Klobuchar Opening Remarks at Spotlight Forum on the Consumer Product Safety Commission

Klobuchar Opening Remarks at Spotlight Forum on the Consumer Product Safety Commission

WATCH KLOBUCHAR'S FULL REMARKS HERE

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) gave the following remarks at a spotlight forum she hosted titled "Buyers Beware: Attacks on Nation's Product Safety Watchdog Threaten Americans' Safety."

Testifying at the forum was Don Mays, Product Safety Expert; Jonathan Midgett, PhD, Former CPSC Consumer Ombudsman; Austin Schlick, Former CPSC General Counsel and Executive Director; R. David Pittle, Former CPSC Commissioner; Alan Korn, Executive Director of Abbey's Hope Charitable Foundation; Trista Hamsmith, founder of Reese's Purpose; and Brett Horn, founder of Charlie's House.

Senator Klobuchar: Well, thank you so much, Senator Blumenthal. I'm really impressed by this group, that knows a lot about what they're talking about, and we need to hear from you today.

I think I've always figured, and maybe this is from my days as a prosecutor, but the first responsibility of government is to protect the people of America, and not only from foreign and domestic threats, but also from … unsafe products.

For over 50 years, the CPSC Commissioners have done just that, working on a bipartisan basis to ensure Americans feel confident about the safety and the reliability of their products. Last year alone, the CPSC negotiated the recall of 153 million unsafe items and conducted more than 4,100 in-depth investigations.

I have grown to value the CPSC through various administrations. My first experience was the toy issue. A little boy in Minnesota, Mom, bought some Reebok tennis shoes, and there was a charm in there as a little gift, and he swallowed it, and he didn't die, actually, by choking, he died over a period of days because there was lead in the toy, and it went into his system. And from there, I got to as a brand new Senator, work on the Consumer Product Safety bill that was passed with a really strong vote, and we saved a whole lot of lives, and that was during the Bush administration.

Then you move forward, and the work that we've all done together on everything from Ikea dressers to airbags to, really, finally, for me, a little girl named Abbey Taylor who died by just going into a kiddie swimming pool. And I worked then, along with several others, to pass the Virginia Graeme Baker Act, which made very clear that you have to have safe pool drains. That bill was then implemented by someone; you can't just pass a bill and say, "Hey, we did it," and that was the CPSC, which engaged in education efforts around the country. And maybe one of my favorite moments as a Senator was a few years back when we had the Commissioners before us in the Commerce Committee, and I asked if there had been any deaths since then, 10 years had passed, and they said "not one," and we were literally having a handful of kids die every year or get maimed because of these pool drains, and I think that's just such a great example of the work that goes on.

So I've always seen this as bipartisan; the work we've done, it was one of the most interesting things and positive things we did on the Commerce Committee. And I'm very concerned to partisan up this CPSC, whose mission is just about a far away from partisanship as you can get, makes no sense, and so I'm so glad that we are, Senator Blumenthal, thank you, and that we are going to hear from all of you today about why we need a strong CPSC and that we shouldn't be making it partisan. Thank you.

Klobuchar has long been a leader in consumer protection.

In 2023, Klobuchar's legislation to protect children from furniture tip-over injuries was signed into law. The STURDY Act strengthens furniture safety standards to prevent children from being injured by fatal furniture tip-overs. Each year, nearly 10,000 children go to the emergency room (ER) as a result of furniture tip-over injuries.

Klobuchar also spearheaded regulating lead in consumer products as a part of the 2008 Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), which set stringent standards for levels of lead in children's toys.

In 2007, Klobuchar's legislation, the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act, was signed into law. The law mandated that all public pools install safe drain covers preventing suction entrapment, established a voluntary grant program for states to promote pool and spa safety, and created a national public education campaign to raise awareness about drowning prevention.

Video is available HERE.

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