CPSC Reform Act
Floor Speech
CPSC REFORM ACT -- (Senate - March 05, 2008)
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AMENDMENT NO. 4105, AS MODIFIED
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the
pending amendment and call up my amendment, No. 4105, as modified.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will report the amendment.
The bill clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Minnesota [Ms. KLOBUCHAR], for herself and Mr. Menendez, proposes an amendment numbered 4105, as modified.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment, as modified, is as follows:
On page 3, beginning with line 16, strike through line 3 on page 4, and insert the following:
``(a)(1) There are authorized to be appropriated to the Commission for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this Act and any other provision of law the Commission is authorized or directed to carry out--
``(A) $88,500,000 for fiscal year 2009;
``(B) $96,800,000 for fiscal year 2010;
``(C) $106,480,000 for fiscal year 2011;
``(D) $117,128,000 for fiscal year 2012;
``(E) $128,841,000 for fiscal year 2013;
``(F) $141,725,000 for fiscal year 2014; and
``(G) $155,900,000 for fiscal year 2015.
``(2) From amounts appropriated pursuant to paragraph (1), there shall shall be made available, for each of fiscal years 2009 through 2015, up to $1,200,000 for travel, subsistence, and related expenses incurred in furtherance of the official duties of Commissioners and employees with respect to attendance at meetings or similar functions, which shall be used by the Commission for such purposes in lieu of acceptance of payment or reimbursement for such expenses from any person--
``(A) seeking official action from, doing business with, or conducting activities regulated by, the Commission; or
``(B) whose interests may be substantially affected by the performance or nonperformance of the Commissioner's or employee's official duties.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, as a member of the Commerce Committee, I appreciate the leadership of Senator Pryor on this bill and the work all of us did, as well as Senator Durbin and Senator Nelson. I believe this is landmark legislation. I have been to this floor many times to talk about this bill, how important it is to have that Federal mandatory lead standard, as well as the recall provision our office was instrumental in writing.
I think it is a very good bill. There is one change that I think would make it even better. This is an amendment Senator Menendez and I have.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission Reform Act is not just about increasing staffing, funding, and oversight of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, it is also about making the Commission more accountable to the public.
The Commission must make consumer safety an absolute priority. But it must also perform its duty outside the influence of the people whom it is supposed to regulate, outside the influence of the manufacturers, the retailers, the lobbyists, and the lawyers.
In November 2007, however, an appalling picture of the CPSC came to light. What you have to understand is when we found out about this travel, hundreds of trips and thousands of dollars of travel that had been paid for by the industry that this Commission was supposed to regulate, we were in the midst of this bill, we were in the midst of looking at recalls, now up to 29 million toys that have been recalled.
We were in the midst of finding out about kids who went into a coma from swallowing an Aqua Dot that turned out was laced with the date rape drug. That is what we were doing when we found out that for years the head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission had been traveling on the consumer dime, on the dime of the industries they are supposed to be regulating.
Through an article in the Washington Post, we learned that thousands of dollars' worth of travel had been taken by the current Consumer Product Safety Commission Chairwoman Nord and her predecessor, Hal Stratton.
Since 2002, Chairwoman Nord and former Chairman Stratton took 30 trips--30 trips--on the trade associations', manufacturers', lobbyists' or lawyers' dime, totaling nearly $60,000. So that is 30 trips totalling nearly $60,000.
In one particularly egregious instance, the Consumer Product Safety Commission Chairman accepted $11,000 from the fireworks industry for a 10-day trip to China. The claim was the industry had no pending regulatory requests but had a safety standard proposal before the Commission. Now, you try to tell this to the moms whom we were with yesterday, of those kids who were swallowing toys, one that was laced with lead and one had morphed into the date rape drug. You tell them they had the proposals before them--and they were not pending regulatory requests but they were proposals pending--they would see through this.
This kind of abusive Government practice must end. With this amendment, the amendment that Senator Menendez and I have offered, no Commissioner or employee of the Consumer Product Safety Commission can accept payment or reimbursement for travel or lodging from any entity with interests in their regulations. So it simply means people and the companies the Consumer Product Safety Commission is regulating cannot pay for their trips to China or their trips to Florida or to California. It is that simple.
Now, what is interesting about this is that many agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission, have similar rules restricting industry-sponsored travel. CPSC doesn't have that rule. As the Senate considers this sweeping reform in consumer product safety, we believe we should be free of any appearance of impropriety or undo influence of regulated industries on the CPSC.
Senator Menendez has a bill, a very good bill--and I am a cosponsor; many people are cosponsors--that extends this to all agencies. And I hope very much the Senate will consider this bill very soon. I am so pleased we are working together on this amendment, which is focused on the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Leaving the Commission vulnerable to charges of impropriety is simply unacceptable, especially at a time when the public has completely lost faith in the CPSC's ability to regulate the industries they are supposed to be watching.
Ethics is at the core of government and democracy. Without ethical leaders, our entire system fails. Ethics is woven into the very fabric of how government works, and ethics reform goes to the very heart of our democracy, to the public trust and respect that is essential to the health of our Constitution.
Like you, Mr. President, I came to Washington to bring ethical government back to the city, and I am so proud that shortly after we joined the Senate, the most sweeping ethics reform legislation since Watergate passed the Senate and became law. But as seen by the actions of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, our job does not stop with one law. We must be resolute that ethical government is not optional, it is not voluntary, and it is not limited to elected officials.
With this amendment, we will send a signal to the Commission that their priority is keeping consumers safe. Their priority is not going on trips financed by the people they are supposed to regulate. Their priority is looking out for those two kids who almost died from those toys, or the family of little Jarnell Brown, that is still watching what is happening here today--this little 4-year-old boy who died when he swallowed a charm that was 99 percent lead. That is their job, not going on trips paid for by the fireworks industry.
It is my hope that my colleagues will support a travel ban amendment to the Consumer Product Safety Reform Act of 2008. I am very pleased to be sponsoring this amendment with my colleague from New Jersey, Senator Menendez.
I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
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MENTAL HEALTH PARITY
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise to commend the House for bringing today before the House a step that will bring our Nation closer to achieving long overdue fairness for people suffering from mental illness and chemical dependency.
We are now one step closer as the House considers this important mental health parity bill today, one step closer to realizing the dream of my friend, the late Senator Paul Wellstone, who championed equality for those with mental health needs, until his untimely death in 2002.
If this law passes, as it should, we can thank the persistence of leaders such as Representatives JIM RAMSTAD and PATRICK KENNEDY; we can thank Senators PETE DOMENICI and TED KENNEDY; and we can thank the Wellstone sons, particularly David, who continues to carry the torch lit by his father.
While Federal law may not alleviate the stigma that surrounds mental illness, it can bring us closer to ending insurance discrimination and easing the unfair financial burden borne by patients and their families.
Most health care plans currently have barriers to mental health and chemical dependency treatment. Individuals seeking treatment for these health problems face higher copayments and higher deductibles, as well as arbitrary limits on the number of office visits or inpatient days covered. These people pay the same premiums as everybody else, but when they get sick, their insurance doesn't cover them.
The House and Senate proposals build upon the Mental Health Parity Act of 1996 by mandating that if an insurer offers mental health and chemical dependency coverage, the treatment limitations can be no more restrictive than for medical benefits.
Minnesota is proud to have one of the strongest mental health parity laws in the country. But this law only goes so far. Federal action will expand mental health parity protections to those covered by self-insured plans--117 million people--and move us toward real equity for those needing vital services.
It is appropriate that this legislation in the House is named in honor of Paul Wellstone--an inspiring figure whose ceaseless motion and tireless pursuit of a better world was brought to a stop only by that tragic plane crash.
Many in this body, including myself, counted Paul as a friend. We all know Paul was a crusader and a man with many passions. But anybody who ever met or talked with him quickly found out that he had a special place in his heart for helping those with mental illness. This deep and abiding concern was shaped by the suffering of his own brother. Paul's brother Steven suffered from mental illness. As a young child, Paul watched his brother's traumatic dissent into mental illness. As a freshman in college, he suffered a severe mental breakdown and spent the next 2 years in mental hospitals. Eventually, he recovered and graduated from college with honors. But it took his immigrant parents years to pay off the hospital bills.
Writing about this, Paul recalled the years that his brother was hospitalized. For 2 years, he said, the house always seemed dark, even when the lights were on. It was such a sad home. Decades later, Paul knew there were far too many sad homes in our great Nation--too many families devastated by the physical and financial consequences of mental illness.
Paul knew that we can and should do better. For years, he fought to allocate funding for better care, better services, and better representation for the mentally ill, and for years he fought for mental health parity and insurance coverage. For Paul, this was always a matter of civil rights, of justice, and of basic human decency. Of course, on this issue, as with every other issue, Paul and Sheila, his wife, worked together.
We should all care about securing mental health and chemical dependency treatment equity for the same reasons that Paul did. We should care because of the suffering and stigma that individuals and families endure due to mental illness and addiction. We should care because it is cruel when people with mental health or addiction problems receive lesser care than those with physical health problems. We should care because of the enormous financial cost of these diseases for our society and because the economic research shows how cost effective good treatment can be.
I saw this firsthand as a county prosecutor. I cannot tell you the number of violent crime cases I remember where the right treatment could have prevented a horrible crime, and the later costs of imprisonment, or maybe the right medication would have stopped someone from spiraling downward to a point where they committed a crime. This is not to excuse the crime, and it doesn't mean that we didn't prosecute them aggressively and that they didn't go to prison; it just means if we can prevent the crimes with appropriate treatment and medication, then we must do it.
Untreated mental illness and substance abuse adds an enormous burden to the criminal justice system every day.
That is why we created a mental health court in Hennepin County, where I prosecuted, which has had many successes, as well as a drug court. But it would be better to prevent people from getting into the system in the first place. That is why this legislation is so important.
Finally, we should care because we know that people who are suffering need help. Mr. President, 54 million Americans suffer from mental illness or substance abuse. Almost 15 million suffer from depression. Over 2 million suffer from schizophrenic disorders. Over 20 million Americans need treatment for alcohol or drug abuse. These numbers are staggering, but ultimately what convinces anyone of the importance of this issue is when we see how real people close to us suffer, whether it is a son or a daughter, a mother or father, or, as in Paul's case, a brother or a sister, a neighbor or a coworker.
PATRICK KENNEDY and JIM RAMSTAD have been brave enough to talk about their own struggles, and that really adds some moral compass to their leadership in the House. I have seen it in my own family with my dad, who suffers from alcoholism, a larger-than-life dad who could climb the highest mountains, whom also I have seen plunge to the lowest valleys with his battle of alcoholism. My dad finally got the treatment he needed, and I have never seen him so happy as in the past 10 years. Other families need to be, as my dad puts it, ``pursued by grace.'' This legislation offers crucial support for people in need.
Several months ago, our Senate unanimously voted in support of mental health parity. The House is now passing its own legislation. I will say that the House bill is stronger, and I prefer the House bill over the Senate version, but I trust these two bills will be reconciled and signed into law, and I hope my Senate colleagues involved in the conference committee will get us and bring us back the strongest bill possible. This will be a victory for millions of Americans living with mental illness who face unfair discrimination in their access to affordable health care treatment.
Again, I thank my colleagues, Senator Kennedy and Senator Domenici, for their leadership on this issue. I thank PATRICK KENNEDY and JIM RAMSTAD for their continued leadership. But in the end, I am here today with respect to Paul Wellstone, who led this fight for so many years. I know he is looking down on us today and looking down at the House of Representatives that is passing this bill with his name in his honor.
I yield the floor.
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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I wish to address one point related to the amendment that the Presiding Officer and I have, amendment No. 4105, which is coming up for a vote shortly.
I received an e-mail communication from the Consumer Product Safety Commission which pledged Chairman Nord's support for our amendment. I am pleased she is supporting our amendment which basically bans industry from financing travel when it involves industries the Consumer Product Safety Commission regulates.
They also clarified in the amendment that there were, in fact, I think 29 instead of 30 trips that were taken in the last 7 years but also that Chairman Nord herself took only 3 of these trips and that the rest of the trips were her predecessor who went on trips to places such as China. I would point out that one of the trips she took, which they call mundane in this e-mail, was to New York that was financed by the toy industry itself. As my colleagues know, we are now dealing with these toxic toys. Another one she took which wasn't mentioned in her e-mail, but I am getting out of the Washington Post article, was $2,000 in travel from the Defense Research Institute to attend its meetings in New Orleans on product litigation trends. Her predecessor had attended the same group's meeting in Barcelona.
My point is to clarify the record. We are pleased to have Chairman Nord's support for our amendment. But I would note the issue that doesn't seem to be grappled with in this e-mail is the consumers who have to deal with this--the families with whom Senator Pryor and I met, including the mother of the little boy who swallowed the Aqua Dot that morphed into the date rape drug--they were not able to finance the travel. They were not able to spend 2 days with the head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission to make their case.
That is why I believe it is very important, as we look at the ethical accountability issues related to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, that this amendment pass.
I yield the floor.
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AMENDMENT NO. 4105
We now have 2 minutes of debate on the Klobuchar amendment. Who yields time?
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I will divide my time with Senator Menendez. We feel strongly about this amendment. This is an amendment that basically says the Chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and other employees cannot finance their travel from the industry they are regulating. This was a major scandal this fall, right in the middle of the time that we found out that 29 million toys had been recalled, that employees of the CPSC were taking travel paid for by the industry they are supposed to regulate. It is not consistent with what SEC and other agencies do. We believe this amendment is very important. We heard from the chairman of the Commission that she doesn't oppose this amendment. Thank you.
I yield the floor.
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