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Events, Speeches &
Floor Statements

Klobuchar thanks Senators on passage of historic consumer reform legislation

March 6, 2008 | Watch

Mr. President, I’m here today to thank the many Senators and staff that worked on this sweeping consumer protection reform. This is going to mean so much for so many across this country. It's going to make a difference and we're never really going to know it. But I can tell you from the parents I've met that have had to deal with their kids ingesting aqua dots that morphed into a date rape drug or another mother whose child swallowed a charm that was 39% lead-- those mothers came to the Capitol because they didn't want to have it happen to anyone else. And today we told them we're listening to you and we're making a difference in the lives of families throughout this country.

The difference started with the Commerce Committee and the very good staff that we have on that committee. I acknowledge them, and I want to acknowledge my own staff. I'm so proud of the work they did –Tamara Fucile, who took this on as a personal matter--whose children actually had some of the Thomas the train sets.  I can't tell you how many hearings she would carry those trains in that were chewed on by her own, and I would hold them up to show other Senators that this was a real thing. So I thank Tamara and I also thank her children for parting with their toys, although I will say they were recalled toys so she had to replace them.

We also had Kate Nilan who has just been doing a wonderful job with our office in working on these consumer issues and really the last week Kate was very involved in making sure that our amendment which banned the industry paying for travel, industries that the consumer protection agency is supposed to be regulating. The amendment that Senator Menendez and I did got voted on in this body 94-0 and it was because of the good work of Kate Nilan in putting together and working out the procedural issues. And so I want to thank both of my staff members for their fine work on this bill.

Tamara was also very involved in the lead standard. She originally worked with me when we said, why would we not have a federal lead standard for toys?  Why would we have a state-by-state standard, some states don't have them, they're all different all over the place, and we finally have an aggressive lead standard. That again was Tamara's good work. I also wanted to acknowledge the commerce staff who worked so hard on this bill from the beginning, David Strickland, who was there every step of the way, as well as Alex Hoehn-Saric for his work and then finally Price Feland, a member of Senator Pryor's staff, as well as the staff of Senator Durbin, who got involved in this issue early on when Senator Durbin and I met in Chicago with a number of the toy retailers and manufacturers who were concerned about this and knew that something had to change in Washington in terms of the funding for this agency as well as the tools that they have to do their job. Senator Nelson, who's played such an instrumental role when it comes to making sure we have third-party verification, as well as the durable goods standard in the bill. And then, of course, Senator Stevens and Senator Collins, who assisted in getting bipartisan support for the bill, and Senator Pryor, who managed it during this week flawlessly.

So we are very, very excited about the change today. I can go home tonight and tell my 12-year-old daughter, who I have to tell you was rather embarrassed about this whole thing when her mom was involved when it was about Squarepants. But when her Barbie started getting recalled, she came into the kitchen and said, "Mom, this is really getting serious." So I'm going to be able to go home today and tell her we did something good in the United States Senate. Thank you, Mr. President, and I yield the floor.