[ Silence ]
[ Background Noise ]
>> Inez Tenenbaum: Good morning everyone
and welcome to our annual public hearing
on the CPSC's agenda and priorities.
We are holding this morning's hearings
so interested stakeholders are able
to inform the Commission about product
safety issues they believe are deserving
of attention during Fiscal Year
2014 which begins October the 1st,
2013 and Fiscal Year 2015 which
begins October the 1st, 2014.
This hearing is a great exemplum [assumed
spelling] that the agencies believe in
and a commitment to open and
participatory government.
Before I begin, I would like to once again
welcome our new commissioners Marietta Robinson
and Ann Marie Buerkle.
I'm so pleased that both of you were
able to be a part of our play yards
and bassinets briefing yesterday.
This is another important hearing today and I'm
so pleased that the full commission is together
and able to engage with our
important stakeholders.
We have eight panelists representing
a wide array of stakeholders.
In addition to the individuals
providing overall testimonies today,
we also receive three written
submissions from interested stakeholders
who are unable to attend today's hearing.
I would like to extend a special
welcome to each of our presenters
who are here to testify this morning.
Our panelist will be heard
in the following order.
Nancy Cowles who will be
representing Kids in Danger,
Jennifer Cleary representing the
Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers,
Robyn Grant representing National
Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care
and Michael McDonald representing the
American Apparel & Footwear Association.
For our second panel, we will have Rachel
Weintraub representing the Consumer Federation
of America, Randall Hertzler
representing the Handmade Toy Alliance,
Rebecca Mond representing
the Toy Industry Association
and Ami Gadhia representing Consumers Union.
The panelists will be given 10
minutes for their presentations.
Mr. Stevenson, the Commission
secretary, will provide an indication
that there are five minutes
remaining, two minutes remaining,
and then when your time has expired.
After each panel has completed
their presentations,
the Commission will ask questions
of the sitting panelist.
After the commissioners have
finished asking questions
to the panel, a new panel will be seated.
Now that we have the procedures set forth for
this hearing, I believe we're ready to begin.
So why don't everyone who is going to be on
that first panel, Nancy Cowles, Jennifer Cleary,
Robyn Grant and Michael McDonald please come
forward and we have a name tag for each of you.
[ Pause ]
And so Nancy Cowles, won't you please begin.
>> Nancy Cowles: Good morning everyone.
I want to thank you for this
opportunity to submit comments
and testify on CPSC's agenda and priorities.
I'd love to welcome the two
new commissioners as well.
I look forward to working with you as we
go forward on Children's Product Safety.
Kids In Danger is a nonprofit organization
dedicated to protecting children
by improving children's product safety.
We were founded in 1998 by the parents of Danny
Keysar whose name may be familiar with you
from yesterday, and after he was killed
in a recalled portable crib
in his Chicago childcare home.
I submit-- there are full
comments in writing and just wanted
to highlight some of the main points.
The implementation of the Consumer Product
Safety Improvement Act remains a top priority
for KID and we hope for the CPSE.
We applaud the Commission on its
commitment to the process thus far.
Of particular interest to us is section 104
or the Danny Keysar Child Product
Safety Notification Act, Danny's Law.
This is really Danny's legacy.
This section requires strong mandatory standards
for durable infant and toddler products,
a product registration system for those same
products and additional requirements applying
to the use or sale of older, unsafe cribs.
The process for setting mandatory
standards as required
in Danny's Law is paramount to children safety.
Parents have always assumed
that if a product design
or store shelf, someone made sure it was safe.
Now, that will be the reality
for nursery products.
To date, mandatory standards have
been adopted for eight products.
This has greatly increased parent and
caregiver confidence in the products they buy
to care for their infants and toddlers.
The process is moving a little slower
than the ambitious schedule set
out by the law leaving many products
still without a mandatory standard.
But we urge CPSC to continue their thorough
and thoughtful work in this process,
working with ASTM International subcommittees
to produce strong standards
as expeditiously as possible.
CPSC should continue to prioritize
their participation in the ASTM
so emerging hazards can be incorporated
into the mandatory standards as needed.
In addition, we would urge CPSC to continue
to monitor product development to see
if other new infant and toddler
products should be added
to the Section 104 standard setting process.
Another part of Danny's Law requires
manufacturers of durable infant
and toddler products to include postage
paid registration cards and provide a way
to register these products online.
This is a proven system to assure
that as many users as possible
of products are alerted in
the event of a recall.
We encourage CPSC to work both with consumer
groups and industry to broaden the awareness
of this program and highlight
the online registration process.
We believe the use of bar codes, QR codes
and other online programs would
encourage more parents and caregivers
to register products making it more likely they
will not use a recalled product inadvertently.
Our founders, Danny's parents, believe that had
a simple card been included in the packaging
of the PlaySkool Travel Lite Crib that
killed their son, he might be alive today.
Danny's Law also makes it illegal
to sell or use in child care a crib
that doesn't meet the new mandatory standard.
While this will dramatically reduce the number
of unsafe cribs in use, it still leaves many,
some recalled, in consumers' homes.
We ask CPSC to make three
things in this area a priority.
Continue outreach to child care
facilities as well as licensing agencies
to assure unsafe cribs are no longer
used in our child care homes and centers.
KID continues to get calls from child care
providers just now learning of the provisions
or not understanding how to comply.
We must all work together
to provide information,
support and enforcement of
this safety requirement.
We ask that you continue to
monitor the online sales of cribs.
In preparation for this testimony, I searched
online for just a minute in a few cities
and found dozens of examples
of unsafe cribs for sale.
While the internet may seem too vast to
police effectively, most of these are posting
on just a few well-known
sites that could be pressured
to do a better job keeping
deadly products off their sites.
For instance, they could require a
date of manufacture for any crib post
and that would give the information that we need
to know if it meets the new standard or not.
Some online sites including
eBay are already doing this.
We encourage the manufacturers that recalled
drop-side cribs during the period of time
when over 12 million cribs were recalled,
and at that time provided only a method
to immobilize the side, then switch
now to a refund or at least a coupon
for the portion of the cost of a new crib.
This will encourage those with financial
difficulties to stop using what we now know
to be an unsafe crib and move their
children to a safer alternative.
Throughout the implementation of the CPSIA
and Danny's Law, CPSC has been working hard
to make sure that cribs, play yards,
and bassinets are as safe as possible.
Work is also underway for inclined
sleep products and bedside sleepers.
KID appreciates the measured
approach CPSC is taking to assure each
of these products is as safe as possible.
Even non-sleep products such as swings and
strollers are held to standards that attempt
to address possible hazard if the
child does fall asleep in them.
But still on the market are
myriad products intended
for infant sleep that are held to no standards.
We have seen the devastating result of
that with the deaths in the Nap Nanny
and Peapod Travel Crib which
later had to be recalled.
These were taken off storage shelves
too late for the babies that died.
But there are many other
products still on the market.
As we have said, parents assume, especially
now that they've heard about the new standards
and testing requirements that any product
on the shelves has been tested and is safe.
That is still not the case.
We urge you to actively work to assure standards
for all products intended for infant sleep.
That way, products that cannot be made
safe can be removed from the market.
We applaud CPSC's recent action to review the
evidence of the dangers of crib bumper pads.
These products have led to
suffocation deaths of dozens of babies,
including two families we work very
closely with the Kids In Danger.
These families wish that they
had been aware of the risks
that when they bought this
unnecessary and deadly product.
We ask CPSC to carefully review the evidence
as well as the almost universal opinion
of safety organizations including
the American Academy of Pediatrics,
and to move to remove bumper pads from cribs.
In addition to the evidence of suffocation,
CPSC should also consider the impact
on the world-wide safe sleep message of a crib
free from pillows, comforters or other paddings.
A parent is understandably less
likely to take the message seriously
when she sees stores filled with
cribs lined with padded material.
And finally, we have CPSC to make
recall effectiveness a priority.
We've mentioned earlier the importance
of the product registration program
for infant and toddler durable products.
As stronger standards and testing lead to
fewer recalls, more attention can be paid
to removing recalled products from use.
But with the results of recalls held in secret
within your agency, we have no way of knowing
if any recalls exceed the 10 to 30 percent
average that we believe to be the case.
KID suggests that a publically available
annual report of recall effectiveness rates
of each recall would go far to encourage
manufacturers, retailers and other stakeholders
to work together to boost those numbers.
As we are all aware, sometimes shining a little
light on a problem helps to illuminate solutions
that were overlooked in the dark.
We have highlighted other issues in our
written testimony and thank you again
for the opportunity to provide comments.
We look forward to working with you
and in addressing these concerns
in anything else that may arise.
Thank you.
>> Inez Tenenbaum: Ms. Cleary?
>> Jennifer Cleary: I'd also like to thank the
Commission for the opportunity to speak today
and to provide written suggestions on
the Commission's agenda and priorities.
AHAM represents manufacturers of major,
portable and floor care appliances,
and suppliers to the industry.
Our membership includes over 150
companies throughout the world.
The home appliance industry,
through its products and innovation,
is essential to US consumer lifestyle,
health, safety and convenience.
AHAM is also a standards development
organization accredited by ANSI.
Our consumer safety education program has
educated millions of consumers on ways
to properly and safely use
appliances such as portable heaters,
clothes dryers, and cooking products.
We also have submitted a written version of
these remarks and so I will try to be brief
and focused on the main points today.
We appreciate the CPSC staff's participation
in various voluntary standards activities
including those related to home appliances.
We agree with the Commission
that such involvement is key
to the Commission's strategic objective
which is when our industry shares
to minimize hazardous defects
early in the manufacturing process.
We also understand that the
Commission's resources are limited
and must be judiciously spent.
Accordingly, we support and urge CPSC's
continued involvement in specific UL
and ANSI committees which we've identified
because of the likelihood for
activity in the coming year.
I would like to just quickly list those
but they are listed in more detail
in the written version of my statement.
Electric ranges which would include cooktops
and range tip over, household clothes dryer,
household electric portable heaters,
dehumidifiers, electric fans,
household dishwashers, gas ranges and gas
clothes dryers, household microwave ovens,
household counter top cooking
appliances and household clothes washers.
In addition, we again respectfully
request and strongly urge the CPSC to join
and be an active member of the ULSTP
250 Flammable Refrigerant Task Group.
AHAM's members produce a number of
different products that use refrigerant gases
to control temperature and in some cases
for product insulation foam blowing
to increase energy efficiency.
Most relevant today would
be refrigerator/freezers.
Historically, in the United States,
these refrigerants have been
fluorocarbon-based compounds
which are non-flammable,
non-toxic, and energy efficient.
But industry has shifted and continues
to shift further toward low global
warming potential alternatives
to mitigate global climate change.
One very low GWP alternative is
Isobutane which is acknowledged
to have flammable characteristics
when used as a refrigerant.
Products using hydrocarbon refrigerants such
as Isobutane have long been used in other parts
of the world but use has been limited in the
US partly due to EPA's only recently approval
of Isobutane as an alternative for
household refrigeration products.
In addition, the President's recently announced
climate action plan specifically mentions
curbing emissions from hydrofluorocarbons
and one alternative is Isobutane.
Based on these recent approvals, there is work
underway to carefully review the safety issues
with using more than the
current 50 gram charge limit
for flammable refrigerants
in the UL 250 Task Group.
The goal is to ensure that environmental gains
are not achieved at the expense of safety.
The UL Task Group is evaluating
whether to raise the charge size.
For example, there are-- the international
limit in IEC standard is 150 grams.
AHAM supports global harmonization that is
consistent with safety and we would love
to have the CPSC's involvement
in this discussion.
In fact, we believe it's critically important
to have safety regulators at the table.
We recognize that CPSC cannot vote
or chair committees but any input
that staff could contribute
would be incredibly valuable.
We also understand budgetary concerns and that
is why we are specifically here today asking
that this activity be included in the
Commission's budget and priorities.
Again, I thank the Commission for this
opportunity to speak and provide comments today.
>> Inez Tenenbaum: Ms. Grant.
[ Pause ]
>> Robyn Grant: Yes, sorry about that.
Chairman Tenenbaum, commissioners,
I'm with the National Consumer Voice
for Quality Long-Term Care which
we call Consumer Voice for short.
We're a national non-profit
organization that advocates on behalf
of recipients of long-term care services.
So individuals receiving care at home or in
assisted living facilities or nursing homes.
Our membership consists primarily of consumers
of long-term care services, their families,
long-term care ombudsmen, individual
advocates, and citizen advocacy groups.
For more than 38 years, the Consumer Voice has
promoted quality care and consumer protection
through legislative reforms, policy
advocacy, and consumer and public education.
We very much appreciate the
opportunity to comment this morning
on CPSC's priorities for FY 2014 and 2015.
For decades, Consumer Voice has been
concerned about serious injuries and deaths
from asphyxiation, entrapment,
and falls caused by bed rails.
Both adult portable bed rails
and bed rails that are part
of a bed system are routinely used based
on a pervasiveness that they are a safe,
benign and effective means of
fall prevention in the elderly.
Many very well-meaning family members of frail
elders believe that the so called security
of a bed rail will keep their loved one safe.
But data show otherwise.
Thanks to a review done by CPSC
released in October of 2012.
We know that from January 2003 to
September 2012 there were 155 fatalities
from adult portable bed rails and that
from January 2003 to December of 2011,
there were almost 37,000 adult portable
bed rail-related injuries treated
in US hospital emergency departments.
Statistics from the Food and Drug
Administration are also alarming.
Between 1985 and 2009, the FDA received reports
of 803 patients caught, trapped, entangled,
or strangled in bed rails that are
considered to be medical devices.
These included 480 deaths,
138 non-fatal injuries,
and 185 near misses due to staff intervention.
While the Consumer Voice is deeply troubled by
bed rails that are viewed as medical devices
and that are often part of a bed system, we
believe that CPSC should focus its attention
on adult portable bed rails
over the next two years.
Our network is extremely concerned
about the dangers of these bed rails.
Here are just a few of the comments
that we've received on this issue.
"It's bad enough that our older adults
face rampant ageism in our culture.
Shouldn't we do our best to protect
them from products that have,
unfortunately, been proven to cause harm?
Please develop mandatory safety rules to prevent
injuries and deaths due to use of bed rails."
And this comment from a caregiver, "The
gentleman I care for has Parkinson's.
He became entangled in the rails and
could not call loud enough for help.
Fortunately, I found him in
time, and before harm was done.
But he is scared of them now."
And one last comment, "When I buy a
product I expect it's been manufactured
and inspected for how it will be used.
I depend on the safety of using
it in the manner described.
I do not expect to be injured if
the directions of use are followed."
We thank CPSC very much for
its work over the past year
to begin addressing this public safety hazard.
The data provided in its October 2012
memorandum and formation of the ASTM committee
on voluntary standards for adult portable
bed rails are very important first steps.
We also greatly appreciate the docketing of
the petition from the Consumer Federation
of America, Consumer Voice, independent
advocate, Gloria Black, and 60 organizations
as well as the petition from public citizen.
But we believe that more needs to be done
to end tragedies that result from bed rails.
The Consumer Voice calls on CPCS to adopt a
multi-faceted approach using the full range
of options available to the Commission.
We therefore recommend that both FY 2014
and 2015 CPCS Operating Plans include
the following five priorities.
First, rulemaking to either create a
mandatory standard for adult portable bed rails
that reduces the unreasonable risk
of asphyxiation and entrapment
and includes warning labels, or to ban
adult portable bed rails if it's determined
that no feasible standard would
adequately protect the public
from an unreasonable risk of injury.
Second, continuation of support for and if
possible, expedition of the ASTM process
to develop a voluntary standard
that protects consumers.
While we believe that mandatory
standards are necessary,
we feel that these dual tracks
are very important.
Third, public outreach to send
a safety message to consumers
about the possible dangers of bed rails.
CPSC should use traditional media platforms
such as print, radio, news releases, and videos,
social media like its OnSafety
blog and Twitter handle,
and other social media avenues
such as YouTube and Flickr.
Fourth, education about the possible risks
associated with adult portable bed rails
and steps consumers can take
to reduce those risks.
Specifically Consumer Voice urges CPSC to A,
Create and disseminate an adult portable
bed rail safety guide, similar in concept
to its Safe Nursery guide for
children's products; and B,
to develop an adult bed rail information center,
comparable to its Crib Safety Information
Center, which has really helpful tips
such as emphasizing the importance of
proper assembly and checking for gaps.
And lastly, recalls of any adult portable
bed rail that poses an unreasonable risk
of serious injury or death, with a refund
to consumers who purchased this product.
Consumer products that are determined--
that are advertised as safe
should not kill or injure people.
Tragedies stemming from adult portable bed rails
are likely to multiply as the population ages
and more and more elderly receive care in their
homes rather than in institutional settings.
We applaud the forceful action CPSC has taken
on children's cribs and children's bed rails.
The Consumer Voice calls on CPSC to
now focus the same level of attention
on protecting vulnerable frail adults
from unsafe adult portable bed rails.
Thank you again for the opportunity to comment.
>> Inez Tenenbaum: Thank you.
Mr. McDonald.
>> Michael McDonald: First, I would just like
to echo my colleagues gratitude for the ability
to testify today on behalf of AAFA, the
American Apparel & Footwear Association.
We are the National Trade Association
representing apparel, footwear, suppliers,
manufacturers, retailers and service providers.
Our members produce and sale products that
touch every American, clothing and shoes.
Our industry accounts for more
than four million US jobs and more
than 350 billion in annual retail sales.
As many of you know, product
safety is a top priority for AAFA.
With many of our members engaged in the
production and sale of children's clothing
and shoes, we are on the
frontlines of product safety.
It is our members who design and execute
the quality and compliance programs
that stitch product safety into
every garment and shoe we make.
To support our members in this effort, AAFA
has taken the lead in educating our industry
on the development, interpretation, and
implementation of new product safety standards
and regulations that were
instituted under the CPSIA.
AAFA supports the CPSC mission to protect the
public against unreasonable risk of injury
from consumer products through
consumer education,
safety standards activities,
regulations, and enforcement.
AAFA shares the Commission's
goal of improving product safety,
particularly for our most vulnerable
citizens and we look forward
to building upon our long
standing, collaborative relationship
with the Commission in the coming year.
The Commission's strategic goals are
very commendable in leadership in safety,
commitment to prevention,
rigorous hazard identification,
decisive response, and raising awareness.
All of these are areas in which AAFA
supports the Commission's mantle.
It is because of the priority
we place on product safety
that we offer the following comments in response
to the Commission's agenda and priorities.
Echoing comments we've made in previous
statements, we believe there needs
to be a stronger emphasis on
cost-benefit analysis in rulemaking.
Proper cost-benefit analysis is a powerful tool
to assist the agency, the regulated community,
and other product safety stakeholders in
focusing their energies on those rules
and requirements that will have the greatest
benefit for consumer safety and public health.
Among other things, proper cost-benefit
analysis directs scarce resources and targets--
and targeted responses towards
addressing the greatest risks and hazards.
These are traditional areas
of strength for the CPSC.
As we've discussed in previous hearings,
cost-benefit analysis was identified
as a good hallmark of regulatory government
by President Obama in Executive Order 13579
which states which states, "To
the extent permitted by law,
such decisions should be made only
after consideration of their costs
and benefits both quantitative and qualitative".
Although we understand that there are some
concerns about the use of cost-benefit analysis
and that it could lead to paralysis by
analysis, we don't believe that this tool,
if properly used, leads to this result.
In contrast, cost-benefit analysis
imposes important process disciplines
that maximize the effectiveness of the final
rules by making them more easily understood
by the regulated community
and enforceable by the CPSC.
With the proposed rule to 16 CFR
1110 on Certificates of Compliance
out for public comment, the Commission
stands to issue a sweeping rule
that affects the regulated community.
This is particularly troubling for the
apparel and footwear industry that has,
according to CPSC's analysis, already incurred
almost 1.4 million estimated burden hours
annually which amounts 51 million
dollars in estimated economic cost.
That is just under half of
the total estimated cost
of the entire certification
rule imposed on all industries.
16 CFR 1110, if implemented as proposed, would
contradict guidance and remove the need--
much needed flexibility that the
Commission itself has previously issued
in both its Statement of Policy on
Testing and Certification of Lead Content
in Children's Products and Statement
of Policy in Testing of Component Parts
With Respect To Section 108 of the CPSIA.
In doing this, we believe the Commission
is adding an increased paperwork cost
that we believe has zero added benefit.
The Commission has already issued a
determination stating there is no lead
in fabric, therefore having to certify
what is already known is an unnecessary
and unbeneficial expenditure.
Second, we are just shy of the
second anniversary of the enactment
of Public Law 112-28, which provided the
CPSC with greater authority and discretion
in enforcing consumer product safety laws.
It also set new mandates and requirements
that the Commission must fulfill,
among which requires the CPSC to look at ways to
reduce the cost of third party testing burdens.
In accordance with Public Law 112-28, the
CPSC has issued a request for comments,
seeking suggested ways to reduce the burden of
third party testing, and has provided several
of its own suggestions in staff recommendations.
While there is bipartisan
support for the underlying CPSIA,
there is also an equally
strong bipartisan understanding
that it created an unobtainable regulatory
situation by imposing tight deadlines
on the CPSC and impossible or excessively
costly requirements on the regulated community.
112-28 was an effort to rebalance the equation.
But in order for it to have its full
positive impact that Congress intended,
we need the agency to identify and implement
measures that can reduce testing burdens.
AAFA appreciates the work that the Commission
has already done in collecting suggestions
and reviewing them, including its recent Request
for Information on four individual suggestions.
But as far as tangible burden reduction that
has been made, we are quite frankly disappointed
in the progress that has been
made, and we adamantly believe
that the four targeted areas included
in the RoF must not be the only items
to get attention in the coming years.
AAFA proposed a fulsome list of recommendations,
having been encouraged to do so by CPSC staff.
And only one of those recommendations,
the use of third party testing--
use of third party XRF testing,
which was part of a separate
and on-going rulemaking, has
so far been adopted in part.
Most have seen no action.
In some areas, the CPSC appears to
be moving in the opposite direction
by proposing new burdens and costs.
Finally, the Commission must make
sure that the existing standards
like the laws covering children's
sleepwear are properly and fairly enforced.
We have brought this issue up repeatedly in the
past as current commissioners going to attest to
and the new commissioners are sure to find out.
And we're pleased with the progress that
has been made in the past few years.
But many of the areas we've identified remain.
Uneven enforcement undermines the effectiveness
of well-developed product regulations.
In the case of children's sleepwear, we
have provided the Commission with examples
of non-compliant children's
sleepwear that remains on the market
and continues to be sold year after year.
While we understand that the Commission
cannot publicly discuss enforcement actions,
nor would we want them to do so, we believe it
can explain why apparent non-compliant products
are still allowed to be marketed and sold.
The presence of non-compliant products
raises fundamental safety issues
and creates unfair competitive advantages.
It is for this reason that we
strongly encourage the CPSC to look
at its policies regarding
industry communications.
AAFA would like to be a helpful partner
with the CPSC endeavors but in order for us
to avoid being solely a hindrance on CPSC's
professional staff in the textile areas,
we must know the process that the
CPSC takes when it comes to finding
and handling sleepwear violations.
Armed with a greater knowledge of the process,
AAFA and our entire industry can and is more
than willing to do everything in its power to
help relieve the burden on CPSC staff and ensure
that only safe sleepwear is
worn by America's children.
We acknowledge the hard work CPSC
staff does and we're encouraged
by the recent sleepwear recall announcements.
But we strongly encourage the Commission to
continue to fully investigate all reports
of non-compliant sleepwear to ensure
that this standard is properly
followed throughout the entire industry.
In conclusion, let me reinforce
how delighted we are to have
such a positive relationship
with the Commission.
I recognize that some of my comments today
may have come off strong but that is only
because AAFA feels that we have such an open
and honest relationship with the Commission
and we are encouraged to be
honest and to pull no punches.
We truly believe the Commission strives to
accomplish its goals of leadership in safety,
commitment to prevention,
rigorous hazard identification,
decisive response, and raising awareness.
And we also know the AAFA has been on
the forefront of supporting these goals
and increasing dedication to product
safety not only in our industry alone
but in all consumer product
industries around the world.
And we look forward to continuing to
strengthen our partnership for the benefit
of consumer product safety and public health.
And a final personal note, I want to absolutely
thank Commissioner Nord, Chairman Tenenbaum,
and Commissioner Adler for their service,
their dedication, their open door policy,
and their active involvement in the industry.
Commissioner Nord, Chairman Tenenbaum, you'll
be sorely missed by the entire industry
when your tenure comes to an end.
We take great comfort in knowing
that Commissioner Adler will be there
to help guide our new commissioners
that we absolutely look forward
of working with as this well.
So thank you and I look forward
to your questions.
>> Inez Tenenbaum: Thank you very
much for coming and presenting to us.
And now each commissioner will have up to 10
minutes to ask you questions and then we'll move
on to the next panel unless
commissioners want to go another round.
But I want to talk to you, Mr. McDonald
first, and about the cost-benefit analysis.
When under section 9 of the CPSC, the
Consumer Product Safety Commission is required
to do a cost-benefit analysis
before we write a rule.
And to give an overview for
the public who's listening,
99.9 percent of all rules governing
consumer products are voluntary standards.
So we have to do a cost-benefit analysis.
I think Commissioner Adler looked this
up and there were nine rules in 30 years
that the Commission-- 32 years, I'm
sorry, I stole your line, your research
but as the benefit of being
chairman, you go first.
And, anyway, nine rules in 32 years that
we had promulgated from this Commission
because of cost-benefit analysis.
So when Congress was looking at all of
the problems with children's products
like Ms. Cowles brought up the 104 rules
lead in children's toys [inaudible].
The Congress directed us to go under
the Administrative Procedures Act
and gave us deadlines for promulgating rules,
and did not require us to
do cost-benefit analysis.
Now, when President Obama issued
the Executive Order 13579, it said,
"To the extent permitted by law."
And I have thought extensively to
Office of Management and Budget,
Commissioner Nord not read--
competing letters back to them.
And, you know, the exception to this--
first of all, we're an independent agency
so this is a guideline, it's not mandatory.
But I try to in earnest support
all of the executive orders
that come out of the White House.
But it says, "To extent permitted by law."
And Commissioner Nord is going to argue
the contrary when she has her turn,
but we are not required to
do cost-benefit analysis.
We're required to stick to the guidelines
and the timeframes and the CPSIA
that Congress mandated to do the rules under
the CPSIA and the rule that you referenced.
CFR 1110 is an example.
So I want to clarify for that-- I'm not
against cost-benefit analysis, in fact,
we're working on several rules
now that we work on for years
that require cost-benefit analysis and we do it.
And we've not tried to, you know,
circumvent that requirement.
But when it comes to the rules on the
CPSIA on testing and certification,
they're under a different statutory scheme.
If you want to comment on that.
>> Michael McDonald: I mean, I
absolutely understand what the CPSIA--
I implemented in terms of
restricting cost-benefit analysis
and what [inaudible] requirement
for cost-benefit analysis is,
we're not asking for you to have paralysis by
analysis when it comes to cost benefit analysis.
We know that you are looking to implement
the standards in a way that's helpful
and a way that's quickly and efficient.
What our concern is is in some of these rules,
we're finding that there are
increased cost with no benefit.
And so even the act of doing cost
benefit analysis can discover those,
and we also want to [inaudible]
encourage the Commission to take action
when you do find these issues, where
there is an incurred cost with no benefit.
And that's the example I
specifically brought up in CFR 1110.
>> Inez Tenenbaum: Well, if you would give us
example where you don't think it's a benefit,
but when Congress acts like
they did almost unanimously
in the CPSIA and then Public Law 112-28.
Congress passed both of those
almost unanimously.
In the Senate, I think it was unanimous.
In the House, very few people voted against it.
And they've reaffirmed it twice
that this is what they want.
They want these rules done in
Administrative Procedures Act.
They want them done timely and they want
them, you know, done as quickly as possible.
So just I'll have to just disagree with that.
And if you can show us something
where it's absolutely no benefit,
please point it out just [inaudible]
link the rulemaking, we have noticed
and comment and that really is the time.
But I've spoken to the Office of Management
and Budget, there is no clear rule for us
to follow the Executive Order and we really have
to follow the law under CPSIA and the 1112-28.
So, thank you.
And, Ms. Cowles, I appreciate all the work that
we've done together over the past four years
in working with Danny's parents, Linda and Boaz.
They have just exemplary.
We appreciate all of the work that you all have
helped to send in terms of the 11-- 104 rules.
It concerns us, too, that
there non-compliant products
on the internet just as non-compliant sleepwear.
You know, we'll go-- we'll find that person in
the internet, we'll go investigate particularly
with the sleepwear, and they
will go out of business.
So we are-- we're always glad to get
trade complaints from your organization.
And if you could tell us-- forward to us when
you see anything on the internet on the cribs,
we've worked carefully with all the states.
Every state has a child care licensing agency.
and we work very closely with them
to get the word out so that in part
of licensing these facilities, they'll check
to see if their cribs or any nursery equipment
that has-- that-- it has been
recalled that's still there.
So we always pick out the phone
and call the Attorney General
of the state or the-- the agency.
And we've done a lot of work but there's
still more to be done because there's--
there was just so many cribs out there.
And if you could tell us specifically what
was it that you found that was non-compliant.
Was it drop sides?
>> Nancy Cowles: It was drop side and other
cribs that were old-- too old to still be sold.
And the interesting thing is I do,
you know, look on the internet often
for these-- this was on Craigslist.
Usually when go on Craigslist, I go on
the Chicago sites and sites where we are.
Well, in Chicago as you know, we have a very
active Attorney General on these issues.
We're based there.
The city is very involved in these issues.
So I very rarely find any.
So in preparation for this, I
went to a few southern states,
a few states where we have not had much contact
and literally just dozens
and dozens cribs popped up.
Again, this is on Craigslist.
The difference was on eBay where
for every crib sold, they--
the seller took a picture of the tracking label.
So you could see that it was a compliant crib.
And so something as simple is requiring
that for crib sales, and again,
it's very hard to go after individuals.
Most of these individuals selling it,
we know from when our Attorney
General contacts them had no idea
that they were breaking the law in doing.
So you really have to go with the major sites
rather than the individuals 'cause that,
you know, it's just a constant
new pool of people doing that.
>> Inez Tenenbaum: That is and that's
a-- that's a good idea to have that--
ask them to provide the dates
that would [inaudible].
And maybe if something on their-- if your date--
if your crib was made before a certain date,
it's non-compliant for the most part.
>> Nancy Cowles: Right.
It could be simple instructions.
We worked, too, with some new, you know,
there's a lot of new consignment
here, Just Between Friends.
It's a big nationwide consignment sale company,
and they've been very active in making sure
that their sales aren't including
any non-compliant cribs.
So there are definitely people
out there who want to make sure
that use products that aren't compliant.
I did just want to-- one thing
that you just said about childcare.
It is true that all the child care
facilities now cannot sell or cannot use cribs
that don't meet current standards.
There's no national requirement that
recalled products not be used in child care.
The only states where that's true is where
the legislation that Kids In Danger worked on,
the Children's Product Safety Act
state by state has that requirement
and a few other states who have adopted similar.
But there is no requirement for child care not
to use recall products which seems kind of silly
since we've taken the efforts of the
government to determine them unsafe
that we still allowed them in childcare.
>> Inez Tenenbaum: And my time is
almost-- but I want to thank Robyn--
thank Gloria Black and your organization for
being a part of the new ASTM processes working
to establish safety standards for the bed rails.
And I just want to remind the public
who's watching and who's here today
that a petition has been published in the
Federal Register and Ms. Grant brought that up.
And we're in the middle of an open
comment period which ends August the 5th,
so I encourage all interested stakeholders
to provide us comments on bed rails.
And Ms. Cleary, thank you.
We've enjoyed working with AHAM as well.
So, this would probably my last public
meeting like this, but I just want to tell all
of you what a pleasure it's been to work with
you in such a very close professional basis
and I wish you and your organizations
continued success in the future.
Thank you.
Commissioner Nord?
>> Nancy Nord: Thank you
so much, Madam Chairman.
This is-- - you did offer me an invitation
to discuss cost-benefit analysis.
I don't want to let that opportunity pass by.
And would merely say that there's really
nothing in the CPSIA that prohibits this agency
from doing cost-benefit analysis,
it doesn't mandate it.
But it-- it does allow us to do it.
The executive order talks about doing
it to the extent permitted by law,
so obviously we could do it in
compliance with the executive order.
And then finally, I think we need to remember
and this is a point that Mr. McDonald raised
that Congress was very concerned about
the cost being imposed by the CPSIA
in particular the regulations that we issued
with respect to testing and certification.
Perhaps, a more aggressive and vigorous
and fulsome analysis of both the costs
and the benefits and trying
to look more aggressively
at regulatory options might have
given Congress more confidence
that we were actually caring out that mandate.
But no doubt, we will probably be
discussing this-- more this morning.
Mr. McDonald, recently, I was out in
the West Coast and met with two members
of your association, the
senior executives out there.
And both of them had kind of a similar concern
and that was that they have worked very hard,
committed a lot of resources over the
years to set up quality assurance programs,
that to their minds, we're working very well.
They've certainly had no issues
with us, with state regulators
or safety concerns coming into the companies.
Yet, they have been asked to either set
aside what has been working well for them
and impose a new regulatory system of testing,
through party testing and certification
or layer-- in the other case layer
it on top of what was always--
already been working, which
means that they've had
to take resources away from
other QA/QC activities.
And they complained bitterly about this
and we're very concerned about the fact
that they were generating a lot of paper.
They were creating administrative burden.
And it was sitting in a computer system.
Nobody was looking at it.
Now, I say that but as a
preference to my question,
the CPSC has created an importer
self-assessment program which--
under which we take a very close look
at companies that participate in that.
And we assure ourselves that
they do have quality--
assurance quality control mechanisms in place.
And once they have passed our test,
if you will, then they get a buy
on a closer examination at the ports.
And it allows for-- for your
flow of trade and other benefits.
I'm wondering if there is
some way that we could take
that same concept and apply it more generally.
And is this something that you or
your association has looked at?
Do you have any responses?
>> Michael McDonald: Absolutely.
Thank you for the question.
I absolutely agree that a lot of the concerns
that we've been hearing recently
have been on the paperwork burdens.
A lot of the suggestions that we gave in the
initial testing reduction burden search were
for just reducing the paperwork burdens.
They were not for any and effect on the testing
or certification rules but
in reducing the paper work.
And so, for example, the Flammable
Fabrics Acts, not having to have a piece
of paper saying that you don't have to test.
But in terms of the self-assessment program,
we absolutely believe that that is something
that can and should be used more widely.
I mean the main goal for all of us here
is to keep safe products off the shelves,
keep safe products out of consumers' hands.
So if you can certify that the programs
are correct, the factories are correct,
the products should being made correctly, then
I think there is absolutely and legally a way
that the CPSC can implement a
stronger self-certification program
and use that as a certification, so.
>> Nancy Nord: All right, well that
might be interesting to explore
as we go into the new fiscal year.
Ms. Grant, you've raised very serious
concerns about adult bed rails.
And as you have looked at the use
of this product in the marketplace,
have you examined any of the benefits
that bed rails also bring about?
I mean are there benefits?
>> Robyn Grant: We do believe
that under certain circumstances,
there can be some benefits
for certain populations.
So, for example, somebody who is alert and
oriented and cognitively and intact may be able
to use a bed rail to help them move in bed
to reposition themselves to help them sit
up on the side of the bed and to
also go from sitting to standing.
>> Nancy Nord: You know, we all come at these
issues from our own personal experience.
And in my personal experience is that I had
an elderly mother who did fall out of bed.
She spent the last year of her
life in a bed with bed rails.
So, I'm very concerned about the issues
you've raised, but I also sit and think,
well for 364 days a year,
somebody did not fall out of bed.
The 365th day, there was a tragedy.
We can count the tragedies.
We don't count the accidents and
the injuries that are prevented.
And this is an issue I know
that Bob cares very much about.
And so it seems to me that we've got to make
sure that we don't lose sight in seeking
to regulate these products
with the benefits that they do.
And-- and so I just put that out on the table
and hopefully we can have a more
aggressive dialogue about how do we--
how do we deal with the harm which generally
seems to fall to people who are less able
to understand the risk without taking
a useful product off the market.
Now you had indicated that an educational
program might be part of our strategy.
I'm wondering what kinds of educational
programs does your organization have in place.
And there's some way we can
support them or push your message
out there a little bit more aggressively.
>> Robyn Grant: That's an excellent point, and
I do believe and do agree that this does call
for a very serious conversation and I
don't think it's the one the extreme
or the other necessarily.
In terms of education, we do have
booklets, educational materials,
written materials that talk about
the risks of using bed rails.
And we also have some information
in there as well about alternatives,
approaches that can be taken to
avoid the use of restraints, well,
bed rails being used as restraints.
So we do have some materials that we offer
and we support individual center network
in doing in-service trainings and--
>> Nancy Nord: Well, perhaps, perhaps
what we need to do as we think
about our regulatory options is also
think about our consumer education options
and the CPSC standing alone
isn't going to be able to do
that CDC, HHS, lots of other agencies.
FDA can perhaps more effectively work with
us to push a message out there on this.
>> Robyn Grant: We are delighted
to be able to join forces.
>> Nancy Nord: OK.
With respect to your testimony, Ms. Cleary, I
was intrigued by the discussion of Isobutane
and I'm wondering if you could just describe
what is the stumbling block getting in the way
to harmonization of the standards
there between ISO and UL?
>> Jennifer Cleary: I'm not sure if
there's a stumbling block per se.
I think we're just looking for the
Commission's involvement in the discussion.
I think that there just need to be standards
that show us how to properly use the material.
And we just need to evaluate
what that would mean
for this country and this country's products.
>> Nancy Nord: OK.
OK, thank you.
And then finally, Ms. Cowles, first of
all, I was very intrigued by your comment
that daycare centers are
continuing to use recalled products.
This morning isn't the place to debate whether
the law should be changed with-- in that regard.
But it does seem as if more outreach
to daycare centers either for the CPSC
or other state licensing agencies
is probably called for if indeed
that is what's happening in the marketplace.
But your testimony has a pretty long list of
things that you're asking the agency to do.
Obviously, resources here are limited.
>> Nancy Cowles: Right.
>> Nancy Nord: And we have to prioritize.
So of that long list, could you tell me
what your number one priority would be?
>> Nancy Cowles: Sure, I'd be happy to do that.
And most of my testimonies
actually things you're already doing
and me just saying they're great,
please, continue doing them.
If I had to single out one thing at this point,
given what's taken place with Danny's Law,
it would be recall effectiveness.
I think it's a much bigger problem
than any of us can address on our own.
We all know that what's, you know, the problems
with it and I just think we all need to focus
on it because it's-- it again with the
cost-benefit analysis, it seems to all the cost
and effort that goes into CPSC, to
recall a product, we should make sure
that that actually means
it's no longer being used.
>> Nancy Nord: Thank you.
Commissioner Adler?
>> Robert Adler: Thank you
very much, Madam Chairman.
I'm afraid your testimony is probably going
to trigger more commentary than questions
in our parts, so you'll have to forgive us but I
thought all of the testimony was really superb.
And I'm just going to go down the line if I
might and forgive me if I'll call Nancy Nancy
but she is a friend and I will
say I just had dinner last week
with Linda Ginzel and Boaz Keysar.
He is one of the finest chefs
I've ever ran across.
But it is also an example of parents turning
a tragedy into something incredibly useful
and productive without overdoing it.
And I think partly it's because they
are such wonderful people and you are
such a wonderful person in what KID does.
This monitoring of online sales
of cribs, anytime I walk in
and I'm just feeling too cheerful
in the morning, I will go online
and I will search the internet and
sometimes I just look for lawn darts
which have been banned forever,
and I still find sales.
And Mr. McDonald, sometimes when I really
want to get depressed, I look at sleepwear
and I see-- and that's just a massive problem.
I did want to say a word
of defense for the staff
because our compliance staff
actually has people who are dedicated
to monitoring these products online
and they're getting constant input
which they greatly appreciate
not just from you but from me.
And it is a massive task and I can't tell you
how much we appreciate it and we encourage you
to keep submitting those comments.
You do call for the statistics
and recall effectiveness.
I hadn't realized we didn't publish
recall results but I think it's probably
because they dribble in over
such a long period of time.
It's hard to figure out a
precise date when to do that.
But if you want to know, they're low.
>> Inez Tenenbaum: I know that.
>> Robert Adler: And they're low not just
at this agency, they're low at every agency.
They're low at FDA.
They're low at Nitsa [phonetic], and a lot
of it depends on a multitude of factors
and it's always seemed to me and one of the
greatest things we could do would be to look
for better technology for getting the word out.
And I know I've always bring chuckles
when I say someday I can envision a parent
walking home and the crib says, "Hello.
Don't put precious in the crib today because
I'm dangerous and I've just been recalled."
But some kind of constant improvement in
technology, it seems to me it's got to be one
of the greatest things that we can do.
And so, I'm wondering if you've heard
of any new technology that would help us
to do a better job in recall effectiveness.
And I do agree with you.
It's an incredibly important issue.
>> Nancy Cowles: Yeah, I think you
can use technology at both ends.
So, I think for instance there is no
reason that when I register for an--
all my nursery products and people buy them
for me that the store doesn't automatic--
can't automatically register those products
for you as their purchase so that some--
at a point of purchase a way to
register products because really,
direct contact with a consumer is going to be
the best way for them to learn about the recall.
On the other end, I know there's been a company
for years and I don't have their name here
but who does use RFID chips where far have
more expensive product like a crib or a car
or something where you spend a lot of money on.
And you have one of these on, it may not
tell you not to put precious in but it would
at least beep, turn red, and beep--
>> Robert Adler: Or send you an e-mail.
>> Nancy Cowles: Yeah, send you an e-mail.
I mean so for more expensive products, something
like that might be useful and then it's just,
you know, continuing to figure
out how to get the word out.
But I still, you know, and I can [inaudible]
you for the information on recall.
So, I do see it.
But obviously parents aren't going to do that
and it takes a long time, and it takes a lot
of your staff time and it's not
like it's a company's secret.
So you're spending time and money
making me jump through all these hoops
or making a consumer jump
through all these hoops
to get information that if-- was just public.
Again, I think we've all seen
how sunshine works, right?
I mean I think that if companies
had more of an incentive
to make sure those numbers weren't so abysmal.
They might think of creative ways
on their own to raise those numbers.
>> Robert Adler: Thank you.
Ms. Cleary, I've been at the Commission on
and off for many years and when you're talking
about the Isobutane issues,
I couldn't help myself.
I flashback to when we took chlorofluorocarbons
off the market which were a great refrigerant
and they were nontoxic and nonflammable, but the
problem is solve one problem, create another.
And so what we've done, I
think and it's a good thing
that chlorofluorocarbons are
not used in as refrigerants.
But now, we've confronted the fact that these
other products do have a flammability issue
and I'll just tell you that to the extent I
have any say on this, I would hope we would join
with AHAM in working on voluntary standards.
So I certainly appreciate you
bringing this to our attention.
If you have any comment, please feel free.
>> Jennifer Cleary: I appreciate that very much.
Thank you.
>> Robert Adler: Ms. Grant, sorry, I'm going
to do a micro-rant about some of your testimony
which I thought was dead on and as you
know I'm a huge fan of your organization.
And I'm a great admirer of
yours and of Gloria Black
for bringing this incredibly
important issue to the front.
That's part of a broader issue
and I'm so glad that you commented
about the problems of the elderly.
This is a pet peeve of mine these days and
I'm just going to cite a couple of statistics.
Seniors today make up about 13 percent of our
population, and by the way just a quick aside,
we have more people age 65 and older
than they have people in Canada.
And it's a growing demographic but
here's what's so upsetting to me.
Seniors constitute 13 percent of our population.
They constitute 60 percent of the
fatalities associated with consumer products.
So just think about that, and this is a
demographic that is growing and growing.
And it's not the case that we can do nothing.
There are lots of things we
can do for discrete products
such as bed rails to work to solve this problem.
And so it's something that I would urge my new
colleagues and I would urge all the members
of the audience there to focus on because
it is increasing in a very dramatic fashion.
You did mention the call
for a safe bed rail guide.
Can you elaborate on that a little bit what the
child safe guide was that you were referencing?
>> Robyn Grant: You know, fairly cursory
review, I might say, of the CPSC website.
I did find that there was a guide
that was called a Safe Nursery Guide.
>> Robert Adler: Yes.
>> Robyn Grant: And that just made me think
that there might be some comparable piece
of consumer education that could be developed.
Before, you know, any changes
are made or standards.
I mean, right now, something that could be
put out there that talked about the product,
how to use it as safely as possible,
checking for gaps, that kind of thing,
making sure that you properly
assemble it, just--
and alerting the public and consumers to
possible risks that are associated with.
So, it's just a basic education.
>> Robert Adler: Thank you so much and I
did reflect on Commissioner Nord's comment
about the benefits associated with bed rails
and I think in some cases, there are benefits.
The issue for me has always been, it's like
a hidden hazard that consumers think of these
if they think of them as
anything is safety devices.
And when your safety device
is presenting a serious risk,
that's what draws so much attention.
And I would just note that we did write
as you pointed out a safety standard
for infant bed rails but the
number of elderly fatalities
in any year has always dwarfed the number of--
which is neither good thing nor a bad thing
but it's always dwarfed the
number of infant deaths.
So I'm hopeful that we can
work diligently on that.
Mr. McDonald, thank you, and I can't remember
who won the NC state versus UNC baseball game
but they were right up there in the finals.
>> Michael McDonald: One on one.
We won one, they won one.
>> Robert Adler: OK, good.
>> Michael McDonald: The
[inaudible] one was important--
>> Robert Adler: Yeah.
That's what I thought.
You do raised an important issue
when comes to cost benefit analysis.
And this is a peeve of mine.
As you know, I've always thought we needed
to have cost benefit analysis
of cost benefit analysis.
And the statistic that the
chairman decided is a correct one,
nine standards under this very
complex procedures in section nine
in analogous provisions in the Flammable
Fabrics Act and the federal has Substances Act
in 32 years, that's one standard
every three and a half years.
In contrast, and I realized you can't totally
compare them under the section 104 rulemaking
that we've had, we've done eight
standards in four years, that's two a year.
And so, surely somewhere in between
there is an optimal cost benefit approach
that would satisfy you and satisfy me.
I don't oppose cost benefit analysis
and I will just say one thing in defense
of the poor lonely [phonetic] act,
the Regulatory Flexibility Act,
that is a cost benefit analysis act.
If you scroll [phonetic] the small business
administration or you look on their website,
they are very proud of it
as a cost benefit analysis.
OMB calls it a law requiring
cost benefit analysis.
And the reason I like it so much
is because and we're going to hear
from the Handmade Toy Alliance, it really
focuses on the impact on small entities
which I assume are some of your members.
But it does seem to me that we ought
to be able to reach some middle ground
where we are not oppressed
by cost benefit procedures
such that every time Congress
gets a chance, they just ignore it
and they either mandate a
safety standard or they say,
"You don't have to do any
cost benefit analysis."
So I would urge you to think through
whether you can even help me figure
out what would a good efficient but not
oppressive cost benefit approach be.
So I'll take any observation
you have in response.
>> Michael McDonald: Absolutely.
I mean the last thing we want to
do is tie the Commission's hands.
We want to give the Commission much
flexibility and much authority as possible.
And that's when we were lobbying for Public Law
112-28, that's what we wanted Congress to do.
We wanted Congress to give the
Commission as much power as possible.
And so we don't want a cost benefit
analysis that ties your hands that is--
that keeps you from doing your job.
But we want to ensure that the regulations
that are put in place are done so in a way
that is feasible to in already
pretty stretched industries.
As Commissioner Nord mentioned, we are members--
even the small ones that have ten members
staffs are having to take employees
from other quality control programs and putting
them into their testing and certification.
So you're taking away from other items that
are making safe products just to be compliant.
So it's not about making safe product
to be more [inaudible] being compliant.
So we want to reduce some
of these costs not in a way
that would affect the safety
[inaudible] obviously.
If I can explain my specific
example a little bit.
>> Robert Adler: Well, actually
my time is long expired.
I probably--
>> Michael McDonald: I apologize for that.
>> Robert Adler: And I want to
thank all of you for your testimony.
>> Inez Tenenbaum: Commissioner Robinson?
>> Marietta Robinson: Thank you, Madam Chair.
Let me first say this is
my third day on the job.
And I'm already just enormously impressed with
my fellow commissioners and with the staff here
at the CPSC and their commitment to the
mission that we all believe so strongly.
It makes me think I made the
right decision to come here.
After 18 months of waiting for this, I am--
I am delighted that the timing was such that I'm
having the opportunity so early in my time here
to meet those of you who are doing such
an amazing job at helping us to our jobs.
And I thank all four your very thoughtful
presentations and for your work obviously
with the Commission and with the
Voluntary Standards committees
and as I say helping us do our jobs.
I think where I would like to
focus my few minutes that I have is
on the concern about recall effectiveness.
And some of you in your comments
have implicitly raised this concern.
Obviously, you, Ms. Cowles raised it explicitly.
But as opposed to Commissioner
Adler's focusing on the technology
that we all hope will someday be
there, I go to the lower end of that.
I mean my concern personally is much more
with how we can improve communication
with low-income communities
that may not be on Facebook,
and with perhaps non-English speaking
communities but the ways in which we--
and I know from the statistics we have--
we do have, and then I've reviewed that those
are the communities that seem to have some
of the biggest concerns, or we have big concerns
with those communities in
the recall meeting them.
Now, you raised miscalls the annual
report and that is very interesting to me,
and in response to Commissioner
Adler's questions, I'd like you saying
that if the company see how abysmal they
are, maybe they will have [inaudible] more.
But I'd be very interested
in a couple of things.
Obviously we all know about the budget
constraints, but I'm interested in from any
of you and I'm focusing on Ms. Cowles
just because she raised it explicitly.
But I'm interested in any ideas you have
on, first of all, how we could implement
such a report given the constraints we have.
And also, any ideas you have on
how communications can be improved
to the communities that seem to be
so enormously affected by recalls
that we don't seem to be reaching.
>> Nancy Cowles: I can start very briefly
and I thank you for your question.
And in terms of the report,
it would be very simple.
Every recall, every company that does a
recall files a monthly tracking report.
And every month they have on that report
the totals for the entire recalls.
So how many products were initially produced?
How many were still either with them or in their
warehouses or with retailers that we returned?
How many were with consumers and then
they have both the total in that months,
numbers of how many, you know, what
went out, what notices went out as well
as how many responses do they get?
How many people ask for the repair kit?
How many people were given a refund?
And so you just take the most recent monthly
report and publish just those numbers,
the total number that were with consumers,
what number they have accounted for so far,
and that's a number that we see ranges from, you
know, two to maybe 30 percent in a very recall.
So it would be very simple to do.
We have that information.
I don't know if you have it anywhere, but on
that piece of paper in each file, but, you know,
that information is there and
that's what we request for instance
when we want to look at this issue ourselves.
In terms of reaching low-income communities
obviously that's a big concern of ours
with all our safety work that we do on the safe
sleep message, it's where you're more likely
to find older recalled products because they
continue to circulate in a population or other,
you know, problems with sleep environments.
And so, I think we do all need to
focus our energy on how to do that.
For instance, there's a big digital divide,
not all of them as you'd say
have computers or not online.
However, there is no divide
when it comes to cellphones.
A low income person is just
as likely to have a cellphone
that can get text messages, as
someone who is very wealthy.
And so that is one avenue that would be very
good to sort of figure out how do we harness
that and get the information to them
through the technology that they do have.
And then it's just working with
partners and I know as we keep saying,
CPSC is already doing some of this, so I don't
need to imply that your staff isn't working
on this, but it just seems such a big problem.
When I get calls from people who have one
of the, you know, simplicity drop side cribs
that I felt like within the news everywhere
that everyone must have heard about
and they heard nothing at the recall.
I'm always surprised and, you know, try and
figure out how we can better reach them.
I think it's got to be a joint effort.
And then I think the other half
of that is how we conduct recalls.
We just did some focus groups which
I will share the results with.
I don't have the results yet,
but just in sitting in on them,
parents concerns about the type of recall.
So obviously, if there's nothing offered for
the product, they're not going to comply.
If there's a refund or new product
offered, they're very likely to comply.
What I was surprised about was with the fixes
which is what we do with a lot of the recalls.
They felt that that meant the company didn't
really care if they got it fixed or not.
So that they were putting on this
on them to get some new part,
put it on themselves, maybe not put it on right.
And they felt that that indicated that
the company maybe wasn't is concern
with the product safety and maybe
they should just keep using it.
So I think those-- that kind of information
how we conduct the recalls would also help
with compliance.
>> Marietta Robinson: The cellphone idea is an
interesting one since we've all been creeped
out by the first-- whether
warnings, right, that we all got.
>> Nancy Cowles: Yes.
>> Marietta Robinson: And any of the
others of you who have any ideas on--
along those lines, I very much welcome them.
I know you, Ms. Grant, talked about the FDA
communicating with caregivers, for example,
and I'm not sure exactly how they're
doing that, but it might be something
that we should take a look at and
see how effective they've been
and whether it's something that a
communication effort that we could duplicate.
Thank you all so much.
I appreciate it.
>> Inez Tenenbaum: Commissioner Buerkle?
>> Ann Marie Buerkle: Thank you, Madam Chair.
Let me begin by saying thank you to all of
you for your very insightful and helpful
and informative comments this morning.
As my colleague mentioned the timing
for us is great because we got to hear
and have this overview of the
issues that are important to you
and important to this Commission.
So thank you, thank you very much.
My comments this morning probably will
be a little broader because I don't--
haven't got the new [inaudible] done yet.
But just a couple of things and as my
colleague, Commissioner Nord mentioned,
so much of what our perspective is
based on our experience in life.
And I spent most of my life as a nurse and then
as an attorney representing
a major teaching hospital.
So I come from that background and
then having six kids and 13 grand kids,
the whole child safety issue
is extremely important to me.
So my questions will probably be a little
bit more general but I do look forward
to the opportunity to meet with all of you
and the relevant groups to get to know you
and to begin to establish relationships
so that I can understand your perspective
and you can inform me and we can
have a good dialogue going forward.
Let me begin, Ms. Grant, with the chair--
the side rail issue because, gosh,
I remember as a nurse, if we didn't
put side rails up we got a demerit.
So-- and as Commissioner Nord said,
I have an elderly mother who's 92.
And so, I know the value of side rails and
you've indicated that people who are awake
and oriented that they are safe for
them, but gee, in my experience,
it's those who get disoriented when it
becomes dark or they're in a pain medication
or there is some reason that allows them to
be disoriented, and they need some protection.
Some way to restrain them from getting out
bed and thinking they can walk to the bathroom
at one o'clock in the morning
without assistance.
So my question to you is that if we do these
restrictions in the bed rails, how would we?
I mean, the olden days we use Posey belts.
I don't think we want to go
back to that or hand restraints.
How would you keep a patient safe with regards
to someone who needs to be confined to that bed
and can't move without assistance?
>> Robyn Grant: Well, it's
certainly is a complicated issue.
I certainly acknowledge that.
And we-- I think, you're
absolutely right, using--
putting side rails have used to
be standard operating procedure.
I think it's as we learned and saw the
dangers and have seen the injuries and deaths
that have resulted from them that we begin
to think what-- how else can we do this?
So, you know, I think the issue of somebody
who is at risk of falling out of bed,
one approach that has been used for
quite some time now in nursing homes,
where you cannot use bed rails as a restraint,
had been to lower the bed and to also put mats
and cushioning on the floor so that should
someone fall, they're not falling as far,
and there, you know, they're falling on
something that's soft as opposed to a floor,
because we have seen that when side rails
are up and someone is determined to get out,
they are going to work really hard at that and
very often, what may happen is somebody will go
over the top, and the fall they have
is even greater than they would have,
otherwise they can hurt themselves.
The risk of injury is even greater.
>> Ann Marie Buerkle: Thank you.
Mr. McDonald, you were in the middle of a
comment when Commissioner Adler's time ran out.
If you want to just finish that up quickly
and then I have a follow up question.
>> Michael McDonald: Thank you very much.
And I apologize for taking up all of your time.
Our specific example that we are focusing on
cost benefit analysis is one in 16 CFR 1110.
And what the proposed rule require people
to do is the Commission has already
found there's no lead in fabric.
And through-- two statements of policy
is they have made the determination
that since there is no lead in
fabric you do not need to test
and therefore, you don't need to certify.
And so we use that in our argument
that you don't need to certify
in the Flammable Fabric Acts
which we still fully support,
but the proposed rule will change that.
They would require companies to certify that
there is no lead in fabric, and we don't believe
that there is any benefit to that whatsoever.
We believe that a sample telling any
important structure there's no lead in fabric,
it doesn't matter whether it's
denim cotton and silk, synthetics
or anything that there is no lead in fabric.
Then a piece of paper stating what is already
known is unnecessary and [inaudible]--
we already are almost about
50 percent of the entire cost
on all industries for paperwork requirements.
And so just adding one more that won't
have benefit is a big issue for us
and something that we've-- we really oppose.
>> Ann Marie Buerkle: Thank you.
You mentioned two numbers
and I just want to clarify.
You mentioned the 1.4 million hours and
then the 51 million in additional cost.
Is that an annual cost or is that--
>> Michael McDonald: That is an annual cost
and that was from the Commission's own research
into what the requirements are and now there's
been some other research done that has found
that number to be greater and
those hours to be greater.
But we want to use what the
Commission finds and we want
to support the Commission,
but yes, that's annually.
>> Ann Marie Buerkle: I-- you
know, I am the newbie here and--
but I think and I feel very
strongly that every--
really the Commission, we really do
need to look at cost benefit analysis.
We have to make sense out of this.
And what I've noticed just over the two days
I've been here is this seems to be a balance.
And whether it's a safety issue and in
maintaining this integrity of an elderly patient
and their safety, but we also have to look at
the cost and in an economy that we have had
in this country and we've struggled
that the economy has been sluggish
and just slugging along that we as a
commission have a responsibility to make sure
when we initiate regulations that not only do
they maintain safety but they're responsible
and that we do understand
that it will have an impact
on our businesses and what that impact will be.
And then we weigh that against
all of the other factors.
So I would encourage all of us to do that.
Ms. Cleary, I do would like to talk
further about the Isobutane issue.
I think that that's an example.
Sometimes we get over zealous about one issue
and then-- but it's at the peril of another.
So I would like to participate and get
it more information about that issue.
Thank you, Madam chairman, I yield back my time.
>> Inez Tenenbaum: Well, thank you all
and we appreciate this fine
panel and all the good questions.
We'll take a five-minute break for the
new panel to come forward and get seated
and we'll stand adjourned for five minutes.
[ Pause ]
You've already been introduced
but I'll go again,
Rachel Weintraub with the Consumer
Federation of America and Randall Hertzler
with Homemade Toy Alliance and Rebecca
Mond for the Toy Industry Association
and Ami Gadhia for Consumers Union.
So, Ms. Weintraub, please start.
[ Pause ]
Turning it on would help.
Chairman Tenenbaum, Commissioners
Adler Nord, Robinson and Buerkle,
I appreciate the opportunity to provide comments
to you about CPSC's FY2014 and 2015 priorities.
I'm Rachel Weintraub, legislative
director and senior council
at Consumer Federation of America.
CFA is a non-profit association of approximately
280 pro-consumer groups that was founded in 1968
to advance the consumer interest
through advocacy and education.
I submitted written comments that should
be considered as our full comments
and I'll highlight some of
those issues this morning.
First, CPSIA implementation.
The implementation of the CPSIA should continue
to be of the highest priority for CPSC.
These rules have an important and
positive impacts on consumers.
Because of section 104 specifically, CPSC has
promulgated 8 infant durable product rules
that must now, therefore, require that these
products meet new robust mandatory standards.
We congratulate CPSC on their
work, on their leadership
and their commitment to this important process.
CPSC also has additional infinite
durable product rules to promulgate
under this section which we call Danny's Law.
And we urge CPSC to continue to commit
the staff time and resources necessary
to prioritize the promulgation of these rules.
Consumers recognize this provision as
necessary to ensure the safety of their infants
and toddlers as they are using these
products designed specifically for their use.
Another high priority for CPSC should continue
to be saferproduct.gov as required by CPSIA.
We urge the CPSC to maintain its
current commitment to this database
and to research reports that
appear to indicate trends.
Numerous studies and reports on
saferproducts.gov have indicated
that the databases being used by
many consumers and is useful to them.
For example, CFA and Kids
In Danger conducted a study
of the database that-- released
in April of 2012.
We found that the database is
in fact being used as intended.
Of the 6,080 reports we analyzed at the
time, almost all were submitted by consumers.
Eighty-four percent of all reports
included a serial number, a model number.
Manufacturers exercised their right to post
additional comments on 53 percent of the reports
and 70 percent of the reports involved
newer products as opposed to older products.
In addition, Deloitte conducted an
analysis of the data from saferproducts.gov
that was released early this year and found
that saferproducts.gov provides a learning
opportunity for manufactures in their attempt
to bring safe products to the market and
allows them to gain a better understanding
of consumer behavior in regard to
their interaction with products.
The Deloitte analysis, like others, also
identified that kitchen products and appliances
in particular make up the
largest percent of reports.
We recommend that CPSC continue to explore
how to make saferproducts.gov more useful
and accessible to consumers including
increasing consumer access to consumer product--
to saferproducts.gov through the use
of mobile applications as a means
for reporting the risk of harm to the database.
There are numerous hazards that we
urge CPSC to continue to prioritize.
Quickly, furniture tip overs, according
to CPSC's most recent data, each year,
more than 43,200 children are injured
as a result of a piece of furniture,
appliance or television tipping over.
Between 2000 and 2011, there are
349 tip over related of deaths,
84 percent of those deaths involved
children eight years old and younger.
While the ASTM standard for furniture
which I am a part of is in the process
of being strengthened, it's
currently being intentionally delayed.
Further, much more must be done to
bring all of the stakeholders together
to collectively address this problem.
Second, window coverings.
This past May, CFA along with Kids in Danger
Consumers Union, Parents for Window Blind Safety
and others filed a petition with CPSC requesting
that the CPSC promulgate mandatory standards
to make operating cords for
window coverings inaccessible.
We appreciate that the petition
has been docketed.
A strong mandatory standard to address the
hazards posed corded window coverings is
necessary because according to CPSCs data, 293
children have been killed or seriously injured
by accessible window cords between 1996 and
2012 and the rate of injuries has not decreased
since 1983 despite six industry attempts
at developing adequate voluntary standards.
The voluntary standards process
starting from the first standard
in 1996 including the most recent
one has failed to eliminate
or even significantly reduced the risk
of strangulation or asphyxiation hazards.
Death and injuries can be eliminated by designs
that already exist including cordless technology
and cover designs, cord cover designs.
We are pleased that CPSC has docketed our
petition and we urge the CPSC to move forward
with the mandatory rule that addresses
the hazard posed by window cords.
Second, adult bed rails.
Last May, CFA, the National Consumer Voice
for Quality Long-Term Care, Gloria Black
and 60 other organizations filed a
petition with CPSC requesting a ban
on an effective mandatory standard
of adult portable bed rails.
The petition also requested CPSC to recall
dangerous bed rails and refund consumers.
Robin Grant did an excellent job in her
testimony and I won't repeat that now
but we urge CPSC to move forward with
the ban effective mandatory standard,
recall and refund of dangerous
bed rails as well as a meaningful
and effective voluntary standard.
In terms of enforcement, we applaud the
CPSC for enforcement efforts this past year
to recall the bumbo seat, recall the Nap Nanny
and take strong action to protect children
from hazards posed by wear of magnets.
These strong actions protected children,
effectively inform the public about hazard posed
by these products and gave all into these
regulated by CPSC, a clear indication
of how seriously CPSC takes its
mission to protect consumers
and how effectively CPSC uses
its enforcement authority.
In terms of civil penalties,
based on numerous past recalls,
we understand there are numerous civil penalties
that are currently pending but
have not yet been assessed.
In 2013, as far as CPSC has six civil
penalties and no criminal penalties and in 2012,
there were nine civil penalties
and no criminal penalties.
These served important deterrent effects to
non-compliance to CPSC laws and we urge CPSC
to prioritize this important element
of its enforcement responsibilities.
We commend CPSC for including requirements
to improve internal compliance procedures
and recent settlements and urge
CPSC to continue that practice
to increase product safety
and reduce repeat offenders.
So now I want to discuss a few
critical ongoing safety issues.
The first is the issue of
low income child safety.
Last month, the CFA released a
report demonstrating that children
from low income families are at greater risk for
unintentional injuries and food-borne illnesses
than children from higher income families.
Our report, Child Poverty, Unintentional
Injuries and Food-Borne Illness drew
from incomplete statistical information and
academic studies and found that it's essential
to collect socio and economic data correlated
to product-related unintentional
injuries and deaths.
Our report identified the following about
unintentional injuries suffered by children.
First the data, each year such injuries are
responsible for about 5,000 child deaths,
about 5 million emergency room visits
and millions more unreported injuries.
Over two fifths of children in United
States live in low-income families.
The injuries are suffered disproportionately
by children from low income families.
Several studies show that income is a better
predictor of risk than race or ethnicity.
The death rates of several important types of
unintentional injuries maybe at least double
for deaths from fires and
drowning for low-income children
as compared to higher income children.
According to a study of child deaths in Maine,
and non fatal injury rates are also
higher for the low-income children.
One study found the highest
rate among low-income children
and the lowest rate among high-income children.
Another study found that children receiving
Medicaid had injury rates double those
of the national average.
We look forward to working with the
CPSC and other agencies to explore how
to better correlate unintentional injury
and socio and economic status as well as how
to reduce deaths and injuries associated
with consumer products that
impact low-income children.
Now, altering vehicles is an issue that I've
been working on for many years and I know
that CPSC has also been working
on many years as well.
CPSC must continue to prioritize
the issue of ATV safety.
While CPSCs rulemaking was required
to be finalized last August,
we applaud CPSC for holding the ATV summit
which we thought was very informative last Fall
and we urge CPSC to complete the rulemaking
which should include a serious analysis
of the safety hazards posed to children
by ATVs, new design possibilities,
the adequacy of the existing ATV safety
training and materials and efforts to ensure
that children are not riding ATVs that
are too large and too powerful for them.
Recreational off highway vehicles also pose
hazards to consumers that have been associated
with more than 170 deaths from 2003 to 2012.
The current voluntary standard fails to address
significant hazards and we urge CPSC to continue
to move forward with its mandatory rule.
Then finally, upholstered furniture.
We urge CPSC to continue to
prioritize the completion
of the upholstered furniture rulemaking.
In May of 2008, CFA filed comments in
support of the rulemaking and we stated
that "we strongly support a smoldering
ignition performance standard and urge CPSC
to move forward with implementation
of the standard.
The adoption of the standard will not only
result in superior fire safety for consumers
but will also discourage the
use of fire-retarding chemicals
which have been associated with serious health
impacts to humans, wildlife and the environment.
We continue to stand by that statement
and I've just recently submitted
additional comments just a few weeks ago.
So I thank you very much for the
opportunity to speak with you.
We support CPSC's existing priorities
to strengthen its regulatory
and enforcement efforts to fulfill
its mission to protect consumers.
We urge CPSC to consider including additional
priority issues we outlined and we look forward
to working with the commission
to address these issues.
Thank you very much for the opportunity.
>> Inez Tenenbaum: Thank you, Ms. Weintraub.
Mr. Hertzler?
>> Randall Hertzler: I want to thank all of
you for the opportunity to sit before you today
and provide comments on the operating plan
for fiscal year 2014 and
the budget process for 2015.
The Handmade Toy Alliance has gone from
non-existent in 2009 to an organization
with 787 small and micro businesses as
of yesterday and our membership continues
to be considerably affected by the subsidy
regulation and the following rulings
from the CPSC and there's still much to be
done to restore the health of these businesses.
On August first of 2011, Congress passed the
bill HR 2715 which became Public Law 11228
and in Section II it includes two provisions
that aid the Handmade Toy Alliance.
The one was the small batch
provisions and for various reasons,
the small batch rules are not
widely used by small business
and instead small business
depends heavily on things
like the lead determinations
list component parts rule.
And so, most of my comments have to do with
burden reduction which is the primary way
that our group uses to comply with lower cost.
The HR 2715 requirements for exploring
and implementing burden reduction led
to a stakeholder comment period and the release
of a CPSC staff document in August of 2012,
that document was titled to
consideration of opportunities
to reduce third-party testing cost consistent
with assuring the compliance
of children's products.
The document outlines many essential burden
reduction opportunities that staff can pursue
and their impact on stakeholders.
Later that year, you know, in October,
the Commission voted to, excuse me.
Later that year, the Commission voted to
approve the following actions by its staff
and listed eight of those
burden reduction options.
However, the written motion was a
bit different than the verbal motion
and the written motion said that the
CPSC would issue request for information
and that the staff would analyze those results.
And in addition that the burden of
proof for the validity of the any
of these burden reduction
possibilities was on the stakeholder
or on the submitter of the information.
Then subsequently in January of this year, the
commission voted to allocate resources in 2013
for staff to issue the RFIs for
just four of the eight opportunities
and then indicated a time table with statement
and I "for each RFI the commission intends
to provide resources and the
fiscal year 2014 operating plan
to the extent the agency's safety work
permits to ensure staff reviews the responses
and summarizes any recommended course of
action on each item for the commission."
So, we're lost basically in another
round of comment and left to assume
that it will be 2015 before
there is some possibility any
of this burden reduction
opportunities can actually be utilized.
The progress, the CPSC is making on these burden
reduction opportunity is simply not acceptable,
small business and all stakeholders are
being held hostage to silly requirements
like performing a solubility
test on cotton fabric for barium.
Therefore the HTA specifically
asked the commissions
to directly fund these burden reduction efforts.
Number one, develop a list
of materials determined not
to contain the eight heavily elements
listed in ASTM F963-11 and this is
where the testing cotton fabric
for barium would fall under.
The lead determinations list in 16 CFR 1500
is a primary method used by members of the HTA
to reduce the cost of compliance.
The requirements of ASTM F963-11 with limits
placed on concentrations of heavy metals other
than lead complicates this pathway to compliance
with additional test that are superfluous.
In a minimum, we asked the CPSC to evaluate each
material on the lead determinations list to see
if it can also appear on the-- on a list
for the eight heavy metals in ASTM F963.
Number 2, excuse me.
Investigate adding manufactured woods to lead--
to the lead determinations list and also
to the aid determinations list
for ASTM F963-11 heavy metals.
Manufactured woods or laminated woods are
frequently used in children's products
when a dimension of the product increases
above 10 centimeters like a wooded puzzle
or perhaps a shape sorting box or a dollhouse.
For larger wooden components,
manufactured wood is more stable
and safer than wide pieces of solid wood.
Number three, determinations
for phthalate concentrations.
The CPSC in August of 2012 indicated
that untreated, unfinished wood, metal,
natural fibers, natural latex and mineral
products do not inherently phthalates
and so do not require third party testing.
The HTA encouraged the CPSC to investigate the
potential to expand this list to include paper
and paperboard printing and screen printing
inks, textiles with manufactured fibers plant
in animal derived materials, manufactured
wood products and other materials
from the led determinations list.
Number four, establish a list
of equivalent test to those
in CPSC Administered Children's
Product Safety Rules.
CPSC staff, in their document recommended that
the Commission considered creating, maintaining
and recognizing the list of equivalent
test in international standards conformity
to which would be indicative of
conformity to the corresponding test
in a CPSC-Administered Children's Product
Safety Rule, enumerating these differences
in Toy Safety Standards as the first
step towards reducing duplication
and test and therefore cost.
In many cases, the difference in
regulations are small and also insignificant
but the small differences create a large
economic hurdle for small manufacturers
in Europe that export to the U.S. Number five,
define a periodic testing option based on volume
of products manufactured rather
than solely on a time period.
The periodic testing rule sets the periodic
testing timeframe based solely on time.
The HTA believes there needs
to be a periodic test
for low volume manufacturers based
on quantities rather than time.
We urge the Commission to revisit
the possibilities of a rule
which allows manufacturers to retest
based on the number of units produced.
Number six, continue information and
education activities regarding testing rules.
The CPSC should publish basic
guidance for common times
of handmade toys and children's products.
This helps small business to get
started and to understand the amount
of effort required to meet safety standards.
Neil Cohen has already done this in one
instance for doll clothing I believe.
We suggest similar guidance on
the following product types,
infant and children's clothes wood toys with
no moving parts, wood toys with moving parts
like wheels or axles, children's jewelry,
stuffed or plush toys and cloth and vinyl dolls.
These are all typical products that come out
of the members of the Handmade Toy Alliance.
In conclusion, the Handmade Toy Alliance greatly
appreciates the efforts the CPSC has already
taken to accommodate our membership with respect
to toy safety standards and third party testing.
However, it's important to note that
there continued to be many opportunities
where burdens can be reduced and even eliminated
without compromising the safety of consumers.
We asked the commission to expedite
and fund efforts by the CPSC staff
that they have already identified to reduce the
burden of third party test and consider ways
to provide a product specific guidance.
Thank you very much.
>> Inez Tenenbaum: Miss Mond.
>> Rebecca Mond: Good morning
Chairman and Commissioners.
The Toy Industry Association appreciates this
opportunity to comment on the agency's budget
and fiscal or for fiscal years 2014 and 2015.
TIA, that's more than 600 members from
toy manufacturers importers and retailers
to toy inventors designers and testing
labs are all involved in creating
and bringing fun and safe toys to children.
Our members account for roughly 85 percent
of the three billion toys sold
in United States each year.
The toy industry is responsible
for nearly 22 billion dollars
in annual retail sales across the country.
More than 530, 000 jobs generating nearly 26
billion dollars in wages for American workers
and creating an economic impact
nearly 81 billion dollars.
Our industry is focused on toys.
We are focused on children
and we are focused on play.
Above all, we are dedicated to keeping
children safe while they are at play.
Toy safety has long been a top priority
for both the association and its members.
Since the 1930s, TIA has been the leader in
the development of standard such as ASCM F963,
the Toy Safety Requirements
that were mandated as law
in the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act.
And that have been used as the model for
national safety standards around the world.
The toy industry believes in the
mission and rule of the CPSM.
We have valued our past opportunities
to work together and we look forward
to maintain the open and constructed dialog
with the commission and the years ahead.
We share the same objective to protect consumers
especially the youngest ones from products
or in our case toys that would cause them harm.
Before we look ahead to the CPSC's
priorities for fiscal years 2014 and 2015,
TIA would like to first congratulate the
commission on its past accomplishments.
Madam Chairman and Commissioners, your
leadership and efforts have effect
in meaningful improvements and consumer
product safety through education,
safety standards activities,
regulation and enforcement.
These fundamental principles serve as a
strong foundation for the strategic goals
that you have set for the
CPSC in the years ahead.
Leadership and safety commitment to
prevention, rigorous hazard identification,
decisive response, and raising awareness.
Overall, TIA is supportive of agency initiatives
that are aligned with these strategic goals.
In particular, the following areas
are priorities for the toy industry
and in no particular order, these are education,
import surveillance and trade facilitation,
regulatory cooperation and reducing
third-party testing burdens.
For our first priority is education.
For many years, TIA and the CPSC
have collaborated to educate industry
about requirements for producing safe
products and to educate consumers
about their important role and
assuring the safe use of products.
We look forward to continue
these joined efforts.
Additionally, we would like to propose that
the CPSC create a new educational programs
for the agencies' new staff in leadership.
Such programs could supplement
the exemplary expertise
in educational efforts already
undertaken by staff
and might cover topics including
consumer product manufacturing,
industry operating procedures, supply chain
logistics, many function quality control
and other realities of production.
Industry practices and business
dynamics are changing everyday.
These internally-focused educational sessions
would provide CPSC staff and regulators
with valuable insights and updates
into how companies operate today.
And would further ensure that future
regulations are based on up-to-date
and practical operations making
them more efficient and effective.
For our next point, we support the efforts
that the CPSC has undertaken with customs
and border protection to stop
unsafe and counterfeit toys
from entering the United States
and to facilitate trade flow.
TIA reiterates are offered to assist in the
development and refinement of procedures
that will effectively identify and stop
unsafe products before they enter our ports.
But, we ask that care is taken to ensure
that these new procedures
do not delay the importation
of compliant products from
responsible companies.
With time of the essence delivery requirements
and just in time inventory management at retail,
even short delays can result
in cancellation of orders.
This can have catastrophic consequences for many
of our members particularly
the smaller businesses.
We believe that any changes to requirements
that impacts supply chain logistics
should be coordinated with CBP and take
into account importers various standard
operating procedures, timing and volume cycles.
The formation of a customs advisory
committee similar to CBP's advisory committee
on commercial operations may help
inform the agency on these decisions.
As the CPSC continues to develop its risk
assessment methodology and increase its presence
at the ports, we also recommend
that the agency maintains its focus
on products suppose the most
significant rest to consumers.
Our next topic, increasing regulatory
cooperation has been a significant priority
for TIA and to the toy industry.
The toy industry like many others has a
global presence and our companies rely
on cross porter trade as a key
aspect of their businesses.
As such, we are pleased to
see regulatory line as one
of the CPSCs defined strategic objectives.
A strong aligned global safety framework
will provide greater consumer protection
and facilitate the production
of safe compliant products
that can be sold to markets around the world.
We encourage the CPSC to continue
sharing information in best practices
with these international counterparts
to promote greater alignment
of international consumer product safety
standards and to maintain its commitment
and dedicate further resources towards
achieving this very important goal.
The final industry priority is actually
the area of primary interest for TIA
and its members reducing testing burdens.
TIA supports testing that will help
to assure the safety of the toys.
However, current testing
requirements are forcing many companies
to conduct unnecessary test of materials
that by their very nature cannot exceed
the defined chemical content limits.
Streamlined testing requirements will reduce
redundant cost providing a significant benefit
to toy and other children's product
manufactures particularly smaller companies.
This means a greater selection of safe
products at better prices for consumers.
For this reason, TIA calls upon the CPSC
to dedicate the resources needed to analyze
and implement all approved
recommendations to reduce the cost
of their party testing including those
reference in the recent request for information
on materials that can be determined compliant
with the phthalate and eight heavy metal limits.
This represent TIAs top four priorities
for CPSCs fiscal year 2014 and 2015 budget.
Before we conclude, however,
there is one more important
and directly related issue
which we would like to address.
TIA is concerned that the commission's proposal
to amend the information disclosure regulation
16 CFR 1101 will take scarce agency resources
away from other recognized or
congressionally mandated priorities.
Further, we fear that any efforts to diminish
this information disclosure protections afforded
under section 6B of the consumer
product safety act,
can negatively impacts the voluntary
consumer product incident reporting system
that has developed over the past 40 years.
The potential for a public
response on a perception
of danger during an investigation is very real
and could be quite detrimental to a company
or brand if there's no actual risk of harm.
Moreover, the CPSC has an obligation to provide
consumers with accurate validated information.
We therefore reposit the current statutory
protections be maintained with no change.
And finally, on more personal note to
Commissioner Nord to the Chairman Tenenbaum,
we do want to thank people for your service
here at the consumer product safety commission.
We have all enjoyed working with you very much
and you both have done some wonderful things
to improve considering our product safety
both in United States and around the world.
And I would like to join my colleagues
and congratulating Commissioner Burkle
and to Commissioner Robinson, we certainly
look forward to working with both of you
in the future and of course
working with you Commissioner Adler
to achieve our shared objectives.
So, with that, that concludes our testimony.
Thank you.
>> Inez Tenenbaum: Miss Gadhia.
>> Ami Gadhia: Good morning
Chairman Tenenbaum and Commissioners.
My name is Ami Gadhia.
I'm with Consumers Union.
I'm senior policy council.
Consumers Union is the public policy
and advocacy arm of consumer reports.
As many others have said, my
testimony today highlights some areas
in which we hope the agency will
focus, but the complete list
of our recommendations is contained
within our written testimony
previously submitted to the commission.
I'll sort of speak into the
implementation of the CPSIA.
Implementation of the CPSIA
remains a top priority for CU.
We very much appreciate the commission's
ongoing efforts to complete this process.
The agency's activities so far has significantly
increased protections for consumers
and we support and applaud the
agency's efforts on this front.
Going forward, we look forward to seeing
final rules on high chairs, bassinets,
bed side slippers, and handheld
carriers among others.
Our tests of certain models of
strollers and high chairs have found
that certain products can
create a risk of strangulation.
If a child's body's looks to the front
opening but the child's head gets stuck
under another part of the product.
We urged CPSC to continue working closely
with the ASTM juvenile product subcommittees
to develop strong standards for
durable infant and toddler products
in order to address these hazards.
Regarding the public data base, we have
been and can remain strongly supportive
of the safer products on [inaudible]
database which is working well.
With regards to the national electronic injury
surveillance system or NEIS database, however,
we would like to see the public web interface
upgraded to allow for multiple year queries
and for the ability to graph data over time.
Presently, this must be done by
hand and be-- can be quite tedious.
In addition, the NEIS database
should explain in detail
in understandable language what methods are
used to extrapolate from the data provided
by the 100 reporting NEIS hospitals
in calculating national estimates.
Finally, we feel there should be public
access to the IPII and IDI databases as well
as product related mortality statistics.
With regards to other areas of concern,
I'll speak first to laundry detergent pods.
Consumers Union and consumer reports have
been warning the public of the dangers
of detergent pod ingestion for over a year now.
Poison control centers around the country
are reporting an increase in calls
about children ingesting
or otherwise being exposed
to highly concentrated laundry detergent
packaged in small single-dose packages.
Some toddlers and young children who swallowed
the detergent pods have become extremely ill
and require hospitalization.
The pods are very colorful and can often
look like toys or candies to small children.
In light of the injuries associated with
this hazard, we continue to urge CPSC
to investigate this product and to adopt
stricter standards that will ensure
that this product is not accessed by children.
We appreciate the agency's education
and outreach work on this issue,
and we hope manufacture swill step up and take
measures to better ensure that the pods stay
out of the hands of young children.
Regarding appliance fires, consumer
reports conducted an in-depth analysis
of federal fire data, and publish its findings
in an article in the March 2012 issue.
The finding showed that only half of
the appliance fires could be blamed
on human mistakes or natural causes.
Much of the rest appeared to have been caused
by problems with the appliances themselves,
such as electrical, mechanical,
or design defects.
For a followup story, published into the
March 2013 issue, we examined reports
of self-starting microwaves
from KitchenAid and GE.
We were disappointed to learn
that the Commission's kitchen appliances
investigation is no longer active.
Consumers Union continues to urge the
CPCS to address appliance fire hazards,
and to pay particular attention
to self-starting appliances.
Regarding glass cookware, two years ago
consumer reports revealed that between January
and October 2011 the magazine receives 121
new reports of exploding glass bakeware
from consumers which results with
an 18 consumers being injured.
So far, we have analyzed
over 300 such incidents.
In addition, the CPSC product safety database,
has logged 111 incidents involving Pyrex,
four of which have required ER treatment.
We urge the Commission to investigate this issue
thoroughly and address any safety concerns.
Next turn to Bike Helmets.
Consumer reports recently tested
a number of bike helmets and found
that some transferred slightly more
force to the head than the limit set
by the CPSC bike-helmet standard.
However, there were many helmets that
exceeded the current CPSC standard.
This illustrates we feel that
many of the helmets currently
on the market perform far better than
CPSC standards currently require.
CPSC's bicycle helmets standard has not
been revised since it was adopted in 1998,
at which time it was a modeled on the
existing ASTM standard as is required.
Since then, the ASTM standard
has evolved in important ways.
To ensure increased safety of these
critically important products,
we feel that CPSC should undertake a similar
upgrade of its bicycle helmet standard,
including more stringent
thresholds for impact testing.
We also continue to be concerned about
flame retardant chemicals in baby products,
upholstered furniture, and mattresses.
Recent peer-reviewed scientific studies provide
new evidence that Americans are widely exposed
to flame retardants that may
pose worrisome health risks
and may not even provide much fire protection.
The agency should make regulating these
chemicals a priority and wherever possible,
provide options for physical fire blocking.
We urge the CPSC to begin by supporting the
new furniture flammability standard proposed
by California, which would steer fire protection
measures away from use of these chemicals.
We also appreciate CPSC efforts to push
industry towards grading a safer product design
for button-cell batteries.
We encourage the agency to continue
focusing on this significant health hazard.
Ingestion of these products is a
particular hazard for small children.
Button-cell battery ingestion causes rapid
and severe gastrointestinal tissue damage
and perforation, due to formation of caustic
substances by a battery's low voltage,
and can result in devastating injuries
to consumers and can even cause death.
The agency should also push for the
redesign of button cell batteries
so that they are nonhazardous if swallowed.
I'd also like to echo Rachel Weintraub's
testimony commanding the agency for their work
on the rare earth magnets
as well as the bumbo seats.
Those are very important stuff
that the agency has taken.
In conclusion, we applaud the Commission's
efforts to address hazardous associated
with consumer products, and we look forward
to our continued work with the agency
to help it fulfill its important mission.
And also thank you very much
to Chairman Tenenbaum
and Commissioner Nord for your service.
And we'd like to-- we look forward to meeting
Commissioner Burkle and Commissioner Robinson.
Thank you very much.
>> Ines Tenenbaum: Thank you all very much.
These are excellent presentations with
so much to consider in all four of them.
So I've just got a few broad
categories I want to talk to you about.
One is the upholstered furniture rule that
Rachel and Robyn, Ami Gadhia mentioned.
We personally hadn't gone on records
supporting California's actions
to repeal on technical bulletin 117.
In which we had to open flame-standard
which required flame retardant.
So that personally a numerous speeches
have mentioned and speeches in publicly
that I've would like our poster furniture
standard if and when we have one to not rely
on any flame-- not to be such it has to have
flame retardant chemicals to meet the standard.
So I now think, a number
of my colleagues support
that same position on flame retardant chemicals.
We hope that the EPA can act down to our-- The
congress will I mean task and address the issue
of flame retardant chemicals and their toxicity
or with another carcinogenic
through-- amendments to the TOSCA Law.
But I think you have strong support here
to have flame retardants not been
used in upholstered furniture.
When there are cords, there is a petition
we've worked closely with the industry.
I visited three of the major manufacturers
on site to look at the manufacturing.
And very encouraged that so many
of the window coverings now can--
with the equivalent cost be made cordless.
We were over the Department to Defense.
I got a letter to along with the Department
of Defense to all private entities
who supply military housing
to not use corded blinds
but to go cordless on any
kind of window covering.
So we need a strong education campaign
that I wish we had the resources
to do even more broadly.
But we're committed to that.
And even that we've met with all the
major retailers who sell corded blinds.
And one major retailer last year said
within three years they would not
sell any corded blinds anymore.
I can't tell who that is
but it's a major retailers.
So we're-- at working you know on this and like
I said the industry has made incredible strides
in having cordless window coverings
that are comparable in cost to corded.
So we need to continue with
our efforts there jointly.
I wanted to talk to Mr. Hertzler when
you mentioned that not many people,
not of the 787 small and micro
businesses in the Handmade toy alliance.
They haven't taken really advantage of
signing up this small batch manufacturers
which would take them out
of the test to requirements.
Not only for initial testing
but periodic testing as well.
Why haven't they availed of
themselves to huge cost reduction?
>> Randall Hertzler: There's-- there's many--
there's many reasons and-- That's the case.
Probably the primary reason is that the people
that register prefer not to be published
on the public list of registrants.
They perhaps don't have a problem
with registering with the CPSC.
But they don't want to be on a public with
of-- these people don't test their products.
That I think would be the primary reason.
>> Nancy Nord: Well, that's-- that's
really a shame because when we went back
to congress, half the CPSIA was passed.
You might be a small agency
but you were a mighty force.
The Handmade Toy Alliance was a mighty
forcing congress and all of that designed
to give the [inaudible] toy alliance
a huge reduction and the burden
of testing you didn'have to
test, you have to comply.
>> Randall Hertzler: Correct.
>> Nancy Nord: But we were hopeful that--
that the component part industry like paints
labeled no lead in this paint and wood you know
that you sure you-- untreated wood
is-- don't have any lead in it.
But that's a-- that's a really
disappointing news to find
out that people are afraid to say we don't test.
But they can avail themselves to no testing
which would help them in terms of the cost.
>> Randall Hertzler: Right.
I don't think that the law requires that
the registration be publicly available.
I think the law just requires that in order
to take advantage of the small batch exemption
that they must register with the CPSC.
And I guess the CPSC has chosen to make
that publicly available database of the name
and the name of the person
and the business and the city
and the state in which that business resides.
>> Inez Tenenbaum: Most probably
obtainable through freedom
of information at request anyways.
So being transparent and open, we just--
But I'm disappointed that more people
aren't taking advantage of that
because it was a large burden reduction.
And speaking of burden reduction, we're
all committed to reduce the burdens.
And so the first for-- a request for
information prepulses we put up we hope
that the people will come in and then we
can get those approved this year depending
on what we learn.
And go on as resources permit
and each year add more to it.
So that we can continue our work on
compliance and investing in products while
at the same time, have our staff look
for new ways to reduce the burden.
>> Randall Hertzler : Thanks
for making that a priority.
>> Inez Tenenbaum: And Ms. Mond, the issue
about risk and import surveillance we--
I'm sure you're aware we completed our risk
assessment methodology phthalate project.
And that has been very successful.
And that we looked at the criteria for--
in terms of targeting shipments
coming to the United States.
And risk was a keep part of that, risk
assessment being-- Or you're repeat offender,
is it a product that you know,
we see of many violation in
and three is it someone you've never
imported and so should we target them?
So we are committed to a
risk assessment methodology.
And we have this phthalate project
that we are hopeful over the years,
congress will fully pay for, so
that we can have it nationwide.
You've heard my speeches that we only have 20
people in our import surveillance division.
But we rely heavily on our partnership
with customs and boarder protection.
So the more we can just target those people
who are suspect, then the others can go
through commerce more freely
and that's what our goal is.
There was so much content in all
of your presentations so I won't go
into detail 'cause I know other
people want to ask questions as well.
But I did want to bring one
thing out to Rachel Weintraub,
in your testimony I don't think you had
information on our latest civil penalty
so I want to point out that in 2013,
we assessed some penalties ranging
from 450, 000 a 3.9 million.
And also we had criminal penalties
that resulted for a repeat offender
who knowingly brought noncompliant
products getting 22-month prison sentence.
And that you know since the message
wants to warn you and tell you bring
in noncompliant products and you repeatedly do
it again, that you will get a severe penalty.
And the last thing I guess I want to talk about
is just more thing is the socioeconomic issues
of children in lower socioeconomic
categories standing--
having higher risk and kind of reminds me
of when I was practicing law
at the very first few years.
And I went [inaudible] to represent this baby,
I was the baby's guardian and then I went
out to the home, his grand parents home, and
there was no crib and there were children all
over they are playing, and none
of the children had a crib.
They've all been in either cardboard boxes or
laundry baskets or even the drawer that you took
out of the chest or drawers
and put a phthalate in there.
So all of us who come from areas that
are economically challenged realized
that this is a huge issue from cribs to
you know, flammable fabrics for children.
So we're very aware of it.
And anything you do to specifically point it out
or anything we could do, we would appreciate it.
But all of our education campaigns, working
with the organizations who gave away free cribs
and trying to keep cribs
out of second hand stores
so that people are buying the low-end
items that have been recalled is--
we are very all very aware
of the-- and concerned.
So anything, any of you can do to let
us know how we can better approach that,
we would appreciate.
So, Commissioner Nord.
>> Nancy Nord: Thank you so much Madam Chairman.
Mr Hertzler I'd like to continue that
conversation about the small batch exemption.
As you pointed out, the law does not require
that this database be a public database.
And this was debated pretty
aggressively internally
and the decision was made
non-unanimously to go this way.
If that decision is impeding the
effectiveness of the exemption
and your members do truly believe that
they would take advantage of that exemption
or exemption, if we were
to change our practices,
that would be very helpful to have you all.
Give us more information on how you
would expect the response to change.
So that's just a request of you.
I don't know if you want to expand it
all more on why they're not using it.
But--
>> Randall Hertzler: Well-- you know, I
should say it's a very complicated issue.
It's not just a single thing
because the folks that make in--
made toys have a different kind of investment
in their toy than for instance a corporation
like Mattel that punches out
hundreds of thousands of toys.
When you're making that toy by hand, you have
certainly a different investment in the toy.
And when that is the case, and you have
a relationship also with the consumer,
a direct relationship, what happens
is that the toy maker wants to comply
and there are good reasons for that.
And so needing to certify saying that
you know this toy does not have lead
and it meets this requirement
and this requirement
without doing a test, also
poses a-- this dichotomy.
How do I certify that guaranteed
there's none of these
in my particular product,
if I'm not going to test it?
So they would prefer to meet the requirements
through a straightforward procedure,
like a determination that says, it
you've got fabric, it doesn't have lead.
You don't need to test it for lead.
So that takes care of the third party test.
So that's-- there's a preferred
root that bypasses the--
>> Nancy Nord: Pardon me, would something
other than a third party testing requirement
or a periodic testing requirement
that is very rigid, is it--
a regulation be helpful if for example
they could do it on a first party basis
or collectively do it or do it in a way
that is less formalized, would that help?
>> Randall Hertzler: Certainly.
>> Nancy Nord: OK, we all of course are
committed to reducing cost of testing
and congress told us to be committed if we
were now ready in response to the 2011 law.
We put up our request for comments.
The staff came up with the list, if I
could forget between 15 and 20 suggestions.
We wanted that list down to nine.
And now we've wanted them down to four.
And maybe at some point in the future,
we will act on whatever recommendations
come out of those four items.
You've given us a number of other
items that you've recommended.
Could you give us a priority which of
those six or seven items that you listed
in your testimony would be number one for you?
>> Randall Hertzler: Certainly the
determination's list for the eight heavy metals
in AST and F963 would be at the top of the list.
>> Nancy Nord: Right.
>> Randall Hertzler: Those tests were certainly
the most superfluous test of all of them.
And then I would say manufactured woods
and then the phthalate determinations.
>> Nancy Nord: OK, thank you.
Now Mr. Hertzler and Ms. Mond, you both raised
the issue of harmonization of toy standards
between the U.S. standard
and the European standard.
This is something that I've
been interested in forever.
And what's frustrating to me is to
try to understand what is preventing
that from happening, the two standards,
I would suggest are equally
protective but they're different.
Why can't we get this together and have
one standard that are in alliance standard?
>> Rebecca Mond: Our work over the
years with the commission were really--
those two standards are probably
about 80 percent aligned
and they are functionally equivalent
where a toy that is protective
with the United State standard is, it's
very safe while a toy that is compliant
with the European standard is also very safe.
The last 20 percent, we've seen this--
that last 20 percent of differences,
I think that is mostly because of
political influences and so, yes,
it's certainly it's going to be challenging
trying to further align those two standards.
But they are both very protective.
>> Nancy Nord: But in your view,
they are functionally equivalent?
>> Rebecca Mond: Yes.
>> Nancy Nord: -- with respect
to the level of safety?
>> Rebecca Mond: Yes.
>> Nancy Nord: OK, so it
really would take some strong--
>> Rebecca Mond: Political support, yes.
>> Nancy Nord: Thank you.
OK. In your testimony Ms. Mond, you've referred
to companies conducting unnecessary third party
testing materials that by their very nature,
cannot exceed the chemical content on it.
. Could you give us an example?
>> Rebecca Mond: Sure.
A great example there is we have one
member who provide us information.
They are a US manufacturer and every
year they have to conduct 175,000 dollars
and phthalate testing and
these are for materials
that they know do not contain phthalates.
The supplier knows do not
contain phthalates, they know--
before they get the test report
what the test report will say,
and so that 175,000 dollars could
go towards growing the business,
towards growing the products, hiring people, so.
>> Nancy Nord: You know, I've-- actually,
I heard the same example being given
from the screen printing garment people,
who are running into the same
problems, so thank you for that example.
The 2014 budget does include an activity
to revise our 6B regulations to take
into account social media issues.
If the rule were changed to allow the
CPSC to release safety information
to the public quicker, wouldn't
this advance safety,
and how would such a change
impact your membership?
>> Rebecca Mond: Well, on top of the points
that raised in the testimony one of the things
that we kept on hearing today was
improving the CPSC's recall effectiveness
and flooding the public with
incident investigations wouldn't help.
It be kind of like the boy who
cried wolf, but we'd have the agency
that cried potential product safety hazard.
So, diluting the-- this would
ultimately dilute the effectiveness
of announcements on actual product hazards.
>> Nancy Nord: So you don't think it would
necessarily advance safety in a meaningful way?
>> Rebecca Mond: No.
>> Nancy Nord: OK.
Ms. Weintraub, I'm really intrigued
with your commentary about the need
to address low income consumer safety issues.
And candidly I do agree that this
is an area where not enough time
and attention was been given,
however, it seems to me to be an issue
that is a whole lot bigger than the CPSC.
So, I'm wondering to what extent
other agencies are involved in this?
How have you reached out to other agencies
to pull them in and get some activity going?
It seems like this should be an
administration effort, if you will.
>> Rachel Weintraub: Well, thank you very much.
We just released the report last month and we
have a number of plans and you are correct.
Our report actually focused on unintentional
injury as well as food-borne illness.
And it's very broad in scope.
We plan to have a number of dialogues--
>> Nancy Nord: So this is
something you're starting?
>> Rachel Weintraub: Yes.
>> Nancy Nord: OK.
>> Rachel Weinraub: We are
starting, this was the launch.
But one piece of it that I think is
critical for CPSC is that CPSC's data
through NEISS is really relied
upon by CDC for whiskers and others
as sort for the benchmark for data.
And one thing we would like to explore
with CPSC is whether it would be possible
to collect socioeconomic data
through the NEISS process.
>> Nancy Nord: OK.
One final comment, you referred to the databases
as that your colleague at
the other end of the table.
And that 97 percent of the users
of the database were consumers.
And I just want to put out there what the
GAO study found, they looked at this and yes,
97 percent of the submitters are
consumers as defined in our rule.
But if you dig deep into the statistics,
you find that the victims were 4,400
and then you marched through the spouse,
the child, the parent, a relative, a client,
or patient, a friend, a neighbor,
or co-worker that gets you
to about half of that 97 percent figure.
So basically, half of the people who identify
themselves as consumers are neither the victim--
related to the victim in any particular way.
And I think that that is something that we
need to keep in mind as we use that statistic
because it does lead to a
somewhat misleading result.
Thank you very much, my time is expired.
>> Inez Tenenbaum: Commissioner Adler?
>> Robert Adler: Thank you very much.
Again, an excellent panel and I really
appreciate your attendance and with respect
with Ms. Weintraub, I wanted to go to the
topic you raised with respect to ATVs,
which is another one of my major interests.
And this is just sad because you can do this
any day of the week and I did it this morning.
Two headlines, "Boy, 9, Killed When
Utility Vehicle Hits Pile of Hay,
4-year-old ATV Passenger
Killed in Nebraska Crash".
The fact is that, as far as I'm
concerned, ATVs are the single worst,
most dangerous discretionary product
under our jurisdiction and I'm delighted
to hear the support for continuing
work on ATV safety.
Every year, something on the
order of 700 funerals and 100,
000 injuries to emergency rooms occur.
And about one in four of this is to kids, so
it's a product that is one of serious concern
and I'm delighted to hear
that your concerns match mine.
And by the way, I thought the safety summit
on ATVs was terrific and I've been monitoring
and talking to staff, there was a lot of
information that was extremely useful,
not just with respect to talking to
consumers about a safer use of the product
which is important, but also about some
significant redesign of the product.
If you have any comment, I'd appreciate it.
>> Rachel Weintraub: I would just say
that there is a very large community
that I think was well represented at the
summit of academics of practitioners,
of researchers who have been working
extensively for many years on this issue
and there's really a strong
need for CPSC to take action.
Based on all of this research, based
on incredible work that's being done
through out our country and in other
countries to truly protect consumers
and especially our youngest-- our children
from the hazards post by these vehicles.
>> Robert Adler: Yeah and speaking of
children, I'm looking at our representatives
from the toy industry and this is an
observation that I've made before.
We had somebody from AHAM speaking on the
first panel and just out of idle curiosity,
about a year ago, I looked up the number of
safety standards that the commission has written
with respect to appliances and
that was a grand total of zero.
There is one safety standard which was
inactive before the commission was setup
and that has to do with refrigerator doors.
And it is interesting Ms. Gadhia to hear you
talk about the number of appliance fires.
I do think it's a very responsible
industry and we work closely with them,
but then I turn to the toy industry
which I don't think a year has passed
when we haven't had some new regulation
or rule or piece of legislation
with respect to the toy industry.
I don't think anybody has a
vendetta against your industry,
but you do guard these most
precious assets, these invulnerable--
excuse me, vulnerable involuntary risk takers.
And so I just wanted to commend you for
working so closely with us over the years.
It's been a real pleasure to know
both of you and to work with you.
I was a little disappointed Mr. Hertzler
to hear and I'm not surprised to hear it,
because I've noticed that very few of your
members have gone the small batch route
and I would just invite you to talk to them and
see if we can encourage more of them to sign up.
I would not personally be in favor of
keeping a confidential closed list of people
who have availed themselves
of the small batch option.
I think we're too open and
transparent in agency,
and I think Chairman Tenenbaum has pointed
but even if we try to keep it secret,
one of these two consumer groups would
probably walk in and file a FOIL request
and have access to the information.
But I did want to also say that I think
the priority that you have for us to work
on is a priority that we're working on.
This request for information has-- I'm looking
at these determinations regarding
the eight heavy metals,
determinations regarding phthalates and
manufacturing woods are all part of the RFI.
And I think that's because we listened
carefully to concerns that you raised.
And we're-- what we're trying to do in this
age of extraordinarily constrained resources is
to get the most bang for our
buck, and these were the ones
that would result in reducing
third party testing.
I am not as pessimistic as you are that
this will not be done until 2015, you know,
the comment period just closed
about a month ago,
so we have to analyze that
comments that are there.
But I think everybody up here is
dedicated and committed to working to try
to help your industry and
to make life easier for you.
So, again, and by the way welcome because
I know you were having trouble figuring
out whether you could make it to the hearing
today and I think you've added enormously
to the hearing and that's
just a set of comments.
If you have any responds you're
more that welcome to speak.
I did want to address Ms.
Mond but if you had any?
And that is with respect to a topic I guess
on which you and I probably disagree more
than most and there aren't that many.
It's also one of my favorite points of
disagreement with my colleague commission Nord,
and that has to do with the
benefit of 6B in our statute.
I will say two things about the work
that we're going to be doing on 6B.
First of all, this is not a work to change
the statute, the statute will remain.
Its work could update, the Commission Regulation
to which you're very, very old at this point
and let's just try to make them more
consonant with the new age of social media
and it doesn't even talk about e-mails
because when it was written I don't
think people were doing e-mails.
But, I have to say that if it were such a
good idea, I wonder why after 40 some years
or almost 40 years we still remain the one and
only agency in entire the federal government
that has the kind of restrictions
and new information disclosure
that are imposed on us by 6B.
And I do think that that keeps vital
lifesaving information from being made available
to the public and I do believe
that information disclosure delayed
at times unfortunately is
information disclosure denied.
But, I did want to give you some reassurance
that what we're doing is if I were--
I don't know that resources that we dedicated
to it, but my guess is it will be more in terms
of stuff hours or stuff weeks and stuff months.
It's a very quick review design to promote
efficiency within the agency and the cost saver
for the agency and I do invite you as
I always do to feel free to take issue
with what I've just said and you're
more than welcome to do that.
Those are my comments.
Actually no questions beyond that,
thank you so much for your testimony.
>> Inez Tenenbaum: Thank you.
Commissioner Robinson?
>> Marietta Robinson: Thank you madam Chair and
thank you to all of you for your very thoughtful
and well prepared both written
remarks and your oral presentations.
I have much to learn and that is obvious.
But I would very much like to reiterate
what my colleagues have said and what I said
in my senate confirmation hearing that
while I'm very committed to the mission
of the Consumer Product Safety Commission
and to keeping our products safe I'm also--
I'm very much of you part of the mission as
being to keep the burden as low as we can
on our manufacturers while keeping our product
safe and while we comply with the mandate
that have been given to us by congress.
So, I just wanted to give you assurance that,
and I do not have specific followup questions
for Mr. Hertzler and Ms. Mond with
respect to the burden reducing efforts
that you've suggested because I need more
information but I'm sure I will going forward.
Ms. Weintraub, let me first of all just ask
you a quick question, you mentioned in response
to commissioner Adler's question about ATVs that
other countries have safety standards are one
that you point to that we
should be talking a look at?
>> Rachel Weintraub: Well, I would
say it's more that other countries
and I'm thinking specifically of
Australia have been very active in looking
at this issue, addressing this issue.
There seems to be a dynamic process looking
at new potential designs including a roll bar
and there people from Australia
who came to the ATV summit.
So, I think working collaboratively
learning from their new ideas and what seems
to work would be a really great idea for CPSC.
>> Marietta Robinson: Right.
I was going to ask you about
your ideas from the CFA report.
I was going to ask about your ideas on what
we might do to collect more specific data,
but it sounds to me in response to commissioner
Nord's question that you just don't have
that yet, but that's the next step?
>> Rachel Weintraub: Right
that is the next step.
>> Marietta Robinson: OK.
>> Rachel Weintraub: Although, what--
something that we'd really like to do
is to begin a conversation with the CFA
and the many experts at CPSC so that we can get
a better understanding of whether it's possible
for the nice data to include
socioeconomic information.
Because that would be a way that
the key information that as I said
to commission Nord that's relied upon by CDC,
and so many of us in our testimony obviously,
you know, CPSC collects very important data
that's relied upon by all stakeholders.
But if that data could correlate the information
about socioeconomic status and injuries
and desk [assumed spelling]
that would be incredibly useful.
Our analysis really identified huge data gaps
and what we did was a literature review based
upon academic studies that have been conducted
by mostly doctors, but also epidemiologist
over a number of years and specific places.
So, well we identified that there definitely is
a consistent thread in the academic literature.
We also identified this data need that
would help us really gain more information
about the problem and that's
what we'd really like to explore.
>> Marietta Robinson: So, I take that
the academic papers you referred to--
which you're referring do
talk about social economic--
>> Rachel Weintraub: Yes.
>> Marietta Robinson: -- status?
OK.
>> Rachel Weintraub: They do,
but on a much smaller scale.
>> Marietta Robinson: Right.
>> Rachel Weintraub: There are studies of-- in
Voltemor on Medicaid there was a study in main
for example, a lot of them are smaller studies
and some of them are focused on particular types
of hazards and they are consistent in showing
that lower income children face high risks,
but what we'd really like to do is figure
out how to bridge the study gap as well
as to help us find solutions ultimately.
>> Marietta Robinson: Right.
Now, you-- in your written materials urge
the CPSC to work with manufacturers of infant
and toddler durable products to "Maximize
awareness of product registration."
Do you have anymore specific for
us than that in terms of what--
>> Rachel Weintraub: Sure.
So, one of the requirements of CPSIA as part of
Danny's Law that Nancy Cowles did a great job
of explaining was product registration
for infant and durable products.
And this is an idea that CFA has long been
a supporter of, the idea that the best way
to notify our consumers, is to notify the
consumers who actually purchase the product.
And so, for the subset of products
there's a requirement to provide a product
for registration card and it means online.
And what we would like to see is an effort
and it has began already, I understand
but as an effort to really
communicate with consumers
that there's this product registration
card, you could do it very quickly
and it could potentially save your child's
life by filling in this information.
Your privacy is protected, this information
will only be used in case of a recall
and while this requirement exists we
think it would be very helpful for there
to be more education, more
consumer information about it.
>> Marietta Robinson: And Ms. Mond,
you in your submission mentioned
that the Toy Industry has cooperated with CPSC
and educating industry and
Consumers on Product Safety.
First, thank you.
But, do you have any additional ideas
on how we could improve that effort?
>> Rebecca Mond: I think that
going to small manufacturers
and educating has been suggested
by Mr. Hertzler over here.
Educating them about the requirements is
helpful and continuing efforts overseas
to bring the education down the supply
chain, that's always been very helpful.
>> Marietta Robinson: And Mr. Hertzler,
so I take it that you have been working
with Mr. Cohen and you're
coming up with good ideas
for how we can help the smaller manufacturers?
>> Randall Hertzler: Yes.
And I think Mr. Cohen has
been an excellent addition
to the Consumer Product Safety Commission and
provides a very valuable service and we'd--
we certainly utilized them already and think
that that area could be expanded even more.
>> Marietta Robinson: Thank
you all so very much.
Madam Chair.
>> Inez Tenenbaum: Commissioner Buerkle?
>> Ann Marie Buerkle: Thank you madam Chair.
So-- as my colleague mentioned I
have enough a lot to learn as well,
and the details of all of these issues.
So, first of all let me say thank
you to all of you for being here
for your very thorough testimony
and it's really very informational
for me just starting out, so, thank you.
And again, I look forward to meeting
with each and every one of you
and hearing your issues and
developing relationships.
Mr. Hertzler and Ms. Mond
we-- you talked about--
you're both concerned with
the third party testing.
Have either of you or your organizations
quantified the cost of this third party testing?
>> Randall Hertzler: We've worked through those
sort of statistics over the last three years.
I would say that probably because of the way
the law has gone and people have sort of slid
into ways of complying that I don't have any
recent statistics of that but we have statistics
that are perhaps a year or two old.
>> Ann Marie Buerkle: You know
those numbers of on top your head
or could you provide them to the committee?
>> Randall Hertzler: I could
provide them to the committee.
I think we have previously but I wouldn't
want to venture a guess of on top of my head.
>> Ann Marie Buerkle: Thank you.
I would appreciate seeing
those numbers, thank you.
Ms. Mond?
>> Rebecca Mond: I believe that in total when
you add the supplier certification requirements
on top of the certification requirements,
on top of the third party testing requirements
those three regulations which all go hand
on hand typically that the total
economic impacts and this isn't just
for our industry that set 400 million dollars.
>> Ann Marie Buerkle: And that's an annual cost.
>> Rebecca Mond: Yes, an annual cost.
>> Ann Marie Buerkle: If each one of
you could wave a wand and get your wish,
could you just start with Rachel and go down
the panel, just tell me what is your priority,
what is it the one thing you would
like to see this commission achieve?
>> Rachel Weintraub: I was
thinking about this question
when commissioner Nord asked
it on the last panel.
I will answer your question I think
the commission having such great staff,
so many staff who are so smart and hardworking,
happily you could have more than one priority.
So, I'm very glad of that.
I have numerous priorities but I would
say that my number one priority would be
to continue the prioritization of
CPSIA enforcement and compliance.
>> Ann Marie Buerkle: Thank you.
Mr. Hertzler?
>> Rachel Weintraub: And implementation, sorry.
>> Ann Marie Buerkle: Thank you.
>> Randall Hertzler: That's a dangerous
question giving me a magic wand.
>> Ann Marie Buerkle: You only get one wish.
Don't get carried away.
>> Randall Hertzler: And I assume
you mean in relation to the CPSC.
So, Bimini [assumed spelling] is right out.
>> Ann Marie Buerkle: In this environment
then there's no money for Bimini, really.
>> Randall Hertzler: I'm sorry.
Certainly, I think that the one wish there
is to expand the determinations list.
>> Ann Marie Buerkle: Ms. Mond?
>> Rebecca Mond: I would say that
it's the request for information
on the third party test-- or on the
materials that will comply with the folly
and the heavy metal limits on to the other
ways to reduce the third party testing burdens.
>> Ann Marie Buerkle: Thank you and Ms. Gadhia?
>> Ami Gadhi: I would echo what Ms. Mond have
said regarding implementation of the CPSIA.
>> Ann Marie Buerkle: Right.
Thank you all very much.
I yield back my time.
>> Inez Tenenbaum: Well,
thank you all for coming.
Thanks for excellent testimony and for your
great partnerships, working with all of you
over the last four years, and I want to
just thank everyone who's joined us online
and who came personally to this hearing,
we really appreciate everything
you did this morning.
This meeting is adjourned.