Advancing Change

As many of you are aware, the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade recently reported favorably the Enhancing CPSC Authority and Discretion Act of 2011 (ECADA) to the full House Energy and Commerce Committee. The ECADA would correct many of the unintended consequences of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA) and help to refocus the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on its core mission of identifying and eliminating hazardous children’s products.

To help illustrate my position on this legislation, I recently sent a letter to each Member of the Committee identifying not only the strengths of this legislation, but also some suggestions as to ways in which we can make a good bill even better.

On balance, I strongly appreciate the Subcommittee’s efforts to resolve the unforeseen problems caused by the CPSIA, and I look forward to continued progress before the Full Committee. The bill makes great strides toward addressing many of the problems with the CPSIA, including its overregulation of lead, imposition of huge third-party testing costs, and a mandate to create a public database using language this Commission subsequently construed to allow the placement of inaccurate and unverifiable information in a government sanctioned database. I therefore support passage of the ECADA and look forward to the day when all of the CPSC’s resources can once again be directed to protecting the public from unsafe consumer products.