[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 25]
[House]
[Pages 33745-33751]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 THE GROWING AND DISTURBING TREND OF FOOD AND CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY 
                                RECALLS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Altmire). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to come to the floor tonight and 
discuss a growing problem that we seem to be seeing, a disturbing trend 
in food and consumer product safety recalls.
  Mr. Speaker, the danger is very real. It has been widely documented, 
discussed in the media, in committee hearings, and around the water 
cooler at work. We have just come through a summer of recall after 
recall after recall after recall.
  What is the upshot of this, Mr. Speaker? The upshot is that parents 
are afraid. Parents are afraid that their children are playing with 
lead-tainted toys. Parents are afraid that magnets in toys or charms 
may cause internal damage if a child accidentally swallows them. 
Families are afraid that the food they feed their pets may actually 
have little bits of plastic in it and poison their beloved pet. People 
are afraid that their toothpaste may contain antifreeze and poison 
them. People are afraid that the fish they serve to their families may 
have dangerous levels of antibiotics contained within them.
  Mr. Speaker, I could go on and on about specific concerns, but 
generally people are afraid. They are afraid about the source of these 
products and dangers, and rightfully so.
  Mr. Speaker, people are afraid about defective products being 
imported into our country, and it seems like almost all of those 
imports come from a single source, a single country, the People's 
Republic of China.
  Consumers' health and well-being are being endangered on two fronts; 
in the food we eat and the goods we use. I want to use some time 
tonight to talk about both fronts and what we in Congress are doing, 
what we have done, and what we should be doing to protect American 
families from harmful products.
  Let's first consider the issue of consumer product safety recalls. It 
seems like the Nation has also turned its attention to this issue. 
Every time you turn on the TV, every time you open up a newspaper, you 
learn about yet another consumer product safety recall. While people 
are concerned generally about the issue of recalls, many people, many 
people, myself included, are concerned with the source of the recall. 
Again, Mr. Speaker, I stress, it appears that the majority of recalled 
products originate in and from the People's Republic of China.
  Now, I have signed up for e-mail notification for recalled products 
through the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission, and I 
seem to get almost daily e-mails announcing the latest recalls. And, 
yes, most of the recalled products were manufactured in China.
  As a parent, as a physician, one recall that was announced last month 
was extremely disturbing. I am referring to the infamous recall that 
literally had a child's product, the Spin Master Aqua Dots, laced with 
the chemicals that are contained in the drug Rohypnol, the infamous 
date rape drug.
  Mr. Speaker, it is an innocent enough looking product, an innocent 
enough looking toy, a little bit interesting. I bet if my daughters 
were still little, they would have loved this. However, while it may 
look innocent, this product is actually a wolf in sheep's clothing.
  In the recall notification, and I encourage everyone to sign up for 
the recall notification at CPSC.Gov, the Consumer Product Safety 
Commission listed the injuries that these beads caused, these beads 
that were available just a few weeks ago on the shelf of any store that 
any of us could go to in our communities back home.
  ``The Consumer Product Safety Commission has received two reports 
over the last several days of children swallowing Aqua Dots. A 20-
month-old child swallowed several dozen beads. He became dizzy and 
vomited several times before slipping into a comatose state for a 
period of time.''
  Well, that is a pretty serious situation. A 20-months-old child? It 
doesn't say how long the comatose state lasted, but I submit to you any 
length of time that a 20-month-old child spends in a comatose state is 
alarming, frightening, disturbing and upsetting to the parents. And to 
think it was caused by a toy that they bought to amuse their child, 
well, it is almost unthinkable, unthinkable as a parent, that that 
could happen.
  A second child also ingested some dots, vomited and slipped into a 
comatose state and was hospitalized for 5 days.
  Mr. Speaker, according to a report on ABC News, quoting here, 
``Scientists say a chemical coating on the beads, when ingested, 
metabolizes into the so-called date rape drug gamma hydroxy butyrate. 
When eaten, the compound, made from common and easily available 
ingredients, can induce unconsciousness, seizures, drowsiness, coma and 
death.''
  While it is not yet clear how the chemical wound up in the child's 
product, it is clear, it is very clear, where this product was 
manufactured. It was manufactured in the People's Republic of China.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, we are here working away trying to finish up our 
business, because Christmas is right around the corner, and with the 
Christmas season upon us, I cannot help but think there has to be a 
huge market in this country for something that not only doesn't say 
``made in the People's Republic of China,'' but says ``made in 
America,'' ``made in America'' on the toy, on the goods that we buy. 
Wouldn't that be something?
  I encourage retailers to stock as many ``made in America'' products 
as they can. Since the majority of products that are being recalled 
this year were made in China, this year, this year my family and I have 
made the personal decision to try not to buy anything with the ``made 
in China'' label. Given all of the circumstances, it seems like the 
right thing to do for my family. And I am certain that other American 
families have come to a very similar conclusion. You can't turn on the 
television at night without hearing Lou Dobbs talk about this, and I 
bet his family is one of those families as well.
  Mr. Speaker, let's look at just a few of the products that have been 
recalled, shall we? The concern about these imported products is real 
and it has been substantiated with real data. The United States 
Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is tasked with the job of 
trying to safeguard our society from unreasonable risk of injury and 
death associated with consumer products, informed me in that in fiscal 
year 2007 there were a record-breaking 472 consumer product safety 
recalls. Of the 472 recalls, more than 60 percent, over half, were 
manufactured in the People's Republic of China.
  Mr. Speaker, more than 60 percent of all recalled products this past 
year were made in China.
  Furthermore, of the 472 total consumer product recalls, 61 of those 
recalls affected our most innocent and vulnerable members of society, 
our children. Sixty-one consumer product recalls were toys. And how 
many of those products were manufactured in the People's Republic of 
China, you might ask? Well, Mr. Speaker, I am glad you did. That figure 
is even more staggering. In the United States, the Consumer Product 
Safety Commission estimated that over 90 percent of the toy recalls 
originated in the country of China. It is clearly now becoming a

[[Page 33746]]

common business practice for Chinese toys.
  So here is the question: Does the label ``made in China'' translate 
into ``this product may be hazardous to your health or to your child's 
health?'' Here they are, just a few of the products. This poster was 
actually made a little bit earlier, it was close to Halloween and you 
see some Halloween type motifs here, but products that any child would 
delight in owning. But these are products that have been found to be 
unsafe and recalls have been issued by the Consumer Product Safety 
Commission.
  Well, let's look at a little bit more recent picture. How about 
today? Is that recent enough? December 11, 2007. From today's Wall 
Street Journal, ``China stands for quality'' was the title of the 
piece, and it had this cute little teddy bear cartoon associated with 
the article.
  In the article, China's Vice Premier says some interesting things, 
and I would like to share some of those interesting things with you 
tonight, Mr. Speaker, and perhaps I will even offer an opinion or two 
about those claims.
  First she says, ``The Chinese government takes product quality and 
food safety seriously.'' I say prove it.
  She also states, quoting again, ``China has come a long way in 
strengthening product quality and food safety control supervision.'' I 
would tell you, I would submit that that country has not gone nearly 
far enough in this regard.
  Here is the kicker, Mr. Speaker. She ends the piece by saying, and I 
am going to paraphrase here for brevity, China will live up to its 
responsibilities, but we would appreciate understanding, support and 
help from our trade partners. That is the end of the paraphrase.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, with all due respect, we are 
past the point of understanding. Mr. Speaker, there are lives on the 
line. These are the lives of our friends, our neighbors, our children, 
our neighbors' children. It is time, it is time, Mr. Speaker, that we 
act, that we act in this Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, I previously was a physician in my former life before 
coming to Congress 5 years ago, just a simple country doctor. But you 
have got to keep asking yourself over and over again, what can we do to 
protect ourselves and our families? For the safety of our families, we 
have to get to the bottom of what is the cause behind all of these 
recalls.
  Mr. Speaker, I am a member of the House Energy and Commerce 
Committee. I sit on four subcommittees that have conducted intense 
investigations on the issues of food and product safety matters. One 
subcommittee on which I serve, the Commerce, Trade, and Consumer 
Protection Subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over consumer product 
safety issues, has systematically investigated this issue this past 
fall.
  We passed individual bills recently that have dealt with specific 
issues of consumer product safety concerns, including a bill that I 
amended in order to increase the safety of ornamental pools in our 
parks and public spaces in our cities.
  The House Energy and Commerce Committee will be marking up bipartisan 
legislation later this week that will strengthen the consumer product 
safety system in this country. Mr. Speaker, the bill is H.R. 4040, for 
those keeping score at home, the Consumer Product Safety Modernization 
Act, and almost 80 other Members of this body have cosponsored the 
legislation, and I am an original cosponsor of the legislation as well.
  It is an important piece of legislation, and it has, as promised, 
promised by our chairman of the subcommittee, it has come through the 
regular process. All Members have a chance to comment and, if they 
wish, to submit amendments, to try to make amendments to try to perfect 
this important bill. This, quite honestly, is the way we should 
formulate legislation. Not just in the Committee on Energy and 
Commerce, but in the whole House as well. I want to thank the 
leadership of the House Energy and Commerce Committee for being 
committed to the legislative process, because I think it has worked and 
served to make this a better bill as it has come through the process.
  The version in the House is truly a bipartisan effort. I commend the 
chairman of the full committee, Chairman Dingell, and Ranking Member 
Barton, for their participation and leadership in getting the process 
to this point.
  I would also like to commend the United States Consumer Product 
Safety Commission Acting Commissioner Chairwoman Nancy Nord for her 
honest assistance in trying to get a good bill through the committee. 
We asked for technical assistance and we asked for constructive 
criticism, and it was provided to us.
  Mr. Speaker, in H.R. 4040, the Consumer Product Safety Modernization 
Act, the House was able to craft a comprehensive, commonsense bill that 
boosts the funding for the Consumer Product Safety Commission. It 
boasts their personnel. It bans lead in children's products. It 
requires third party testing. It increases the penalties for those that 
break the law.
  H.R. 4040, again which has almost 80 bipartisan cosponsors, also has 
the support from consumer groups, industry, and in fact from the 
Consumer Product Safety Commission. The full committee, the Committee 
on Energy and Commerce, has realized finally that in order to protect 
our children, we have to work together.

                              {time}  2300

  We were able to put politics aside and do it in a very pragmatic, 
cooperative way. The House, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the 
consumer groups, and the industry all worked together to get this done. 
A lot has been reported about a bill in the Senate, but in reality it 
is because our House committee worked in such a cooperative manner with 
all of the stakeholders that we are now just perched on the very 
threshold, literally the eve, of passing H.R. 4040 through our 
committee. The Senate hasn't been able to do this, so the legislation 
may languish a bit longer, but I hope they take the lead from this 
inspired and bipartisan piece of legislation.
  Now, both sides of the aisle, both sides of the dais in the committee 
had to compromise on several things, but I don't believe we ever 
compromised the safety of our children. I am an original cosponsor of 
the bill; I don't think it is a perfect bill. I have proposed 
amendments in the subcommittee process, and I am going to propose 
amendments when we mark the bill up later this week. For instance, I 
firmly believe that we have to improve the United States Consumer 
Product Safety Commission's ability to notify consumers and retailers 
about dangerous products more quickly and in a much broader scope.
  During a hearing earlier this year with the chief executive officer 
of a large toy company in this country, I started wondering about some 
of the nonprofits in my district, people that do good work. They 
collect items for resale; they sell a large amount of resale items and 
collect money for other good works that they do. But I wondered, how do 
they find out about recalls? If the product is recalled, do they know 
it? Will they be able to remove it from their shelves so it doesn't 
then pass into the hands of some other unsuspecting consumer or child? 
And if they don't know about them, what can we do? What can we do in 
the United States Congress to make sure that they are indeed aware?
  Well, after discussing this issue, I must tell you, I have got an 
outstanding nonprofit corporation in my district back in Denton County, 
back in north Texas, Christian Community Action. After talking about it 
with them, I became very concerned that there may be a large group of 
people and associations that are not receiving the information about 
product recalls in a timely manner. As we all know, products are 
recalled because they have been found to have some element of danger to 
the consumer, and they need to be immediately discarded or handled in 
some other way.
  Nonprofits like the Salvation Army, Goodwill, and my own community

[[Page 33747]]

Christian Community Action, and even smaller nonprofits that serve an 
even more specialized segment of the community, they provide many 
valuable resources. Often, these nonprofits run second-hand retail 
shops to additionally help some of the neediest members of society, 
certainly members of society that you really don't want a recalled 
product ending up in their hands. However, as I said before, I have 
been informed by some of the nonprofits in my district that, through no 
fault of their own, they are unaware of the recalls. And, therefore, 
the fear is that they may inadvertently sell a recalled product to a 
family or to an individual or to a child.
  This gap had to be closed, and I was able to offer an amendment that 
subsequently was accepted and the amendment will help us close the gap. 
This happened in the subcommittee markup on the Commerce, Trade, and 
Consumer Protection Subcommittee. That amendment makes it unequivocally 
clear that the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission must 
reach out and educate second-hand retailers, like Christian Community 
Action back home in my district, and must provide additional 
educational materials about the recalls. This new provision will help 
make our second-hand retail shops safer, and that makes our communities 
safer. It makes our children safer.
  Now, I am pleased that the amendment was accepted, and I have also 
been working on other ideas. I want to talk about them just a little 
bit more in a moment. But I have also introduced legislation dealing 
with food imports, which basically will give the Food and Drug 
Administration a big red button to push to be able to stop a dangerous 
food or drug from entering the country. We see the little teddy bear 
coming down a conveyor belt there. Well, if we know that the teddy bear 
has got rohypnol in his running shoes or polonium in his paws or 
formaldehyde in his fur, we want to be able to stop this product from 
coming into the country. And this is something that I have become very 
concerned about.
  I want to give similar authority to the Food and Drug Administration 
to give them a big red button to push to stop dangerous foods from 
entering the country. At a hearing that we had at the beginning of 
November, I asked Chairwoman Nord if she had the authority, that same 
authority for the Consumer Safety Commission that I was trying to give 
to the FDA, and she said no.
  Therefore, over the past several weeks I have been working on trying 
to incorporate these same ideas into H.R. 4040, which, again, deals 
with consumer product safety. So this Thursday, when we do our markup 
in full committee on H.R. 4040, I will be offering two additional 
amendments at the full committee markup.
  Right now, the current law lists five ways that an imported product 
can be refused admission into the United States. Now, I was somewhat 
chagrined to learn that the list did not include products that had been 
recalled. That seems just common sense. Do we ever need that stop 
button. We need to stop dangerous products from other countries from 
entering into our shores and certainly from entering into our stream of 
commerce. It seems to be common sense that products that have been 
found to be dangerous should be stopped at the border and denied 
entrance into this country; but, unfortunately, that is not always the 
case.
  And think about that for a minute, Mr. Speaker. You have got a 
product that has been recalled because it has lead in some part of the 
product, but we don't stop it from coming into this country. What 
happens to all that stuff? It accumulates in a warehouse somewhere, 
presumably. Presumably it is not diverted into the stream of commerce 
at some point along the line. But even just aggregating a lead 
contaminated product in a warehouse somewhere means at some point 
someone has got to do something with it. They can't just keep paying 
rent on a warehouse for a product that is not moving and not going 
anywhere and not making them any money. This product is going to have 
to be destroyed.
  Well, you can't bury it in a landfill because then you contaminate 
the groundwater. You can't burn it because then it goes in the air; we 
all breathe it. We know that is not a good thing for a lead-
contaminated product. We need to stop that stuff from even coming into 
our country.
  So I will be offering an amendment that would immediately add 
recalled products to the list of reasons as to why a product should be 
refused admission. I know it sounds simplistic and that is something 
that should already be done, but apparently that is not the case.
  Unfortunately, while the leadership of the committee agrees that the 
stop button approach has much merit, to avoid possible violations of 
trade laws, and for the life of me I don't know why we would be 
concerned about that; it seems like someone is violating the trade laws 
on the other end. But the committee thinks, in order to avoid 
violations of trade laws, that we need to hold an additional hearing on 
this very subject on this idea before enactment.
  I am going to offer the amendment when we mark up the bill on 
Thursday. Because of this concern, it likely will not be accepted. And 
I would like to get the understanding from the committee that we have 
got to go forward with this idea and enact legislation that will give 
the Federal Government a true measure, a true way to stop dangerous 
products from other countries, from coming into our country and hurting 
our families and our children.
  Now, while this amendment may not be successful this run, I have been 
able to gather support from the committee on another and equally 
important amendment. As I mentioned before, right now, current law in 
the United States of America, there are five ways that a product can be 
refused admission into the United States. As I began my study of this 
section of the law, my first question was: If the Federal Government 
already has a law in place to stop harmful imported products from 
entering the United States of America, then why, why, why are we seeing 
recall after recall after recall, a record-breaking number of recalled 
products being manufactured and imported into this country?
  The second question was: What types of inefficiencies are there in 
the laws that need to be remedied?
  Well, after looking at a list of the five ways we could refuse 
admission of an imported product, two of the five ways immediately 
caught my attention. The law reads that a product can be refused 
admission if the product ``is or has been determined to be an 
imminently hazardous consumer product in a proceeding.''
  Now, what does that mean? Well, the law defines an imminently 
hazardous consumer product as a consumer product which presents 
imminent and unreasonable risk of death, serious illness, or severe 
personal injury.
  I think it fits the bill. So the Federal Government already has a way 
to stop products from entering into America if they pose a risk of 
death, serious illness, or serious injury.
  When I originally learned of this, I thought that this section of the 
law could and should keep Americans safe. But when I asked the United 
States Consumer Product Safety Commission how many times the law had 
actually been used, the answer was five times. Five times. Mr. Speaker, 
do you want to hazard a guess when the last time this law was used? Let 
me give you a hint: Ronald Reagan was President of the United States. 
The year 1998 was the last time the law was used.
  Realizing that this section posed an incredibly high bar in order for 
it to be used, especially since a proceeding had to be held prior to 
enforcement, I turned to the next way that a product could be denied 
admission. The law also reads that ``a product can be refused 
admission,'' and again quoting here, ``if it has a product defect which 
constitutes a substantial product hazard.''
  Again, what do they mean by that? The law defines a substantial 
product hazard as a product defect which, because of the pattern of the 
defect, the

[[Page 33748]]

number of defective products distributed in commerce, and the severity 
of the risk or otherwise creates a substantial risk of injury to the 
public.
  It seems to be a little bit lower bar, to me, so I thought surely, 
surely this section could be used to keep Americans safe. Well, I was 
wrong again. The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission did 
not have the exact number of times that this section had been used to 
deny admission of imported products, but the information I got back was 
that it was ``rarely used.'' Rarely used. Rarely used. Rarely used to 
protect Americans from dangerous products.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, as a Member of Congress, if we see inefficiencies 
in the law, we have a duty to make changes, to make changes in the law 
to make it work, make it more efficient.
  I don't pretend to have all of the answers to make this law more 
perfect, but I know that we must do something to increase the 
effectiveness of these provisions. Americans are relying on us. 
Americans are relying on their Members of Congress, on the United 
States Congress to do just that. Therefore, I will be offering an 
amendment to our bill when we mark it up on Thursday to H.R. 4040 that 
will require the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission to 
study the effectiveness of these five ways to refuse admission of an 
imported product, especially the first two ways that I just went over: 
the Commission must report back to Congress on a specific strategy, 
including any new legislation needed to implement such a plan which 
will be used to increase the effectiveness of their ability to stop 
unsafe products from entering into the United States.
  I have been informed that I have the support of the leadership of the 
committee on a bipartisan basis to allow this, what I consider a very 
vital amendment, very basic but vital amendment to go forward. We 
desperately need a way to stop defective products at our borders. The 
American public should know that these products will not come into this 
country. I want the American people to know that I for one am not going 
to stop working on this until we have the problem solved.
  Let's move on from our friend the teddy bear. And just as a matter of 
public service, while we continue to work on legislation regarding 
consumer product safety, Mr. Speaker, I realize that I can't speak 
directly to people who might be watching on C-SPAN, whether they be 
Members of Congress or just ordinary Americans; but if I could speak to 
them in their living rooms, what I would want to say is I would 
encourage them to sign up for product recall alerts. It is easy, it is 
free, and it can save a life. If you have access, again, Mr. Speaker, 
if I were able to speak directly to people watching this on C-SPAN or 
Members watching in their office, I would say that if you have access 
to the Internet or if you have access to e-mail, all you need to do to 
receive these alerts is go to the Consumer Product Safety Commission's 
home page, which is www.cpsc.gov, and sign up for free recall and 
safety news. Again, the Web address, www.cpsc.gov, and you can sign up 
for the product alerts. I have done that. You get about an alert a day. 
It is a little disconcerting at first, but it is important information. 
And the Consumer Product Safety Commission also has a neighborhood 
safety network which is for organizations, for civic-minded individuals 
to help disseminate information about recalls, provide posters to 
members of society who may not be aware that the recall has happened 
and that the recall may affect products that they have in their home.
  Mr. Speaker, we all know education can save lives. Unfortunately, 
though, certain groups of Americans, some of them elderly, some of them 
living in urban settings, some living in very rural settings, and I 
have got both in my district, some low-income families, minority 
groups, often don't hear about the safety messages from the government, 
and so we need additional ways of outreach.

                              {time}  2315

  Please, I would ask, Mr. Speaker, we ask our fellow Members of 
Congress to help make communities safer by getting the word out about 
product recalls.
  I am a member of the Neighborhood Safety Network and we disseminate 
information about recalls via my Web site, www.house.gov/burgess.
  Mr. Speaker, we have talked a lot about consumer product safety 
recalls. Let's talk about food safety. You think it is the same thing, 
but it is an entirely different process. We have had so much discussion 
about this that I feel people probably are asking is Congress doing 
anything, has Congress paid any attention to the safety of the food we 
eat?
  The answer is, yes, we have paid a lot of attention. We haven't got a 
lot of press about it, but I am again a member of the Energy and 
Commerce Committee, and we are pursuing an active investigation and 
then subsequent legislation to confront the problem. As a member of the 
Oversight Investigation Subcommittee, we have taken an active role in 
investigating the safety of our Nation's food supply.
  In August, our subcommittee sent a bipartisan group of investigators 
to China to see firsthand some of the causes of the problem. In the 
committee's staff report, the investigators came to the following 
conclusion from their trip and investigation thus far. Quoting directly 
from the staff report:
  Number one, it would appear that the Chinese food safety supply chain 
does not meet international safety standards. It is, in fact, 
responsible for very serious domestic Chinese food poisoning outbreaks. 
It is happening in their own backyard.
  Number two, findings of the bipartisan field investigators, the 
Chinese government appears to be determined to avoid embarrassing food 
safety outbreaks in export markets due to the damaging and potentially 
lasting effect this would have upon their ``Made in China'' branding.
  Well, that is pretty powerful. In fact, Mr. Speaker, if I can digress 
for a moment, you almost wish if American importers and manufacturers 
had that same concern about what damage they may do to their individual 
brands by continuing to import, albeit inexpensive products, but 
products that aren't safe.
  Americans want to feel safe. If it cost an extra $1 for a Barbie 
doll, I bet they are willing to fork that out.
  Finding number three, the lack of meaningful regulation of farming 
and food processing in China and the advanced development of the 
document counterfeiting industry and the willingness of some 
entrepreneurs in both China and the United States to smuggle foodstuffs 
that do not meet quality standards necessitates a much more vigorous 
program of inspection and laboratory testing in China and the United 
States ports of entry than the Food and Drug Administration has been 
willing or able to provide to date.
  Mr. Speaker, these are important conclusions and we simply cannot sit 
by and watch the problem worsen. We have to transform the Food and Drug 
Administration into an agency that can fully cope with the importation 
problems of the 21st century.
  The Energy and Commerce Committee is doing our part. In addition to 
the staff trip to China, we have had five hearings to discuss the topic 
``Can the Food and Drug Administration Commission Assure the Safety of 
the Nation's Food Supply?''
  What have we learned so far? At a hearing on July 17, 2007, on this 
very topic, former FDA Associate Commissioner William Hubbard testified 
that in 1999 the FDA drafted a legislative proposal which would have 
given the Food and Drug Administration authority to require foreign 
countries to take more responsibility for the foods that they send to 
the United States. The agency's proposal would have allowed the Food 
and Drug Administration to embargo a given food from a given country if 
there were repeated instances of that food being found contaminated 
when it arrived in the United States.
  Countries that send safe food would have no reason to be concerned 
because they would be unaffected. But countries that demonstrated a 
pattern of disregard of United States safety

[[Page 33749]]

standards would have to increase their oversight of food exported from 
their country. They would have to do it. Unfortunately, Congress did 
not accept this recommendation in 1999, and the situation with imported 
foods has gone from bad to worse to truly awful.
  Now, Congress had a chance to examine the problem and consider 
recommendations on how to solve the problem, and that was back in 1999. 
The world was a different place, and it was perhaps difficult to 
anticipate the acceleration of foreign products that are coming into 
our country that occurred over the last decade or decade and a few 
years more.
  Was the safety of food products from foreign countries not a priority 
for Congress back in 1999? And the answer to that question is not as 
much as it should have been. Why we have allowed this problem to 
persist when they know how much harm these unsafe products have 
potential to cause, I can't answer. We may never know the answer to 
that question. But as I stand here tonight, I will absolutely, 
absolutely assure you this is a priority of mine and I intend to do 
something about it.
  Now, October 11 of this year, the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on 
Oversight and Investigations had the third of a five-part series of 
hearings on the Food and Drug Administration's ability to ensure the 
safety and security of our Nation's food supply. According to testimony 
given by Mr. David Nelson, the senior investigator for the Energy and 
Commerce Committee, currently the Food and Drug Administration does not 
go over and see if the food products that are produced in China are 
done under the same standards as here in the United States of America. 
These are the products that are produced in China and sent over here 
for our consumption. These are the products that Americans will be 
consuming, and they are not being produced under American standards.
  When we had that hearing, Ranking Member Whitfield on the 
subcommittee asked Mr. Nelson if you were speaking to a group and a 
member of the audience asked how safe it is to consume products 
produced in China, he answered, You would be taking your chances on any 
imported food.
  Mr. Speaker, that is a chance we simply can't afford to take. America 
has to have the authority to prohibit these foods from coming into our 
country if they are not safe. We have to have the ability to determine 
if they are produced according to our standards. We have to be able to 
stop foods that we would, according to Mr. Nelson, be taking our 
chances on.
  Now, Chairman Dingell asked Mr. Nelson whether or not the Food and 
Drug Administration can protect the United States' citizens from unsafe 
imports with the resources the Food and Drug Administration currently 
has. Mr. Nelson's answer was, That would be an emphatic no. Just not 
just no, but an emphatic, underlined, bolded no.
  When I got a chance to ask a question, I asked Mr. Nelson what did 
they do about food to eat while in China. He sort of laughed and sort 
of didn't laugh and said, Well, we ate what everyone else ate. And I 
asked how he was feeling, and he said, Just fine. But actually, some of 
the members of our committee staff did become ill when they were 
traveling in China.
  Now, I was very interested in the protocol that they follow in China 
after discovering a contaminated supply of food, and the hearing we 
were having that day really concentrated on poultry and poultry 
products.
  During my questioning of Mr. James Rice, the vice president and 
country manager of Tyson Foods in China, I asked what I thought was a 
fairly simple question. I said, When you find a problem, do you 
communicate that to, say, the United States authorities so they can be 
on the lookout for similar products in other facilities?
  This was a little bit disturbing, Mr. Speaker. He said, No, we don't.
  He explained to me, because Tyson was using local Chinese suppliers 
and the products are mostly for the Chinese market, they didn't feel 
that was necessary. So, in essence, there is no dialogue whatsoever. 
Mr. Rice told me if persistent problems from one supplier were 
identified, no one would alert others as to the presence of this 
problematic supplier. There is no system in place, no early warning 
system, no system of surveillance, not even any honor among thieves, it 
appears, to let people know about a bad supplier in their midst.
  Mr. Speaker, that is a serious, serious problem. And it is so 
important, so important that I introduced legislation that relates to 
this 1999 proposal, H.R. 3967, the so-called Imported Food Safety 
Improvement Act of 2007, because I firmly believe the Food and Drug 
Administration needs the ability and the explicit authority to 
immediately stop dangerous foods and products from coming into this 
country.
  And it is a pretty simple concept. Goods are coming into this 
country. If goods are coming into this country on a long conveyer belt 
and you find a bad apple on the belt, the Food and Drug Administration 
needs to be able to push a big red button that says ``stop'' and 
immediately stop that contaminated product from continuing on 
downstream into our stream of commerce.
  My legislation would give the Food and Drug Administration that big 
red button to push. The idea is simple. If enacted, the Food and Drug 
Administration would have the authority to embargo a specific food from 
a specific country if there were repeated instances that that type of 
food or product had been contaminated. It seems so simple. We have got 
to be able to stop countries from sending harmful food products into 
the United States.
  My bill, H.R. 3967, will allow us to finally take control of the food 
being sent to America. And this is important as well, Mr. Speaker. It 
sends a strong message to countries that in the past have played fast 
and loose with our regulations, that in the past have not seen a 
problem with continuing to send contaminated products into our country.
  Well, we are going to tell them it is a new day and it is a different 
set of rules. You solve the problem on your end or we will end the 
problem over here. After summer of recall upon recall upon recall, it 
is time to take matters into our own hands, and I will no longer 
tolerate hearing a different news story every day of the week about a 
new and dangerous product coming into the United States of America from 
the People's Republic of China. China is sending these products to 
America and then they are being recalled. We can do a little better 
than that.
  The Health Subcommittee of Energy and Commerce, of which I am also a 
member, had a legislative hearing on September 26 regarding Chairman 
Dingell's bill, H.R. 3610, the Food and Drug Import Safety Act of 2007. 
Having reviewed this legislation, I think the chairman's intentions are 
good, and obviously I look forward to working with the chairman on this 
issue. I cannot support every single provision in the bill, but I do 
support the spirit of the proposed law.
  I believe we need to look toward how other Federal agencies have 
dealt with this issue and whether it would be appropriate to give the 
Food and Drug Administration similar authority or authorities.
  According to the Government Accountability Office, 15 Federal 
agencies collectively administer 30 laws related to food safety. Do you 
think we are suffering a little bit from too much division of labor?
  The Food and Drug Administration, which is part of the United States 
Department of Health and Human Services, and the Food Safety and 
Inspection Service, which is part of the United States Department of 
Agriculture, together comprise the majority of both the total funding 
and the total staffing for the government's food, safety and regulatory 
system.
  However, food safety laws and regulations vary greatly from one 
agency to the other and not all foods are treated equally. For 
instance, the United States Department of Agriculture has jurisdiction 
over meat, poultry and eggs, and has established equivalency 
determination standards for those specified foods.

[[Page 33750]]

  On October 11 at the third Oversight and Investigation hearing on the 
FDA's ability to assure the safety and security of our Nation's food 
supply, the Under Secretary for Food Safety at the United States 
Department of Agriculture, Dr. Richard Raymond, gave the following 
testimony and provided a definition for equivalency: ``Equivalency is 
the foundation of our system of imports. It recognizes that an 
exporting country can provide an appropriate level of food safety even 
if those measures are different from those applied here at home.

                              {time}  2330

  ``The Food Safety and Inspection Service has always required an 
assessment of foreign inspection systems before those nations can 
export into the United States of America. This prior review was 
mandated by our laws, which originally required that a foreign system 
be equal to our system before that foreign product can be admitted.''
  He further went on to state: ``An exporting country has the burden of 
proving that its system is equivalent to our own if that country wishes 
to export to the United States.''
  Well, Mr. Speaker, I understand in applying a system of equivalency 
to the Food and Drug Administration, which, in fairness, has an 80 
percent jurisdiction over all food imported, as compared to 20 percent 
for the United States Department of Agriculture, I recognize that that 
system of equivalency for the Food and Drug Administration is going to 
be difficult. It's going to be onerous. Currently, only 33 countries 
are eligible to ship meat or poultry into the United States because of 
those very high standards established by that equivalency protocol. If 
the exact standard that the United States Department of Agriculture 
employs was used by the Food and Drug Administration, it would 
drastically change. Some people would even say it would cripple the 
food import system if there were not enough resources to support it.
  Again, remember, the United States Department of Agriculture which 
has a system of equivalency, oversees 20 percent of the imports. The 
Food and Drug Administration, which does not have a system in place for 
inspecting sites in other countries, has jurisdiction over 80 percent 
of the food imports. You can begin to see some of the discrepancy there 
and the magnitude of the problem that faces us.
  Mr. Speaker, the former Speaker of our House, Speaker Newt Gingrich, 
is famous for quoting in his second principle of transformation: ``Real 
change requires real change.'' This is just such a situation. This 
system needs to be drastically changed.
  Consider this, Mr. Speaker: in 2005, nearly 15 percent of the overall 
United States food consumption was imported. Between 1996 and 2006, the 
amount of United States imports of agriculture and sea food products 
from all countries increased 42 percent. Furthermore, in the last 
decade the volume of Food and Drug Administration-regulated imports has 
tripled.
  Chinese imports to the United States of America have increased more 
rapidly than the global average. And between the years 1996 to 2006, 
the volume of imports of Chinese agriculture and sea food products 
increased by 346 percent. China is now the third largest exporter of 
agricultural and sea food products to the United States of America, 
only surpassed by our neighbors to the north and south.
  So perhaps our food import safety system should change. It needs to 
change drastically. The Food and Drug Administration was created at a 
time where we were still domestically growing and producing the 
majority of our own foods. And we've got some real issues here at home 
to deal with regarding our food regulatory system. But at least we have 
a regulatory system with which to deal with the problem. This is not 
the case for all countries from which we receive food.
  It seems that it would be common sense that we would only import food 
from a country if they can prove that their system is just as good as 
ours. And yet only the United States Department of Agriculture can 
require this, which, once again, controls only 20 percent of the 
imported food. The Food and Drug Administration, which cannot control 
that issue of equivalency, is responsible for 80 percent of the food 
imports. It seems to be very arbitrary that the system that the United 
States Department of Agriculture can employ is so much tougher than the 
system employed by the Food and Drug Administration. Yet, at the end of 
the day, where does all that food end up? It's on your table, and it 
looks the same whether it's regulated by the United States Department 
of Agriculture or regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. 
Americans don't discriminate from which agency had the regulatory 
control over the food that was imported from other countries. And it's 
kind of curious that in Congress we make that distinction. Congress is 
responsible for these dual standards and Congress must have a candid 
discussion on whether or not we need to make these systems more 
comparable, if we need to establish the same system of safety for the 
Food and Drug Administration that we already have in place for the 
United States Department of Agriculture.
  It is my goal to encourage this frank discussion at the committee 
level and here on the floor of the House, Members on both sides of the 
aisle. And we've both got to continue to have input on this important 
issue. As we all know, the system works best and we have the most 
effective legislative product if bills are allowed to go through the 
regular process. And I implore leadership to allow this important piece 
of legislation to go through that regular legislative process.
  We've seen two instances this year on our Committee on Energy and 
Commerce with H.R. 4040, the bill that we're going to mark up on 
Thursday, being the second one. The first was when we reauthorized the 
prescription drug user fee and the medical device user fee for the Food 
and Drug Administration. That bill came through regular process. And I 
didn't like everything in the bill at the end of the process, but you 
know what? It was a good bill. And it passed the House and it passed 
the Senate and the President signed it into law at the end of 
September.
  And for the first time we've got a robust, data-gathering capability 
within the Food and Drug Administration which the country has needed 
and has lacked for 40 years. We did this. This Congress did this, 
accomplished this by working together in a bipartisan fashion through 
regular order. We've got the same opportunity here on the Consumer 
Products Safety bill that's before the full committee on Thursday.
  And the other side of the equation is, look what we've done with 
reauthorizing the State Children's Health Insurance Plan. Here's a bill 
that every one of us, when we stood in this Congress and we raised our 
right hand and we swore the oath and were sworn into Congress, every 
single one of us, man and woman, knew that the State Children's Health 
Insurance Program had an expiration date of September 30 of 2007. And 
what did we do? We languished; we didn't have hearings. We didn't have 
a markup in subcommittee. We crammed some great big obnoxious bill 
through the full committee, came to the House floor without even being 
discharged by our committee. The bill was so bad that the Senate 
wouldn't even touch it. Now that's a bad bill.
  And then we got this process from the Senate; and instead of taking 
the Senate bill back to our committee and working on it and trying to 
improve it, we treated it as if it was a conference report, but 
everyone in Congress knew it wasn't a conference report. But it was 
brought to the floor like a conference report so you couldn't amend it, 
you couldn't change it, you couldn't try to make it better and it was 
rammed down our throats; and it was passed and the President vetoed it; 
and we sustained the veto, and then we're going to go through the same 
gyration again here this week.
  And that's not necessary. We have a way of doing things right. We 
have a way of producing for the American people, if we'll just do it 
and put the politics aside for a little while.

[[Page 33751]]

  Well, let's not allow the issue of protecting our families from 
harmful and dangerous goods coming from other countries also become the 
debate of Republican versus Democrat. That is something that I am 
certain holds residence in the minds of all of us working together to 
find the most efficient and the most effective method of solving this 
crisis now, making it a priority for everyone and getting the problem 
solved now and then moving on to other things.
  Now, I would be remiss if I didn't also mention that last month the 
President's working group on import safety presented their proposal to 
both the President and to Congress. While I wish that the working group 
had been able to present their proposal somewhat earlier than they did, 
I do believe that they have presented many sound policies and that we 
should incorporate this while formulating our legislation. I, myself, 
am still reviewing the group's findings.
  It is pretty voluminous, but I was pleased to read that they would 
also like to see a legislative proposal that would give the Food and 
Drug Administration additional authority for preventive controls for 
high-risk foods. If you'd like to read their proposal, it is available 
on the Internet at www.importsafety.gov. Import safety is all one word, 
all lower case.
  Now, I know many people watching this are asking themselves, you 
know, is there a down side to all of this that we should consider. The 
answer is, yes. We've always got to be cautious about jumping over the 
line and encroaching the, increasing the ever expanding grasp of the 
Federal Government.
  There's no doubt that the Federal Government has an important duty to 
the safety and welfare of all Americans, but the last thing you want is 
for the Federal Government to control absolutely every aspect of every 
little item that you buy.
  There is a balancing test and I, for one, am going to continue to be 
cognizant of that fact. But there is also a very clear and present 
public safety danger that has to be dealt with. We must be vigilant in 
our plight in restoring safety and trust back to the foods we eat and 
the products that we use. I believe that H.R. 3967, the Food Import 
Safety Improvement Act, will further this goal, as will amendments that 
I'm going to make in H.R. 4040 later this week.
  Compromising the safety of foods that we put on our tables is not an 
option. Compromising the consumer products that we buy for our families 
is not an option. Compromising the security of Americans will not be an 
option. Compromising cannot be an option that we turn to because we 
lack the power. H.R. 3967 and my amendments to H.R. 4040 will restore 
some of that power to Americans.
  Mr. Speaker, again I started off this talk with the notion that when 
people are out shopping this Christmas season and they pick up 
something and they look at the underside of it and it says ``made in 
China,'' maybe that translates into ``use at your own risk.'' I do 
encourage consumers to beware, be aware of where the products are made, 
be careful about the products that you bring into your home.
  Mr. Speaker, we can no longer sit back and allow these harmful 
products to reach our homes. All Americans, myself included, have a 
choice to take a stance individually and to not buy products if we 
don't think they're safe. And if you see ``made in China,'' remember, 
that's a warning label. But we can go a little further than that. 
Stricter rules are necessary. Funding, increased funding, increased 
personnel are necessary. And now it's up to Congress. It's up to 
Congress to create and enact those rules.
  Mr. Speaker, you've been very indulgent, and I'm going to yield back 
the balance of my time.

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