Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection Hearing, RE: Comprehensive Children’s Product Safety and Consumer Product Safety Commission Reform Legislation
WASHINGTON, DC,
Nov 5, 2007 -
Thank you Mr. Chairman, I thank you and Ranking Member Stearns. I commend you both for the hearing today and for the bipartisan nature of the way our subcommittee has worked on this legislation that is before us today. Mr. Chairman, you’ve heard me say it before, this Committee has some of the brightest minds, some of the greatest amount of intellectual firepower in the United States Congress, on both sides of the dais. When this Committee acts in a true bipartisan spirit, we are able to write meaningful legislation that will have a significant impact and positive impact on the country not just today but in the decades to come. Under the leadership of this Committee, we have been able to pass effective bipartisan bills such as the Melanie Stokes Postpartum Depression Act, and now hopefully, we will have a similar result with the legislation before us today.
Mr. Chairman, I want to be very clear, I have no quarrel with the leadership of this Committee, either the subcommittee or the full committee level, but unfortunately, the leadership of the House of Representatives has been trying to run the show in the Energy and Commerce Committee and that’s wrong. As we all know, the system works best and we have the most effective legislation when bills are allowed to follow the regular committee process. And then we all saw what happened on the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. It was not allowed to go through the normal process, and as a consequence the issue of children’s health care was turned into a partisan game, which focused on a year from now rather than a near-term, mid-term, and long-term strategy, and everyone lost—and most tragically, America’s children lost in that exchange. And now all the queen’s horses and all the queen’s men are trying to put humpty dumpty back together again, and quite frankly the process has become unnecessarily messy.
Mr. Chairman, I understand that while leadership wanted to rush this essential piece of legislation through, we have the commitment of you and this committee to hold both a subcommittee and full committee markup, and I thank you for that.
I also understand that you are welcoming Member’s amendments, and I thank you for your commitment to the process and making this good bill an even better bill. I am an original cosponsor of this bill, and I look forward to working with you on some of the amendments affecting recalls and nonprofits.
I would also like to thank Chairwoman Nord for coming here today. I know it’s not easy. Ms. Nord, you and your staff have provided crucial technical assistance and constructive criticism to this legislation, and I thank you for your honesty. Because you are not afraid to speak your mind about your agency’s needs, we have been able to craft legislation that will give the Commission the tools to keep Americans safe from unreasonable dangers in consumer products. Unlike some members in this chamber, and members of the other body, I appreciate and I welcome your honesty.
I thought the speaker’s press conference last Thursday was a disgrace to the body, and an embarrassment to the legislative process. I often feel that we have an imperial speakership that likes to govern by edict, and I thank you for standing strong in the eye of the storm. Unfortunately, because you didn’t provide the other body the answers that they wanted, they subsequently attacked you. And Ms. Nord, for the record, I have never doubted your commitment to the safety and welfare of America’s families, and I am thankful that you are doing everything you can to seek true reform for your agency. Thank you for your service, thank you for your dedication, and thank you for your commitment to our country.
As Tony Blair once said: “The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.” Ms. Nord, thank you for being a true leader and for saying no to legislation that you knew would ultimately be harmful to the country.
Mr. Chairman, I want to simply add that during the process of working on this bill, in fact working on a bill through the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, I had an opportunity to introduce stand-alone legislation that would have allowed the Food and Drug Administration the ability to stop the importation of a food from a country if the country were shown to be a serial violator of our country’s standards. And we all know the country we are talking about. We are talking about the People’s Republic of China. It doesn’t matter whether it’s food, it doesn’t matter whether it’s active ingredients in pharmaceuticals, or lead in toys, it all seems to come from the same place. And I think the Consumer Product Safety Commission needs that same type of stop button on the conveyor belt. We heard from the CEO of a major toy company that they’re continuing to accumulate lead based toys in their warehouses because we don’t have the stop button on the conveyor belt. Because the orders are in, the product is being shipped, the recalls are up there so they can’t sell it, I hope. I hope they can’t sell it on Ebay. I hope they can’t sell it to bargain houses, and perhaps we ought to investigate that some Mr. Chairman. But nevertheless, it would be better, Americans would be better served if we could just simply punch that stop button, halt the conveyor belt for thirty, sixty, ninety days, whatever we decide is fair, comply with all of the World Trade Organization restrictions that we have to comply with, but let’s stop the flow of contaminated products into this country immediately and then get back to sorting out where the problems are.
Mr. Chairman, I’m going to submit my full statement for the record. I thank you for your indulgence and I yield back the balance of my time.
