[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 34, Number 16 (Monday, April 20, 1998)]
[Pages 650-651]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Proclamation 7082--National Recall Round-Up Day, 1998

April 15, 1998

By the President of the United States

of America

A Proclamation

    More than 21,000 Americans lose their lives each year in accidents 
involving consumer products, and more than 29 million are injured. These 
accidents cost our Nation over $200 billion annually, and the cost in 
terms of human suffering is immeasurable.
    The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is on the front line 
of the Federal Government's efforts to protect the safety and well-being 
of our citizens, especially

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our children. The CPSC monitors the performance of more than 15,000 
types of consumer products and secures the recall of those that prove to 
be defective and potentially hazardous. Last year alone, the CPSC 
negotiated 362 recalls involving over 76 million individual consumer 
products that presented a significant risk to the public. But getting 
dangerous products off store shelves is only the first step. The real 
challenge is getting them out of the homes of people who have already 
purchased them.
    On April 16, the CPSC, in conjunction with State and local 
governments and community organizations across the country, will conduct 
the second annual Recall Round-Up Day. This initiative is a public 
safety campaign to warn Americans that they may still be exposing 
themselves and their families to recalled products that could seriously 
injure or even kill them. Despite recalls and safety alerts issued by 
the CPSC, many of these hazardous products are still in consumers' homes 
or can be purchased at secondhand stores and garage sales.
    This year's Recall Round-Up effort will spotlight the dangers 
associated with five types of previously recalled consumer products: 
playpens, bunk beds, halogen floor lamps, hand-held hair dryers, and 
lawn darts. The CPSC encourages government officials, health, safety, 
and consumer agencies, community organizations, and the media to alert 
the American people--particularly parents and child care providers--to 
the importance of repairing, returning, or destroying any of these 
products if they have been recalled. I encourage all Americans to make 
use of this vital information to protect the safety and health of their 
families and to avoid preventable tragedies.
    Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United 
States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the 
Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 16, 
1998, as National Recall Round-Up Day. I call upon all Americans to 
observe this day by working with safety, health, and consumer agencies 
and other appropriate community organizations to organize and conduct 
local round-ups of dangerous and defective consumer products and to warn 
parents, child care providers, and the general public about the hazards 
of using recalled consumer products.
    In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this fifteenth day 
of April, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-eight, and 
of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and 
twenty-second.
                                            William J. Clinton

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 8:45 a.m., April 16, 
1998]

Note: This proclamation was published in the Federal Register on April 
17.