 Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. This morning we'll be holding our annual public hearing on the Commission's agenda and priorities for the next two fiscal years. Section 4J of the Consumer Product Safety Act mandates that we hold such a public hearing at least 30 days before the beginning of each fiscal year. Our annual priority meeting is important to the Commission. Although we're always open to concerns of the public, this meeting is the one official moment for anyone to submit their thoughts on the types of consumer product hazards that we should devote energy and resources to in the coming year or years. We occupy a public trust and we strive to be as transparent as possible in the way we choose our priorities. The testimony that we will receive from our panelists today, in addition to the written testimony that was submitted by others, will all be closely reviewed and considered. In a perfect world with unlimited funds, the Commission would be able to address every issue before us, but that of course is not possible. Yet I think I speak on behalf of all CPSC employees when I say that we do our best to set priorities based on a data-driven and rational approach to fulfilling our safety mission. We have one panel today consisting of Nancy Kohl's Kids in Danger, Rachel Weintraub from the Consumer Federation of America, and Sheehan Kew from Zen Magnets LLC. Each panelist will have up to 10 minutes to present, with time being kept by the Commission Secretary Todd Stevenson. We're going to let each and every one of the members of the panel speak, and then the Commissioners will have up to 10 minutes starting with me for questions of the panel. We will have a chance for additional rounds of questioning if other Commissioners have follow-up questions. At this point, I would like to exercise the point of personal privilege to introduce a new member of my staff who is sitting behind me. Sarah Klein is an attorney. She is Senior Counsel in my office, and she came to us from Center in Science in the Public Interest, and we welcome you, Sarah. In a few minutes, we will hear from members of the public that have taken time to travel from across the country to be with us today, but at this time, I'd like to ask if either of my colleagues would like to make an opening statement. Commissioner Robinson? Thank you. Just briefly, I just wanted to say that Commissioner Birkel and I had, I believe, been Commissioners for a matter of hours when we had our first hearing last year on priorities, and it was my first introduction to the passionate, dedicated, extremely bright people with whom we would be working outside of the agency. It seems in some ways like that was yesterday and other ways like it was 10 years ago with all that I've learned in the past year, but I have read the materials carefully, and I look forward to hearing your testimony. Ms. Colesham is wine-trob, our familiar face is at the Commission. Mr. Q, I'd just like to welcome you, and as I told you before the hearing, we like rare breeds, as you call yourself, so thank you for coming. Commissioner Birkel? Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I just want to reiterate my colleagues' comments. It has been a quick year, and in other ways, a slow year. It seems like a long time, seems like we've been here a long time, but what has impressed me over the past year is really the commitment and the dedication of our staff here at the CPSC, along with the consumer groups and along with the industries. I think, and I say this all the time, I think we all have one thing in common, and then that's that we want safe products out there for the American people. So I am looking forward to hearing the testimony of our three presenters this morning. I thank you all for being here. I thank all of the other folks who've come here from the outside to be here and to participate and to those on the webinar. I look forward to hearing all of your presentations. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for that, and now we will hear testimony beginning with Ms. Coles. Thank you. Thanks for allowing us this opportunity to testify on the priorities for CPSC. As you know, at Kids in Danger, it's been our priority for a very long time to make sure that children's safety is at the top of the work that you do. Kids in Danger is a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting children by improving children's product safety. We would urge the CPSC today to consider prioritizing activity in the following areas. First, safe sleep, safe sleeping environments. Through the implementation of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, Danny's law, the CPSC has put much time and energy into making sure that sleep products for infants and toddlers are as safe as possible. Robust standards already published include cribs, play yards, bassinettes, and bedside sleepers. Work on inclined sleep products continues, and attention to the safety of these new types of sleep products is vital. Kids appreciates the measured approach CPSC is taking to assure that each of these products is as safe as possible. Nonetheless, all this attention to safety does nothing to stop the sale and use of sleep products that don't fall under the scope of the current standards and that present hazards to infants and toddlers. The NAP Nanny is a recent troubling example. Six children have died. That's more children killed by one individual product than almost any other product that you oversee, except for perhaps the rotating rail portable cribs such as the PlaySchool Travel Light and the Baby Trend home in Rome that killed our founder son Danny many years ago. The NAP Nanny was put on the market without safety testing, originally intended for use in a crib just as it was used by the families whose children died. Parents who buy these products assume that if they are for sale, someone has made sure that they're safe. That may be true for the regulated products, but it is completely false for the NAP Nanny and other products like it that fall outside of the scope of standards. Kids believe CPSC should make it a priority to ensure that products intended for sleeping infants and toddlers must meet a standard relevant to the product and be tested that they meet that standard. Another troubling issue to kids is the continued sale of crib bumper pads despite suffocation incidents involving this completely unnecessary product. CPSC has agreed to consider the JPMA's petition to accept the ASTM standard for infant bedding that covers crib bumper pads. Changes that were made in 2012 to that standard address the thickness of the pad, limiting it to two inches. All that does is say that the very bumper pads that we know children have suffocated on, we work with families, children like Aden and Preston who suffocated on the very bumpers that that standard now tells parents are safe. In addition to the direct risk of suffocation from crib bumper pads, there is also the issue of contributing to SIDS by limiting the airflow in the crib and, perhaps most importantly, confusing parents on the safe sleep message which encourages a bare crib. It's hard to convince parents to remove padded materials like pillows from cribs when you're at the same time selling them a two inch thick pad that wraps around the sleeping infant. We urge CPSC to follow the lead of major retailers, Maryland, the city of Chicago, and, fingers crossed, hopefully shortly, the state of Illinois to ban the sale of padded bumpers. Another important issue to us and I know to the CPSC is recall effectiveness. The commission has done solid work in promoting the product registration card and online registration program for infant and toddler durable products. Most manufacturers are complying with the requirement and many consumers are registering their products either online or by using the cards. However, better messaging is still needed to ensure that consumers understand how important that registration is and consistently register the products that they have. And in addition, CPSC should prioritize compliance with the product registration program to get manufacturers to fully comply. A recent review of sites that Consumer Federation of America and KID compiled when the law first went into effect so that parents could easily find manufacturers site showed that many of the sites are no longer active and consumers are not able to use that to register. And we have had at least one consumer complaint to us of that registration information being used for marketing. That she registered with this with her married name. Her soon to be married name, she was not yet married, is still not married. It's the only place she ever used that name and started to get marketing materials. So I think that's a big concern. CPSC has made good use of social media and other new methods of communication to get the word about recalls out there. It's now much more likely that parents will learn about recalls. However, a lot of the work on social media is being done by organizations such as Kids in Danger, Parenting Sites, and we would like to see a bigger presence of CPSC on places like Facebook, Pinterest, other places where parents are often looking during the day. Even with that, participation rates and recalls are still abysmal. Our recent study looked at 2012 recall rates for children's products recalled in 2012, so we weighed at least a year from the recall to look at their effectiveness rates. The number hovered below 10%, even when we included products that were still in manufacturers or retailers' hands. In fact, a troubling statistic I hadn't seen before was that 50% of the product that was with retailers was not accounted for in the recall. That seems to me something pretty easy to do if your retailer still has it to make sure that you get that back from them, and yet 50% of the product was unaccounted for. A good test of this effort to improve recall effectiveness is the current Bucky Ball recall. With limited time for the recall and budget, CPSC should do all it can to ensure that every parent who has Bucky Balls can return them for a refund and remove the troubling toys from homes and schools. Just recently in a meeting on a different topic in Chicago with health care providers, I spoke to a pediatric surgeon who herself had seven times had to open up a child to remove magnets from their intestinal tract. The proposed changes to voluntary recalls and corrective action plans are a good first step in improving recall quality and compliance. Kids suggest again that a publicly available annual report of recall effectiveness rates for each open recall would go far to encourage manufacturers, retailers, and other stakeholders to work together to boost those numbers. As we're all aware, sometimes shining a little light on a problem helps to illuminate solutions that seemed elusive previously. Building transparency. This is another priority for kids. For many years, consumer groups have advocated for the elimination of Section 6B of the Consumer Product Safety Act. This CPSC provision is unique to the CPSC and prevents the timely release of information about serious hazards related to children's products. Before just, well, I won't go through what the rule tells you all know. So we do believe that the proposed NPR modifications to CPSC provisions will make minor modifications that will streamline and modernize the regulation, but still does not do enough to completely untangle the stranglehold Section 6B has on the public's right to know about safety hazards. And finally, I want to talk about furniture and TV tipovers. I know you are as troubled as kid is by the recent report of the two young girls who died in Pennsylvania when a dresser overturned on them. In fact, a child dies every two weeks when furniture tips on them. This dresser, like the one that killed Shane Seifert in Illinois a few years ago, appears to have been made for children's room. It was a piece of children's furniture. And yet the weight of a little girl was enough to tip it over. The issue of furniture tipover is a complex one but requires leadership from CPSC. We need stronger standards for furniture, perhaps extra requirements for that intended for use in a child's room. We need more awareness in the public because of the vast majority of furniture that will never be subject to new standards because it's already in homes and schools. And we also need to encourage and increase the availability of the restraint straps and other devices, perhaps even development of new devices that will impede tipping of furniture. Progress has been made on a voluntary standard, but it is not enough to address the problem. We believe that CPSC should consider a Section 104 approach to this problem. Take that voluntary standard, build it into a strong mandatory standard to protect children. So those are our priorities for this year. We hope that you will consider begin working on them and are continuing your work for those you're already working on. And thank you again for the opportunity. And thank you so much for your testimony. Ms. Weintraub? Chairman Adler, commissioners Robinson and Berkel. I appreciate the opportunity to provide comments to you on CPSC's fiscal year 2015 and 2016 priorities. I'm Rachel Weintraub, legislative director and senior counsel at Consumer Federation of America. CFA is a nonprofit association of approximately 280 pro-consumer groups that was founded in 1968 to advance the consumer interest through research, advocacy, and education. Please see my written testimony for the full list of our priorities. I am summarizing them today in the interest of time. And regarding the important issues of furniture tip-overs, bumpers, safe sleep environments, and recall effectiveness, we concur with Nancy's statements. CPSIA implementation. The implementation of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act should continue to be of the highest priority for the CPSC. The CPSC has been effectively prioritizing CPSIA implementation, and we congratulate this agency for the work thus far. The rules are substantively strong and will have an important and positive impact on consumers. Because of these rules, infindurable products including bath seats, portable bedrails, full-size crib, non-full-size crib, and quite a list of other products are safer and now meet robust mandatory standards. Again, we congratulate CPSC on their leadership and urge the CPSC to continue to prioritize this issue and to commit staff time and resources. Another high priority for CPSC should continue to be the Consumer Incident Database, saferproducts.gov. We recognize CPSC's current commitment to this important consumer tool and urge the CPSC to maintain that commitment and use it to identify trends and possible important issues that CPSC should address. Thus far, 20,425 reports have been posted to saferproducts.gov and it continues to be an important and useful tool for consumers, researchers, doctors, carners, and the CPSC. We urge CPSC to explore how to make safer products even more useful and accessible and to increase awareness of the database. There are numerous product safety hazards that CPSC should prioritize. While CPSC is working on all of these issues in various ways, we urge CPSC to further prioritize these issues. Window Coverings. Last May, in May of 2013, CFA, along with KID, Consumers Union, Parents for Window Blind Safety, and others filed a petition with CPSC, requesting that the CPSC promulgate mandatory standards to make operating cords for window coverings inaccessible. Due to the documented and persistent hazard that cords on window coverings pose to children, the petition asked the CPSC to prohibit accessible window covering cords when feasible and require that all cords be made inaccessible through passive guarding devices when prohibiting them is not possible. A strong mandatory standard to address the hazards posed by corded window coverings is necessary because, according to data from CPSC, 293 children have been killed or seriously injured by accessible window coverings between 1996 and 2012, and the rate of injuries and deaths has not been significantly reduced since the 1980s, despite six industry attempts for developing adequate voluntary standards. That process, starting from the first standard in 1996 and including the most recent standard in 2012, has failed to eliminate or even significantly reduce the risk of strangulation posed by cords to children. In a tragic 22-day period this year, four children strangled to death from cords on window coverings, a six-year-old girl in Maryland on February 8th, a three-year-old girl in Texas on February 15th, a four-year-old boy in Georgia on February 17th, a two-year-old boy in Maryland on March 1st. We know of an additional three children who died in 2014 and an additional serious injury. Each of these children died or was seriously injured after the cord of a window covering strangled them. Despite the fact that the voluntary standard continues to fail to address the hazard posed by cords, designs already exist on the market that include cordless technology and cord cover designs. Solutions already exist. A strong mandatory standard by the CPSC is necessary to protect children, and it is time for the CPSC to act to protect children from suffering further hazards from cords. ATVs and ROHV safety. According to the most recent data released by CPSC, at least 107,900 people were injured while riding all-terrain vehicles seriously enough to require emergency room treatment in 2012. The estimated number, though incomplete, was 684 in 2011. In 2012, ATVs killed at least 54 children younger than 16, accounting for 15% of ATV fatalities, and 57% of children killed were younger than 12 years old. CPSC must prioritize the issue of ATV safety. While CPSC's ATV rulemaking was required to be finalized in August of 2012, we applaud the CPSC for holding an ATV safety summit in October of 2012, but we urge CPSC to complete the rulemaking, which should include a serious analysis of the safety hazards posed to children by ATVs, the adequacy of existing ATV safety training and training materials, and efforts to ensure that children are not riding ATVs that are too large and too powerful for them. Recreational off-highway vehicles pose hazards to consumers and have been associated with more than 231 deaths and 388 injuries from 2003 and 2011. The current voluntary standard fails to address hazards in five significant areas. The stability, the occupant protection, the handling provision, the lack of maximum speed, and measures to ensure seat belt use by occupants are all inadequate. Unfortunately, the ROHV industry has not been responsive to concerns raised by CFA, CPSC, and others to improve the effectiveness of the standard. So due to this, we urge the CPSC to move forward as quickly as possible with the promulgation of a mandatory standard. Another serious issue has emerged regarding ATV safety in this country. In March, CFA released a report, ATVs on roadways, a safety crisis. CFA evaluated laws from all 50 states and the District of Columbia and found that in spite of warnings from manufacturers, federal agencies, and consumer and safety advocates who all agree that ATVs are unsafe on roadways, for several years an increasing number of states have passed laws allowing ATVs on public roads. The design of ATVs makes them incompatible with road use. They have high centers of gravity, narrow wheelbases, low pressure knobby tires. All of this means that they may not interact properly with road surfaces. Data from CPSC and from NHTSA's FARS database indicates that there are more deaths occurring on roads than are occurring off roads. And in spite of all of these facts, we found in our report that we released this past March that 35 states allow ATVs on certain roads under certain conditions. Of these 35 states, 22 states have passed laws allowing or expanding ATV access on roads since 2004. Four states have passed such laws in 2013 alone. 31 of the 35 states that allow ATVs on roads delegate some or all of that authority to local jurisdictions with authority over those roads. So we urge CPSC to prioritize this issue, to be a strong voice in opposing the operation of ATVs on roads, to be a leader in educating consumers about the dangers of road ATV use. And we urge CPSC to improve ATV death data by including how many deaths occur on private versus public roads. Regarding adult bedrails, in May of 2013, CFA, the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, bedrail activists Gloria Black and 60 other organizations filed a petition with the CPSC requesting a ban or an effective mandatory standard for adult portable bedrails and recall, as well as refund for dangerous bedrails. CPSC has been aware of deaths and injuries involving bedrails since 1985. And in an October 2012 report from CPSC, CPSC documented that in a nine-year period there were an estimated 36,900 visits to hospital emergency wards due to incidents related to both portable and non-portable bedrails. We urge CPSC to move forward with the ban and effective mandatory standard or recall of and refund for dangerous bedrails as well as a meaningful and effective voluntary standard. Regarding laundry pods, these highly concentrated single-load liquid laundry detergent packets pose a serious risk of injury to children when the product is placed in their mouth. These hazards include excessive vomiting, wheezing, serious breathing problems requiring ventilator. According to the National Poison Data System, 4,468 children aged 5 and younger were exposed to single-load laundry packets from January 1, 2014 to May 31, 2014. While voluntary standard efforts are underway, we urge CPSC to prioritize this issue to ensure that the voluntary standard effectively addresses the hazards posed by laundry pods. We also urge the CPSC to continue its work on upholstered furniture and to promulgate a rule that does not increase the use of toxic flame-recardants. We also urge the CPSC to focus on an issue that we identified last year in a report which has to do with low-income child safety, where through an analysis of incomplete data and academic research we found that children, low-income children are at higher risk for product safety hazards. We urge the CPSC to consider, including information indicating socioeconomic status collected through the NICE system. We look forward to working with the CPSC to better identify the correlation between unintentional injury and socioeconomic status, as well as how to reduce deaths and injuries associated with consumer product that impact low-income children. We applaud the CPSC's current commitment to enforcing its safety mission with the support of entry to the United States. We support CPSC's expansion of the Import Surveillance Pilot Program to a full-scale national program over the next five years. We applaud the CPSC for its work. We continue to look forward to work with CPSC on all of these issues in the future. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Mr. Cue. Commissioner Burkle, Commissioner Adler, and Commissioner Robinson. It's good to finally meet you face-to-face. For the first time, with the exception of Commissioner Adler, who I cornered at the New York Toy Fair to serve some attention. Thank you. You grabbed me in the hallway, but it was a memorable moment. Good. Good. I hope so. I appreciate the opportunity to comment. As Commissioner Robinson has already mentioned, I consider myself a rare breed here because I'm not an advocacy organization representative. I don't represent a trade association. I'm a small business owner, and not just any small business owner. I'm the founder of Zen Magnets, the last of the U.S. Magnetsphere Companies, still alive thanks to the financial and moral support of the American public. However, I'm not here to speak of the merits or lack of merits of the CPSC's magnet prohibition. Since the arena for that debate is going to be in a courtroom in front of an administrative law judge this December, although I likely wouldn't be present at this hearing if I wasn't already in D.C. for depositions relating to that litigation. And even though the depositions wouldn't necessarily be pleasant in my experience, it's still fun in an experiential way. I'm glad to be part of this, and I otherwise probably wouldn't see D.C. I wouldn't own these nice two suits that I do now. Okay, on to the recommendations of priorities. First thing before the regularly scheduled program here, one thing I do want to note is that the CPSC guest Wi-Fi is non-working. It's very bad. It's kind of, yes, might want to have tech support take a look at that. Right now it's kind of like a tease where it says it's there, but it's not really there. Something to consider. You're welcome. Regarding the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, the nice database, I do feel some usability upgrades to the public interface are needed. The suggestions brought forth by Rachel were very good. In addition, the current web app only allows for queries up to one year, which makes analysis of multiyear data somewhat tedious. Additionally, it would be nice and more transparent of the nice database also explained in detail with the use of understandable language what methods are used to extrapolate nationwide projections from the data provided by the 100 hospitals that provide the reports to the nice database. Another request regarding the nice database is to renew the outdated product categorization coding system. Although the coding manual is routinely updated to fit new products into old category codes, the categories don't always represent the actual product and can lead to some confusion and inaccuracy during analysis. For example, magnets, which are a big enough hazard to the CPSC and it's very own spot on the front page of the CPSC website, they don't have their own nice category. Instead, magnets of industrial use or unknown origin are coded 0428 thereby being lumped together with kitchen gadgets and magnet spheres being the exception and other construction sets are coded 1345 along with every other sort of building set, magnetic or non-magnetic. So, yeah, the web development team or person in charge of the nice database is feeling especially inspired or feeling productive than some other useful features that will be less a priority would be the option to show incidence rate ratios, the option to select multiple product categories for comparison, and a built-in text filter to search the narratives of the reports. And it's also my belief that the somewhat new punitive approaches by the CPSC are inherently unsafe. People outside and within your organization have noted that the focus of the CPSC seems to be shifting more towards finding violations and seeking penalties rather than trying to work with manufacturers and sellers to solve safety problems. CPSC is a number of voluntary Section 15B reports that lead to either a CAP or a correction action plan or a preliminary determination dropped by two-thirds from about 300 every year between fiscal years 2009 and 2012 to the 100 that is represented in fiscal year 2013. Since these reports that usually trigger a recall, it's unsurprising that the overall number of recalls has also gone down in response to the CPSC cost of recalls going up. When previously the CPSC advice to businesses was in doubt report, the change of behavior on behalf of the CPSC has resulted in more companies now willing to take the risk of penalty for late and non-reporting of marginal safety issues rather than deal with heavy unpredictable penalties. So comments about agency priorities are typically specific actionable suggestions, but in this case much of the behavior that has negatively affected the perception of the CPSC amicability or lack thereof can't be undone. For example, the already retracted proposal of releasing notices of CPSC investigations against companies who voluntarily submit Section 15 reports, and the proposed provisions of voluntary recall notices containing new obligations as well as eliminating the ability of the company to disclaim any substantial hazards unless the staff agrees. It's certain that ignoring a safety issue and hoping it'll go away is not a reasonable way to keep people safe nor is it a responsible compliance strategy, but greater penalties and punishments for voluntary actions alienate the industry, and in the long run product safety is best achieved when regulators and businesses work together to address problems. Speaking more generally on behalf of other small business owners who are concerned about safety for their customers, it is still too burdensome to have to deal with the regulations that are designed for large multinational corporations. For example, the Test and Rule 16 CFR1107 and the Certification Rule 16 CFR1110, I believe the relief from testing that Congress has asked the commission to consider has not been forthcoming. And in spite of repeated statements from the commission that they are working on it, nor does the agency appear to pay much attention to the regulatory flexibility analysis that is required in order to inspect the impact of its regulators on small businesses. While the small business ombudsman is well-intentioned in trying to explain the rules of small businesses, there hasn't really been an effort to write rules that are cognizant of the issues that small businesses need to deal with. So these are all issues that I believe would be in the broad interest of small businesses to be addressed at higher priorities by the CPSC. And although I wasn't intending to talk about magnets anymore, I do want to address one comment by Nancy Cowles about Bucky Balls, which she referred to as a toy. I just want to bring forth the possibility for the record that perhaps the reason the recall was agreed to be so. So weak and insufficient, as I might summarize your statement, is because the CPSC Complaint and Counsel believed that their odds of winning weren't that good. I thank the commissioners for the opportunity to comment. And it's been very nice. Thank you. And thank you very much. And I particularly want to commend you for coming in and speaking from the heart. And we always try to pay careful attention to small businesses and the impact of our actions on small businesses. So thank you once again for coming. And I also want to thank the members of the panel in particular. This is a data-driven agency, and you have given us data. It is testimony that is substantive and thoughtful and very analytical, and we can't thank you enough. Ms. Coles, I do have mainly comments, but a few questions. With respect to bumper pads and other things in cribs, we've been working with manufacturers and distributors trying to get them when they advertise cribs, not to put things in the cribs, but there is this aesthetic and merchandising dynamic that seems to drive them. But we are working as much as we can to try to get people to understand the old phrase, bear is best for a crib. And we thank you for all the work you've done, and you certainly can. I think that's good. We certainly do the same thing, but it's almost, I can understand as a business, it's a little duplicative to tell them it's okay to sell bumper pads, but you can't show them in cribs where they're going to be used. So if it's a dangerous product, it should not be made. If it's not dangerous, then there wouldn't be a problem with showing it in the crib. You also made an observation. You used a word I wouldn't have used about our recall effectiveness. I think the term you used was abysmal, but I think it's fair to say that recall effectiveness rates are low. And I mentioned that because that's been the case for the life of the commission. And forgive me if I sound defensive. That's the case for almost all health and safety agencies. It's extraordinarily challenging to get recall effectiveness rates up. And if you look at NHTSA, which ought to be the gold standard for recalls, because they have the VIN numbers for almost all their customers, and they send out repeated and repeated and repeated notices. But their recall rates, my best understanding, vary between about 50 to 70 percent. And then you compare what the challenges are for agencies like CPSC, and it is a major challenge. You did cite one figure that I hadn't seen before, so I was wondering if you could give me more detail about that. And that is the 50 percent return rate from the retailers and distributors to manufacturers. Is that a piece of data you got from us, or where did you get that data? I can explain the process in our, as you know, every year now, since 2001, we've done a report on CPSC recalls from the previous year that affect children. This past year, so the report was on 2013 recalls, but we then went back to our 2012 report. We did FOIA request to CPSC for the Monthly Corrective Action Plan report that every manufacturer has a recall supposed to file monthly. By the way, they don't, so you might want to have someone look at that. But we got the most recent one we could for most of the products. Twenty-seven of the recalls, either you, CPSC, could not find the file on the recall at all, or they didn't have any reports. Some of the others were in different stages. So the data that we could gather from those 2012 recalls we looked at, and those reports showed, you know, breaks it down by whether where the product is in the distribution, whether it's with consumers, which is obviously our biggest concern, with retailers still in the warehouse or with the manufacturer. We knew that the consumer rates would be low, and when you look just at products that are with consumers from the data we could get from you, that number is less than 5%. So you talk about NHTSA having a low number of 50. Well, it would be great if we could get to 50 from five of what's already with consumers. The 50% was from our analysis of that data, which again only included what we could get from you. 50% of the product that was with retailers at the time of the recall was not accounted for by the manufacturer. So maybe the retailer threw it out. I know you just had something today with Best Buy selling recalled products, so it could be that, you know, that's still out there. But it's a concern to us that even those things that are easy to get, things that you still are with your retailers are not being accounted for with the process. So I think we need to look both at how to make recalls more effective so that these products don't remain in homes, but also if the way that you're accounting for it is not adequately showing the process, then maybe that needs to be looked at as well. Yeah, and it may be more of an accounting issue than a reality issue because my strong impression is that you almost always are getting the returns from the retailers to the manufacturers are disposed of, but that's an interesting data. Any other problems with that form, math that doesn't add up, that added up to well over 100% of product, or, you know, so I think that data collection for such a serious topic maybe should be looked at a little more closely. Thank you. That's a very interesting comment. I did also want to mention the issue of tip overs because I was reflecting on that this morning. In all the years that I had been at the commission before I came back as a commissioner, I can't really recall a discussion about furniture tip overs, but clearly furniture has been tipping over since furniture has existed. And apparently there are a number of factors that explain that, not the least of which is TVs got very cheap and so people move the big TVs that used to be in the living room into the kids room, and maybe that's accounting for more of it, but it is a very, very serious issue. And as with recalls, it's my own personal view that technology has to improve to make the hazard go away. And one of the things I will say about CPSC staff is on their own, they have been doing some fairly clever and creative research in the area of furniture tip overs, and I'm hopeful that somebody soon will come up with a very, very simple inexpensive technology that will work with respect to furniture tip overs. But thank you for helping to shine a light on something that's important. Ms. Weintraub? If I could add, I think this issue is especially complex because it has to do with furniture, it also has to do with televisions. And it has to do with products and standards that have not yet been on the market and products that are in the market and are in homes. And I've mentioned before to CPSC in this forum in previous years, but I really think and Nancy reiterated today that there is a very important role for CPSC to bring in all of those entities that are working on this issue. And there are many. There are voluntary standards for furniture through ASTM. There's television standards through UL. There are retailers who, there are the people who make the straps to connect to buildings, to walls. There's the issue of people who live in certain types of apartments and housing who may or may not be able to use those types of devices. So I think this is a really complex issue. And there's really been a vacuum in terms of bringing all the parties together to address it in a dynamic way. And it seemed to me for any inventors out there, this ought to be something that somebody should be thinking about, some small business, creative entrepreneur. And one of the other thoughts that bubbles in my head from time to time is why couldn't we have a challenge with a big money prize for somebody who comes up with a truly inexpensive, easily used method of preventing furniture tip over. I can't imagine this would, it is a big technical challenge, but I do think it's something that could be addressed. But again, I want to thank you all for raising that as an issue. Ms. Weintraub, I think you've done a brilliant job in explaining why ATVs shouldn't be driven on paved roads. And you point out also to everyone's consternation that states keep enacting these laws. And let me also note a point you didn't raise, but I think needs to be emphasized. The industry has joined in the same perspective that we have, that people shouldn't be driving ATVs on paved roads. And yet states continue to do it and they continue to delegate to local municipalities the authority to enact these laws. Have you figured out what the reason is, why the states are doing this so often, and do you have any thoughts about what we can do in particular to address this? Yeah, well first, I think, and the issue of ATVs, this is one, and if I didn't clarify, we want to clarify that, yes, the industry, SVIA, consumer group, CPSC, everyone agrees on this one issue, which is not the case in the realm of ATVs and ROVA. So, yes, there is unanimous point of view. And yet, all these states, 35 of them thus far, and there are still other proposals in the works, about 17 that we know of, that are considering increasing access. From our analysis, it seems like the proponents of these types of expansion are using the arguments of increased tourism revenue, and that the importance of going from one perhaps trail to another to be able to ride on roads, and there is also the other proponent of this point of view would be groups such as a bait, which is one that we've seen active in a number of places, who it's a philosophical view about being able to use these types of vehicles in the way and manner in which they would like to. So those seem to be the two arguments. But we are very much working. We organized a coalition about a year ago with academics from across the country, consumer advocates, insurance companies. We have reached out to SVIA. We've had a meeting with them. We're really hoping to work together more collectively. We have what we call an early action project at CFA, where as soon as we hear about a proposal, we send a letter from the coalition that we've been building. But it's one of the things that's incredibly complicated about this issue is the delegation of authority to local jurisdictions. And while we always have concerns about transparency at the federal government, at the state government, in terms of finding out information at the local jurisdictions, it's much more complex. There aren't records we can search. We don't know what the proposals are. We look through local papers. That's how we find out anything. So it's a huge challenge for all involved to be able to speak to the people who are making the decisions. But we've been really trying to do that as effectively as we can. I think for CPSC, I think adding to that chorus, adding to the voice about the problem and the incompatibility of ATVs on roads is very important. I also think ATV data, if it could come out earlier, that would be useful. And also if there would be sort of a finer point on the data in terms of public roads, private roads, paved, non-paved, I think that information would be very, very useful. And it does sound like an area where we, the CPSC, should expand our activities. And I hope we can meet and talk about doing more cooperative efforts. But thank you so much for all the efforts you've done. On record, as saying, I think ATVs are among the most dangerous consumer products about which something can be done sold in the country today. Just one last, I guess, more of a comment to Mr. Q. And again, thank you for your testimony. And you've pointed out some issues with respect to NICE. I'd love to be able to permit queries for more than one year. That's strictly a resource issue for the agency. We're an impoverished agency, and certainly as technology gets cheaper, I think we will be moving to the multi-year ability to do analysis. The issue about changing categories over time and maybe expanding the categories to include something like magnets, that's a very tough issue. And the reason it seems to me we approach that cautiously is because things come and go, but you want to have the category last over time so you can do long-term trend analysis, and my staff can do whatever. Chairman, the time has expired. Okay, I beg your pardon. Thank you for correcting me on that, and I will now defer to Commissioner Robinson. I think it was the wrong verb. You've never deferred to me. Thank you again all for coming in today. And there's one area that I would particularly like to focus on. There are several areas that you raise that have been of concern and into which I and my staff have been spending enormous efforts looking at. But the one I'd like to focus on initially, that all three of you raised with respect to our data, only about two weeks in the job to start appreciating how critically important our data here at the CPSC is with respect to product safety decisions actually being made worldwide in every venue you can think of. And we're both focused on the statistical and the non-statistical data. I issued a statement a couple months ago on it's all about the data. Heather Bramble from my staff, and I spent a couple days at an amazing conference with the Health Data Palooza that was a gathering this year of 2000 of data geeks of the highest order who are trying to figure out with all of the open data that we have both in government and private industry how to use apps in order to use that data to make decisions. So I think that now our staff's just done a wonderful job of making the saferproducts.gov more user friendly. But what we've been trying to get some new ideas are in two areas that were brought up by and Mr. Cuell turned to the statistical data in a moment but the non-statistical data was raised by both Ms. Coles and Ms. Weintraub and that is both with respect to the apps that can be used with the data that we already have. And the second thing is how we can get more people and groups to start reporting to our website. And let me just spend a moment before I ask the question. We have an app challenge. We're going to be announcing a winner soon and I look forward very much to seeing what that is going to bring us but I'm very interested in ways in which we can reach out in the technological community to get people inspired to start doing some new apps to help us with respect to our data. And in the second area I would just like to say that I love that we have more than 20,000 reports that have been made on saferproducts.gov and they've primarily been from consumers as I'm sure you know. And that's very, very important to us but it takes about two minutes to sit and make a list of so many groups we're not tapping into. So it doesn't matter. It's the medical community. You know, you go down the list. The urgent care facilities, whatever. The groups that we would like to know about our website and the fact that we now have a very easy way for them to report incident data to us. So any ideas that the two of you have on either one of those fronts would be very, very welcome because I know you've given some thought to it. I can start and in particular, for instance, we work a lot on safe sleep and sleep-related incidents and we're working with the National Child Death Review Panels and with other people to try and improve. There's a bill in Congress to try and improve the way data is collected when a child unfortunately dies in a crib or another sleeping environment. And I think that one of the things we're working on with a number of families who have raised this concern to us is really looking to the states to require reporting to CPSC when there's a product involved in a child death because so often you may get it through your medical examiner report that can be two or three years or at least a year after the fact. You may get it from other places, but if there was in place, just like there is when there's abuse or something else, a requirement for a quick report and as you said, with saferproducts.gov, it would be very easy to report to make that that information get to you more quickly because then you would be able to prevent other deaths. But I think it's just a matter of continuing to get the word out there. First, you have to get people to know what CPSC is. That's been since we started. We're often explaining that. But 20,000 is a lot of reports, but we know it's a drop in the bucket of the number of incidents that are out there. And so I think it's, you know, all of us working together. There's plenty of other groups that are interested in this and can help get the word out. I mean, I probably three or four times a week hear from a parent and refer them to the site. So I think with everyone doing that, it should continue to grow. And thank you for those efforts. As you come up with ideas, let me know. I know that we've now gotten a direct connect to our website on the form that's being used by a lot of the state death panels. That's going to be helpful. Ms. Weintraub. Thank you for the question. I think it's one that many of us have been thinking about a lot. You know, something that I do, which is not a full answer, but I think something that collectively we do need to do is in terms of parents and thinking about baby proofing and the steps that parents do, you know, to protect their children. I think we need to add filling out product registration cards and reporting incidents on SaferProducts.gov. Whenever I talk about an issue to consumers, to the media, I talk about those things because I think we need to sort of change social behavior to consider those things as an important part of protecting your child. I agree with what Nancy said. I think that makes a lot of sense and would be very effective. But maybe something CPSC could do is convene a meeting about this and convene interesting folks, people who are experts in marketing, people who are experts in product safety and interacting with children and parents and come up with, really have a brainstorming session and figure out what is possible and concrete that could be implemented to get the word out in a more effective way that would truly add, you know, SaferProducts.gov to people's mindset when they experience an incident. Thank you for that. Mr. Cue, just as a quick follow-up, you talked about the NICE data, which is our statistical data. And one of the things that you mentioned in your written submission was an option to select multiple product categories for comparison purposes. And it's my understanding that you may now select three different product categories for comparisons. But I just wondered if you could explain that request a little more fully. When I was looking at the NICE application, I do remember the ability to put in multiple codes, but then there were still no graphs of any sort. So that's kind of a follow-up with the other request. So something to be able to summarize things and compare that kind of data. So as far as graphs or some sort of visual summaries or things like that, it'd be nice to just have side-by-side comparisons. Thank you. As Commissioner Adler said, we wish we had the resources to do all of these things. I'd like to turn my attention just for a moment to the low-income child safety that you addressed, Ms. Weintraub. And I also think there's a connection here with the recall effectiveness that you mentioned, Ms. Calls. This area is of huge concern to me in reaching out to the underserved and vulnerable populations. I have recently become quite familiar with our Neighborhood Safety Network that I know you're familiar with, and I'm very impressed with the staff efforts to reach out to the state and the local governments. And I see a person from the Legislative Affairs area also who's reaching out to congressional delegations and the groups that they interact with to try to find new ways that they can use that. And I've started talking to some people in the healthcare community, which has been kind of interesting because it's applicable, because they're reaching out to those underserved populations to get healthcare information. And there's some overlap. And we're just starting to think about in my office, like with some of these NIH grants that they do for reaching out to new mothers, for example, that our information could be easily combined with that. But I would be very interested in any ideas that either of you might have with how we might use technology in terms of reaching out to these types of communities that are underserved. Well, that's something that we've been thinking about a lot as well. And there is evidence that low-income consumers have phones that have internet access and text, and while they may or may not have computers, that the community very much has phones, uses phones. So I think in terms of technology, thinking about text messaging and thinking about short messages in language that's very clear, that goes to that population in ways that they normally receive information. Something else that we've learned from our research on this issue is that information and safety coming from Consumer Federation of America or the Consumer Product Safety Commission is not necessarily going to be persuasive, that in particular communities, it's very important to partner with recognized leaders in those communities. So it really can't be information that is being distributed top-down from you, from us, and it's figuring out those relationships, figuring out who the best messengers are, who have the best knowledge of the community, who know how to convey information the best way, the best language to use, and who's a well-regarded source. And there are very good models. Johns Hopkins has a very good model, and we've been learning from them in terms of they have a safety, basically, mobile that goes around different communities in Baltimore, and they have a lot of knowledge that they've learned, not only in terms of partnering, but in terms of the way to convey information, the way to provide products, the way to teach safety behavior. It's interesting that you mentioned that, because that's one of the groups that we've reached out to, that they really have some terrific ideas on that front. And I would just add a little bit first to say that your Neighborhood Safety Network, I have to say that I get those obviously from you, but also from all the injury prevention group, the Illinois statewide group and the Midwest group and stuff. So it is being effective in them resending out your materials to the community. And also that, you know, after CFA did the report, we start to look a little bit more at this issue too, and we actually have a grad student this summer who got her own funding and is looking at the issue of recalls in childcare communities in Illinois by income level of the community. And so we should have some more data on that in terms of seeing if that is an area that we need to do more outreach to, to get those, I mean, in Illinois, it's illegal to have Illinois one of only 10 states where it is illegal to have recall products in childcare. We obviously think that should be the rule across the country, but so even with that effort, we're still finding that there's a little bit of a difference there. Thank you so much. I'm out of time. Thanks. Which shows how engaged we are because it's very hard to keep track of time. You guys have done a better job than I have. Commissioner Burkle. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to add to what Commissioner Robinson was saying with regards to networking and the ability. There's a lot of potential out there. I know my office has worked with General Lee and OLA. For instance, when I was in Congress, Nancy was my district director. They were constantly looking for information and for ways to educate the public. And if you can get to every congressional office and we've been pushing that piece, talk to the districts, let them know, and that's a wonderful way to get out to the people of America and let them know what safety issues are out there and education and providing them with information. So the district directors are always looking for relevant topics and things they can educate the American people with. So there's a lot of potential out there and a lot of ways that we can network and get our message out and be more effective. Ms. Weintraub, I wanted to talk to you a little bit because I know you agreed with Nancy on her initiatives, but then you went through another list. If you could, I guess direct us, what would your ideas be and what our three top priorities should be? This is always, I was thinking about this. This is one of the hardest questions to ask the consumer advocate to prioritize priorities. And I think by the length of my statement, you can see I'm not so good at that. I think all of the things that I said that I discussed and the things that were in my written statement that I couldn't discuss because of time are important. But I would say window cords. I think that is an issue. It is now before the commission of all the issues that I work on. I think the factors are in place. We know there's a voluntary standard, which is required before you could take mandatory action. Since 1996, that standard has not addressed the issue of accessible cords. The death and injury rates have been consistent, unfortunately, since the 80s, and the technology exists. We know that there are already products on the market and different types, not just one style, not just one fix, but there are numerous fixes that don't pose risk to consumers. So I would say that is probably on the top of my list of priorities. Also, the time is right now because you have been petitioned and it is now something that you have the ability to act on, which we very much hope that you will. Second, I would say the issue of all terrain vehicles and ROVAs. It's an issue where there are over 100,000 families who are dealing with a tragedy. They are dealing with a serious injury or a death, and there's so much work that should happen. This is an issue that the CPSC has worked on in various ways since almost the very beginning of the agency, and yet there are still high numbers, over 100,000 injuries and deaths. There needs to be a serious look at how to design these vehicles safer, more stable, and CPSC, again, has a rule on this that you well know, and we truly hope that this rule will be promulgated in such a way that will increase safety. ROVAs I would put in that category, too. We've worked, we've commented on the voluntary standard. Consistently, over a year, CPSC has been active, and yet these issues that we keep highlighting are not being addressed. Third issue, I don't know how, it's very hard for me to prioritize these things. I think they're all important, but I would say the issue of furniture tip-overs and addressing this issue, it is a dynamic issue with many different aspects, different voluntary standards, different manufacturers, different retailers, the issue of products in-home, the issue of changing technology to different behaviors, and then I would say, finally, the low-income child safety issue, which affects really all the work that we all do, and especially the need for data. The nice system, while it could always be improved, is really sort of the gold standard in the world. I mean, so many government agencies in this country purchase the information and use the information from CPSC, it's what CDC uses, for example, and yet there's a huge gap in terms of knowing which people who are injured are low-income consumers, and if we had that information, it would truly help us to figure out where we need to focus our efforts and how to do so effectively. Thank you very much, Ms. Coles. With regards to the 104s that you brought up, can you shed some light on what our priority should be with regards to addressing the 104s? You mean the ones that are already in the pipeline? Well, I mean, I think that that's an area that CPSC, taking the direction from Danny's law and the Act, has actually been very thoughtful and worked very hard to make those standards as strong as possible. I mean, Rachel and I are both in the ASTM meetings where your staff is there listing out what needs to be in the standard to make the product safe, how to address hazards they've seen, incidents that have been reported that are very tough in terms of moving those committees along, which having worked on them for 10 years, I can tell you it's a hard thing to do. So I would say actually that is a huge success. The 104s that are in the pipeline, the work that's being done on them, having the standards published, it's great for organizations like us that work directly with parents to be able to tell them which products now have a mandatory standard. If I could change anything about it, I would have that more easily identified to the consumer. Right now they have to turn the product upside down and look for the manufacturer date and assume that if it's a manufacturer after the standard was effective that the company really did test it to that. There's no marking on the product that would let consumers know, so that would be the only thing that I would change on that, but I think it's a very strong program. As I said, our concern is for products that fall out of those main categories, and these in particular, I mentioned the NAP, Nanny, and look in any baby store. The Bumbo is another seat that you've had to recall. It's a product that was not covered by a standard, and there has to be some way to assure that products that don't fall under standards, especially when they're used for infants or for sleeping, that they meet some basic measure of safety, that they're not just kind of put out in the market because someone had a good idea one night when they were laying awake and starts to make something and gets it out there and acts surprised when children die on it. So I think that that's the area that we see, and then as I said, parents see it in a store, they're assuming someone has said that it's safe. That's just their assumption. And unfortunately, it used to be true that that was untrue for all products, but now with 104, that's not necessarily true, but it is true for these products like the NAP, Nanny, certain products that are now in the market that are these little nests for beds, so that if you're co-sleeping, you put them, they sell little things. And giving you, again, the false impression that's going to keep your child safe from the hazards of co-sleeping, when in fact it simply adds more hazards to the bed. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't really have much more other than to say that when you identify nice as the gold standard, I completely agree with you, and you have to sit back and say, I'm amazed that a tiny agency like CPSC does so much in terms of critical data analysis for the world at large. And if it were up to me, I'd make nice a profit center, but the law doesn't permit us to do that. But it is a critical function. I'm thrilled to see that Commissioner Robinson came here and took it on as a project because there have been attempts over the years to either trim or abolish nice among the commission. I'm glad to see that that old imperative is gone. I also did want to just pay tribute to the founders of Kidd, Linda Ginzel and Boas Kaiser, both of whom are extraordinarily busy professors at the University of Chicago, and yet they've dedicated an enormous portion of their lives and their fortunes to working to take a tragedy and then turn it into something useful. We see that a lot, but I don't think I've seen that as effectively done as with those two, so please take our thanks to them and back to Chicago, if you would. I did just want to finish a thought I was in the middle of, and that is with respect to nice categories changing over time. And I think it's just absolutely critical for us to be able to do these longitudinal studies over time. And again, this may even have been before you were born, Mr. Cube, but back in the 1970s, we had men wearing platform shoes and the number of injuries spiked enormously, but they still stayed within the shoe category, and then fortunately, platform shoes went away as a fad, but the shoe category stayed. So you can always track down the particular item that you're looking for, but I think your point's a good one that you can't always look at it immediately and see what is the product of concern within a particular category. But they change over time. I mean, think of roller skates and how they've changed into roller blades, but they stay within the same category. In other words, you raised an important issue and sometimes there's a reason why we haven't changed precisely in direction that you might have wanted. So at what point does a new product get its own category? When it's a new product. Yeah, really when it's a new product. So once magnets are around for a long enough time, then maybe... Magnets have been around for quite some time, as we all know, there's a doubt that we're going to change the magnet category, but you would see these really high strength magnets are somewhat new, but they're still fitting within the magnet category. There is no magnet category as a problem. Well, there's no magnet category whatsoever. There's a kitchen gadgets. Yeah, and the point is we are able to track magnet injuries over time. If you want to find your particular type of magnet, you may have to do a little bit of searching, but you will eventually find that. That's my point. That's really the only comment that I had at this point. Commissioner Robinson, additional comments or questions? Nothing further other than to thank you again for your hard work and your dedication and obviously this information is important to us in figuring out our budget in a few weeks and then our operating plan for the next year. Thank you so much. At this point, we are available. Oh, I'm sorry, additional questions. Thank you. I have no additional questions, but I do have a closing statement. Well, that's what I was going to turn to. So, Commissioner Robinson, was that a closing statement from where you do have additional closing comments? I have no further comment. Commissioner Buerkle. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And again, I want to thank our panelists who took the time to be with us this morning and share your very thoughtful comments and your concerns. We really appreciate you being here to all of the staff who make these hearings possible and make them flow so easily to John who's behind the curtain and to our own personal staffs in our offices. These hearings just don't happen. It takes a lot of effort. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is responsible for protecting the American public from unreasonable risks of injury associated with consumer products. We all know that. We all agree with that and that is our mission. We accomplish this mission through education campaigns, safety standard activities, regulation, and enforcement. And as we head towards a new fiscal year and we're talking about priorities here today and the many challenges that face this agency, as was mentioned on several occasions, we don't have the resources that everyone would like to have. I do want to take a few minutes just to highlight my priorities as I begin my second year as a commissioner here at CPSC. I want to see more collaborative effort with all of the stakeholders. At last year's agenda and priority hearings, the commissioner heard testimony from three panels. This year we only heard from one panel. And I want to make sure I express my appreciation, my gratitude to the three of you for your efforts and for you being here today. I'm really disappointed in the decline of participation We as an agency, and I think this is a good time to do this, should take a step back and do some self-assessment and ask if what we are doing is working. Are we engaging in patterns of behavior that create barriers to effective relationships rather than fostering them? We need to make sure, and this was brought up by several of the panelists today, we need to make sure we're not just reaching the people who know what CPSC is all about, but more importantly those who live outside of the Beltway and are profoundly affected by what we do. Collaboration is a two-way street, and in order to have access to some of the outside expertise and insight, we need more stakeholder participation at public meetings such as this. It is critical for this agency to hear from stakeholders and I've mentioned this over and over again. And I do hope to see more participation at this meeting next year and for the agency to hold more public meetings like the one that's scheduled in September for the 11-10 forum. And Rachel brought up another opportunity for us to gather stakeholders together and to rely on and use their expertise and their thoughts regarding the issues that are so important to them. I really do believe that the more we engage the stakeholders before we embark on rulemaking, the better and the more efficient and the more effective our rulemaking will be. The policies we implement must be reflective of a collaborative relationship. Mr. Q's testimony stated that due to a significant drop in Section 15B reports in 2013, there is a perception that the agency, quote, is shifting towards finding violations and seeking penalties rather than trying to work with manufacturers. This is very concerning to me and not the first time we've heard this. If our goal is to get dangerous products out of the marketplace as quickly as possible and if we want companies to come to us if they suspect a problem and that's a statutory requirement for them to do so, then we cannot implement policies like the proposed voluntary recall or the 6B rules that could potentially negatively impact the regulated community's willingness to report to us. If in doubt, report. That's been the mantra of this agency and I want to make sure the CPSC works with industry so that industry heeds that call and we do that by having policies in place that enhance not erode relationships. I will mention Mark Schoen's name but there are several in this agency who have worked very, very hard to develop relationships with those outside of this agency and I think that's very important and key to the success of this agency in getting unsafe products out of the market. We should communicate more effectively with consumers. Kids in danger indicates in its submission that recall participation rates are abysmal and that the 2012 recall effectiveness rates for children's products hovered below 10%. If recall fatigue is contributing to these low numbers we must try to find a balance between effectiveness of recalling products that pose a serious safety hazard and reducing such fatigue. As a federal agency we have an opportunity to elevate safety information, resources and solutions to the American consumer. I think that was illustrated today. We have many opportunities. CPSC has the credibility to do that. We are able to do this through education. Not every hazard can be solved by education but where it can be beneficial we should be working to educate consumers on steps they can take to protect themselves and make them aware of his hidden hazards. And last but not least and you knew you were going to hear this from me is the issue of test burden reduction. Mr. Q brought it up in his testimony and I have been relentless. As I've mentioned many times before I'm frustrated with the lack of any real and meaningful test burden reduction. Despite protests to the contrary this agency has not done what I believe it could be done to comply with Public Law 112-28. Test burden reduction and safety and I want to repeat this. Test burden reduction and safety are not mutually exclusive. We can accomplish both and in some cases reducing testing burden may enhance safety as industry will have more resources to manage their supply chain increase their research and their development and so forth. The impact that the cost of unnecessary testing is having on small businesses is significant. The April workshop highlighted a number of promising ideas that would make it unnecessary in certain cases to test for certain heavy metals or phthalates. We need to follow up on those ideas and produce some concrete results for the people who are currently wasting money on unnecessary testing. It is clear Congress wanted us to reduce these unnecessary testing burdens and not just keep getting more comments from the outside. Let's figure out together what we can do to provide small businesses with some real relief. And if we can't then we should go back to Congress as was indicated in Public Law 112-28 and ask for additional statutory authority. I do believe there is more though that we can do if we're going to take this congressional directive seriously. Again I want to thank the panelists for being here today and I look forward to engaging all of the stakeholders in these very important issues. Thank you Mr. Chair. I yield back. Thank you so much Commissioner Burkle and I think that it is a point of disappointment for me as well that we didn't have more people coming to testify today and I hope that we can redouble our efforts next year for the priorities hearing because this is an important day for the commission and we really do encourage everybody to come in and speak to us. And Mr. Cue, I particularly want to thank you for coming and speaking to us on your own dime and you had other reasons for being here but we can't thank you enough for doing that in terms of a priorities hearing and you saw the discomfort our friends had about saying well I don't want to choose the most important priorities they're all important but somebody once said when you're doing priorities you're trying to choose between your child and your spouse or between two incredibly important features and we want to be able to do them all in particular we want to do burden reduction, we want to do other safety projects and they're all important and it is a very very difficult process for us to sort these priorities out and I would thank Commissioner Buerkle for raising those issues. I particularly want to join my colleagues in thanking our staff for helping organize this thanking our personal staffs as well particularly want to thank the panelists for taking the time to be with us today and present testimony on behalf of the issues that are important to them and their organizations. I want to thank everybody who's out there the hearing is now adjourned. Thank you.