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Klobuchar Toy Safety Measures to Become Law, Congress Approves Sweeping Reforms by Overwhelming Margins

Final Conference Report includes Klobuchar provisions on lead ban, labeling, and ethics

July 31, 2008

Washington, D.C. – Toy safety measures authored by U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, including a ban on lead in children’s products, are on the way to the President for his signature.  Tonight the Senate passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) of 2008 after the House passed the same legislation last night.  Klobuchar served on the Senate-House conference committee, which hammered out differences between House and Senate versions of the bill.

“It was important that we get this bill done and it was critical that we kept the strong Senate standards in the final bill,” said Klobuchar.  “This is historic legislation that will protect the safety of our children, and it is long past time to get these toxic toys off our shores and out of our stores.  This bill finally makes it criminal to sell recalled products, bans lead in children’s products, and I hope will give parents some peace of mind that the toys in their children’s hands are safe.”

The final legislation includes Klobuchar’s provisions to ban lead in children’s products, prevent the resale of toys that have been recalled, and require that toy manufacturers stamp “batch numbers” on children’s products and packaging so that parents and retailers can identify toys that have been recalled for safety reasons.

Klobuchar introduced the federal lead ban and other toy-safety measures last year following millions of recalls of toxic, lead-tainted toys, and the death of Jarnell Brown, a four-year-old boy from Minnesota who died after swallowing a toy charm made almost entirely of lead. Since January of 2008, there have been well over 1.8 million toys recalled for toxic levels of lead, and that is on top of the over 11 million toys recalled for lead in 2007.

She joined with Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) in authoring an amendment banning industry-paid travel at the CPSC after press reports last year that Commission staff had taken dozens of trips worth thousands of dollars paid for by industries with business before the Commission.

“This agency has become a shadow of its former self, and we need to get it back on the job,” Klobuchar said. “This bill isn't just a matter of banning lead in children's toys. This bill is a matter of finally making consumer safety laws work the way they are supposed to work, it is a matter of protecting kids from more harmful products and helping parents understand what to do when something has been recalled. And it is a matter of bringing the Consumer Product Safety Commission into the 21st century.”

In addition to Klobuchar’s provisions, the final agreement will pave the way for a publically searchable, national database that is maintained by the CPSC.  It will serve as a forum for consumer complaints to report defects and injuries from products across the United States.

The final legislation also includes other sweeping reforms that will set mandatory federal safety standards for all children’s products, including durable nursery products for infants and toddlers, such as cribs and car-safety seats. Recently, the CPSC announced that it is recalling 320,000 cribs manufactured by Jardine Enterprises because of 42 reported incidents of broken components and injured infants.

The bill will also require all manufacturers of All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) to comply with the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) safety standards.  Currently, American and other established manufacturers, like Minnesota companies Polaris and Arctic Cat, voluntarily comply with the standards, but in the past decade, the number of foreign manufacturers that do not comply with these standards has risen dramatically.  This has caused an increase of sales of ATVs without emergency brakes and other crucial safety measures. The CPSIA will provide the CPSC the authority to include any additional standards that it determines are reasonably necessary to reduce unreasonable risks of injury associated with ATVs. 

Klobuchar’s signature was on the final conference report, and her vote of support was included in the Senate record, as both she and Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) were on their way back to the State to honor the victims of the I-35W bridge collapse on its one year anniversary.

The White House has announced the President will sign the legislation. Once his signature is on the conference report, it will become federal law.

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