[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 20]
[Senate]
[Pages 28738-28739]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION REFORM ACT OF 2007

  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, for months, news of recalled toys has 
dominated our headlines. As a mom and as a former prosecutor and now as 
a Senator, I find it totally unacceptable that toxic toys are on our 
shores and in our stores. As my 12-year-old daughter said when her 
favorite Barbies were recalled: Mom, this is getting serious.
  Today, the Senate Commerce Committee on which I serve took action to 
stem the tide of recalls, to finally take lead out of children's 
products, to establish real third party verification, to simplify the 
recall process, to finally make it illegal to sell a recalled product, 
and to get the Consumer Product Safety Commission more resources. Our 
bill is the Consumer Product Safety Commission Reform Act of 2007, and 
it is some of the most sweeping reform we have seen in years and years 
and years of this agency, which is really now a shadow of its former 
self.
  I would like to thank the Commerce Committee chairman, Senator 
Inouye, for his work on this bill, as well as Commerce Consumer 
Subcommittee chair, Senator Pryor, for his work, as well as Senator 
Durbin and Senator Bill Nelson. We all worked together to put together 
a very strong bill. To me, the focus is simple. We need to get these 
toxic toys out of our children's hands.
  Today's action by the Commerce Committee sends to the Senate floor 
our opportunity to effectively ban lead from all children's products--
not just voluntarily, not just as a guideline, but with the force of 
law. I think it is shocking for most parents when they realize that we 
never had a mandatory ban on lead in children's products. We never had 
that in this country. It was a voluntary guideline, and it takes a long 
time, and there are delays and delays and all kinds of loopholes and 
requirements that have led us to the situation that we are in now.
  As millions of toys are being pulled from store shelves for fear of 
lead contamination, it is time to make crystal clear that lead has no 
place in children's products.
  The need for this ban for me is crystallized from a case that 
happened in Minnesota. Any parent can tell you the first place a new 
toy goes is in a little child's mouth, but that shouldn't be our first 
test for lead, as you will see with what happened in this case in 
Minnesota.
  Last year, 4-year-old Jarnell Brown got a pair of tennis shoes at the 
store with his mom, and with that pair of tennis shoes came a free 
charm. His mom didn't buy that charm, he didn't buy that charm, but 
they brought it home, and he swallowed that charm. He didn't die from 
ingesting the charm. He didn't choke on it. It wasn't that his airway 
was blocked. He just swallowed this little charm and it went into his 
stomach and over a period of days, the lead in that charm went into his 
system, went into his bloodstream, slowly, slowly, over a period of 
days, and he died. When they tested him, his lead level was three times 
the accepted level. When they tested that charm, that charm, which was 
from China, was 99 percent lead.
  What is most tragic about this little boy's death is that it could 
have been prevented. He should have never been given that toy in the 
first place. It shouldn't take a child's death to alert us to this 
problem, but that is what we have seen across this country. Parents 
should have the right to expect that toys are tested and that problems 
are found before they reach a toy box.
  The legislation I originally introduced to address this problem, the 
lead ban, is what is included in this bill that we passed through the 
committee today. It basically says that lead in any children's product 
shall be treated as a hazardous substance. It sets a ceiling for trace 
levels of lead, and it empowers the Consumer Product Safety Commission 
to lower the ceiling even further through rulemaking as science and 
technology allow. It sets the level at .04, which is slightly below the 
voluntary guideline they have been using at the CPSC--.06. Several 
other States have levels around .06.
  It also sets a lower level for jewelry at .02 parts per million, 
which is basically the level that is taking effect in California. The 
reason for that is not just little kids, 4-year-olds swallowing charms 
like the sad, tragic case in Minnesota, but also actually junior high 
and high school girls chewing on jewelry. It is the most direct way to 
get lead into their system, and that is why we set the trace lead level 
lower for jewelry. That was what we proposed in my bill, and that is 
the standard that is now included in the Commerce bill which is headed 
to the floor.
  Just yesterday, Consumer Reports released the results of 4 months of 
laboratory testing for lead in children's products, and what they found 
was alarming: high levels of lead in items ranging from toys to jewelry 
to vinyl backpacks, to lunch boxes. According to a poll released by 
Consumer Reports, 36 percent of consumers say they will be buying fewer 
toys this holiday season, and 70 percent said they will be checking 
product labels. It is clear that consumer confidence in the safety of 
our toys has been shaken.
  For 30 years, we have been aware of the dangers posed to children by 
lead paint. It shouldn't have taken us this long to take lead out of 
their hands and out of their mouths, and it is the Consumer Product 
Safety Commission's job to do just that.
  In recent months, it has become all too obvious that this commission 
needs much reform and that it is long overdue. As we all know, the 
Consumer Product Safety Commission's last authorization expired in 
1992, and its statutes have not been updated since 1990. Not 
surprisingly, the marketplace for consumer products has changed 
significantly in the last 15 years, and this summer we saw firsthand 
how ill-equipped the Commission is to protect our most vulnerable 
consumers--our children.
  Today, the Commission is a shadow of its former self, although the 
number of imports has tripled--tripled in recent years, and as my 
colleagues know, all of these recalls recently have been toys from 
China, literally millions and millions of toys. The number of the 
Commission's staff and inspectors has been reduced by more than half, 
dropping from a high in 1980 of 978 to just over 400 today. In total, 
the Consumer Product Safety Commission has only about 100 field 
investigators and compliance personnel nationwide.
  Even worse, we now know the Commission has only one toy inspector. 
His

[[Page 28739]]

name is Bob. He worked in kind of a makeshift laboratory, and he is 
retiring at the end of this year.
  Repeatedly this year, we have seen that the Consumer Product Safety 
Commission's recall process can be very slow. In some cases, such as 
the recalls of the Simplicity cribs and the Magnetix toys, years passed 
between when the Consumer Product Safety Commission was first alerted 
to the problem and when it acted to recall the product in question--the 
result of an outdated provision that places the interests of 
manufacturers before the interests and safety of consumers.
  The legislation passed by our Commerce Committee today goes a long 
way in modernizing the Commission. This legislation more than doubles 
the CPSC's budget authorization by the year 2015--a dramatic change--
and it provides the Commission with the tools it needs to enforce our 
consumer protection laws.
  Today's legislation will also make it illegal to sell a recalled toy, 
finally taking action against those bad actors out there who are 
knowingly leaving recalled products on their shelves or placing them 
for sale online.
  I do at this moment thank some of the retailers that have been 
working with us on this bill, including Target from our State of 
Minnesota, as well as Toys ``R'' Us, whose CEO testified before our 
Appropriations Committee and was positive about moving forward and 
understood the need to beef up the tools for the CPSC, as well as 
increase resources for that agency.
  Finally, I was pleased to see incorporated into our bill today the 
idea that we need to make it easier for parents to identify the toys 
when a recall happens. First of all, when a recall happens, we need to 
make it easier to get the information. I have talked to parents who 
have neighbors who put an e-mail under their door, and that is how they 
found out about it.
  The other way is to make it easier. When they know there is a recall, 
currently, there is no requirement for a batch number or a date on 
these toys. When Thomas the Train Set is recalled, the parents are 
going through the caboose, the green car, and the yellow car, trying to 
figure out do they have the car that was recalled. Obviously, they 
don't always remember the date they bought it. This can be easily fixed 
by putting a batch number on the toy. Obviously, you cannot do it on 
things such as Pick Up Stix, on individual sticks. We are reasonable 
about this. The bill says ``when practicable.'' You can put it on the 
toy where you can read it. It also requires that the batch number be 
put on the package. The reason it has to be put on the package is not 
for the parents. Except for my mother-in-law, I think most people throw 
the packaging away.
  It needs to alert smaller retailers and people selling things on 
eBay. The major outlets, such as Target, are able to, once they find 
out what the batch number is, close down their register so those toys 
cannot get through. If you are selling it on eBay or if you are in a 
smaller store, you may have to look at the batch number to find out, 
such as a parent would, what is recalled.
  That is why our legislation asked for the batch number to be both on 
the toy, when practicable, and on the packaging. We have seen too many 
headlines this summer 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 of that 4-year-old 
boy's parents back in Minnesota and about all these other children who 
have been hurt by these toys that they had no control over--they are 
little kids--we can do better in this country. We can beef up this 
agency that has been languishing for years, and we can put the rules in 
place that make it easier for them to do their job.
  We cannot sit around bemoaning the results anymore. We have to act. 
We have our opportunity, and I hope we do it quickly.
  I thank the Chair.
  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. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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