Round of questions. We expect you to answer them fully and to the best of your ability. The commission is fully formed and five members. According to that commission, deaths and injuries and Property Damage if incidents stemming from Consumer Product cost the nation more than a trillion dollars. Thats an economic cost, the cost to human beings and lives and families is even much more and unknowable. You have a mandate to protect consumers from risks associated with 15,000 Consumer Products including household products, toys, Sporting Goods and more. They were established by the safety act in 1972. The jurisdictionally independent agency chargesen with forcing various federal statutes geared at protecting consumers. Central to the commissions function is the use of voluntarily Consumer Product standards instead of mandatory regulations, requirements when appropriate. This approach allows the agency to have a collaborative working relationship with consumer advocacy groups, manufacturers
From u. S. Consumer Product Safety Commission members on hazard quus products and consumer safety. They spoke about recent recalls including a fisher price sleeper that was associated with the deaths of more than 30 infants. This is about an hour and 15 minutes. Good morning, everyone. The subcommittee will come to order. Welcome to todays oversight hearing on consumer Product Safety Commission. Thank you to all the commissioners for being with us today. I am meezed that were having an on time start. We have votes at 11 30. There will only be one round of questions. That doesnt mean the witnesses cant pretend they dont have all the answers in the first round of questions. We expect you to answer them fully and to the best of your ability. The commission is fully formed and five members. According to that commission, deaths and injuries and Property Damage if incidents stemming from Consumer Product cost the nation more than a trillion dollars. Thats an economic cost, the cost to human
Priority of the agency now. I have one more question. You recently stated that the sole basis for recommendation to the ban of most widely used chemicals was cumulative Risk Assessment which found the majority of Citizens Advisory Panel recommendation which found the majority of risk associated with chemicals was from another chemical, dehp. Can you explain concerns for using cumulative Risk Assessment as a basis for such regulatory determination . Thank you. The chap and the proposed rule is of great concern to me has been of concern to me since the chap issued its report because i believe the chap report should have been a public should have been subject to public peer review at that point. From that point onto me the system and whole process has been flawed. The cumulative Risk Assessment youre talking about is one of my concerns in that the process thats used, thats not well accepted in the Scientific Community, cumulative Risk Assessment, so i think that goes to the process and va
Rule. All the Public Comment except one was against that. But i think what im hearing is you move forward with a little bit more of a heavy hand than what you would represent to us. And you say you want to be engaging the industry and you want to be collaborative, but what i the feedback im getting, those are your words but your actions are much more heavyhanded. That youve determined what you want as the outcome. Thereby, youre going to let people think theyre participating, but in the end youre the rule maker and youre going to get your way. So do you feel like that is a collaborative atmosphere in trying to work with the industry and how would you respond to those type of comments made about the way you all are approaching rule making . Is that for me . Yes, sir. Youre the chairman. And is that question specific to the 1110 rule or more general . It is specifically to 1110, but in general when it comes to dealing with industry. Sure. So ill address both. The 1110 rule is in indefini
To you that with this in mind what actions have you taken in the past year to provide relief to companies with respect to costs of Third Party Testing requirements . Thank you congresswoman. One of the areas we found interesting, and this was discovered by Small Business ombudsman, i dont want to get the commissioner upset since it involves his prior occupation, but we found a lot of Third Party Labs are testing for services that are not required and so our Small Business ombudsman and his Office Provide phenomenal support and assistance working with Small Businesses and i encourage any members with Small Businesses that have issues, reach out to neil cohen of cpsc because he can work with companies to go through testing reports and find out whether or not they really need certain testing. He doesnt actually go line by line, but he says here are general guidances and questions you should be asking. He really does a phenomenal job of empowering a lot of companies. Thats gone a huge way