untiring 
resilience and strength over the last 2\1/2\ years, deserve no less.
  I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I wish to take a moment to commend our 
new Senator from Mississippi for what we typically refer to around here 
as his maiden speech. He obviously has chosen a topic that is at the 
top of the list of concerns for the people of Mississippi and addressed 
them very effectively.
  I also wish to say not only to the Senator from Mississippi but to 
his constituents, what a spectacular start he has gotten off to in the 
Senate. He is an active and an aggressive member of both the Armed 
Services Committee, which is important to his State, and the Commerce 
Committee as well.
  I commend him for that outstanding speech today and thank him for all 
he is doing for the people of Mississippi.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I join the leader in commending my 
colleague for an excellent statement about the challenges faced by our 
State of Mississippi in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. There could 
be no greater need of any State than to confront the realities of the 
challenge we face to rebuild and recover fully from Hurricane Katrina.
  We have had a tremendous amount of support from the Federal level. We 
have the approval of appropriations bills, seeing the leaders of both 
Houses--the House and the Senate--coming together, joining with the 
administration in crafting a recovery package of changes in laws, as 
well as the appropriation of funds that will help speed the recovery. 
But it has been very frustrating to see how long it has taken to truly 
get back on the road to foreseeable recovery. Many of the communities 
are still without Federal, State, and county services that existed 
before the hurricane.
  Although every effort is being made to overcome these challenges, the 
path ahead is filled with many new challenges. I am very confident that 
the presence in the Senate of my friend Roger Wicker will help us 
identify and succeed in meeting this enormous challenge. I congratulate 
him on his remarks and thank him for his strong effort in meeting this 
very important challenge our State faces.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I join my colleagues in welcoming 
officially the new Senator from Mississippi and thank him for his 
service in the House and his service in the Senate. Certainly, it was 
great to hear his maiden speech today.
  One of the aspects that is so true about the Senate is every Senator 
can

[[Page S1682]]

make a difference. That is one of the challenges I think all 100 of us 
carry with us every day--to go out there and make a positive difference 
for this country and for the world.
  I welcome Senator Wicker to the Senate.
  Mr. President, I will give a very brief status report on the consumer 
product safety bill. Right now, we have been working through amendments 
all day. There have been several agreements. The managers' package is 
growing, which is good news. We are hopeful that we can have just a few 
amendments to be voted on and then have final passage. We do not have 
an agreement on that, but we are trying to reach an agreement right 
now. I wanted to alert Senators and their staffs that we would love to 
wrap this up, again, this afternoon. If we have to go into this 
evening, we can. But the sense right now on the floor, in talking with 
everyone who has been on the floor, Senators and staff who have been 
working through amendments, working through issues, we are still 
hopeful we can finish this bill this afternoon. We hope that is good 
news for Senators.
  We, once again, encourage any Senator who wants to come to the 
Chamber and speak on this bill to try to come down as soon as they can 
because hopefully we will get to final passage this afternoon at some 
point.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Nelson of Nebraska.) Without objection, it 
is so ordered.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I want to again inform Senate colleagues 
and staff on the Hill that we are making great progress. I know we have 
been in a quorum call for some time, but the truth is, we have been 
making very steady and solid progress.
  We are hoping to get this bill to final passage this afternoon. There 
are a couple of amendments that we are still working through. We would 
love to reach an agreement with both sides to have a specific time to 
start a series of votes to get us out of here this afternoon. Again, 
for all of the staff and the Senators who are watching, now is the 
time, if you want to make one last pitch for either an amendment or a 
change in something, because everybody has been working very hard today 
and this week to get this done.
  So we do not have anything locked in, but certainly we would love to 
start this last series of votes sooner rather than later. I have talked 
with several Senators and they have worked very hard. They would love 
to see us wrap this up as quickly as possible. I think we are very 
close to doing that.
  Again, we are talking cloakroom to cloakroom, manager to manager, 
staff to staff, trying to get the last details worked out. So we are 
very hopeful we will have good news very shortly. We are very proud of 
the work that all of the Senators and staff have done to get us to this 
point on this important piece of legislation.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 4130

  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the Nelson-
Snowe-Klobuchar amendment to S. 2636. I commend the good work of my 
colleague, Senator Nelson, that we have done on the bill as a whole, 
with Senator Pryor's leadership. The three of us as members of the 
Consumer Subcommittee have worked together to make this as strong a 
bill as possible. I especially applaud Senator Nelson's efforts to make 
sure the strong third party testing requirements were included in this 
bill.
  As we have seen over and over again in the past year with the 
issuance of each new recall, independent testing plays a critical role 
in ensuring that the products on our shores and in our stores are safe. 
So I commend Senator Nelson for his good work in making sure 
independent third party testing will now be done using a more 
systematic approach under the bill.
  The amendment we are sponsoring that will be brought to the Senate 
floor today would further strengthen the Consumer Product Safety 
Commission Reform Act by addressing very real dangers that infants and 
toddlers face with durable goods. To clarify, when you hear the words 
``durable goods,'' what does than mean in a mom's or parent's or kid's 
life?
  Well, durable goods are nursery products that are those products that 
no new parent can go without: cribs, car seats and strollers and high 
chairs, the most basic of all children's products.
  Unfortunately, what we have seen in recent years, in this past year 
in particular, is that these nursery products are leading to the most 
severe and the greatest number of product-related injuries for 
children.
  In 2007, 48 percent, almost half, of nursery product recalls were 
initiated because the use of the product has led to some type of child 
injury or even death.
  According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, an estimated 
64,000 children, 64,000 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. That is $2.5 billion.
  This figure has certainly risen over the last 5 years. And even more 
tragically, more than 50 children under the age of 5 have died since 
that time in incidents associated with nursery products.
  I would like to take a moment and talk about one of the too many 
children who died tragically as a result of a defective crib, and that 
is 16-month-old Daniel Keysar. In May of 1998, little Danny was 
strangled to death in his licensed childcare facility when a Playskool 
Travel-Lite portable crib collapsed trapping his neck in the V of the 
rail.
  Danny was the fifth child to die while sleeping in the Playskool 
Travel-Lite crib from 1990 to 1997. More than 1.5 million portable 
cribs with similar dangerous designs were manufactured. A total of 16 
children have been killed by this type of crib. This is just a crib, a 
crib that you would put up in your house, and that many children have 
died in. And while these cribs were all eventually recalled, in 2007, 
we saw the largest recall of cribs in our Nation's history. You can see 
right here this is one of the more than 1 million cribs that were 
recalled last year; 1 million cribs recalled in 2007.
  But these cribs never should have been brought to the market in the 
first place. It is not just cribs. Last year, when recalling the 
Evenflo Embrace infant car seat, the Consumer Product Safety Commission 
revealed that 160 infants were injured as a result of using this 
product. Many of these injuries were quite severe, ranging from skull 
fractures to concussions to lacerations.
  Let me be clear: 160 babies were seriously hurt by a product that 
their parents bought for the sole intention of keeping them safe. That 
is why you get a car seat. I still remember. My daughter is 12, and I 
would never admit she had ever been in a car seat, but we all buy car 
seats to keep our kids safe. Just to think, for 160 households, it was 
the car seat that injured their baby. It is clear we must strengthen 
our safety standards and make them stronger for nursery products. Right 
now the safety of the Nation's nursery products depends on a system of 
voluntary standards. And while voluntary standards are a good first 
step, we have seen over and over again that they are not enough. The 
amendment Senators Nelson, Snowe, and I are offering would direct the 
CPSC to evaluate and revamp these safety standards and give them the 
force of law. It is telling the CPSC, you have to do your job. Revamp 
these standards and make them better.
  This amendment directs the CPSC to work with consumer groups, child 
product manufacturers and engineers and safety experts to examine and 
assess the effectiveness of our current system of voluntary safety 
standards for nursery products. We had voluntary guidelines for lead 
and look where that got us. The amendment then directs the CPSC to 
issue regulations aimed at reducing injuries and deaths from these 
kinds of nursery products.

[[Page S1683]]

  This amendment is not controversial. Strengthening safety standards 
for nursery products is a winning proposition for everyone. This 
language was included in the House-passed bill by an overwhelming 
majority. It is my understanding that this amendment will be adopted in 
the manager's package. I thank Senators Pryor and Stevens for accepting 
this amendment.
  I thank the Senate for their support for the amendment I offered with 
Senator Menendez to ban industry trade travel. Industries the Consumer 
Product Safety Commission is supposed to be regulating should not be 
paying for Consumer Product Safety Commission personnel to fly all 
around the world. I was glad we had bipartisan support for our 
amendment. We look forward to working on this bill through the day and 
getting this bill passed. It is incredibly important, the most sweeping 
consumer product safety reform in 16 years.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I rise to speak about an amendment to this 
bill that would ban certain uses of a chemical that poses serious 
health risks to the lungs of consumers and workers.
  In recent years, scientific evidence has mounted that this chemical, 
called diacetyl, seriously harms the lungs of workers in the factories 
making microwave popcorn. It causes an awful disease called ``popcorn 
lung'' in which the tissue inside of the lungs gets clogged with scar 
tissue and inflammation, leaving the victims struggling to breathe. 
There is now evidence that it also may pose risks to consumers.
  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, 
the effects of popcorn lung include:

                              Popcorn Lung

                       (Bronchiolitis Obliterans)

       The main respiratory symptoms experienced by workers 
     affected by bronchiolitis obliterans include cough (usually 
     without phlegm), wheezing, and worsening shortness of breath 
     on exertion.
       The severity of the lung symptoms can range from only a 
     mild cough to severe cough and shortness of breath on 
     exertion.
       These symptoms typically do not improve when the worker 
     goes home at the end of the workday or on weekends or 
     vacations.
       Usually these symptoms are gradual in onset and 
     progressive, but severe symptoms can occur suddenly.
       Some workers may experience fever, night sweats, and weight 
     loss.
       Before arriving at a final diagnosis, doctors of affected 
     workers initially thought that the symptoms might be due to 
     asthma, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, pneumonia, or smoking.

  Last year, Dr. Cecile Rose, the head of environmental and 
occupational health sciences at National Jewish Medical and Research 
Center, one of the most respected lung disease hospitals in the 
country, wrote to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Food and 
Drug Administration, EPA, and the Occupational Safety and Health 
Administration regarding the possible risk of popcorn lung for heavy 
consumers of microwave popcorn as well as for workers.
  Dr. Rose informed the agencies that she had a patient ``with 
significant lung disease whose clinical findings are similar to those 
described in affected [popcorn lung] workers, but whose only 
inhalational exposure is as a heavy, daily consumer of butter flavored 
microwave popcorn.''
  Dr. Rose concluded that while we ``cannot be sure'' that heavy 
inhalation exposure to butter-flavored microwave popcorn caused the 
patient's popcorn lung, ``we have no other plausible explanation.''
  This report by Dr. Rose, a leading lung disease expert, caused a stir 
in the health community and the public because previously the concern 
had been focused primarily on the workers, not consumers.
  Many of the major manufacturers of microwave popcorn have responded. 
According to published accounts, four of the leading makers and sellers 
of microwave popcorn--Con Agra, General Mills, American Pop Corn 
Company, and Pop Weaver--have said they will stop using diacetyl in 
their microwave popcorn. Their brands include Jolly Time, Orville 
Redenbacher, Pop Secret, Act II, and Pop Weaver.
  However, there is no enforceable requirement that these or other 
popcorn makers stop using this chemical in their butter flavoring.
  My amendment would simply level the playing field for all microwave 
popcorn makers, including importers and small manufacturers, by banning 
the intentional addition of diacetyl to microwave popcorn.
  I urge my colleagues to support my amendment, in order to protect 
Americans from this unnecessary risk. We should be able to regularly 
enjoy the simple pleasure of watching movies at home and eating a bag 
of popcorn without having to worry about whether we are harming our 
lungs.
  I ask unanimous consent to have a letter in support of this amendment 
printed in the Record.
                                                    March 5, 2008.
     Hon. Barbara Boxer,
     Hart Senate Office Building,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Boxer: The undersigned consumer organizations 
     write in support of your amendment to the Consumer Product 
     Safety Commission Reform Act bill, S. 2663, to ban the use of 
     the butter-flavoring chemical diacetyl in the production of 
     microwave popcorn.
       Our groups believe that both workers and consumers should 
     be protected from harmful and even deadly exposure to 
     diacetyl, a chemical found in thousands of food products 
     containing added flavorings, including microwave butter-
     flavored popcorn.
       Exposure to airborne diacetyl has been linked to the 
     disease bronchiolitis obliterans, also known as ``popcorn 
     lung.'' Problems with diacetyl first surfaced in 2000. Eight 
     years later workers have become ill and died from exposure to 
     this chemical. Last fall, the first case of a consumer 
     contracting ``popcorn lung'' surfaced. This man developed 
     lung disease after making microwave popcorn multiple times 
     every day for a number of years. Further testing indicated 
     that levels of airborne diacetyl in his home were comparable 
     to levels found in microwave popcorn facilities where workers 
     were diagnosed with ``popcorn lung.'' Diacetyl clearly poses 
     a serious health hazard and must be banned.
       We understand that several leading manufacturers of 
     microwave popcorn have voluntarily pledged to discontinue the 
     use of diacetyl in their popcorn production. While we are 
     supportive of these actions, it is essential that Congress 
     act more formally to ensure that the comprehensive 
     elimination of the use of this chemical happens immediately. 
     Your amendment would accomplish this by making the ban on 
     diacetyl in all microwave popcorn mandatory for all 
     manufacturers.
       Thank you for your support for this important amendment.
           Sincerely,
     Sally Greenberg,
       Executive Director, National Consumers League.
     Edmund Mierzwinski,
       Consumer Program Director, U.S. Public Interest Research 
     Group.
     Rachel Weintraub,
       Director of Product Safety and Senior Counsel, Consumer 
     Federation of America.
     Ellen Bloom,
       Director, Federal Policy, Consumers Union.
     Ami Gadhia,
       Policy Counsel, Consumers Union.

  Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I wish today to support S. 2663, the 
Consumer Product Safety Commission Reform Act. The leadership of 
Senators Pryor and Stevens in negotiating this bipartisan compromise 
bill allows the legislation before the Senate today to move an 
important but beleaguered agency in the right direction. S. 2663 
authorizes the appropriate level of resources and provides the new 
authorities necessary for the agency to do the job it was created to 
do: protect consumers.
  Mr. President, today the CPSC is broken. It is broken from years of 
neglect coupled with growth in volume and complexity of products and 
from a dysfunctional commission. Year after year, this agency is 
subjected to budget cuts and forced attrition of personnel. Today, it 
has less than half the budget and half the staff it had in its 
inaugural year of 1973. As a result, the CPSC is no longer properly 
equipped to carry out its essential mission of monitoring the 
marketplace and enforcing product safety standards. Making matters even 
more difficult, the number of products under its jurisdiction has grown 
exponentially in size and complexity.
  The commission is responsible for the safety of more than 15,000 
products, including everything from infant cribs to computer 
components. Most of these products are safe. However, those that are 
not safe can be deadly. Each year, more than 28,000 Americans die and 
an additional 33 million are injured by

[[Page S1684]]

consumer products. To say these numbers are much too high is an 
understatement. We must have an effective CPSC, one with increased 
funding, staff, and authority, to reduce these losses.
  This bill addresses the weaknesses of our Nation's product safety 
system in several ways, but I would like to highlight some of the 
essential changes. S. 2663 puts the responsibilities of product safety 
squarely on the Government's shoulders. First, the act authorizes 
needed resources over a 7-year period to provide the agency the 
manpower and the technology it needs to police a complex global 
marketplace. The act would restore the CPSC to a full complement of 
five commissioners to maintain continuity and to avoid the losses of 
quorum that have plagued the agency in recent years.
  To help buttress the resources needed to monitor the market and keep 
consumers safe, the act would authorize State attorneys general to 
bring civil actions to seek injunctive relief for clear violations of 
statutes enforced by the CPSC. Creating a joint enforcement 
relationship with the States has proven to be successful in the area of 
consumer protection, and this collaboration would provide the CPSC a 
partner to protect American families in a meaningful way.
  S. 2663 also would require manufacturers to use independent labs to 
test children's products and to certify their compliance with mandatory 
safety standards, including the mandatory toy safety standard 
established in the act. This new toy standard would provide the CPSC 
and industry with a fast, flexible way to address emerging hazards. It 
will serve to protect children from dangers such as strangulation, 
intestinal perforation, or blockage hazards.
  While new authority and regulatory structure is needed for this 
agency, providing accurate and up-to-date information about product 
hazards to Americans would allow consumers to help themselves and make 
better decisions about the products they buy. In order to help 
consumers, S. 2663 would create a database of information from 
nonindustry sources, such as hospitals, childcare providers, public 
safety agencies, as well as consumer reports about product hazards 
collected by the CPSC itself. This database would provide consumers 
with potentially lifesaving information, in an organized fashion, which 
would better equip them to assess product safety risks and hazards.
  Finally, this legislation would allow the CPSC to share product 
information with governments around the world. Since our economy is 
global, faulty products do not just end up in our homes but in homes 
around the world. By reaching out to and coordinating with other 
countries, the ability of the CPSC to interdict and keep unsafe 
products off of store shelves would be improved.
  Mr. President, unfortunately, some Members in this Chamber believe 
that regardless of the dire picture supporters of this bill have 
painted as it relates to the lack of resources and existing 
authorities, last year's ``summer of recalls'' proves that the 
commission is working just fine.
  These members may cite statistics showing that in 2007, the agency 
announced 231 children's product recalls, of which 58 were toys. They 
will point out that last year set a record for the most toy recalls in 
a single year. However, anyone who understands the agency and the work 
that it does will know that in fact, this statistic is further evidence 
of the need to reform the CPSC.
  Specifically, the slow nature of the current recall process left more 
than 46 million recalled items in the stream of commerce, including 
millions of toys sitting on store shelves, waiting to be sold to 
unsuspecting parents. I think it is safe to say that in the opinion of 
parents, this is a system failure. Unfortunately, the prospects for 
2008 look much the same.
  The agency has already announced 40 voluntary toy recalls. At this 
pace, the number of recalls announced this year will surpass all 
records. However, these recalls are voluntary, not mandatory.
  Further, many of the recalls were not the result of a proactive 
agency; rather, they were the response of a reactive agency to an 
investigation conducted by members of the press. That is not how 
Government should work.
  S. 2663 reflects a good bipartisan compromise led by Senators Pryor 
and Stevens. Children are dying and suffering grievous injuries because 
of unsafe products. This bipartisan bill is a good step forward in our 
effort to keep harmful products off of store shelves.
  For America's families, and especially for America's children, I urge 
my colleagues to support this meaningful consumer safety legislation.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to support S. 2662, the 
Consumer Product Safety Commission Reform Act. The reforms that this 
bill makes to the Consumer Product Safety Commission are long overdue.
  S. 2663 takes important steps to shore up a weak and ineffective 
Consumer Products Safety Commission, CPSC. As a grandfather and 
consumer, I am appalled at the lack of resources and enforcement 
authority of the CPSC and its inability to adequately protect our 
children, our food supply, and the general public from harmful or 
contaminated products.
  We can and should be doing much more to protect the American 
consumer. As was recently underscored by the alarming number of 
children's products with high lead content, contaminated pet food, and 
defective imported tires, there are a lot of cracks in the systems that 
were supposed to be watching out for consumers.
  We need to know our children's and grandchildren's toys are safe. We 
need to know that the food we import is not tainted with harmful 
chemicals. We need to know the products we buy will not harm us or our 
children. I believe it is the Government's basic responsibility to 
protect the public.
  Those who work for the companies that make these products may often 
be in a position to detect and prevent serious problems or injuries 
before they occur. I am pleased that this bill includes important 
protections for corporate whistleblowers that will encourage employees 
to come forward about violations and defective products without the 
fear of retaliation by their employer.
  Many of the defective and contaminated products are imported. Even 
with its current limited resources and reach, CPSC recalled 
approximately 150 tainted products from China in 2007, including tires, 
toys, baby cribs, candles, bicycles, remote controls, hair dryers, and 
lamps. Imagine how many more contaminated or defective products are 
slipping through the cracks and reaching American consumers without 
being detected.
  We are being deluged by cheap imports from China and elsewhere. We 
should at least be making sure the products we import are not 
contaminated or dangerous. In this vein, last summer I wrote to 
President Bush requesting that his administration investigate dangerous 
products that have been imported from China. We need to strengthen our 
agencies and laws so that products that do not meet our health and 
safety standards are stopped at our borders. To do this we need to give 
the CPSC the necessary tools and resources, including more manpower to 
adequately inspect imports.
  Like most of my colleagues, I was shocked by CPSC Acting Chair Nancy 
Nord's claims that no additional funding was needed for her agency. To 
me this claim implied there was no desire by this administration to do 
more to protect American consumers. That is absurd given the recent and 
alarming incidents of contaminated products reaching consumers. The 
Senate's consideration of S. 2663 and the House passage of a similar 
bill is proof that Congress strongly disagrees with this point of view 
and will make the legislative changes needed to give the CPSC the 
necessary tools to improve on its past poor performance and reassure 
consumers that there will be more oversight of the marketplace in the 
future.
  This bill will increase overall funding for the CPSC by 50 percent 
over 7 years, increase CPSC staffing to at least 500 employees over the 
next 5 years, streamline product safety rulemaking procedures, ban lead 
in children's products and require certification and labeling, increase 
inspection of imported products so we are not allowing recalled or 
banned products to cross our borders, increase penalties for violating 
our product safety laws, strengthen and improve recall procedures, and 
ban the sale of recalled products.

[[Page S1685]]

  The legislation has the support of the following, among others: 
Thomas H. Moore, Consumer Product Safety Commissioner; Alliance for 
Patient Safety; American Academy of Pediatrics; American Association of 
Law Libraries; American Association of University Professors, AZ 
Conference; American Library Association; Circumpolar Conservation 
Union; Coalition for Civil Rights and Democratic Liberties; Consumers 
Union; Consumer Federation of America; Doctors for Open Government; 
DoorTech Industries, Inc;. Ethics in Government Group, EGG; Federation 
of American Scientists; Federal Employees Against Discrimination; Focus 
On Indiana; Fund for Constitutional Government; Georgians for Open 
Government; Government Accountability Project; HALT, Inc.--An 
Organization of Americans for Legal Reform; Health Integrity Project; 
Information Trust; Integrity International; Kids in Danger; Liberty 
Coalition; National Consumers League; National Association of State 
Fire Marshals; National Employment Lawyers Association; National 
Judicial Conduct and Disability Law Project, Inc.; National Research 
Center for Women & Families; National Whistleblower Center; No Fear 
Coalition; OMB Watch; OpenTheGovernment.org; Parentadvocates.org; 
Patrick Henry Center; Project on Government Oversight; Public Citizen; 
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility; Sustainable Energy 
and Economy Network; Taxpayers Against Fraud; the 3.5.7 Commission; the 
New Grady Coalition; the Semmelweis Society International, SSI; the 
Student Health Integrity Project, SHIP; Truckers Justice Center; Union 
of Concerned Scientists; U.S. Bill of Rights Foundation; U.S. Public 
Interest Research Group; and Whistleblowers USA.
  I support this bipartisan legislation and I hope that it will quickly 
become law.
  Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the bill to 
reform the Consumer Product Safety Commission, CPSC. Over the last 7 
years, the Bush administration has weakened the CPSC by cutting its 
budget and staff. In fact, the CPSC has hired just one full-time 
product tester since 2001. This led to fewer inspectors and more toxic 
toys and products on store shelves. This is unacceptable.
  The CPSC legislation that passed the Senate today provides much 
needed resources and enforcement powers to the CPSC so that more staff 
can be hired and oversight can be more vigorous. The CPSC legislation 
creates a consumer database for recalled products so that consumers can 
learn about potentially unsafe products without waiting for a public 
recall that can take months. Further, this bill would create new 
safeguards on lead in toys and other products and require mandatory 
independent testing of goods before they go to market.
  This bill also prohibits CPSC Commissioners and staff members from 
accepting trips paid for by industries and lobbyists with business 
before the Commission. Taken together, CPSC legislation will improve 
our product safety system and ensure that children's toys, household 
appliances, and other consumer products that contain lead will never 
reach consumers.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on my amendment to 
the Consumer Products Safety Commission, CPSC, bill that the full 
Senate is now debating. I applaud the steadfast efforts and leadership 
of Chairman Inouye, Ranking Member Stevens, and Senator Pryor in moving 
this critically vital bill to the Senate floor and to passage--and for 
including my amendment by unanimous consent as part of this bill.
  My amendment would perfect this bipartisan measure by ensuring that 
the CPSC fully considers potential small business impacts when it 
establishes through a rulemaking, as it is required to do under the 
bill, criteria for imposition of penalties. As ranking member of the 
Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, I have long 
worked to ensure that the Federal Government takes measures and 
precautions to protect the interests and viability of small businesses, 
while at the same time rigorously enforcing our Nation's consumer 
protection laws.
  Under the bill that we are now considering, the maximum civil 
penalties for violations would be increased from $8,000 to $250,000 for 
individual violations; and up to $20 million for aggregate violations. 
Within 1 year after enactment, the Commission would establish, through 
a Federal rulemaking, the criteria for imposition of civil penalties.
  Mr. President, my amendment would make clear that the Commission 
consider the size of a small business when establishing a penalty 
criteria through a rulemaking. My staff has discussed this issue with 
the Commission, which has raised an issue with Section 16(c)--``Civil 
Penalty Criteria''--of the bill. This section does not specifically 
reference the size of a small business as a criteria.
  The Commission's attorneys suggested that a minor change--adding the 
word ``additional''--would resolve ambiguity to ensure that the 
Commission considers the size of a small business--as it is required to 
do under section 20 of the Consumer Product Safety Act. This would help 
to ensure that this new penalty provision remains consistent in how the 
Commission factors in small business size in proportion to penalties.
  My amendment would also ensure that the Commission appropriately 
considers, during its rulemaking, ``how to mitigate undue adverse 
economic impacts on small businesses.'' I firmly believe that requiring 
the Commission to consider undue adverse economic impacts when 
establishing the new penalty criteria, would help to ensure that small 
businesses can remain viable while at the same time increasing 
penalties for violations under the act--a win-win.
  In closing, my amendment would help to ensure the continued viability 
and competitiveness of our Nation's small businesses--while protecting 
the strong regulatory enforcement included in this bill.
  Mr. President, I request unanimous consent that the text of my 
remarks be included in the Congressional Record.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I am proud to be a cosponsor of S. 2663, 
the CPSC Reform Act, and I would like to thank Chairman Inouye and Vice 
Chairman Stevens for their leadership on this important and 
groundbreaking bill. I also want to thank Senator Pryor for his 
extraordinary work in crafting this outstanding bill which has strong 
bipartisan support.
  The CPSC Reform Act will provide the Consumer Product Safety 
Commission with the authority and resources it needs to be more 
effective in its critical mission to protect consumers. Quite frankly, 
the current product safety system is broken, and the CPSC is in 
desperate need of reform. Too many unsafe goods are reaching the shores 
of the United States. Too many dangerous products are finding their way 
into the hands of American consumers, and all too often, young 
children.
  It seems that over the past year, nearly every week we have had to 
frantically pull Chinese and other imported goods off store shelves as 
we learn of each new tainted product. The bottom line is that our 
safeguards are failing and we need to act fast to fix them. We worry 
about our kids when they are in class, when they are walking or driving 
home alone, even when they surfing the Internet. We should not have to 
worry that the toys they play with might be hazardous to their health 
or even fatal. From children's costume jewelry to toy trains, these 
recalls call in to question our ability to keep dangerous toys out of 
the hands of our kids.
  For years, CPSC has been starved of funding and plagued by budget and 
personnel cuts. As a result, the effectiveness of the CPSC has been 
severely undermined and the agency, despite its efforts, has been 
unable to keep up with globalization of the marketplace. This bill will 
reverse those trends and give the CPSC the budget and the tools it 
desperately needs to again become an effective force for consumer 
protection. These important tools include $40 million to upgrade CPSC's 
laboratories and 50 additional personnel to inspect goods at U.S. ports 
and overseas product facilities. The bill will also give consumers 
better access to vital safety information by creating a searchable 
database that has information including reports of injuries, illness, 
and death related to the use of consumer products.

[[Page S1686]]

  It is essential that we take strong steps to protect all consumers, 
but especially our children. This bipartisan bill takes a tough 
approach to cracking down tainted products and seeks to restore 
America's faith in the mechanisms we have in place to safeguard our 
kids against these dangerous products. First, the bill prohibits 
importing untested children's products. Second, it also requires 
tracking labels for children's products that will help parents tie 
safety recalls and alerts to their prior purchases. Third, the bill 
prohibits the sale of recalled products so that as parents and 
consumers, we don't continue to see these hazardous products on the 
shelves. Finally, this legislation bans all children's products 
containing lead.
  The CPSC must do a better job of getting hazardous products off the 
shelves and out of consumers' reach, and these provisions will give the 
CPSC the tools to do just that. It is essential that manufacturers, 
importers, and retailers do their part to ensure product safety and 
keep tainted products out the market. This bill seeks to hold companies 
accountable by increasing criminal and civil penalties for those who 
knowingly and willingly violate product safety laws. It also gives 
State attorneys general the power to crack down on companies by 
enforcing Federal safety standards and provides them with the authority 
to get dangerous products off the shelf. Furthermore, the bill gives 
protection to whistleblowers so that employees who identify dangerous 
products along the supply chain can come forward with vital health and 
safety information without fear of reprisal.
  As you can see, these are important commonsense solutions that will 
keep consumers informed and safe from dangerous products. Passage of 
this bill is vital if we hope to rebuild, reform, and revitalize the 
CPSC and restore America's faith in the agency's ability to protect 
consumers and their children from unsafe products. I urge my colleagues 
to support this critical legislation that restores the CPSC and gives 
it the much needed authority to put an end to the alarming trend in 
tainted products faced by this country in recent months.


                             proposition 65

  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, over 20 years ago, the people of 
California enacted a landmark ballot measure known as proposition 65. 
Proposition 65 prohibits exposures to chemicals like lead that are 
known to cause cancer or reproductive harm without a clear and 
reasonable warning. Proposition 65 enforcement actions by the State and 
by private attorney generals have played a crucial role in reducing 
childhood exposure to harmful chemicals, such as lead. For example, the 
California attorney general recently brought a proposition 65 case 
arising from unsafe levels of lead in children's toys. It is my 
understanding that nothing in this bill is intended to preempt or 
otherwise diminish the protections of proposition 65. I would like to 
ask the distinguished Senator from Arkansas and lead author of this 
legislation: is my understanding correct?
  Mr. PRYOR. Yes, it is. Compliance with proposition 65's warning 
requirements would only complement the CPSC Reform Act.
  Mrs. BOXER. Is it the intent of this bill or the rules promulgated 
there under by the Consumer Product Safety Commission to preempt 
proposition 65?
  Mr. PRYOR. No. First, the CPSC Reform Act bans lead in children's 
products beyond trace amounts. Under section 22, any children's product 
that contains lead ``shall be treated as a banned hazardous substance 
under the Federal Hazardous Substances Act.'' While the Commission is 
directed to examine whether it is possible to lower the trace levels 
permitted under the bill, no action is required with respect to 
labeling requirements that might inadvertently trigger a preemption of 
proposition 65. It is the intent of the CPSC Reform Act to get rid of 
lead from children's products, not to inadvertently preempt a consumer-
friendly and valuable law such as proposition 65.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. PRYOR. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Kerry be added as a 
cosponsor to the Feinstein amendment No. 4104.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. PRYOR. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Klobuchar). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I rise to support the legislation we 
are debating. I congratulate the distinguished Senator from Arkansas 
who has led this effort and has done so with such aplomb on a bill that 
will, I hope, pass on a strong bipartisan vote later today because it 
is a bill America needs. Americans don't need to be convinced that we 
need stronger protections to keep dangerous products from entering our 
homes.
  Abigail Hartung, a 13-month old girl from New Jersey whose crib 
collapsed on her one night, doesn't need to be convinced. Her parents 
who awoke to the terrifying sound of a child in screaming pain do not 
need to be convinced either.
  I know even many of my colleagues who do not like Government 
intervention on the other side of the aisle do not need to be convinced 
the meager measures we have in place to protect consumers from 
hazardous products are not enough.
  That is why I rise today in strong support of the Consumer Product 
Safety Commission Reform Act. It is long past time for us to act.
  Madam President, 2007 was a disastrous year for product safety. There 
was a record number of safety recalls. Over 400 different products had 
to be pulled, and more than half--more than half--of those 400 products 
were for children. That adds up to an astonishing number of dangerous 
items--almost 46 million items.
  Now, we saw toxic toys shipped in from China laced with lead paint 
that could cause permanent neurological damage or death. We saw car 
seats dump out the kids who sat in them. We saw beads that contained a 
chemical that could put children into a coma if swallowed.
  Too often, the recalls were too late. Last year, recalled products 
killed 6 children, they injured 657 more, and they destroyed the 
confidence of the entire Nation.
  So the question is, can they trust the Consumer Product Safety 
Commission as it exists today? I think the answer to that is no.
  Issues of product safety are not going away by themselves. In 
January, there was a recall of toys with magnets that could cause fatal 
intestinal blockages if swallowed. Last month, we had a scare about 
children's sketchbooks coated with potentially fatal--fatal--levels of 
lead paint.
  When dangerous products keep getting introduced, when 46 million 
items so unsafe that they have to be recalled are allowed to reach 
consumers' hands in 1 year, we have to believe those are not 46 million 
coincidences. We have to think there is at least one Government 
watchdog agency that is falling far short of what it needs to be. That 
agency is the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
  Now, sadly, the Consumer Product Safety Commission is nothing more 
than a hollow shell at this point. We talked about those 46 million 
unsafe products recalled last year. If you had a robust commission, as 
the bill will provide for, with all of the pertinent powers and 
resources, then we should not see that reality.
  Years of budget and personnel cuts have left it badly equipped for 
the job we are counting on it to do. Poor leadership and unethical 
behavior have undermined what little power and authority the Commission 
has.
  No watchdog can effectively regulate if they cozy up to the industry 
they are supposed to be regulating. That is why I am proud the Senate 
agreed to the amendment the Presiding Officer, Senator Klobuchar, and I 
offered to prohibit members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission 
from accepting travel paid for the industries they regulate.
  It seemed to us--and I am so glad an overwhelming vote of the Senate 
said the same--how is it that you can accept such travel paid for by 
the very

[[Page S1687]]

entities you seek to regulate, who, in that travel, ultimately are 
trying to influence you so that those regulations are not as 
prescriptive and as onerous as they need to be in pursuit of the 
interests of consumers?
  It was a great first step. Now we have to finish the job.
  It is time to reform the Consumer Product Safety Commission so it can 
strongly enforce safety standards, prevent deadly imports from entering 
our Nation's borders, and restore confidence to parents that it is OK 
to do something as simple as give a toy to their child.
  Again, let me thank my distinguished colleague, Senator Pryor, for 
his tremendous leadership on this issue. And right by his side has been 
Chairman Inouye and Ranking Member Stevens, along with Senator Collins, 
and many Senators from both sides of the aisle.
  The effort to keep consumers safe should be a truly bipartisan 
effort. I am confident the bill we have before us is going to win some 
very broad-based support.
  Here is what the bill finally does.
  First, it gives the Consumer Product Safety Commission the resources 
it needs to do its job, boosting its budget, and expanding its staff.
  Second, when it has the staff and resources it needs, the Commission 
is going to have a greater presence at our Nation's ports. For the 
Senator from New Jersey, which has the Port of Elizabeth in Newark, the 
megaport of the east coast that sees the incredible amount, the 
billions of tons that come through from all over the world, I 
understand very clearly how this element is so critically important--to 
stop deadly imports from coming in and enforce a comprehensive ban of 
lead in children's products.
  Children's products will have to be independently tested and verified 
to be safe. Toys will have tracking labels, so if there is a problem, 
we will know who is responsible.
  The bill gets tough on violators. Not only does it ban the sale of 
recalled products, it makes sure companies face the possibility of real 
financial consequences if they break the law, so they don't simply see 
the fines for hawking dangerous products to our families as another 
cost of doing business.

  Right now, I am sure there are those companies that say: Well, that 
is fine. I will just bring this in because I am going to make more than 
the consequence of a fine. That is fundamentally wrong.
  The bill protects employees who report violations of safety standards 
so people will not be afraid to come forward with information that 
could save lives.
  Not only will employees be better able to speak out, consumers will 
be better able to speak out and listen to each other. For the first 
time, the bill would create an online product safety database, so we do 
not have to wait until tragedy strikes close to home to hear about 
safety concerns other consumers have already discovered.
  So if I know about that crib, and I go on line, and I put it on, and 
now another family looks and says: Let me figure this out, let me find 
out if this is the type of product that has any problems, and they see 
that information, it is a warning and preventive measure that is 
powerful because information is powerful. This bill will give that 
information to consumers in our country.
  Those are just a few of the specifics. But the bottom line is, this 
bill is about keeping our children safe and bringing us all a little 
peace of mind.
  When a parent puts a toy in the hands of a child, it is a beautiful 
moment--a moment we should never allow to be undermined by fear. If we 
take action today, if we sign this pledge, to look out for American 
families as conscientiously as we should, then we will be helping to 
see to it that nothing takes the joy of that moment away.
  So I urge strong support of the measure.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado is recognized.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Madam President, I come to the floor this afternoon to 
first speak to my support for the Consumer Product Safety Commission 
bill which is before us. I want to also honor my colleague from 
Arkansas, who has led these efforts on behalf of the Commerce Committee 
in the Senate. He understands from his background as the attorney 
general for the State of Arkansas that it is important to protect 
consumers.
  Attorneys general are known across the country for their role in 
serving as protectors of the people. This legislation is in fact a 
``protector of the people'' because what it will do is it will allow us 
to deal with those unsafe products that are finding their way into the 
homes of Americans, into the hands of children, and into the hands of 
all Americans in a way sometimes today which is unsafe.
  There are many stories that have been untold about young people who 
have been victimized by a lack of oversight with respect to all these 
imports that are coming in at levels we have never seen before, from 
places such as China and other places around the world, which are 
causing significant damage to young people.
  Last year alone, 27,000 Americans died because of some illness that 
was related to an unsafe product. That is 27,000 Americans who lost 
their lives. Yet when we look at CPSC today, the Commission which is in 
charge of enforcing consumer protection standards and measures to 
protect Americans, there is one inspector on the job to get this all 
done on behalf of 300 million Americans.
  I think that is woefully inadequate. It is an inadequacy which this 
Senate and this Congress has a responsibility to address.
  In my own home State of Colorado, there was a young man by the name 
of Tegan Leisy. Tegan is only 4 years old. But because of a defective 
toy that was brought into his household, he ended up going to the 
doctor with a pain in his stomach. Three days later, it was discovered 
there were six magnets that had come off this toy which had got into 
his intestines and had created a problem, which required his intestines 
to be torn apart in order for the young man to undergo the operation.
  So we need to make sure we have the right consumer protection 
standards. We need to make sure we have the ability to enforce those 
standards. The CPSC legislation which is before us will allow us to do 
that. So I strongly urge my colleagues to vote in support of this 
legislation when, hopefully, we get to it in the next several minutes. 
It is important for us as Americans. It is imperative for us to make 
sure we are protecting the consumers of our country.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 
minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Housing Crisis

  Mr. SALAZAR. Madam President, I come to the floor today to address 
the issue of our economy and the need for us in Washington, DC, to 
understand the pain that Americans are feeling across the board, 
especially when it comes to the issue of housing.
  Last week, Majority Leader Reid brought to the Senate floor the 2008 
Foreclosure Prevention Act, which was filibustered on this floor. It 
should not have been because the pain that people are feeling across 
America with respect to this housing crisis is a pain that goes across 
all of America. It is not a Democrat or a Republican or an Independent 
issue. The housing crisis is a problem which is creating pain for a lot 
of people in our country.
  I want to demonstrate how, in my view, this is an issue that ought to 
continue to be at the top of the totem poll for us to consider in the 
Senate and for the Congress to act upon and for the President and the 
executive branch to show leadership in addressing this problem.
  This is a chart I have in the Chamber which we have brought to the 
Senate floor on other occasions, which indicates what Moody's sees as 
the possible future outcome with respect to what is happening with this 
unprecedented housing downturn. This unprecedented housing downturn is 
the worst the United States of America has seen since the Great 
Depression.
  We look at the first graph on this chart, which shows that housing 
prices are expected to decline by almost 16 percent. That amount of 
decline is not just related to those homes that are going into 
foreclosure. They are related to homes in neighborhoods where

[[Page S1688]]

we are seeing this foreclosure crisis spread across the country. It is 
kind of like a disease; it hits one home, and all of a sudden it 
creates a major downturn in terms of the value of homes throughout that 
neighborhood, throughout that block, and throughout those communities.
  Now, when we talk about this as being a foreclosure issue, it is an 
issue that creates pain for those families who are being forced out of 
their homes because they cannot afford to make mortgage payments, but 
it is a pain that spreads to all of American households, as we see this 
huge decline in American values.
  Another figure, another metric that demonstrates the extent of this 
problem: When you look at housing starts, housing starts are projected 
to go down, with a 60-percent decline in housing starts, with no end in 
sight. The economists cannot even predict how far down we will go in 
housing starts before we hit the trough of this problem.
  When you compare that to other housing crises which we have had in 
the past--in the 1980s and the 1990s and last year--we are looking at a 
problem which is much more extensive, much more prolonged, much deeper 
than we ever had. So that, from my point of view, at the national 
level, shows we ought to be doing a lot more to address this issue.
  Today, in some of the television and newspaper reports we are seeing 
around the country--we have one out of CNN where they are reporting 
that foreclosures have hit an all-time high. The report says over 
900,000 households are now in foreclosure, which is up 71 percent from 
a year ago, according to this news article. There are 900,000 
households in foreclosure, up 71 percent from a year ago.

  According to this, it also says that it represents over 2 percent of 
all mortgages. That is a higher rate of mortgages in foreclosure than 
at any time in the 36-year history of the reports provided by the 
Mortgage Bankers Association. There is no end in sight to the problem 
we are seeing. These problems we are seeing with respect to 
foreclosures hitting an all-time high are especially acute in States 
such as the States of Florida and California, Nevada, Arizona, Ohio, 
and Michigan.
  In addition to what is happening with these high levels of 
foreclosures is that we also know we have these declining home values, 
and we end up seeing a tremendous slip in the amount of home equity 
people have in their homes. According to the Federal Reserve, 
homeowners' debt on their houses exceeds their equity for the first 
time since 1945. For the first time since 1945, homeowners' debt on 
their houses exceeds their equity.
  Now, in my State of Colorado, when I try to bring this back home to 
the 5 million people whom I represent in the Senate every day, I see 
the same problem we are seeing all across the country. Between this 
time in 2008 and next year, 2009, there is a projection from the Center 
for Responsible Lending that we will see almost 50,000 homes in 
foreclosure. That is 49,923 homes in foreclosure in the State of 
Colorado.
  As I have said before, it is not just the pain that is felt by people 
who are losing their homes through foreclosure; it also is the 
spillover effect that occurs when you have massive foreclosures taking 
place in my State. The spillover effect means that surrounding home 
values will decline in 748,000 homes. Almost half the homes in the 
State of Colorado are going to see a significant decline in their 
value, because we are going to have about 50,000 homes that are going 
to go into foreclosure in the years 2007 and 2008. As my colleagues 
see, when you have that kind of decline in individual home values and 
you aggregate those home values, there is a huge decline in the 
aggregate equity people will have in their homes throughout my State of 
Colorado--some $3.2 billion.
  Those are the facts. Those are the facts. There ought to be a wake-up 
call, it seems to me, not only to the White House but also to the 
Congress, that we need to move forward with legislation that addresses 
this issue.
  Senator Reid came to the floor of the Senate a week, 10 days, ago and 
set forth the components of the Mortgage Foreclosure Prevention Act, 
and it was based on the input he had from the chairs of many 
committees, including Senator Leahy and Senator Baucus and others who 
have jurisdiction over these issues. I think he put his finger on the 
right button. He put his finger on the button that is of great concern 
to the people of America, and that is what is happening with the 
housing crisis today.
  I am hopeful as we move forward to do our work in the Senate, as we 
are doing it so well today on consumer protection, we are then able 
soon to pivot back to addressing the housing crisis we face here in 
America today.
  Madam President, I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to speak 
for 5 minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. Domenici pertaining to the introduction of S. 
2730 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced 
bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida is recognized.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, it has come to my attention 
that the Senator from Minnesota who sits in the chair right now was 
very kind in her comments a few minutes ago about one of the additions 
to this overall consumer products bill that this Senator had a little 
hand in. We are going to add another, because it is my understanding 
that we now have it accepted on both sides--it is in the managers' 
package--another major component of the bill to address the fact--and 
this is surprising. Last year, we had the largest crib recall in 
history--almost 1 million baby cribs--because three infant deaths were 
noted in the recall announcement. After the announcement, even more 
came to light.
  Most of us would be shocked to learn that most of the safety 
guidelines for durable infant and toddler products are not set by the 
Consumer Product Safety Commission, but they are only voluntary 
standards that are set by manufacturers making the products. So, for 
example, full-sized cribs, half-sized cribs, rattles, and bottles are 
the only infant and toddler products that have required safety 
standards.
  Well, it is time to change that. Happily, we are going to change that 
right here with this bill. Through the kind of comments made by the 
Presiding Officer, and thanks to the chairman of our subcommittee, the 
Senator from Arkansas, it has been included in the managers' package. 
What it requires is that all infant and toddler durable products be 
tested and certified according to mandatory safety standards before 
they are put out on the market.
  I thank Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine. She has come on as a 
cosponsor of this amendment. The minute she saw this, she said: I want 
to be a part of that. Because infant and durable products subject to 
this requirement include such a wide array of products such as cribs, 
toddler beds, high chairs, booster chairs, hook-on chairs, bath seats, 
gates, play yards, stationary activity centers, child carriers, 
strollers, walkers, swings, bassinets, cradles--all things that when we 
buy them, we assume they have been checked for safety. Yet it has been 
up to the manufacturers to check for the safety.
  What we are going to do in this bill when it becomes law, it is going 
to be as a result of safety guidelines that they are going to have to 
conform to independent testing. Standards would be established through 
a consensus process involving the Consumer Product Safety Commission, 
consumer groups, juvenile product manufacturers, and experts in the 
field. The standards will be promulgated on a rolling basis, with no 
less than two sets of durable product rules per year. This timeframe 
would allow for input by all of the interested parties.
  It is time to put a stop to these senseless deaths from unsafe 
products such as unsafe cribs. I am very grateful

[[Page S1689]]

that the managers of this legislation have now included this as a part 
of the bill.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I know we are in the midst of 
considering the Consumer Product Safety Commission Reauthorization Act. 
I thank Senator Pryor, Senator Collins, Senator Stevens, Senator 
Inouye, and so many others for their efforts to bring us to this point. 
We hope to pass it very soon this afternoon. We are waiting for a 
little paperwork to be finished.
  I am going to use this opportunity to speak as in morning business, 
and I ask unanimous consent to do so.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Peace In Sudan

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I rise at this moment to discuss a 
resolution that the Senate enacted last night by unanimous consent 
relating to the situation in Darfur. Darfur is a region of Sudan that 
has been in the newspaper for years because of the genocide that has 
been sadly unfolding in that part of the world.
  I introduced this resolution because I think we have reached a 
critical point where we must act to stop this genocide in Sudan. I am 
proud that 40 Senators from both sides agree it is time to say ``no 
more.''
  For more than 4 years, the world has watched this humanitarian crisis 
unfold--thousands have been murdered, tortured, raped, and displaced. 
Thousands more are languishing in refugee camps.
  Leaders from around the world--including President Bush, Prime 
Minister Gordon Brown, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, former U.N. 
Secretary General Kofi Annan, former President Jimmy Carter, Bangladesh 
microfinance champion Muhammed Yunus, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu--have 
all called for an end to this violence.
  Here at home--and it has been gratifying as I traveled around my 
State to find this--thousands of people, including many high school and 
college students, are well aware of this genocide. Church leaders and 
other activists have helped raise awareness of the horrible human 
suffering that has occurred in Darfur. Senators on both sides of the 
aisle have spoken out passionately about this crisis.
  Last year, the U.N. Security Council voted to deploy a historic 
peacekeeping mission to Darfur, but that was last year. Under 
significant international pressure, the Sudanese Government agreed at 
that time to the deployment. The 26,000-member U.N. African Union 
peacekeeping force is to be deployed to Darfur to halt the violence and 
create conditions for peace and a long-term political settlement.
  There was speculation about whether we can get the peacekeeping force 
in place before the end of last year. Sadly, despite all of the 
promises of last year, the Sudanese Government has done everything they 
can to stop the deployment of the peacekeeping force. It has brazenly 
obstructed this full deployment. I will give you an example: Sudan's 
leaders balked at the deployment of non-African forces. Last month, 
government forces in Sudan actually fired upon a peacekeeping convoy.
  In recent months, the regime has even appointed notorious figures who 
were knowingly complicit in this genocide in Darfur--including two 
accused of war crimes--to senior government positions. It is almost a 
brazen defiance to the rest of the world that Sudan, on one hand, would 
agree to a peacekeeping force, and on the other hand, shoot at those 
who come and try to bring peace to their country, and then exalt to the 
highest levels some of the worst characters in their country.
  Many of you have seen the article on the front page of last Sunday's 
New York Times about the latest devastating violence in Sudan. This 
isn't yesterday's genocide or yesterday's moral challenge; this 
challenge goes on today. The article in the New York Times highlighted 
how the Sudanese Government continues to defy the international 
community and murder its own people.
  I am going to show you an aerial photograph that appeared in the New 
York Times, which shows the torched Sudanese village of Suleia. 
Government forces and allied militias burned the village only a few 
weeks ago. As you can see, there is nothing left. I don't know if a 
long view of this, for those observing it, will do it justice. But 
those who have flown over the area say it looks like cigarette burns 
across the landscape. Each of these so-called cigarette burns reflects 
a fire that was lit to a small thatch hut where people were living, 
people who were forced out, some who were captured, tortured, 
mutilated, and raped, and some who were taken away. Many had to run 
away, leaving behind this blighted landscape as a stark reminder that 
despite all of the speeches and resolutions and all of the 
determination, genocide in Darfur continues, sadly, to this day.

  Witnesses said militiamen in that town laid waste to the town, 
burning huts, pillaging shops, carrying off any loot they could find, 
and shooting anyone who stood in their way--men, women, or children.
  The attack included aerial bombing and Sudanese Government army 
ground forces. That the Sudanese Government has returned to these 
brutal coordinated attacks shows its utter contempt for the 
international community and its own people.
  Rich Williamson is an attorney in Chicago who has served in a 
capacity with the Department of State in previous years and now has 
taken the place of Andrew Natzios as a special envoy to deal with this 
situation in Darfur. We certainly have different political views, but 
when he came to visit my office, we found that we are of the same mind 
about this particular crisis and the need for an urgent response to the 
Sudanese Government. We cannot allow Darfur to slide back into the 
horrible situation that we know took place over the last several years.
  While much of the world's attention has been on Darfur, the 
comprehensive peace agreement between north and south Sudan has also 
become increasingly at risk. This agreement, signed in 2005 with the 
strong support of the United States, brought an end to two decades of 
civil war between north and south Sudan that had left 2 million dead. 
Yet the government in Khartoum appears to be backing away from its 
commitment to this agreement and instead preparing once again for war.
  Remember what fuels this war: Oil fuels this war--oil sold by the 
Sudanese to the Chinese, to the Indians, and to a handful of other 
nationalized oil companies. It is the profit of those sales that is 
fueling this war that is killing so many innocent people.
  We cannot allow the agreement to bring peace in Sudan to be 
undermined, and we cannot ignore what is happening again in Darfur. It 
is time to bring an end to this violence and time to set conditions for 
a long-term peace. I salute Senator Biden for leading a resolution last 
month calling on the President to immediately address any equipment 
shortcomings with the peacekeeping force. I completely agree with 
Senator Biden. The White House must not allow a modest shortage of 
equipment to prolong the suffering in Darfur.
  Last night, the Senate passed my resolution, with the support of 40 
Senators from both sides of the aisle, to call for an immediate halt to 
this violence and a commitment from both sides to participate in a new 
round of peace talks.
  The resolution also calls upon the Government of Sudan to facilitate 
the immediate and unfettered deployment of the U.N.-African Union 
peacekeeping force, including any and all non-African peacekeepers. 
Sudan and Khartoum gave their agreement last year. They must be held to 
their promise. It calls upon the diverse rebel movements to set aside 
their difference and start to work together in order to better 
represent the people of Darfur. It condemns any action by any party--
government or rebel--that undermines or delays the peace process. It 
calls upon the Government of Sudan to enable humanitarian organizations 
to have full unfettered access to populations in need, and it calls 
upon all parties to

[[Page S1690]]

the comprehensive peace agreement between north and south Sudan to 
support and respect all terms of the agreement.
  We have allowed the genocide in Darfur to continue for too long. We 
have allowed a brutal regime to repeatedly obstruct and ignore the 
international community. It is time, once and for all, to bring an end 
to this violence in Sudan.
  It was my high honor to serve as the successor to Paul Simon, from 
Illinois, who served in this body for 12 years. He was my closest 
friend in politics and my mentor, and he helped me along to win this 
Senate seat and to represent this great State. Paul Simon was at a 
critical place at that moment in history. He was chairman of the 
African Subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee when the 
genocide in Rwanda broke out. His ranking Republican member was Jim 
Jeffords of Vermont. The two of them, when they noted what was 
happening in Rwanda, decided to step up and try to persuade the Clinton 
administration to send even a small peacekeeping force in to stop the 
killing in Rwanda. They reached out directly to the President, as well 
as the Secretary of State and other officials in the Clinton 
administration, with no results. The net impact, of course, was we did 
nothing and 800,000 people died.

  I was in Rwanda a year or two ago with Senator Brownback. We stayed 
at the hotel made famous by the movie ``Hotel Rwanda.'' Don Cheadle 
played the actor's role of the hero, the manager who stepped up and 
saved so many innocent lives by making his hotel a refuge. We stayed in 
that same hotel. I was haunted walking through the hallways and 
corridors of that almost-empty hotel. I think of the thousands of 
people who wondered if they were going to be attacked or killed as they 
waited there, hoping the genocide would end.
  At the end of the day, after weeks of bloodshed, over 800,000 people 
were murdered in the streets of Rwanda--innocent people murdered simply 
because of their tribal affiliation.
  President Clinton did many good things, and he now reflects on his 
service and said this is one thing he did not do well; he could have 
done better. He has returned to Africa and visited Rwanda and has said 
as much. I think it is courageous of him to make that admission and to 
realize a little effort could have made a difference.
  How many speeches have we heard in this Chamber and in this town 
about Darfur, over and over again. Yet the simple reality is, despite 
all the speeches by the President, by Senators, by Members of Congress, 
little or nothing has been done. This genocide has unfolded on our 
watch. When we are critical of previous generations for not doing 
enough during the Nazi Holocaust or during some of the other horrendous 
events that occurred around the world--certainly the Rwanda genocide--
we say: How could they have been blind to the reality of what is 
happening here?
  We still cannot be blinded to the reality of what is happening in 
Darfur, and each of us, either by our church groups or schools or 
Members of Congress making a statement on the floor or calling in the 
appropriate ambassadors or calling in the U.N. General Secretary, have 
to urge them to take action now to bring an end to this genocide.
  I wish to make certain this Senate is on record, and I thank all 
those who helped last night to pass this resolution, but it is not 
enough, and it will not be enough until we make significant strides to 
end this bloodshed in Darfur.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, in response to the widely publicized 
product recalls of last year, the Congress appropriated $80 million for 
fiscal year 2008 to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which was 
an increase of 28 percent. The CPSC was instructed to use the 
additional money to increase staff, workspace, and information 
technology resources. In December, the House of Representatives passed 
the Consumer Product Safety Modernization Act, H.R. 4040, by an 
overwhelming vote of 407 to 0. It seems like that would have been a 
reasonable place to start. In fact, during this debate, a number of us 
voted in favor of Senator DeMint's amendment to completely substitute 
the bill we are now considering with the House-passed bill. H.R. 4040 
incrementally increases CPSC's budget to $100 million for fiscal year 
2011, requires third-party and pre-market testing of many children's 
product for lead and other hazards, and creates new lead standards for 
products.
  However, instead of focusing on product safety, we are now focusing 
on legislation seeming to simply benefit lawyers. Lawyers who, under 
this legislation, would have higher civil penalties and new punitive 
damages to pursue in whistleblower claims.
  The bill also allows State attorneys general to file lawsuits and 
enforce rules against manufacturers, conceivably creating 50 different 
standards of product safety laws; in other words, lawsuits as far as 
the eye can see. In fact, this week, a Wall Street Journal editorial 
referred to the Senate bill as ``Lawyers 'R' Us.''
  We have tried to amend this bill and improve the problematic aspects 
of it, and have achieved very few positive changes. I will miss the 
vote on final passage. However, since I would be opposing it anyway, it 
would make no difference in the outcome.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas is recognized.
  Mr. PRYOR. Madam President, once again, I hope I have good news. I am 
hoping the next time I address the Senate on this microphone that we 
will be asking unanimous consent for votes or a vote, maybe in this 
case, on final passage.
  I again alert Hill staff and Senators that we are very close. I thank 
all my colleagues. I could go through a long list. While I have just a 
moment while they are literally wrapping up the final i's and t's on 
this document, I thank Senator Stevens for his great leadership in 
helping shepherd this bill through; Senator Inouye, of course, for his 
leadership and what he brings to the table and how he runs his 
committee is fantastic; Senator Collins--I mentioned her yesterday--
came in at a critical time and made the bill better; Senator Bill 
Nelson of Florida who spoke a few moments ago--Senator Bill Nelson in 
some ways started this whole process. He filed a bill over the summer--
June, July, September, I am not quite sure. He filed a bill about 
third-party testing for toys. We had already been working on a bill. He 
went ahead and put his bill out there publicly and spurred a lot of 
interest. And Senator Klobuchar, who is presiding right now, has been 
working on this bill every step of the way. Senator Durbin, of course, 
has made a lot of improvements. Senator Schumer has played a vital role 
in trying to get this bill shaped and ready to go.
  I again thank all my colleagues for their hard work. There are too 
many to go through right now because almost all 100 Senators had some 
role in this bill and have helped in some way or another. I wished to 
acknowledge them and hopefully the next time I stand up here, we will 
be propounding a unanimous consent request on votes.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington is recognized.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I understand we are working toward 
final passage on the bill. I congratulate the Senator from Arkansas for 
the tremendous job he has done on this legislation. While everybody is 
putting together the last of this bill, I ask unanimous consent to 
speak as in morning business for 8 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                    Outsourcing Aerospace Technology

  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I have come to the floor this afternoon 
because we have to wake up the country. We are at risk of losing a 
major part of our aerospace industry to the Europeans forever.
  I am outraged the Pentagon is not only going to stand by and let it 
happen, but it is the Pentagon itself that made the decision in the 
first place. I am referring, of course, to the Air Force's decision 
last Friday to award one of the largest military contracts in history 
to the French company Airbus over the American company Boeing. With 
this $40 billion contract, our Air Force is beginning the process of 
rebuilding our aerial refueling tanker

[[Page S1691]]

fleet, and the planes we are purchasing are going to be used for the 
next 30 years or more.
  As we learn more about this decision, I have to say I grow more and 
more astounded at the shortsightedness. As I speak today, Airbus does 
not actually supply this military capacity to any government. The 
tanker that the administration wants Airbus to build is unproven. In 
fact, in my home State of Washington, the machinists call it a paper 
airplane because it only exists on paper. Right now, the company that 
supplies those real planes is Boeing, and it has built them for almost 
50 years. Up until now, we have in this country controlled our own 
military refueling capabilities, but with this decision we are now 
handing Airbus that control.
  What makes this so disturbing is we are now outsourcing those jobs to 
a company that has spent years blatantly working to dismantle our 
American aerospace companies. Airbus is controlled by foreign 
governments which follow the social welfare model. Those countries 
subsidize Airbus, allowing it to sell planes at discounted rates, as 
long as it creates jobs for European workers.
  Our Government is concerned enough about that practice that we have a 
WTO case pending at the EU, but apparently that does not matter to the 
administration, because by giving Airbus this contract, we are laying 
out the welcome mat to walk all over our military production 
capability. What is the incentive to buy an American tanker if they can 
get an import at fire-sale prices? With this contract, we are allowing 
Airbus to take over our military technology, and we are actually paying 
them to do it.
  Airbus has now launched a very slick marketing campaign to try to 
convince us in Congress and the public that this decision will actually 
be good for the United States. I spoke on the floor at length yesterday 
about Airbus's long history of exaggerating the number of jobs it has 
produced, and it is very interesting that while Airbus has put its 
supporters on radio and TV over here--and you have heard them--to talk 
about how excited they are about the number of U.S. jobs this deal is 
going to create, the news in Europe is about 180 degrees different. 
Reuters ran an article, the dateline out of Paris yesterday, reporting 
that Airbus's parent company, EADS, was scrambling over there to 
clarify that no jobs would be relocated from Europe to the United 
States. And a British publication earlier this week reported that 
almost all of the construction work will be done in Europe and then 
Airbus will fly that plane to the United States for ``finishing.''
  If Boeing had won the contract, it would have created 44,000 real 
United States jobs. By awarding this contract to Airbus, the U.S. 
Government is leading those jobs to the guillotine.
  The most frustrating part about all of this is the Air Force has 
insisted on defending their decision. Yesterday, according to the 
Associated Press and other news outlets, one official testified in the 
House that the Pentagon did not have to consider the location of 
assembly and manufacturing facilities for those planes; all it needed 
was a promise by Airbus that it would team with Northrop Grumman and 
U.S. suppliers. In other words, the Air Force did not consider at all 
Airbus's record of playing unfair on trade. It did not consider at all 
the number of jobs we will certainly lose because of this contract. And 
it did not consider at all what this would mean for our ability to 
produce our own military technology.
  When we are at war across the globe, we should at least consider what 
it means to give a company owned by a foreign government control over 
our military technology, and I think we should do it before we finalize 
this deal.
  Airbus and EADS have already given us plenty of reason to worry about 
how hard they will work to protect our security interests. Let me give 
a couple of examples. Back in 2005, EADS, the parent company of Airbus, 
was caught trying to sell military helicopters to Iran. And in 2006, 
EADS tried to sell transport and patrol planes to Venezuela. That is a 
circumvention of U.S. law.
  Suppose in the future that Europe and the United States have a major 
disagreement over foreign policy. Do we want France or any other 
country to have the ability to slow down our military capacity because 
it does not like our policies?
  That is a serious question we should consider. With one contract, we 
could wipe out 50 years of experience of aerospace in the United 
States, and once it is gone we are not going to get it back. It is not 
going to come back. Shouldn't we in Congress at least have a serious 
debate about this before we give it all away?
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                      Obstruction and Filibusters

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, this morning, our colleague, the 
distinguished Senator from New York, Mr. Schumer, came to talk about 
the Republican obstruction and filibusters, and I guess I have been 
around here just a few years now, but I have learned that a charge that 
is unrebutted is a charge that is believed. In the interest of making 
sure people understand what the facts are, I would like to address his 
allegations.
  This morning, Senator Schumer repeated a myth, which is the 
allegation that there have been 73 Republican filibusters in the 110th 
Congress. He said, ``This Republican minority can only obstruct.'' 
Based on what I believe is a complete distortion of the facts, he said 
the Republicans ``will be held accountable in November.''
  Well, I might note that Senator Schumer, in addition to being the 
distinguished Senator from New York, is also the chairman of the 
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. And I would hope we would 
have better things to do than to use the floor of the Senate for 
partisan attacks when we have so much important work that needs to be 
done.
  He said he wished we could ``go back to the good old days when 
filibusters were used for issues of major import but not used routinely 
to block every single piece of legislation.'' Well, it is evidence 
enough that is an overstatement and I think just a downright 
exaggeration, in that we are working right now on a bipartisan piece of 
legislation on the consumer protection issue to make sure American 
consumers are protected from dangerous products, particularly those 
that may be imported from abroad. But let me just say what the facts 
are.
  Under the definition that Senator Schumer--and the majority leader 
before him--calls a filibuster, Republicans would be obstructing 
multiple times in 1 day on many occasions. What they are actually 
referring to is a record number of times that the majority leader has 
attempted to prevent debate and block Senators from offering 
amendments. What happens is he will come to the floor and he will call 
up a bill and then he will fill the amendment tree, which is a 
procedural device designed to block the offering of amendments. It 
basically imposes a ``my way or the highway'' approach to legislating 
in the Senate. You don't have to be around here very long to know that 
nothing happens around here unless there is some bipartisan agreement 
and work, and this bill we are on today is a perfect example of how it 
can work and how it should work.
  Now, I would say that the majority leader is setting a record of his 
own, moving to cut off debate the first day a bill or resolution 
reaches the floor more than any other majority leader, whether they be 
Republican or Democrat. During the first session of the 110th Congress, 
Senator Reid filed cloture--that is, he filed to cut off debate--on the 
same day a bill or resolution was introduced on nine separate 
occasions. Before we have had a chance to even talk about it, before 
anybody has even had a chance to offer amendments, he filed to cut off 
debate, cut off amendments, nine times. That is three times more than 
Majority Leaders Frist, Daschle, Lott, Mitchell, or Byrd ever did in 
the first session of Congress and nine times more than in the first 
session of the 109th Congress.
  Among these 73 Republican filibusters, so-called, Democrats include

[[Page S1692]]

times when members of their own party actually filibustered issues of 
great importance to the American people. Here are a couple of examples.
  Senator Dodd, from Connecticut, filibustered the Foreign Intelligence 
Surveillance Act, which allows us the authority to listen to terrorists 
who are conspiring to harm the American people; the so-called 
filibuster by our Democratic friends of the McConnell-Stevens troop 
funding bill last November, which was designed to provide funds to our 
troops in harm's way, which had been delayed for far too long; and 
then, of course, the filibuster of Judge Leslie Southwick, a circuit 
court nominee.
  Cloture motions that were filed by Republicans in an effort to avoid 
obstruction were also included.
  Of the more than 73 so-called filibusters, Senate Democrats either 
voted to ``filibuster'' or voted with Republicans, and the vote was 
unanimous on five occasions.
  Well, let me just say that I know sometimes the nomenclature and the 
procedures get awfully confusing here on the Senate floor, but the 
American people clearly would like to see us work together more to 
solve problems. We are not talking about people giving or taking leave 
of their principles or their firmly held convictions, but everybody who 
works here on the Senate floor knows that the only way things happen is 
by bipartisan cooperation because neither side has the 60 votes to cut 
off debate and get what they want, as you could if you had a majority 
in the House of Representatives.
  I even read today that the distinguished majority leader compared so-
called filibusters to aggravated assaults. He said: It doesn't make any 
difference whether it is 72 or 65 stabbings, it is still the fact you 
have been assaulted. Well, I just think that kind of rhetoric is over 
the top.
  What we need to do is, rather than make false charges about 
obstruction, we need to come together and try to solve problems. I 
believe that is what the American people want us to do.
  So rather than have this unrebutted allegation out there, lest people 
believe it, because it is being repeated over and over, I think it is 
important to set the record straight.
  I think everybody in this body knows what the deal is; that is, if we 
are going to solve problems, we are going to have to work together. 
This CPSC bill is the perfect example. The majority leader did not have 
to file cloture in order to bring us to conclusion. We sat down and we 
have negotiated amendments, we have offered amendments, and we have had 
votes. That is the way this place works.
  But I think what is fair is fair, and we need to make sure the story 
is accurately told. As Senator McConnell said earlier--quoting Daniel 
Patrick Moynihan--everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but 
nobody is entitled to their own set of facts.
  Facts being what they are, people can then decide what their opinion 
is. But it is clear this is not a case of obstruction--unless, of 
course, you are talking about blocking tax increases on the American 
people, and I will be honest, we did block those tax increases because 
they are bad for the economy, bad for the American people. But by and 
large, when we have been met halfway, we have worked together to try to 
solve problems.
  I thank the chair very much for the time that I have had to respond. 
I think it is important that the full context of the record be clear.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I happened to pass by, and I am glad I did 
because my friend, the Senator from Texas, the junior Senator from 
Texas, is talking about facts that do not exist.
  The comment about the 72 stabbings came from me. The fact is, in 
looking very closely at this, it appears that there were not 72 
Republican-led filibusters but only 65. I used an illustration that 
someone who is charged with a crime--I know the distinguished Presiding 
Officer was a prosecuting attorney--comes in after having stabbed 
someone 72 times and says: No, I only did it 65 times.
  The American people know what is going on. The American people know 
what is going on. Every step of the way, we have had to work around 
procedural obstructions put up by the Republicans--every step of the 
way. The result of that has taken a lot of time. We have spent 76 days 
of Senate time on filibusters led by Senate Republicans.
  Now, the American people have seen what is going on. They have had 
more than a year to look and see what is going on. They are going to 
continue to see. But what I said last Friday, I say today: The 
Republicans in the Senate should enjoy their time because they are not 
going to be able to do this after November 4. The American people have 
seen what they have tried to do and been able to accomplish on many 
occasions. And we are going to continue to do the best we can in spite 
of the obstacles put up by the Republicans.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I could not disagree more with the 
distinguished majority leader. But I will tell you that when it comes 
to increasing taxes, bigger Government, and higher spending, sure, we 
are going to stand our ground. We are going to try to block the 
increased rates on the taxpayers' check and growing the size of 
Government beyond our capacity to sustain it and failing to meet the 
obligations we have to pay for things such as Medicare and Social 
Security and passing those down to our children and grandchildren.
  We are on the verge of the debate on the 2009 Federal budget. One of 
the problems we need to work on together rather than merely accuse each 
other of malfeasance or misfeasance is $66 trillion in unfunded 
obligations we are passing on to our children and grandchildren.
  I am on the Budget Committee. We had a vote on the budget that will 
come to the floor next week. There is nothing in the budget--nothing in 
this budget--that addresses the concerns I know we have on a bipartisan 
basis about this unsustainable growth of entitlement spending.
  So that is the kind of thing we ought to be working on on a 
bipartisan basis--how can we protect the family's budget rather than 
wreck the Federal budget. But instead of that, we find there is this 
back-and-forth for partisan gain.
  The majority leader said: Wait until the election day in November. 
Well, people know what this is about. This is about partisan politics. 
This is not about trying to solve problems. I hope we can do so.
  Again, I compliment the Senator from Arkansas and the Senator from 
Alaska for addressing on a bipartisan basis consumer safety in this 
bill. This is a good example of what we ought to be doing, not engaging 
in partisan sniping that I think does nothing but continue to bring 
public opinion of Congress to the lowest levels in recent history.
  That is why the approval rating of this Congress is at the 18-
percentage rate.
  So we ought to try to find ways to work together, not engage in this 
sort of partisan sniping in an effort to gain advantage, electoral 
advantage, in November. It does not work, for one thing. I think the 
American people listening to this say: A pox on both your houses. What 
they want to do is see us work together to solve the problems.
  We are going to have a chance on the budget to try to keep spending 
down, to try to make sure we do not raise taxes and we deal with the 
obligation we have to meet on unfunded liabilities that will be passed 
on to our children and grandchildren. That is what I hope we spend our 
time doing rather than partisan politics.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Nelson of Nebraska). The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, any time we have a President as unpopular as 
our President, the numbers of all people who serve in Government are 
down, and Congress is part of that.
  I would say that the facts are what they are. We have been obstructed 
on virtually everything we have tried to do.
  These are just a few of the motions to proceed that we have had to 
waste up to 48 hours on, 2 days for cloture to ripen, 30 hours after 
that. Those are just a few of them. Now, look how they passed: 90 to 0; 
94 to 3; 93 to 3; 89 to 7; 91 to 0; 80 to 0; 80 to 4; 86 to 1. It was 
only an effort to stall what we do here.

[[Page S1693]]

Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, we had to file a motion to 
invoke cloture on the motion to go to that. The Intelligence 
authorization bill, intelligence authorization, to give our 
intelligence agencies the tools they need to go after all the bad guys 
around the world, we had to file cloture on the motion to proceed to 
that. The court security bill, that was important to me because we had 
some vicious man, at 200 yards, shoot through the judge's window and 
kill him after he had slit his wife's throat. We need court security. 
In Georgia, we had a situation there where a number of people were 
killed. We had to invoke a motion to proceed to that issue. The water 
resources bill, the chairman of the Environmental and Public Works 
Committee is here. She worked on a bipartisan basis. That bill had 
overwhelming support, Democrats and Republicans. We had to file cloture 
on a motion to proceed to it; Clean Energy Act, 91 to 0; Children's 
Health Initiative, to reauthorize that, 80 to 0. Just a stall. That is 
all it was about.
  Economic stimulus package, and then housing, a stimulus package on 
housing, having five simple issues in it. One is transparency on 
documents that you have to fill out when you buy a home. No. 2, we 
wanted to make sure the homebuilders all across the country get what 
they want--tax provisions for loss carryback. That is in our bill; 
something the President called for in his State of the Union Message 
calling for issuance of bonds to buy homes that are in foreclosure, 
used homes--now it is you can only buy new homes. We have a CDBG 
provision in that bill to allow people from all over the country to 
work through their Government to renovate some of the neighborhoods 
that are devastated by these foreclosures. And then we had a provision 
in the bill dealing with bankruptcy.
  Now, the Republicans have cried volumes that they want to do 
something about the housing crisis. They would not let us legislate on 
that. We cannot do that. We cannot get 60 votes. But they say they want 
to legislate on it.
  I told Senator McConnell long before we got on the bill: Let's do 
amendments. If you want to look at our amendments, fine, look at them; 
we will look at yours. They said they did not like the bankruptcy 
provision. Offer an amendment to strike it. I know there are some 
Democrats who do not like it. Maybe they could get enough votes to get 
rid of that. They are not willing to legislate. They are stalling. This 
has been going on all year.
  So I have great respect for my friend from Texas, but I do not need 
to be lectured on what is procedurally obstructionism. We can bring out 
chart after chart to show what they have done. And do not suggest to me 
that there has not been obstructionism. They have broken all records of 
this Congress. They have broken all records of any Congress. They broke 
in 1 year how many filibusters were filed in a normal 2-year period.
  So I extend my appreciation to the Senator from Arkansas, Mr. Pryor. 
He is a great Senator. He takes right after his dad. I had the good 
fortune of serving with his father. I said in an interview I had 
recently: Who is the Senator you admire most for his legislative 
capabilities? ``David Pryor of Arkansas,'' I said, ``because he was a 
wonderful man and a great Senator.'' His son is doing just the same 
thing his dad did. This bill is a result of tremendous participation.
  The Senator from Texas is right, the Senator from Alaska, the Senator 
from Hawaii have worked on this. This is a bipartisan piece of 
legislation led by Senator Pryor. Senator Pryor is a great public 
servant. He has had significant experience as attorney general in the 
State of Arkansas. He was one of the instrumental members of the Gang 
of 14 who stopped the use of the filibusters in the Senate, as is the 
Presiding Officer.
  So I want the Senator from Arkansas to know how much I appreciate the 
example he has set in working through the process here. Everyone here 
should understand that legislating is a compromise. ``Compromise'' is 
not a bad word, it is consensus building, and Mark Pryor has done a 
wonderful job working on this piece of legislation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, just briefly, roughly half the votes on 
this chart that the distinguished majority leader has described as 
filibusters were actually successful votes where cloture was invoked 
once the majority worked with us, allowed full consideration of the 
bills, and those bills actually moved forward and became law.
  On roughly half of the instances--I have not looked at the entire 
chart; this is the first time I have seen it here. But that is a 
perfect example of how we ought to be working together and not an 
example of obstruction, but it is actually a means that the Senate has 
been allowed to do what the Senate does, and that is to have full 
debate, a fair opportunity to offer amendments and then up-or-down 
votes on amendments and then pass legislation that goes to the 
President and is signed for the benefit of the American people.
  So I disagree with his characterization on at least half of those 
votes. They resulted in successfully passed legislation, not an example 
of obstructionism but of this Senate actually working the way the 
Senate should.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, this is another example of the Orwellian 
language we get from the White House and this administration, and now 
obviously some of my friends have picked it up on the Republican side.
  These were efforts to stall what we were trying to do. You can say 
whatever you want. Sure, these passed. That is the whole point. We have 
chart after chart that shows this whole thing. Of course they passed. 
How could you, in good conscience, not vote for the 9/11 Commission 
recommendations? They stalled us going to it because as long as they 
are here on a 30-hour postcloture do-nothing, it means we cannot go to 
other things, we cannot go to patent reform, to energy reform--all 
these things that need to be done.
  This Republican President and his Republican Senators want the status 
quo. They are fighting for the status quo. It is very clear they are 
fighting for the status quo. They want us to stay the way we are.
  We want change to take place. The country needs change. The American 
people demand change. That is what is going on with the Presidential 
election out there. That is why you get crowds on the Democratic side, 
our candidates, tens of thousands of people, 15,000 in Boise, ID. 
People are looking for change. That is what we are going to bring, and 
we are going to see that in November. The American people know what the 
Republicans have done to us, but we are going to continue to work 
hard. We are going to continue to work hard in spite of that to get 
things done for this country.

  It is my understanding we have a vote set up, and we are getting 
close. We know a number of people have things to do. We thought we 
would be able to have it at 4:30. We have been unable to do so. We are 
getting close, I have been told. Whether we finish this in 10 minutes 
or tomorrow sometime, congratulations are in order for my friend from 
Arkansas. He has done a great job.
  Mr. PRYOR. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PRYOR. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call 
be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 4104

  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I do have good news. This is similar to the 
old Bob Dylan song, ``Slow Train Coming.'' It has been a slow 
afternoon, seemingly, but there has been a lot of activity.
  I ask unanimous consent to agree to the Feinstein amendment by voice 
vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The question is on agreeing to amendment No. 4104.
  The amendment (No. 4104) was agreed to.


Amendments Nos. 4088; 4092, as Modified; 4101; 4112; 4120; 4123; 4128; 
 4130, as Modified; 4113; 4114; 4141; 4136; 4137; 4138; 4143; 4116, as 
 Modified; 4118, as Modified; 4090; 4103; 4098; 4109, as Modified; and 
                       4108, as Modified En Bloc

  Mr. PRYOR. I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment 
so I may call up the following

[[Page S1694]]

amendments en bloc: Klobuchar No. 4088; Dodd No. 4092, with 
modifications at the desk; McCaskill No. 4101; Boxer No. 4112; Landrieu 
No. 4120; Collins No. 4123; Klobuchar No. 4128; Nelson No. 4130, with 
modifications at the desk; Obama No. 4113; Obama No. 4114; Durbin-Hatch 
No. 4141; Inouye No. 4136; Inouye No. 4137; Inouye No. 4138; Snowe No. 
4143; Kyl No. 4116, with modifications at the desk; and Kyl No. 4118, 
with modifications at the desk; the following pending amendments also 
be considered en bloc: Pryor No. 4090; Cardin No. 4103; Dorgan No. 
4098; Casey No. 4109, with modifications at the desk; and Cornyn No. 
4108, with modifications at the desk; the amendments be agreed to en 
bloc and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no 
intervening action or debate; that cloture be withdrawn; any remaining 
pending amendments be withdrawn; the Senate proceed to third reading of 
the bill; the Senate then proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 
562, H.R. 4040, strike all after the enacting clause and insert the 
text of S. 2663, as amended; the Senate proceed to a vote on passage of 
H.R. 4040, as amended, and S. 2663 be returned to the calendar.
  Mr. STEVENS. No objection.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendments were agreed to, as follows:


                           Amendment No. 4088

 (Purpose: To authorize the Commission by rule to exempt lead crystal 
     from the ban on lead in children's products if the Commission 
determines that the lead content is not absorbable and does not have an 
                    adverse impact on public safety)

       On page 69, between lines 4 and 5, insert the following:
       (3) Lead crystal.--The Commission may by rule provide that 
     subsection (a) does not apply to lead crystal if the 
     Commission determines, after notice and a hearing, that the 
     lead content in lead crystal will neither--
       (A) result in the absorption of lead into the human body; 
     nor
       (B) have an adverse impact on public health and safety.


                    Amendment No. 4092, As modified

       On page 103, after line 12, add the following:

     SEC. 40. EQUESTRIAN HELMETS.

       (a) Standards.--
       (1) In general.--Every equestrian helmet manufactured on or 
     after the date that is 9 months after the date of the 
     enactment of this Act shall meet--
       (A) the interim standard specified in paragraph (2), 
     pending the establishment of a final standard pursuant to 
     paragraph (3); and
       (B) the final standard, once that standard has been 
     established under paragraph (3).
       (2) Interim standard.--The interim standard for equestrian 
     helmets is the American Society for Testing and Materials 
     (ASTM) standard designated as F 1163.
       (3) Final standard.--
       (A) Requirement.--Not later than 60 days after the date of 
     the enactment of this Act, the Consumer Product Safety 
     Commission shall begin a proceeding under section 553 of 
     title 5, United States Code--
       (i) to establish a final standard for equestrian helmets 
     that incorporates all the requirements of the interim 
     standard specified in paragraph (2);
       (ii) to provide in the final standard a mandate that all 
     approved equestrian helmets be certified to the requirements 
     promulgated under the final standard by an organization that 
     is accredited to certify personal protection equipment in 
     accordance with ISO Guide 65; and
       (iii) to include in the final standard any additional 
     provisions that the Commission considers appropriate.
       (B) Inapplicability of certain laws.--Sections 7, 9, and 
     30(d) of the Consumer Product Safety Act (15 U.S.C. 2056, 
     2058, and 2079(d)) shall not apply to the proceeding under 
     this subsection, and section 11 of such Act (15 U.S.C. 2060) 
     shall not apply with respect to any standard issued under 
     such proceeding.
       (C) Effective date.--The final standard shall take effect 
     not later than 1 year after the date it is issued.
       (4) Failure to meet standards.--
       (A) Failure to meet interim standard.--Until the final 
     standard takes effect, an equestrian helmet that does not 
     meet the interim standard, required under paragraph (1)(A), 
     shall be considered in violation of a consumer product safety 
     standard promulgated under the Consumer Product Safety Act.
       (B) Status of final standard.--The final standard developed 
     under paragraph (3) shall be considered a consumer product 
     safety standard promulgated under the Consumer Product Safety 
     Act.
       (b) Definitions.--In this section:
       (1) Approved equestrian helmet.--The term ``approved 
     equestrian helmet'' means an equestrian helmet that meets--
       (A) the interim standard specified in subsection (a)(2), 
     pending establishment of a final standard under subsection 
     (a)(3); and
       (B) the final standard, once it is effective under 
     subsection (a)(3).
       (2) Equestrian helmet.--The term ``equestrian helmet'' 
     means a hard shell head covering intended to be worn while 
     participating in an equestrian event or activity.


                           amendment no. 4101

     (Purpose: To revise the section on Inspector General reports)

       On page 72, beginning with line 6, strike through line 8 on 
     page 75 and insert the following:

     SEC. 26. INSPECTOR GENERAL REPORTS.

       (a) Implementation by the Commission.--
       (1) In general.--The Inspector General of the Consumer 
     Product Safety Commission shall conduct reviews and audits of 
     implementation of the Consumer Product Safety Act by the 
     Commission, including--
       (A) an assessment of the ability of the Commission to 
     enforce subsections (a)(2) and (d) of section 14 of the Act 
     (15 U.S.C. 2063), as amended by section 10 of this Act, 
     including the ability of the Commission to enforce the 
     prohibition on imports of children's products without third 
     party testing certification under section 17(a)(6) of the Act 
     (15 U.S.C.2066)(a)(6), as added by section 10 of this Act;
       (B) an assessment of the ability of the Commission to 
     enforce section 14(a)(6) of the Act (15 U.S.C. 2063(a)(6)), 
     as added by section 11 of this Act, and section 16(c) of the 
     Act, as added by section 14 of this Act; and(C) an audit of 
     the Commission's capital improvement efforts, including 
     construction of a new testing facility.
       (2) Annual report.--The Inspector General shall submit an 
     annual report, setting forth the Inspector General's 
     findings, conclusions, and recommendations from the reviews 
     and audits under paragraph (1), for each of fiscal years 2009 
     through 2015 to the Commission, the Senate Committee on 
     Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and the House of 
     Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce.
       (b) Employee Complaints.--
       (1) In general.--Within 1 year after the date of enactment 
     of this Act, the Inspector General shall conduct a review 
     of--
       (A) complaints received by the Inspector General from 
     employees of the Commission about failures of other employees 
     to properly enforce the rules or regulations of the Consumer 
     Product Safety Act or any other Act enforced by the 
     Commission, including the negotiation of corrective action 
     plans in the recall process; and
       (B) the process by which corrective action plans are 
     negotiated by the Commission, including an assessment of the 
     length of time for these negotiations and the effectiveness 
     of the plans.
       (2) Report.--The Inspector General shall submit a report, 
     setting forth the Inspector General's findings, conclusions, 
     and recommendations, to the Commission, the Senate Committee 
     on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and the House of 
     Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce.
       (c) Leaks.--
       (1) In general.--Within 1 year after the date of enactment 
     of this Act, the Inspector General shall--
       (A) conduct a review of whether, and to what extent, there 
     have been unauthorized and unlawful disclosures of 
     information by Members, officers, or employees of the 
     Commission to persons regulated by the Commission that are 
     not authorized to receive such information; and
       (B) to the extent that such unauthorized and unlawful 
     disclosures have occurred, determine--
       (i) what class or kind of information was most frequently 
     involved in such disclosures; and
       (ii) how frequently such disclosures have occurred.
       (2) Report.--The Inspector General shall submit a report, 
     setting forth the Inspector General's findings, conclusions, 
     and recommendations, to the Commission, the Senate Committee 
     on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and the House of 
     Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce.


                           AMENDMENT NO. 4112

 (Purpose: To clarify the requirement to include cautionary statements 
                           on advertisements)

       On page 32, line 2, insert ``that provides a direct means 
     of purchase'' before ``posted by a manufacturer''.


                           AMENDMENT NO. 4120

   (Purpose: To authorize the Consumer Product Safety Commission to 
identify and validate alternative technologies for the facilitation of 
             recalls of durable infant or toddler products)

       On page 92, between lines 9 and 10, insert the following:
       (c) Use of Alternative Recall Notification Technology.--
       (1) In general.--If the Commission determines that a recall 
     notification technology can be used by a manufacturer of 
     durable infant or toddler products and such technology is as 
     effective or more effective in facilitating recalls of 
     durable infant or toddler products as the registration forms 
     required by subsection (a)--
       (A) the Commission shall submit to the Committee on 
     Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate and the 
     Committee on Energy and Commerce of the House of 
     Representatives a report on such determination; and
       (B) a manufacturer of durable infant or toddler products 
     that uses such technology

[[Page S1695]]

     in lieu of such registration forms to facilitate recalls of 
     durable infant or toddler products shall be considered in 
     compliance with the regulations promulgated under such 
     subsection with respect to subparagraphs (A) and (B) of 
     paragraph (1) of such subsection.
       (2) Study and report.--Not later than 1 year after the date 
     of the enactment of this Act and periodically thereafter as 
     the Commission considers appropriate, the Commission shall--
       (A) for a period of not less than 6 months and not more 
     than 1 year--
       (i) conduct a review of recall notification technology; and
       (ii) assess, through testing and empirical study, the 
     effectiveness of such technology in facilitating recalls of 
     durable infant or toddler products; and
       (B) submit to the committees described in paragraph (1)(A) 
     a report on the review and assessment required by 
     subparagraph (A).
       (3) Regulations.--The Commission shall prescribe 
     regulations to carry out this subsection.


                           AMENDMENT NO. 4123

  (Purpose: To provide that Federal employees shall be limited to the 
 remedies available under chapters 12 and 23 of title 5, United States 
        Code, for any violation of the whistleblower provisions)

       On page 65, between lines 17 and 18, insert the following:
       ``(8) Notwithstanding paragraphs (1) through (7), a Federal 
     employee shall be limited to the remedies available under 
     chapters 12 and 23 of title 5, United States Code, for any 
     violation of this section.


                           amendment no. 4128

  (Purpose: To revise the inaccessible component rule for children's 
                               products)

       On page 68, strike lines 4 through 16, and insert the 
     following:
       (1) Inaccessible components.--
       (A) In general.--Subsection (a) does not apply to a 
     component of a children's product that is not accessible to a 
     child because it is not physically exposed by reason of a 
     sealed covering or casing and will not become physically 
     exposed through normal and reasonably foreseeable use and 
     abuse of the product.
       (B) Inaccessibility proceeding.--Within 2 years after the 
     date of enactment of this Act, the Commission shall 
     promulgate a rule providing guidance with respect to what 
     product components, or classes of components, will be 
     considered to be inaccessible for purposes of subparagraph 
     (A).
       (C) Application pending cpsc guidance.--Until the 
     Commission promulgates a rule pursuant to subparagraph (B), 
     the determination of whether a product component is 
     inaccessible to a child shall be made in accordance with the 
     requirements of subparagraph (A) for considering a component 
     to be inaccessible to a child.
       (D) Certain barriers disqualified.--For purposes of this 
     paragraph, paint, coatings, or electroplating may not be 
     considered to be a barrier that would render lead in the 
     substrate inaccessible to a child through normal and 
     reasonably foreseeable use and abuse of the product.


                    AMENDMENT NO. 4130, as modified

       On page 87, strike line 15 and insert the following:

     SEC. 34. CONSUMER PRODUCT REGISTRATION FORMS AND STANDARDS 
                   FOR DURABLE INFANT OR TODDLER PRODUCTS.

       (a) Short Title.--This section may be cited as the ``Danny 
     Keysar Child Product Safety Notification Act''.
       (b) Safety Standards.--
       (1) In general.--The Commission shall--
       (A) in consultation with representatives of consumer 
     groups, juvenile product manufacturers, and independent child 
     product engineers and experts, examine and assess the 
     effectiveness of any voluntary consumer product safety 
     standards for durable infant or toddler product; and
       (B) in accordance with section 553 of title 5, United 
     States Code, promulgate consumer product safety rules that--
       (i) are substantially the same as such voluntary standards; 
     or
       (ii) are more stringent than such voluntary standards, if 
     the Commission determines that more stringent standards would 
     further reduce the risk of injury associated with such 
     products.
       (C) Requirements for cribs.--
       (1) Manufacture, sale, resale and lease of cribs.--It shall 
     be unlawful for any commercial user to manufacture, sell, 
     contract to sell or resell, lease, sublet, offer or provide 
     for use or otherwise place in the stream of commerce any new 
     or used full-size or non-full-size crib, including a portable 
     crib and a crib-pen, that is not in compliance with the 
     mandatory rule promulgated in section (b)(1) and (b)(2).
       (2) Commercial users include but are not limited to hotel, 
     motel or similar transient lodging facilities and day care 
     centers.
       (iii) Definition of commercial user.--
       (A) In general.--In this subsection, the term ``commercial 
     user'' means--
       (i) any person that manufactures, sells, or contracts to 
     sell full-size cribs or non-full-size cribs; or
       (ii) any person that deals in full-size or non-full-size 
     cribs that are not new or that otherwise, based on the 
     person's occupation, holds oneself out as having knowledge or 
     skill peculiar to full-size cribs or non-full-size cribs, 
     including child care facilities and family child care homes; 
     or
       (iii) is in the business of contracting to sell or resell, 
     lease, sublet, or otherwise placing in the stream of commerce 
     full-size cribs or non-full-size cribs that are not new.
       (2) Timetable for rulemaking.--Not later than 1 year after 
     the date of the enactment of this Act, the Commission shall 
     commence the rulemaking required under paragraph (1) and 
     shall promulgate rules for no fewer than 2 categories of 
     durable infant or toddler products every 6 months thereafter, 
     beginning with the product categories that the Commission 
     determines to be of highest priority, until the Commission 
     has promulgated standards for all such product categories. 
     Thereafter, the Commission shall periodically review and 
     revise the rules set forth under this subsection to ensure 
     that such rules provide the highest level of safety for such 
     products that is feasible.


                           AMENDMENT NO. 4113

     (Purpose: To clarify and expand requirements with respect to 
                     information in recall notices)

       On page 103, after line 12, insert the following:

     SEC. 40. REQUIREMENTS FOR RECALL NOTICES.

       (a) In General.--Section 15 (15 U.S.C. 2064) is amended by 
     adding at the end the following:
       ``(i) Requirements for Recall Notices.--
       ``(1) In general.--If the Commission determines that a 
     product distributed in commerce presents a substantial 
     product hazard and that action under subsection (d) is in the 
     public interest, the Commission may order the manufacturer or 
     any distributor or retailer of the product to distribute 
     notice of the action to the public. The notice shall include 
     the following:
       ``(A) A description of the product, including--
       ``(i) the model number or stock keeping unit (SKU) number 
     of the product;
       ``(ii) the names by which the product is commonly known; 
     and
       ``(iii) a photograph of the product.
       ``(B) A description of the action being taken with respect 
     to the product.
       ``(C) The number of units of the product with respect to 
     which the action is being taken.
       ``(D) A description of the substantial product hazard and 
     the reasons for the action.
       ``(E) An identification of the manufacturers, importers, 
     distributers, and retailers of the product.
       ``(F) The locations where, and Internet websites from 
     which, the product was sold.
       ``(G) The name and location of the factory at which the 
     product was produced.
       ``(H) The dates between which the product was manufactured 
     and sold.
       ``(I) The number and a description of any injuries or 
     deaths associated with the product, the ages of any 
     individuals injured or killed, and the dates on which the 
     Commission received information about such injuries or 
     deaths.
       ``(J) A description of--
       ``(i) any remedy available to a consumer;
       ``(ii) any action a consumer must take to obtain a remedy; 
     and
       ``(iii) any information a consumer needs to take to obtain 
     a remedy or information about a remedy, such as mailing 
     addresses, telephone numbers, fax numbers, and email 
     addresses.
       ``(K) Any other information the Commission determines 
     necessary.
       ``(2) Notices in languages other than english.--The 
     Commission may require a notice described in paragraph (1) to 
     be distributed in a language other than English if the 
     Commission determines that doing so is necessary to 
     adequately protect the public.''.
       (b) Publication of Information on Recalled Products.--
     Beginning not later than 1 year after the date of the 
     enactment of this Act, the Consumer Product Safety Commission 
     shall make the following information available to the public 
     as the information becomes available to the Commission:
       (1) Progress reports and incident updates with respect to 
     action plans implemented under section 15(d) of the Consumer 
     Product Safety Act (15 U.S.C. 2064(d)).
       (2) Statistics with respect to injuries and deaths 
     associated with products that the Commission determines 
     present a substantial product hazard under section 15(c) of 
     the Consumer Product Safety Act (15 U.S.C. 2064(c)).
       (3) The number and type of communication from consumers to 
     the Commission with respect to each product with respect to 
     which the Commission takes action under section 15(d) of the 
     Consumer Product Safety Act (15 U.S.C. 2064(d)).


                           AMENDMENT NO. 4114

   (Purpose: To require the Comptroller General of the United States 
conduct a study and report on the effectiveness of authorities relating 
              to the safety of imported consumer products)

       On page 103, after line 12, add the following:

     SEC. 40. STUDY AND REPORT ON EFFECTIVENESS OF AUTHORITIES 
                   RELATING TO SAFETY OF IMPORTED CONSUMER 
                   PRODUCTS.

       Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of 
     this Act, the Comptroller General of the United States 
     shall--
       (1) conduct a study of the authorities and provisions of 
     the Consumer Product Safety Act (15 U.S.C. 2051 et seq.) to 
     assess the effectiveness of such authorities and provisions 
     in preventing unsafe consumer products from entering the 
     customs territory of the United States;

[[Page S1696]]

       (2) develop a plan to improve the effectiveness of the 
     Consumer Product Safety Commission in preventing unsafe 
     consumer products from entering such customs territory; and
       (3) submit to Congress a report on the findings of the 
     Comptroller General with respect to paragraphs (1) through 
     (3), including legislative recommendations related to--
       (A) inspection of foreign manufacturing plants by the 
     Consumer Product Safety Commission; and
       (B) requiring foreign manufacturers to consent to the 
     jurisdiction of United States courts with respect to 
     enforcement actions by the Consumer Product Safety 
     Commission.


                           amendment no. 4141

  (Purpose: To modify the automatic residential garage door operators 
                        standards requirements)

       On page 85, beginning with line 22, strike through line 8 
     on page 86 and insert the following:

     SEC. 31. GARAGE DOOR OPENER STANDARD.

       (a) In General.--Notwithstanding section 203(b) of the 
     Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 1990 (15 U.S.C. 
     2056 note) or any amendment by the American National 
     Standards Institute and Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. of 
     its Standards for Safety-UL 325, all automatic residential 
     garage door operators that directly drive the door in the 
     closing direction that are manufactured more than 6 months 
     after the date of enactment of this Act shall include an 
     external secondary entrapment protection device that does not 
     require contact with a person or object for the garage door 
     to reverse.
       (b) Exception.--Except as provided in subsection (c), 
     subsection (a) does not apply to the manufacture of an 
     automatic residential garage door operator without a 
     secondary external entrapment protection device that does not 
     require contact by a company that manufactured such an 
     operator before the date of enactment of this Act if 
     Underwriters Laboratory, Inc., certified that automatic 
     residential garage door operator as meeting its Standards for 
     Safety-UL 325 before the date of enactment of this Act.
       (c) Review and Revision.--
       (1) In general.--Within 1 year after the date of enactment 
     of this Act, the Consumer Product Safety Commission shall 
     review, and if necessary revise, its automatic residential 
     garage door operator safety standard, including the 
     requirement established by subsection (a), to ensure that the 
     standard provides maximum protection for public health and 
     safety.
       (2) Revised standard.--The exception provided by subsection 
     (b) shall not apply to automatic residential garage door 
     operators manufactured after the effective date of any such 
     revised standard if that standard adopts the requirement 
     established by subsection (a).


                           amendment no. 4136

       On page 24, beginning in line 17, strike ``product (other 
     than a medication, drug, or food)'' and insert ``consumer 
     product''.


                           amendment no. 4137

   (Purpose: To modify the scope of products to which section 15(b) 
                                applies)

       On page 36, line 1, strike ``Act)'' and insert ``Act, 
     except for motor vehicle equipment as defined in section 
     30102(a)(7) of title 49, United States Code)''.


                           amendment no. 4138

   (Purpose: To revise the section requiring a study of preventable 
 injuries and deaths of minority children related to certain consumer 
                               products)

       On page 70, beginning with line 13, strike through line 20 
     on page 71, and insert the following:

     SEC. 24. STUDY OF PREVENTABLE INJURIES AND DEATHS OF MINORITY 
                   CHILDREN RELATED TO CERTAIN CONSUMER PRODUCTS.

       (a) In General.--Within 90 days after the date of enactment 
     of this Act, the Government Accountability Office shall 
     initiate a study to assess disparities in the risks and 
     incidence of preventable injuries and deaths among children 
     of minority populations, including Black, Hispanic, American 
     Indian, Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian, and Asian/Pacific 
     Islander children in the United States.
       (b) Requirements.--The study shall examine the racial 
     disparities of the rates of preventable injuries and deaths 
     related to suffocation, poisonings, and drowning including 
     those associated with the use of cribs, mattresses and 
     bedding materials, swimming pools and spas, and toys and 
     other products intended for use by children.
       (c) Report.--Not later than 1 year after the date of 
     enactment of this Act, the Comptroller General shall report 
     the findings to the Senate Commerce, Science, and 
     Transportation Committee and the House of Representatives 
     Energy and Commerce Committee. The report shall include--
       (1) the Government Accountability Office's findings on the 
     incidence of preventable risks of injury and death among 
     children of minority populations and recommendations for 
     minimizing such increased risks;
       (2) recommendations for public outreach, awareness, and 
     prevention campaigns specifically aimed at racial minority 
     populations; and
       (3) recommendations for education initiatives that may 
     reduce current statistical disparities.


                           AMENDMENT NO. 4143

(Purpose: To ensure that the Commission appropriately addresses impacts 
     on small businesses of the revised civil penalties provisions)

       On page 49, strike lines 8 through 15 and insert the 
     following:

     establish additional criteria for the imposition of civil 
     penalties under section 20 of the Consumer Product Safety Act 
     (15 U.S.C. 2069) and any other Act enforced by the 
     Commission, including factors to be considered in 
     establishing the amount of such penalties, such as repeat 
     violations, the precedential value of prior adjudicated 
     penalties, the factors described in section 20(b) of the 
     Consumer Product Safety Act (15 U.S.C. 2069(b)), and other 
     circumstances.
       Insert at end of 15 U.S.C. Section 2069(b), ``, including 
     how to mitigate undue adverse economic impacts on small 
     businesses.''
       Insert in 15 U.S.C. Section 2069(c), after ``size of the 
     business of the person charged,'' ``including how to mitigate 
     undue adverse economic impacts on small businesses,''


                    amendment no. 4116, as modified

       At page 58, insert betwen lines 7 and 8 the following:
       ``(h) If private counsel is retained to assist in any civil 
     action under subsection (a), the private counsel retained to 
     assist the State may not share with participants in other 
     private civil actions that arise out of the same operative 
     facts any information that is (1) subject to a litigation 
     privilege; and (2) was obtained during discovery in the 
     action under subsection (a). The private counsel retained to 
     assist the state may not use any information that is subject 
     to a litigation privilege and that was obtained while 
     assisting the State in the action under subsection (a) in any 
     other private civil acitons that arise out of the same 
     operative facts.''


                    amendment no. 4118, as modified

       At page 58, line 7, insert before the quotation mark the 
     following:
       ``Any attorney's fees recovered pursuant to this subsection 
     shall be reviewed by the court to ensure that those fees are 
     consistent with section 2060(f) of this title.''


                    amendment no. 4109, as modified



 =========================== NOTE =========================== 

  
  On page S1696, March 6, 2008, the Record reads: On page 103, 
after line 12
  
  The online Record has been corrected to read: AMENDMENT NO. 
4109, AS MODIFIED On page 103, after line 12


 ========================= END NOTE ========================= 

       On page 103, after line 12, add the following:

     SEC. 40. CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY STANDARDS USE OF 
                   FORMALDEHYDE IN TEXTILE AND APPAREL ARTICLES.

       (a) Study on Use of Formaldehyde in Manufacturing of 
     Textile and Apparel Articles.--Not later than 2 years after 
     the date of the enactment of this Act, the Consumer Product 
     Safety Commission shall conduct a study on the use of 
     formaldehyde in the manufacture of textile and apparel 
     articles, or in any component of such articles, to identify 
     any risks to consumers caused by the use of formaldehyde in 
     the manufacturing of such articles, or components of such 
     articles.


                    amendment no. 4108, as modified

       On page 64, beginning in line 1, strike: ``The court shall 
     have jurisdiction to grant all appropriate relief to the 
     employee available by law or equity, including injunctive 
     relief, compensatory and consequential damages, reasonable 
     attorneys and expert witness fees, court costs, and punitive 
     damages up to $250,000.''
       ``The court shall have jurisdiction to grant all relief 
     necessary to make the employee whole, including injunctive 
     relief and compensatory damages, including--
       ``(A) reinstatement with the same seniority status that the 
     employee would have had, but for the discharge or 
     discrimination;
       ``(B) the amount of back pay, with interest; and
       ``(C) compensation for any special damages sustained as a 
     result of the discharge or discrimination, including 
     litigation costs, expert witness fees, and reasonable 
     attorney fees.''

  Mr. PRYOR. Having reached this agreement, I now ask unanimous consent 
the Senate vote on passage of the bill, as amended, at 4:55 p.m., and 
the time until 4:55 be equally divided between Senators Pryor and 
Stevens or their designees.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. For the information of all Members, this will be the last 
vote today. It will be the last vote this week. We will be in session 
tomorrow for Senators to make statements while we are in a period of 
morning business. On Monday, there will be no votes. On Monday, we will 
have Senators Gregg and Conrad here for debate only on the bill 
relating to our budget. I wanted to try to work something out to do 
something more tomorrow and Monday, but we have some parliamentary 
problems that we experience on occasion, and I was afraid to do that 
for fear it would not allow us to go to the budget. So we have the 
opportunity tomorrow to come and talk about whatever is important to 
individual Senators, and then Monday we will move at a reasonable time 
to the budget.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. REID. I know there are Senators waiting to vote. Does Senator 
Stevens have anything he wishes to say?
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I wish to thank my colleague, Senator 
Pryor,

[[Page S1697]]

and our chairman Senator Inouye, and my colleague, Senator Collins, for 
working so diligently on this legislation. It has been a privilege to 
work with them to craft this legislation which I feel will help protect 
the public from dangerous products and return consumer confidence to 
the marketplace.
  I recognize the staff on both sides of the aisle who have worked 
tirelessly on this bipartisan compromise and helped this bill to reach 
final conclusion.
  I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record lists of both majority 
and minority staff.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                             Majority Staff

       David Strickland, Alex Hoen Saric, Jana Fong-Swamidoss, 
     Andy York, Price Feland, Mia Petrini, Jared Bomberg, Margaret 
     Cummisky, Lila Helms, Jean Toal Eisen, and Anna Crane.

                             Minority Staff

       Paul Nagle, Megan Beechener, Rebecca Hooks, Peter Phipps, 
     Mark Delich, and Theresa Eugene.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I have a list of people to thank, but 
because we have Senators who would like to vote and some would like to 
catch airplanes or get on to further meetings this evening, I will wait 
on that until after we vote.
  I am glad to yield back all time on our side.
  Mr. STEVENS. We yield back all time.
  The bill, as amended, was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading 
and was read the third time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the bill by title.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 4040) to establish consumer product safety 
     standards and other safety requirements for children's 
     products and to reauthorize and modernize the Consumer 
     Product Safety Commission.

  Mr. PRYOR. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the bill is read for the 
third time.
  The bill having been read the third time, the question is, Shall the 
bill pass?
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. 
Byrd), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Clinton), the Senator from North 
Dakota (Mr. Dorgan), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Obama), and the 
Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Rockefeller) are necessarily absent.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Nebraska (Mr. Hagel), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), and 
the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Salazar). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 79, nays 13, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 41 Leg.]

                                YEAS--79

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Brown
     Brownback
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey 
     Chambliss
     Coleman
     Collins
     Conrad
     Cornyn
     Craig
     Crapo
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inouye
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lugar
     Martinez
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Salazar
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Tester
     Thune
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--13

     Allard
     Barrasso
     Bunning
     Burr
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Corker
     DeMint
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Kyl
     Vitter
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--8

     Byrd
     Clinton
     Dorgan
     Hagel
     Inhofe
     McCain
     Obama
     Rockefeller
  The bill (H.R. 4040), as amended, was passed, as follows:
  (The bill will be printed in a future edition of the Record.)
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

                          ____________________