 Good morning. Welcome to this public meeting of the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission and I apologize for the late start. That's definitely not the way we do things around here. Today we will consider one agenda item. This is our annual public hearing on the commission's agenda and priority for the next two fiscal years. I just want to say a bit about it and about the importance of it and the entire time in the time that I think all of us have been here. We've been encouraging more and more participation in this meeting because it really does make a difference. It matters to us in how we set our priorities. Even if it for every single group that comes and testifies, if you don't see something that's measurable from it, that doesn't mean that we're not working behind the scenes discussing it, trying to make it work within our limited budget. But we're only able to do that and to try to consider those issues if you come and testify and I've been pleased and I'm sure my fellow commissioners agree that as time has gone on we're seeing more and more robust participation. The downside of that is we have a lot of people who are going to testify and we want to make sure we can accommodate everybody and so we are going to stick to the time limits of ten minutes for everybody down there and up here. I apologize if I have to try to politely gavel you to a close during your testimony or of course to any of my fellow commissioners but it's really out of respect for folks who will come later in the day to make sure everybody can meet whatever obligations they have. I also want to acknowledge that Commissioner Adler is unfortunately not able to be here but he will definitely I'm sure be watching this and we say hi to him when he does watch this. The last procedural thing I want to mention is that we will keep the record open for a week afterward so don't feel like if you have something that you really want to say and your time has run out that you won't have that opportunity please feel free to of course supplement whatever testimony you've provided or answer any questions further in writing we're happy to receive that. So we're going to have four different panels today as I mentioned each panelist will have up to ten minutes to present after that each of the commissioners will have ten minutes up to ten minutes for questions. We appreciate the members who have come out of the public that have come here today. Our first panel is Heather Dautrich with Bobby to come testify Linda Kaiser for parents for window covering safety. Nancy Cole from Kids in Danger Lisa Seyfried from Shane's Foundation and Daniel Panjina from the Breast Cancer Fund in Washington Toxic Coalition. So now I'm going to turn it over to Heather to please begin. I'm gonna quickly tell you Bobby's story. Robert Dautrich Bobby was born September 2004 and was completely healthy. Bobby remained completely healthy until the morning of his accident on October the 11th 2005. Prior to his injury Bobby was walking talking and doing everything a normal 13 month old would be doing. On the morning of October 11th 2005 I had gotten both Bobby and his older brother up fed them breakfast change diapers and placed them in a room that we thought was safe. The only items in the room were the boys toys. We lived in a farmhouse at the time and the boys like to watch the dogs in the yard so I had gone in the room and put the mini blind up so the boys could look outside and watch the dogs playing. I placed the cord across the top of the window so they would not play with it. As I left the room I put a baby gate across the doorway to contain them as I walked a few feet down the hallway to wash breakfast dishes. A few minutes later I turned around and my two-year-old was standing in the kitchen with me saying mama mama. He is also a special needs child. I remember picking him up and saying come on let's go get back in the room with your brother. As I placed my two-year-old back over the baby gate that's when I saw Bobby hanging from the cord with the cord wrapped around his neck and just his heels touching the floor. I tried to untangle him and I couldn't so I ran and grabbed the kitchen knife and cut the cord. At that point he was barely breathing. I started CPR and called 911. When the first police officer arrived they took over CPR and the next thing I knew a firefighter ran in and grabbed him and ran out. When the medics put him on the monitor in the ambulance his heart rate was 23 and he was barely breathing. He was rushed to the closest emergency room. I called his dad and my mom and told them what happened and to come to the hospital. Bob meets dad at the time worked at the hospital and met him at the entrance. When I got there I lost my place. It's okay take your time until you're ready. Bobby's dad worked at the hospital and he was taken to and met the ambulance at the entrance. Six months prior to Bobby's injury we learned that his older brother had epilepsy. I remember going to the hospital and being in the code room and hearing people say watch what you give him. He has seizures and saying no it's the baby. Bobby was finally stabilized enough to attempt to transfer to children's hospital. It was raining so he could not be airlifted and the transport team from the hospital could not get to him in time so a local fire department volunteered to transport to Children's National Medical Center. Bobby was not expected to survive the transfer to the other hospital. Upon arriving at children's we were told he was not expected to survive the next 24 hours. He was placed on life support and placed in PICU with a special crisis nurse that was not allowed to leave Bobby unattended. The next day Bobby was still here. He remained on life support for a total of 20 days coming on and off of life support four times before he was able to breathe on his own enough. Bobby spent five days on a regular four before being transferred to a rehab hospital in Baltimore. At this point Bobby was unable to do anything on his own. He was not able to eat unless through a feeding tube. He was on all types of monitor. We were told he would need a trach and a g-tube. Bobby spent a month in a rehab hospital before coming home. When he came home he was on a feed pump, oxygen, cardiac monitor and an apnoit monitor around the clock. Doctors at this point told us there was no hope in what we were taking home. It was all we were getting. A lot of work. Bobby was able to come off the pumps and machines and learn to eat without a feeding pump. As a result of the injuries that day he has severe irreversible brain damage. He is currently 11 and is about a 6th to 7th month old ability. He is unable to sit up, stand up, walk or do anything a normal 11 year old can do. He is 100% dependent on an adult for his care and his needs around the clock. He is considered to have cerebral palsy via quadriplegic, legally blind. Bobby is wheelchair-bound. He has attended a specialized program through the local school system. Bobby has been able to do a lot of things that doctors said he would never be able to do. However he will always remain 100% dependent on a caregiver for his daily needs. I'm testifying today on behalf of my son to ask the commission to move forward. The court at window blind petition for mandatory rulemaking forward and to keep window blind covering a top priority in 2017-2018. Bobby is not alone. There are many other children just like him. Many parents just like me. We want manufacturers to produce safe cordless products and to cover the courts through the Consumer Product Commission rulemaking. We want to see deadly hazardous cords on window blind coverings, something of the past. It is only through the Consumer Product Commission rulemaking that real change will happen. Asking the retailers to go cordless is not enough. Mandatory rulemaking must happen in order to create fair market and raise awareness on this issue. I believe in the commission. I know what it can do, what can be done. I know you're here to protect children, and I ask that you protect future children of America by moving forward with this process. Thank you, Heather. Thank you, Ms. Docher. Ms. Kaiser. My name is Linda Kaiser and I'm founder of Parents for Window Blind Safety. I spoke last year on this subject and today I come before you all pleading again to keep window covering safety a top priority in the 2017-2018 fiscal year. I'm asking that the commission move the mandatory rulemaking process forward and secondly, to consider funding a window covering safety campaign to educate the public. Cheyenne Rose, my daughter, was 12 months old when she died in 2012. Seth, can you stand up? This is Seth, my son. He was her twin and as you can see by his age I have been working on this issue for a long time and products continue to have a hazardous design leading dozens of children to strangle each year. You can sit down now, Seth. Thank you. So last year I, you know, refuted many arguments that the industry had with our petition. I talked about issues relating to people with disabilities, the elderly, and the handicap and showed how it was unreasonable to think that all disabled people, especially those in wheelchairs, would be able to use window coverings with the court safely due to hand dexterity functioning and height restrictions. And I'm just wondering if anybody in the commission had received any data from the industry supporting their argument because I have asked, and I didn't know if you guys had asked, but we haven't received anything showing what they were saying was true and accurate. Anyway, I talked about how there were no restrictions in the standard on how many courts were used on window covering products in the ANSI standard. I talked about how the sky was the limit and even today products are about 50% more hazardous than they were 20 years ago because you can have tons of cords on these products. I showed this picture last year and I explained that safety cleats won't be used by consumers and even if they are, that this is what happens when you unwind cords from safety cleats. And not even with that being said, children over the ages of two who can climb can just get on top of the window sill like this child here and unwind the cords from the cleats and play with them and get tangled up in those cords. We've seen many cases of children who do that. Older children can climb over the ages of two. They can get on top of refrigerators if they want. They can climb and scale walls. That's just what they do. We don't know why kids are ninjas. So it's a foregone conclusion that courted window covering products will continue to be misused by children and adults and not properly installed by installers and by designers. It can also be proven that consumers misuse cord cleats or they don't use them at all. Cords on window covering products are a predictable unreasonable foreseeable risk that manufacturers should be held accountable for especially after 30 years of injuries and deaths occurring the exact same way regardless of what type of safety device is used. Imagine having to turn your oven knob off or turn it eight times before your burner goes off. How many fires would we have in America? So with that illustration who's going to wind a blind cord around a cleat just to keep a window cord out of their way. I talked last year about how we're all busy. We all have these schedules. I don't think a cord cleat is going to be used by consumers. It's been proven they won't be used, which is faster. A cordless window covering or tying a cord around a cleat. A cordless window covering is. And then I ask which is faster to use. A corded with a cordless window covering or a window covering with a cord. So when you pull the window covering open you have to pull it lock it and then let the cord go. A cordless window covering you just push up and you pull down. So cordless is preferred for both safety and convenience purposes. We need cordless window covering products and rented housing. We need cordless window covering products and military housing. Cordless products are needed in homes in this country because we just don't know when a child will visit a home and play with unnecessary lethal cords that hang or that are tied up in cord cleats in these homes. We must ask ourselves is it reasonable for a company to sell a household product that can kill a child in his or her own bedroom when they have the option to sell something that cannot? Some of you might think in your minds okay well these parents can just buy cordless products but some of these and at least half of them they don't have the choice. They rent they don't have the choice to buy or replace them because the landlords don't allow them. They are required to keep a uniform appearance in their in their apartments or in their military house or wherever they may live so they don't have the choice to remove those cords. When first graders are dying in their own homes I feel that's when the arguments must stop. These are children that we do not supervise continualist continuously. When first graders are told to put their shoes on to go brush their teeth we tell them to get dressed we tell them to make their beds bring you their homework. They help you fold their laundry. They take out the trash. First graders are independent children. They play on their own they can they even ride bikes and they play outside. Are we even bathing our seven-year-olds at this point? I mean I remember Seth he didn't want me in the bathroom you know he was no mom you know I can I'm a big boy you know get out of here. You know when he was little he just you know I would I would help him get his bath ready but you know he didn't really want me in there. So in Maryland in the state which both CPSC offices are located in the past two years two first graders have died on window blind cords. I want you to take it personally. I want you to be angry. To me when a six and seven-year-old child are dying we are not dealing with a supervisory issue. You have seen the battles that have taken place between the industry and the advocates. I have said it for 14 years this is not a supervisory issue this is a product issue. When first graders die all arguments die. Sergeant Bailey lost his seven-year-old son just a few months ago outside of DC on Fort Dietrich Army Base. Adam loved riding his bike and he was a very special brother to his siblings and I don't just use that special word lightly. I mean this little boy was very special. He would walk his his brothers and sisters to school. He was the oldest of all these brothers and sisters. He would help make breakfast. He told his brothers and sisters you know what when I grow up I'm taking all of you guys to Disney. He just loved his siblings. One of his tours was to take out the trash and when he passed away mom found out he was not only taking the trash out for his brothers and sisters but he was taking the trash out for the neighbors as well. You know he wasn't asked to be kind and he wasn't asked to be sweet that was just who he was inside. So you know the world lost this kind of child. I mean this is the kind of child the world lost because of a blind cord and we still don't know why he was playing with these cords but one day his five-year-old brother will be able to tell us every detail. You know when you're five you don't really understand things but as you grow older you can look back and understand the perspective a little bit more. He had no idea that his brother was in trouble. He had no idea that his brother his brother's body shaking and his brother's body spinning was him trying to survive the incident. You know they were playing in their bedroom when they were supposed to be sleeping and you would think that a 65 pound child would actually pull the entire window blind off of the window but that wasn't the case. It actually suspended his body off of the floor and it just blows my mind that he wasn't able to save himself and I'm sure all of us don't understand how a seven-year-old can't save himself in a situation like that but he wasn't and he's not the first older child to pass away. What would have saved Adam's life? A cordless blind. His life might have been saved if the Department of Defense would have gone cordless on all military housing in 2011 in the United States after Marine Corp space Camp Lejeune had its third incident causing Ashley Cubbage to no longer walk talk or play again. She's just like Bobby. This doesn't happen to parents. The scope should not be just if you have children. Grandparents care for their children, aunts, uncles and their nieces. 40 minutes away from the Commission in 2014 Sheila Godwin was getting ready for her granddaughter. She was getting breakfast ready. She called out to her granddaughter. She said Trinity, Trinity, Trinity. He went to find her and she found her granddaughter who was six years old hanging from a new cord consolidator breakaway device that Home Depot and other retailers are promoting to the public as a safe alternative. These are promoted as safe to consumers which gives a false sense of security. These were installed professionally. No one thinks that a first grader will end up dead from a breakaway blind cord. There was nothing wrong with these two children. They were smart. They were healthy. They were kind. They were going to impact the world someday. But their lives were cut short because of an unnecessary blind cord that was no longer necessary to be on a window covering product to make them operate. My request for the 2017-2018 fiscal year is that the CPSC continues to make window coverings a top priority. I also ask that the CPSC considers a window covering safety campaign similar to Anchor It and it incorporates similar funding into a campaign to help educate consumers on the hazards of window covering. You know, we're a very small nonprofit. We have a nickel and dime budget and we need the commission's help with a campaign helping to educate the public. A public service announcement, social media education, and working with advocates could help tremendously spread the go cord message in addition to a strong mandatory standard. I plead with all the commissioners that it's vital that a strong mandatory rulemaking process for inaccessible operating cords on stock and custom products moves forward. Lastly, I just wanted to say, you know, that cases like Bobby are very special to me. And I just, a lot of times I hear the statistics talk about the deaths of the children, the deaths, the deaths. Injuries are just as significant as the deaths. And even it doesn't matter if the kids are walking out with a lick at your mark on their neck or if they're walking out of these accidents in wheelchairs. They're just as significant as the deaths because it's just a matter of seconds between life and death on these window covering accidents. And I just wanted to thank all of you for your tireless efforts that you do for product safety in America. Thank you so much for allowing me to speak. Thank you, Ms. Kaiser. Ms. Coles. Thank you for this opportunity to present comments on the priorities for the coming years. Kids Endanger was founded by parents of Danny Kaiser who died in a recalled portable crib in his childcare home in Chicago. So I just want to go through some things that we think should be prioritized and I kind of jump between issues and I apologize for that, but I tried to fit everything in. Through the implementation of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act or Danny's law, the CPSC has put much time and energy into developing mandatory standards for durable infant and toddler products. Currently the CPSC has a final mandatory standard for 16 of the 25 durable infant and toddler products planned for standards. We urge the CPSC to continue to prioritize this work, giving staff the time and resources they need to develop strong standards that will reduce injuries and deaths from nursery products. The list of products was originally created in 2001 and updated shortly after passage to add additional products. We would ask the commission to add new products to the list as they become more common in our nurseries and childcare facilities. Let's make sure all durable infant and toddler products meet strong standards, not just those that were commonplace when the bill was adopted. The CPSIA also charged the CPSC to create a product incident database. Saferproducts.gov is the result. Tens of thousands of consumers have filed reports with the database and many more use it to review product reports that provide key information both for research and buying decisions. It is an invaluable resource for safety, but it will be even more useful when it is more widely used and there are more reports in the database. The CPSC should prioritize using low-cost efforts to increase the database's visibility and use. The development of Saferproducts.gov was in part a compromise on transparency in the CPSIA. Consumer advocates, including KID, were calling for the repeal of Section 6B of the Consumer Product Safety Act. Simply put, 6B is a gag order, restricting CPSC's ability to warn the public about product hazards and keeping consumers in the dark about dangerous products they use daily with their families. While Saferproducts was set up to require public posting of consumer reports of product incidents and injuries, repealing 6B would allow many other reports and safety issues to be made public. For example, just recently, parents using the Tommie-Tippy-Cippy Cups might have been surprised by a very late afternoon recall announcement that millions of the cup lids concealed mold growth, over 3,000 reports, and 68 children who suffered illness before it was announced publicly. The chairman has recently cited 6B in limiting his ability to talk openly about furniture tip-over information. And while proponents of 6B might point to media reports that share some of this information as a way consumers maybe can learn about it, consumers should be able to depend on their governmental agencies to talk openly and provide definitive information. Not here, we can't say or no comment on safety. We urge the CPSC to continue to look for ways to weaken Section 6B's impact on public safety and join us in calling on Congress to consider a repeal. Transparency here will lead to public safety. Safe sleep environments. It's an overriding concern to kid and many public safety advocates. Just recently, suffocation, almost all of it in a sleeping environment, became the leading cause of unintentional death in infants. Traffic accidents, accidents in the home, everything else is shadowed by babies who suffocate, and again most of them in a sleep environment. Whether they are bassinets, portable cribs, play yards, cribs, or some newly designed product or accessory, sleep products must meet the highest standards for safety. It is the one place we leave infants alone. The number of sleep-related deaths in infants is too high and not showing any signs of decreasing. It is a public health emergency. The AAP warns against the use of crib bumper pads. Almost all hospitals tell parents not to use crib bumper pads in the crib. A report last year in the journal Pediatrics noted that not only was a earlier report, which had been criticized by CPSC staff, correct, but that the suffocation rate from bumper pads was increasing. Retailers such as Target and Ikea have removed bumpers from their shelves. Almost every childcare facility in the country is prohibited from using crib bumper pads and yet the CPSC, the agency tasked with safe product use, is silent on the issue, leaving a huge gap in consumer understanding and putting thousands of babies at risk. Last week I heard from a woman on one of our Facebook posts about a New York bill that might ban bumper pads, saying it was too late for her beloved grandson. As long as CPSC is silent and bumpers remain on store shelves, they will continue to be used despite other warnings against their use. The longer CPSC stays silent, the greater the confusion and the more likely we are to see additional deaths. While CPSC says Bayer is best in some of their materials, we urge you to follow the lead of major retailers, Maryland, the City of Chicago, and stop the sale of padded bumpers. As more mesh liners enter the market to meet the need, if they are not included in the band, the CPSC should include requirements that assure their safety. While there's no evidence of a suffocation hazard currently with mesh liners, data should be more closely watched. Products such as car seats, swings, and bouncers are often used as alternative sleep environments by parents and caregivers. Researchers have found that it can take as little as four minutes for an unintended infant to asphyxiate in these products. Caregivers should be warned. Eleven-week-old Shepard Dodd died in Oklahoma in April 2015 when he was left to sleep in a child care in a car seat, I'm sorry, at child care. His parents have made it their mission to assure other babies have safe sleep environments. Best practice is for babies to sleep flat on their backs. But there are products for sleeping on the market that mimic a reclined position. They have great appeal to parents whose babies seem to have trouble sleeping. The CPSC has added infant inclined sleep products to the Section 104 list to promulgate a mandatory standard. The CPSC should carefully monitor incidents with these sleep products and consider enhancements to the standard to protect against the unique hazards. Other products from cushions to prop babies up, products such as the nap nanny, products intended to have babies share in adult bed, are entering the market with little or no testing. There are no standards for these products. Entrepreneurs are struck with great ideas, usually in the middle of the night when they're up with their own child, and they rush to market. The CPSC should continue their work to develop standards for all sleep products and make it a priority to provide outreach and vital product safety information to companies producing these products. I'm going to switch to my issue on recall effectiveness to end with. All of the work that CPSC does to investigate plan announced recalls is a wasted effort if the recall is not effective. Getting the product back from the consumer or fixed so it is safe to use is the end goal. Each year kid looks at the recall effectiveness numbers we obtain through freedom of information requests for monthly corrective action plan reports. In our most recent report looking at numbers from 2014, we found that 14 percent of recall children's products were listed as corrected or destroyed. But for products already with consumers, just over 1 percent. To be sure it's not a complete data set that we had to work with. Some of the recalls have no reports filed, I'm not sure why. Other information is completely redacted, again not sure why that's a trade secret, and some we just never receive. I'm sure CPSC can provide a much clearer picture of the numbers from the redacted or missing copies if it weren't for section 6B. Benchmark requirements for notification measures such as using registration card data and social media and outcome measures such as the capture rate should be developed and enforced. Kid recommends an annual report to congress on all open recalls with the current capture rate and the action taken outlined. That simple act of sunshine will encourage manufacturers to improve their own numbers in those reports. We are looking forward to CPSC's workshop on recall effectiveness that's been talked about to hear other innovative ideas. And finally, while I'm sure it is a matter of much discussion and action behind the scenes here, filling empty positions at CPSC should be a priority. Director of Compliance, General Counsel, Small Business Ombudsman are the most noticeable vacancies, at least from our perspective. It has to have an impact on performance and outcomes. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you, Ms. Coles, Ms. Seifert. Thank you for allowing me to speak here today. My name is Lisa Seifert, founder of Shane's Foundation. I am a mom. I have a nine-year-old daughter and I have a son who is two forever. On March 14th, 2011, I put Shane down for his afternoon nap. I later went to wake him and found him under his dresser. I can tell you about the horrors of that day, but no words can describe what our family has been through and will be living with the rest of our lives. I can tell you about how we had to tell Shane's sister that the doctors couldn't fix Shane and how we all went home, leaving him at the hospital. I can tell you about walking into the funeral home and seeing Shane so tiny in his little white casket. But words will never describe the pain. Words can't describe waking up every morning to the shock, realizing once again that Shane isn't here. Trying to answer the questions my daughter asks when we don't understand it ourselves. I can't possibly describe the torment we will live out our lives with. However, I can share Shane's story to help educate people about tip-over dangers. Tip-overs are a hidden danger in our homes, but it's preventable. Through the Anchorage campaign, we can reduce injuries and death. Awareness and education are key to have people take actions securing their TVs and furniture. I am proud to be one of the moms in the Anchorage video, and I believe more funding to the Anchorage campaign is necessary. Anchorage had a good start, but we can reach many more people with a stronger push by getting the video and advertisements to a national tension. Reaching more people with this message is imperative. It will reduce injuries and death from furniture tip-overs. Anchorage has the power to save lives. Anchorage has the power to save families the same nightmare we went through. Working with furniture manufacturers for safe furniture is another step in saving children. Enforcing a stronger standard for manufacturers can also have a large impact on reducing tip-over injuries and death. Recalling furniture that doesn't meet the current voluntary standard now as well as taking additional steps will, one, bring awareness to the millions of families that own furniture that has already tipped and killed children. Two, alert the public of tip-over dangers in general, and three, send a message to manufacturers to be conscientious of making safe furniture. Here's the statistic. Tip-overs send over 22,000 children to the hospital per year, and one child dies every two weeks. Is this enough to warrant further funding to the Anchorage campaign? Chance, Megan, Brayden, current, Ted, Camden, Nick, Katie, Jacob, and Jane. They're not just statistics. They're our sons and our daughters. They're our babies taken away from loving families. We need this message to reach families and save innumerable children. Anchorage has the power to do this. Thank you, Miss Seyfried. Mr. Benchina. Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. Here on behalf of the Breast Cancer Fund and the Washington Toxics Coalition, and we appreciate the opportunity to share our views on your agenda and priorities for FY 2017 and 2018, Breast Cancer Fund is a national nonprofit organization committed to preventing breast cancer by reducing exposure to chemicals and radiation linked to the disease. We base our work on a foundation of sound peer-reviewed science showing increased risk of breast cancer from exposure to chemicals including carcinogens and endocrine disrupting compounds such as phthalates. The Washington Toxics Coalition is a state-based nonprofit organization that combines science and advocacy to create a toxic-free future. Through the Coalition's leadership, Washington State has achieved policies that get chemicals such as toxic flame retardants, heavy metals, and hormone disrupting phthalates out of consumer products. We urge the Commission to make completion and implementation of the proposed rulemaking on the prohibition of children's toys and child care articles containing specific phthalates and immediate and top priority. In addition, over the remainder of FY 2017 and 2018, we urge the Commission to expand its oversight and regulation of consumer products containing harmful and potentially harmful chemicals, making full use of its authority under the Federal Hazardous Substances Act, the Consumer Product Safety Act, and the other statutes enforced by the Agency. The Breast Cancer Fund and Washington Toxics Coalition have closely followed the implementation of Section 108 of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act and the resulting work of the Chronic Hazard Advisory Panel or CHAP. The Breast Cancer Fund has participated in many of the numerous opportunities for public comment. Sipcia was signed into law in August 2008 and the prohibition on the use of the six phthalates wanted to affect in February 2009. In Sipcia, Congress laid out a very specific timeline for the Commission to appoint and support a CHAP review of the science on the safety of phthalates and then to implement the CHAP recommendations through rulemaking. The overall process should have taken approximately three years. It has now been over seven. In the statute, the Commission had 180 days to finish a rulemaking process following the issuance of the CHAP report. The CHAP report came out in July 2014. Following the statute's timeline, the final rule should have been promulgated in January 2015. Instead, the proposed rule was issued in December 2014 and the public comment period closed in April 2015. It has now been well over a year since all formal public comment was received and the final rule has yet to be promulgated. We are also deeply concerned that the chemical industry is continuing to flout the public comment process established by the Commission by submitting additional materials well past the deadline in an attempt to shed doubt on the CHAP report. One of the key provisions of the CHAP report, which was reflected in the proposed rule, was the recommendation to ban four additional phthalates that were not included in the six phthalates banned in Sipcia. DIBP, DP, EMP, DH, EXP, and DCHP. I'm not going to try to pronounce the chemical names. The longer the Commission delays issuing a final rule, the longer children in this country are exposed to these chemicals deemed potentially harmful by the CHAP's expert panel of scientists. We urge the Commission to make promulgation of the final rule a top priority and to issue the rule as soon as possible, preferably in this fiscal year and absolutely no later than the first quarter of FY 2017. The presence of phthalates in child care products and toys is one of many exposures to hazardous chemicals as a result of contact with consumer products. CPSC should broaden the scope of consumer products it reviews for the presence of and risk of hazardous chemicals. The Commission should then take necessary action to protect public health, specifically accounting for the vulnerability of certain populations such as children and pregnant women. States such as Washington, Maine, and soon Vermont and Oregon collect and make publicly available information about the presence of harmful chemicals and products that are either designed for children or to which children or pregnant women could be exposed. This is called biomonitoring. For example, Washington State shows the presence of chemicals such as formaldehyde, flame retardants, and numerous phthalates in products such as clothing, art supplies, and baby care items. The Commission should use the data generated by these state programs as a roadmap to identify additional products that require further evaluation and potential action to protect the health of children from these dangerous chemicals. In conclusion, and to summarize, we urge you to prioritize finalizing the Propole Phthalates Rule and to consider dangerous chemical exposures from other consumer products. We thank you for this opportunity to comment on your future activities and look forward to continuing to engage with you on this important work. I'd like to also note that these comments were supported by the following organizations, forgive me there are several, the Alaska Community Action on Toxics, the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, Clean Production Action, Common Wheel Biomonitoring Resource Center, the Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Earth Justice, Empire State Consumer Project, the Environmental Health Strategy Center, Environmental Working Group, Green Science Policy Institute, Greenpeace, Health Care Without Harm, Healthy Building Network, Informed Green Solutions, Oregon Environmental Council, Safer States, U.S. Perg, Vermont, Conservation Voters, and the Vermont Perg. Thank you again for the opportunity. Thank you Mr. Pinchina and thank you again to the panel. We'll now turn to questions from the commissioners. As I mentioned it'll be 10 minutes each and I'll start. I want to start Ms. Dautrich by thank you for coming in and Bobby for you to come for coming to and Ms. Geyser and Ms. Seaford and I think Erica Thomas is here maybe somewhere in the back as well. I want to apologize that no matter what we're doing it's just not moving fast enough and it's just not good enough and you should continue to hold us accountable for that and there are a lot of reasons that we could throw out as excuses for why these problems are not solved but at the end of the day it just doesn't matter. It they're not solved and they need to be solved and when I met with you Ms. Seaford in my office when you hear a few weeks ago I told you that I think about your story and I think about Ms. Geyser's story and Steven and Erica know very well that I think about their story and the other parents story every night when I kiss my own boys when they go to bed and it's just not acceptable. It's not acceptable that the United States government agency and really United States Congress is not mobilizing more and providing what needs to be done to solve these problems and when I say that I don't say that in a its industry's fault all the time or that the answer that it has to be zero sum I believe in every one of these instances in a thriving industry I believe in a thriving window coverings industry I believe in a thriving furniture industry I believe in the ingenuity of the furniture manufacturer of the window blind manufacturers of all the products that come before us I believe they can do this and I believe that they can offer consumer choice and that they can provide economical solutions and I know that in large part because I've met with individuals from all of these industries who showed that there's a path forward and I'm counting on those folks as well to continue to lead from the inside of their industries there's two different kinds of profound parental pain that is represented here today there's the finality of the loss and then there's also as miss Kaiser pointed out the daughter's family ongoing pain and the heaviness that must exist every morning when you wake up and the fact that as we talked about in my office before we came down here that it just doesn't magically get lifted and the reality that sets in and the the lightness that that robs a family of is permanent and it's easy to sit in these seats or to be a staff member here I know many staff here read the in-depth investigation reports and the incident reports and it affects them deeply as it affects us but ultimately that's on paper and there might be photographs and that of course is very meaningful when I read the in-depth investigation from Mac Thomas's passing there were a lot of photographs and that helped to visualize what Erica found the handprint on the window having moved everything else out of the room except the a piece of small piece of poultry furniture that he might have climbed on to try to make it safe as possible for him to and that I know Erica did as she's described being a neurotic parent having read all the parenting magazines and so I mentioned all that because I we can't be reminded enough we really cannot of the real life aspects every day for what this means for families and so I I'm very grateful that you came in I do think it does make a difference I do want to at least ask Miss Kaiser to start because you talked about and I'll talk to Miss Seepert as well about it education campaigns is that enough and for those who would say it's just about parental education what's the answer to that that it's enough for the educational campaign I think it needs to be together you know I think there needs to be there needs to be a solution on the marketplace but there there needs to be an educational campaign together and we like I said we have a nickel and dime budget we're a tiny little nonprofit with very limited funding and we can't do it by ourselves we need you guys to help us and you know the industry has their own agenda and when it comes to marketing for their products for their safety products and we want to get it done for the consumers I meet still meet people every day that say they had no idea that a child can strangle on a window blind they just don't know the public just doesn't know and we just we need your help Miss Seepert education campaigns and the role that they play um awareness and education is key people as as Linda Kaiser said people just don't know it's it's a hidden danger in the home I meet people every day that say exactly the same thing I had no idea that something you know even a 30 inch dresser could be so dangerous people don't know the statistics people don't know that this is happening all the time every day sending thousands of children to the hospital the injuries and death but it be it goes beyond awareness and education of course that's just one component the other component is safe furniture and Miss Coles can you help us from your experience contextualize from what you've seen the value of education campaigns and I've talked with our communication staff about trying to figure out better metrics that's my concern ultimately is that um we we're not a nickel and dot well we have larger nickels and larger dimes but in the relative federal budget we are nickels and dimes compared with other agencies and when our communication staff offers to spend two three hundred thousand dollars on something that we all want to do we want to make sure that it's actually going to have an impact and that's my ultimate concern is how do we know it's going to help how do we measure that how do we know that we can put more money toward it and it's going to make a difference and Miss Coles would be curious to know your perspective on that please yeah I think it's a great question that you're asking one that we struggle with on all kinds of public health issues some education campaigns have been extremely successful back to sleep dropped Sid's death by 50 percent why did it work so effectively we can guess right it tells you in the name what to do right it it and it is simple to do doesn't involve buying anything additional it's a simple act parents can take but there was also a lot of time and money and concerted efforts by many groups that supported it to get it to move forward I think even at kid we deal with this we we view our education efforts as our emergency work so that we would like to see furniture that doesn't tip over under the weight of a two-year-old we'd like to see cordless blinds we think that's what we all need to be working for our products that are safe in the meantime there are millions of products out there now that aren't safe with us it's recalled products perhaps or unsafe sleep environments and so we have to do you can't not do education work because there's parents using those products today but the ultimate goal has to be to get rid of those unsafe products and I agree completely and if there's any way that your organization which is which always comes up with very helpful and creative reports if there's any way you can help us on the metric side we'd love to work with you on that well funny should mention that not our organization but an ASTM subcommittee on laundry packets along with Iqviso is looking at planning an all-day workshop on information education campaigns to get it just some of that information chaired by Carol Pollack Nelson who's here today well I couldn't find a better chair so that would be great and we'll definitely make sure CPSC staff is participating robustly mr. pancina so chemicals I've spent a lot of time since I've been in this position expressing my frustration with the fact that parents have to be concerned about their children being exposed to harmful chemicals in the home in particular and that if you're going to play with it if your child's going to play with the ball as my boys do in the living room they should be able to put their hand under the couch without me having to be totally freaked out about them getting harmed by flame retardants in the dust my biggest problem with the issue is and what I'm going to ask you about because I know you've had significant experience with this both on the hill and now in your current capacity is how do we know that by banning a chemical or taking action against a chemical and let's put aside tosca reform at this point I'm just talking about a larger public policy how do we know that that actually leads to people being safer how do we get to a point where it's not just taking a chemical out of play but that we know that whatever is going to be used is definitively a step forward for safety well there's a there's thank you for the question and thank you for not addressing tosca reform in particular uh there's there's a lot of dialogue and debate around this both around the use of alternatives and of course just the science around what happens when a chemical is removed from a product through the biomonitoring that I mentioned we can test the presence of chemicals in blood and have found that when certain chemicals are removed from consumer products that chemical burden is reduced significantly we have submitted commentary to the commission about the use of alternatives we have found and I'm sure you've heard this argument in many forms about a host of consumer products that other nations and places like the EU the same consumer products are manufactured without the use of certain chemicals that have now proven to be harmful including including by by the CHAP report our feeling is given that those products are in the marketplace they should be accessible and they should be the standard for US consumers as well great thank you for that my time has expired commissioner Robinson thank you um this is my fourth priorities hearing the first one was just a few weeks after I became a commissioner it was my baptism by fire into the issues of the agency there was a falling off after that first year and I am just delighted that we are back to the robust kind of participation both in the oral presentations and in the written presentations and I thank everyone for helping us out because this is a critically important day for us in terms of deciding how we go forward in the next fiscal year I particularly wanted to thank your parents who have come here I don't know what it's like to lose a child and I don't know what it's like to have a child with a devastating injury such as bobby has but I do know deep and personal loss and I know that a lot of people choose to just go underwater when that happens and what you've done with that fist in your got the hole that you have in your lives is you've reached through that to try to help other people so that you can prevent this happening from other to other families and that is just huge and I thank you from the bottom of my heart because you're not only important in this incredibly frustrating process of trying to get a government agency to be able because we all care trust me but to be able to do what we need to do but you've also just been huge in the educational efforts and the efforts on the hill to address these incredible hidden dangers that nobody knows about and I just really want to thank you for that this calls before I start with any questions I just want to tell you that you're preaching to the choir on 6b we can't do anything about the law but we could do something about our regulations I have been repeatedly saying how much I think we need to go forward on amending our regulations unfortunately the chair does not does not share this feeling so work on him to get it on the front burner and we would all be grateful um I would like to ask Ms. Coleson is see for a little bit about the tip over efforts that we've talked about I just frankly think that the educational efforts when you're dealing with such a hidden danger are just going to have limited effects but I have been as everyone knows and and Commissioner Mohorovic has been as well working very very hard to try to make sure that we get safer furniture and I know the two of you from having attended an ASTM meeting and I send staff to all of them now but I know you two are actively involved in that do you think there's any prayer of getting a state safer standard through the ASTM committee and I'd also be interested in and with respect to your answers I'd be interested how you're viewing the dynamics of that committee well you know I've worked on a lot of ASTM committees and I have to say there are a lot that were just as thwarted in forward motion as this one is and there have been significant changes part of what did that for many of the issues we work on is the CPSIA and section 104 when CPSC comes to the table not as someone who literally before 104 people wouldn't even listen when they were talking in committee meetings to now when they know they have to listen because CPSC has a hammer in the form of a mandatory standard that can be stronger we get to a really strong standard and I think that I'm hoping that will happen with the furniture standard I think there's you know we have a committee that's used to being able to do things their own way we're going to keep hammering away at it bringing new evidence bringing new information and hopefully whether it takes you know legislation whether it takes a rulemaking I think that there's ways to get that committee moving forward there's people on the committee I think there's you know there's people on that committee that make furniture that could pass a much more stringent standard and we just need to get everyone in the same page so I'm I know that you must know I'm sorry Ms. Seepert absolutely I'm while Nancy's seasoned I'm certainly not but I'm involved with the ASTM and it's um increasingly surprising every day at the stalls and the setbacks and I would like to see more action I would like to see a stronger standard so would I and I'm sure that you that everyone knows that um Senators Casey Klobuchar and um Blumenthal along with Representative Shackowsky have proposed the sturdy act um we can't ask people to lobby but we can lobby on the hill and I'm hoping to be able to get some Republican support for that because this really is the way that we could go forward with a mandatory standard that's going to be really difficult for us to do absent absent that legislation um Ms. Coles you mentioned that in your in your written testimony presentation um that you have a kids test program for coming up with ideas to make furniture more stable could you just tell us a little bit more about that and how you're working with standards sure I and I was going to raise that as I think that you know manufacturers not only have to they don't have to take the same design they've been making for 20 years and figure out how to make it sturdier they can look at new design so our test program is something we've been doing for about a decade now with university students Northwestern University of Michigan Harvey Mudd College in California other schools um giving students um problems that we see in the marketplace the first project we gave them was the the crib design that killed Danny and they came up with a portable crib that folds without that v shape in the side rail um so we gave them the furniture project these are freshmen at Northwestern University was the first group we started with so 18 19 year old immediately came up with design a furniture um no harder to make than what's currently on the market looks just like you know it would fit into any child's room and virtually impossible to tip over excellent thank you so much for that program um with respect to window blinds I couldn't agree more this is a danger that shouldn't exist cordless blinds are easily made I know from our visit to China a couple years ago that they can be cheaply made I strongly support the NPR and and I'm eager to see the NPR and hopefully we can work on a final rule I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't know to say that this is incredibly complex mostly because of the cost benefit analysis and there are so many blinds out there if only we could regulate where blinds can be placed that have to be cordless but we can't do that but I do think that we're coming up with some solutions and thanks to the efforts by people like you we have people like um and you may or may not know about this but Senator Blumenthal um uh tacked on a proposed language for the defense appropriations bill and for the HUD appropriations bill for public housing and veterans housing um it would require that there be cordless blinds in that housing and so that I'm told is past the senate um and we're hoping that it'll pass the house um we worked with his office to try to also get in get language in there about tip overs about anchoring furniture they were not they tried but they weren't successful in that but there are efforts from from um many different fronts on this and I am just so hoping we have we have waited decades for industry to do something about this and I remember when uh Ms. Pollack Nelson came in um when I first became a commissioner and told me 26 years they've been working on this problem and it just needs to be taken care of and you have my um commitment to work as quickly as we possibly can once we get the um NPR package which should be coming very shortly Mr. Pinchina thank you for your presentation and I share with you the concern about the the phthalates rulemaking and I'm hoping that we're going to be moving forward quickly on that you mentioned in your written presentation that industry has been flouting the public comment process and I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that but I'd be very interested in knowing we're asking about that I should be careful we're concerned that they may be I um don't want to sort of relitigate or rehash some uh some things that happen while the public comment period excuse me I should say while the chat process was still open I think it was before possibly any of you were commissioners here so forgive me if I'm getting that wrong that that um uh ExxonMobil was allowed to present to the chat after the comment period was ended we had it back and forth and that was resolved you know amicably so forgive us what I'm trying to say is for our wariness when we see on the public record that industry continues to come in and try to present new science to you I realize they're not presenting to the chat anymore the report is done but it's easy to sort of you know manufacture doubt and to try to continue to litigate the trap reports sort of conclusions and recommendations I mean I know the statute is pretty clear 108 is pretty clear you're supposed to promulgate the rule based on the chat reports recommendations in the science therein that's why we're concerned when we see materials specifically by dinp that are being presented to you again and again and again would that we could afford to do the same and bring you all the new science that's out there um but our resources are are limited vis a vis ExxonMobil's of the world um we just have that ongoing wariness let me assure you that I believe I'm not alone in this group of commissioners in saying that we view our role as quasi-judicial and the frequency and we certainly appreciate the the difference in resources on both sides but we very much can reach out if there's something that we're that we have a question about I understand your concern having been a litigator but I do understand that I also am very interested in the comment that you made um except I'm out of time thank you commissioner robinson commissioner berkel thank you very much mr chair and let me begin by just reiterating my colleagues comments this morning I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to be here to submit comments and who are watching us online this hearing as um commissioner robinson stated is very important to our process and it's very important that we hear from all of you because you are the experts in your fields uh regardless of whether uh you're a consumer group or industry you know your you know your mission and anytime you can um let us know that and and be clear about what you think we should be doing it's extremely helpful and informative and I thank everyone for being here um to this panel uh and to those of you who have sustained such uh grievous losses it takes courage to deal just with the loss but it takes a special courage to take that loss and turn it into a mission and to um a way forward and to um trying to make things better for other families and so I want to thank you as a mother of many children and grandchildren I can't imagine the loss you've sustained it is just inconceivable to the thought of losing a child or a grandchild and so what you have done and in coming here and presenting your loss and and turning it into something that hopefully will help others to prevent their loss I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart it's it's it's remarkable and it takes a tremendous amount of courage um I want to talk just briefly um number one about Miss Coles you mentioned the laundry pod and the follow-up with the workshop and Carol Pollack Nelson will be chairing that I'm delighted to hear that and I think from what I have heard um that there is a lot there are a lot of good things going on uh the new standard and the recognition that the work doesn't stop there but the two additional work uh group working groups that will follow in our following um are extremely encouraging me encouraging to me and it's a it's such a good partnership because everyone who needs to be at the table is at the table trying to work out a way forward so I thank all of you for your efforts and look forward to seeing how this new 2015 standard it is working and I'm optimistic I hope so but the fact that you all are on the front lines with industry next to you trying to address and make sure that it is adequate and and determine whether there's other things we can do is extremely encouraging so thank you for for that effort I want to share Miss Kaiser's a little bit of the frustration because for two years I have felt very strongly about an I&E campaign for window coverings uh and and I uh agree with what uh Commissioner Robinson said it's a difficult it's an extremely difficult burden that the cost benefit analysis when it comes to this product but what we could do as an agency is a strenuous I&E campaign just as what's been done with tip overs and I'll publicly commend my two colleagues for all of their efforts on tip overs because we have seen what benefit we can derive from a good I&E campaign and and given the number of window covering products out there I think that um we could have if we and I know industry I have met personally with them I've visited the manufacturers throughout the country and I know they are willing to stand side by side with us in an I&E campaign and and I share your frustration I think it's something we could do right now to deal with the products that are out there there's close to a billion corded products out there and the other part about that is right now there are cordless products available and if we raise awareness on this issue at least consumers would know um that that that isn't available alternative right now in the marketplace and I do want to also talk about um the legislation coming out of um out of the senate because that has been of concern to me also you know the the folks who can afford a cordless product or remote that's great but there are people living in DOD housing and HUD housing who cannot and so I think it's good that we are aware of that and that we address that situation and so again a good uh strong I&E campaign a partnership between this agency and the industry I think could be extremely effective in raising awareness um as to this hidden hazard that does exist when small children are around um that's I don't have any questions all of your testimony was well thought out um we and and I appreciate everything you you've said here today um Ms. Coles I look forward to I know you'll be involved in our recall effectiveness workshop and we will be reaching out to you for some insights as to how we can make that workshop um you know how we can make it an effective workshop so uh that's all I have to say but I do again want to just from the bottom of my heart say thank you to all of you thank you Commissioner Berkel Commissioner Mojarova thank you Mr. Chairman and uh I also want to express my appreciation uh for the courage the entire panel uh to be here today and also for the very powerful and very compelling testimony that you've provided as well as answers to questions so thank you very very much I appreciate Commissioner Robinson's point about um the excitement that we have about the amount and the attention towards this priority setting uh hearing the diversity of the panels that we'll hear that we'll hear from today I think it's exciting there was a point in time I think Mr. Chairman we were concerned that we weren't going we were not getting that kind of uh attention or we didn't expect this kind of a turnout especially in an election year I think it's a fantastic thing um and it just shows that the the the agency and its importance is is not being missed on on the the very many stakeholders before us I have uh just two questions uh Ms. Coles if I can um to to leverage your experience uh in with recalls and studying the different effectiveness I very much appreciate everything on behalf of for you and behalf of kid everything that you do to uh to let us know and provide us a report card on an annual basis with our recalls and I will note that you gave us pretty good a pretty good report card this year I think our grades in different categories are higher than maybe they've been in the past and we've discussed this but I'd like to do it in the public setting uh you've with this report uh you've suggested that this report could be produced by the government and by the CPSC and you're almost willing to let it go and I never wanted to steal anything for a kid or from you in terms of how powerful and how great a job you do with it but can you explain uh to the commission a little bit why uh if we conducted this activity ourselves because you don't have to go through the FOIAs to be able to track down all that information how it might be uh how it might be more powerful or provide even greater information than what you're able to gather from from the outside through FOIA and other publicly available processes sure I'd be happy to and so um when kid does the report first of all we focus solely on children's products and obviously there's a lot of other recalled products we can talk about the dehumidifiers where there have been deaths and fires we can talk about major recalls that aren't children's products that wouldn't be covered by our our issues um and secondly the difficulty in getting information um from CPSC which first of all I think should be dealt with and I have to say that when we first did this uh portion of the report two years ago um we sent a follow-up letter to CPSC um with the problems that we found with getting information that simply the manufacturers who do recalls are not filing monthly reports even though they're required to um there's information files on major recalls that couldn't be found anywhere no one knew where they were um and then the big problem with even what we get of how much of it is redacted and there can be no reason even under 6b that that information should be allowed to be redacted by manufacturers um so all of those problems with getting data limits the amount of data that we are able to present to you my idea though for the commission to report um to congress in that report which would include this information would be first you'd have access to the all the information on redacted but I would want to see um each individual recall called out and and listed what the recall effectiveness is so we can see the difference between someone who works very hard maybe gets a 30 or 40 percent recall return rate versus recalls that are clearly no efforts being taken they have you know very few products back from consumer so what I'm looking for from CPSC is what we can't do and that's getting all that information that is hidden from us um through your various secrecy policies uh or companies simply redacting it and providing that information I think just the sunshine on that you wouldn't have to change any regulations you wouldn't have to do anything I think if companies knew that data was going to be in a report that was going to be before congress we would see more action on recall effectiveness thank you very much um and then in one specific area um again based on the amount of study that you've had in evaluating different recalls with CPSIA and the mandatory product registration cards and now the timeline since that that has been um in place have you studied whether or not in any specific recalls that we've seen a a significant increase in terms of the effectiveness based on that CPSIA requirement um we have not a kid because again the information on who uses registration cards and who doesn't is hidden from us um your staff though has done an excellent report there was a slideshow presented IKFASO this year looking at that issue um I'm not sure compared it to ones with or without it just simply showed that registration cards are being used to reach people in events of recalls and that the numbers certainly look healthier than the general numbers that we see thank you very much thank you mr chairman thank you commissioner morovic and thank you to my fellow fellow commissioners this concludes the first panel thank you mr penchina miss seaford miss coals miss kaiser miss dowtritch bobby for coming in we'll take a five minute break so panel two can come up and we'll resume then thank you