US lawmakers push to bolster product watchdog after recalls
WASHINGTON, March 7, 2008 (AFP) — US lawmakers are pushing a bill to give sharper teeth to the beleaguered US product safety watchdog, providing it with more money and clout that advocates say are long overdue after a spate of recalls of dangerous products.
The US Senate voted Thursday to increase funding to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), which last year juggled slim finances and low staff levels as it handled a record number of product recalls, the majority involving lead-laced toys and articles for children.
The CPSC Reform Act also pledges to upgrade the safety watchdog's testing facilities, raise the bar for safety certification standards of children's products, and impose stiffer punishment for violators of product safety laws.
Lawmakers still have to resolve differences between the new Senate bill and another version backed the House of Representatives in December.
But consumer advocates and lawmakers welcomed the draft legislation, saying it would bring much needed tighter controls, especially for products aimed at children.
"The CPSC Reform Act will improve the ability of the CPSC to protect children's health," said Democratic Senator and presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton.
"It significantly strengthens regulation of lead levels in children's products, action I have repeatedly urged.
"It requires independent third-party testing to ensure compliance with safety standards for children's products, and it improves labeling to allow for better tracking of products so that families can more easily identify products they have purchased that have been recalled," Clinton said.
Last year, Clinton slammed China's "shameful" record on food and toy safety. pointing out that 32 million toys had been recalled as of November, "and more than 99 percent of them were made in China."
Over half the recalls last year involved children's products, said Nancy Cowles, head of the Kids in Danger (KID) child safety advocacy group.
"Of those, a lot of the attention was focused on lead in toys made in China," which make up the overwhelming majority of toys sold in the United States, she said.
Democratic lawmakers called for CPSC chief Nancy Nord to resign last year, after the appointee of Republican President George W. Bush strictly toed the Republican deregulatory line and stood opposed to moves to revamp the CPSC and increase its funding, even as the number of recalled items soared.
According to an expert report, the CPSC had one product tester last year, when recalled products numbered in the tens of millions.
"We simply cannot rely on one tester to make sure more children are not among the 28,200 deaths and 33.6 million injuries each year" from faulty products, said Senate majority leader Harry Reid after the Senate approved moves to reform the CPSC.
Reid called the legislative moves to reform the CPSC "a strong statement that the administration's lax regulation standards on children's safety are unacceptable."
America's children "will be much safer" once the CPSC Reform Act comes into force, probably in "a matter of weeks", Cowles told AFP.
"Parents assume that stuff has been tested for safety but until this law is enacted, that isn't necessarily true," said the head of KID, which was founded in 1998 after a 16-month-old boy died when a crib collapsed around his neck.
The child's cot had been recalled years earlier, but neither his parents, his caregiver nor a state inspector who checked the house where the toddler was minded were aware of the recall.
"Many everyday products -- even something as harmless as a child's toy -- can become deadly if we are not vigilant in maintaining adequate safety standards, product screening, and product recall capability," said Democratic Senator Chris Dodd.
"The bill passed by the Senate will go a long way towards ensuring the safety of the products used by our loved ones on a daily basis," he said.
