 All right, we're now going to turn to the staff's proposed fiscal 2024 operating plan. And as we usher in this new fiscal year, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge and thank staff for all their accomplishments on behalf of consumers in this past year. It's truly incredible the amount of work that's gotten done. Yeah, we have so much more to do that said just 2 weeks ago, we were on the brink of a government shutdown. While that troubles and outcome has been temporarily averted, Congress has not provided us with a full years funding level for fiscal 2024. What we do know is that Congress passed the debt ceiling increase that included an automatic 1% cut to the fiscal 2023 spending level of Congress fails to complete the preparations process by the end of the year. And therefore, staff has provided us with 2 funding scenarios. The 1st, tie to what we'll refer to as the debt ceiling level and the other reflects our current services level, the level we need to maintain our current staff and other expenses. The threat of a lower funding level is real and to that end we plan we need to plan for it, prioritize our efforts, difficult task as cuts in funding will inevitably reduce our compliance and enforcement work or work to develop voluntary mandatory standards. And our public safety campaigns as I consider the operating plan areas, I particularly want to ensure that we still have sufficient funds for include continuing to hold accountable companies that violate safety standards and rules. Continuing to issue safety rules that we know can save lives and prevent injuries like rules addressing carbon monoxide for poisoning from portable generators strangulations from. Courted window coverings suffocation deaths from unsafe sleep environments and amputation injuries from table saws. You know, addressing emerging hazards such as fires and batteries and e-bikes scooters and gestion of water bees and small children is also very important. And finally, targeting our education outreach efforts to communities that the data shows are facing higher safety risks. And these tend to be traditionally underserved populations that require additional resources to reach them effectively. So, it's all, it's unclear what our final appropriations level may be. It's clear to me that we should hope for the best, but prepare to work within the constraints that we may be given. And hope that today's briefing will highlight the impact that a reduced funding will have on our important work. So in a moment, I'm going to turn this over to staff so they can brief us once they've completed that briefing. Each commissioner will have 10 minutes to ask questions with multiple rounds if necessary. Briefing us today is Jason Levine, Executive Director. He's joined by James Baker, Chief Financial Officer. Also joining us today are Patty Davis, Deputy Director for Office of Communications, Austin Schlick, General Counsel, and Alberta Mills, Commission Secretary. That I'm going to turn this over to Mr. Levine. Good morning and thank you for moving things quickly. So we have more time for this. So we're going to be talking, as you said, Mr. Chair, regarding the proposed staff proposed operating plan for fiscal 24. And let's get into the slide deck. Next slide, please. Okay. So to give a little background on how we arrived at the proposed levels, our fiscal 2023 enacted level was 152.5 million dollars, which we allocated at 576 FTEs and funded nine FTEs under the American Rescue Plan Act for a total of 585. Our 24 performance requests to Congress, often abbreviated as our Congressional Budget Justifications of CBJ, you'll see throughout this document was submitted in March at a level of 212.6 million dollars. And an FTE level of 687. As we, as you mentioned, our 24 appropriation has not yet been enacted. We are currently under a 45-day continuing resolution, but the two marks we were provided was in a house appropriations mark of 139.05 million and the Senate appropriations mark of 152.5, which was a flat level from our current funding level. Next slide, please. Accordingly, based on the disparity and following last year's pattern. We put forth two different levels for our 24 proposed plan. One was based on the fiscal responsibility act of 2023, generally referred to as the debt ceiling bill or debt ceiling act. We're in this document called the debt ceiling level. And this is a 1% cut from the fiscal 2023 enacted level. So that brings us to 151 million dollars. And this would, as noted here, fund 568 FTEs, maintain the nine FTEs that were previously funded under ARPA, and add an extra eight FTEs to that list, which brings us to an agency total, again, of 585 FTEs keeping us level at our current level in terms of FTEs. Speaking of current levels, our current services level is the other level proposed in the document at 162.6 million dollars. This level was arrived at simply by looking to see what would it cost us to stay flat in terms of FTEs and in terms of non-pay, non-salary, non-rent expenditures. So essentially pay, rent, grants, and contracts. And this would bring us to 162.6 million dollars, 10.1 million dollar increase from our fiscal 23 level, slightly more than that obviously from our 151 level. This also factors in a 5.2% pay raise as directed by OMB when we were putting together our numbers. OMB has still proposed that. Of course, we don't have that level yet because we do not have a full year appropriation. But at this level, we'd be able to maintain our current contracting levels and our current FTE level and would allow us to bring all the 585 under our base appropriation in terms of FTEs. Next slide please. So when putting together, so if we step aside from the money for a moment and talking about the projects and the plans and the priorities and the out plan budget and the out plan document. It ties back to our recently completed strategic plan, the 2023 to 2026 strategic plan, which as you'll all recall has four goals prevent address communicate support. And then the sort of the next level down of detail, we went to the priorities listed in the 2024 congressional budget justification, which are these 6 categories here. Noting that much of our documents talk about by office dollars by office FTEs by office, but they all do fit back into these larger constructs. And in fact, the, the appendices at the back of the operating plan really do demonstrate how these things tie together into the strategic plan. So I just note those are the 6 priorities. Next slide please. Okay, so wanting to get a little more detail as to the debt ceiling level, which for the most part, when going through the document. We'll hope it was clear is the under the foundational piece of the document is set at the 151 level. We'll talk a little bit more about how we distinguish that as we go through. But what this would provide for a little more detailed level is $147 million in salaries and expenses. And we derive that number because we're reducing it by 4 million for the grant funding, as you can see below for the Virginia Graham Baker act and the CO alarm grants, which by the way are now out. Please apply if you're watching. This would include the 5.2% increase in pay. It would keep us at 585 FTEs. Presuming the 17 FTEs would be funded under ARPA. This would include an approximate point $3 million reduction in rent to do some space give back at the end of fiscal 23. And I think most significantly cuts approximately $7.7 million from the fiscal 23 non pay levels. That's approximately a 20% cut from our non pay contract levels. And we'll talk a lot about that throughout the course here. And just to know I've already talked about the grant funding and then on the 2024 ARPA funding. Of course, there's not new funding in ARPA that there was a one time. Appropriation of $15 million, but wanting to note this plan would transfer 8 FTEs. To ARPA from our current salary and expenses. Appropriations levels, which should bring us to a total of 17. That is an approximate addition of $1.5 million. To not addition, but approximate cost of $1.5 million to ARPA. And we put together 2 projects for which we believe are appropriate to delay at this point in time that we're chosen. We're part of the funding plan that the commission voted on in the spring. For ARPA real quick, and I'm happy to get into this more, but 1 is. It was project number 3, which was the 2nd part of the project that we discussed, which is focused on the ability to read. And read in an automated fashion unstructured text that project is dependent upon the coding of. Of the unstructured text that coding project has just gotten underway. And so we would not expect it to be completed in fiscal 24. And if it was maybe the very end towards the very end of fiscal 24, depending on the speed of the contractors. And so we felt this was an appropriate candidate for for delay in part, because again, it hasn't started and we don't anticipate it being able to be started. Any time soon, or at least immediately in terms of fiscal 24. Similarly, the modernization project, which I believe was project number 4 in the ARPA table from the spring. It just wasn't ready to to move forward. We can continue to under to to take in depth investigations. We can continue to do the work that we're currently doing in the field. This obviously is a modernization effort. It's not important, but it just simply wasn't ready in terms of internal bandwidth to be funded. And so again, we don't see these as shelving these projects forever. We simply see them as a needed delay because funds were needed to to find to keep people on board and ideally we'd be able to to restore these funds as as the year went on. We'll talk about that a little bit more as we go forward. Next slide, please. So, slide 5. Is is another way of thinking about this table is a spread the pain table. This is another way of representing the 20% in approximately 20% in cuts to our non-pay spending. You know, a lot of what we don't see on a day to day basis or even. Isn't quite obvious from our operating plan documents or budget documents is is the non-pay contracts that are behind the scenes. So, and in formulating the plan we looked instead of cutting whole cloth projects or whole cloth. Areas of support or programs to to find ways to reduce so that everything would keep moving. But, you know, recognizing a need to to find places to reduce spend. So, just, you know, a few of these examples. You know, would include, you know, research on non identified chronic or emerging hazards. So this would not be impacting any currently planned and currently ongoing research for chronic or emerging, but it would impact future currently unidentified projects. Litigation support this would not be involving any particular ongoing litigation, but there were new litigation. You know, literally just skipping around here replacing some, some of our screen screening equipment at the ports. Again, our staff has what they currently need, but it's important to continue to upgrade and make sure they have what they need in a replacement basis on an annual basis. I don't replace everything every year, but we do have a schedule. This would delay some of that. Our hotline would would be reduced, but would still be ongoing and and so on and so forth. And happy to talk about any of these, but it's an example and this is not everything by any means, but it's a very representative sample of the types of areas that are seeing the diminishment in terms of the reductions. Next slide please. So that said, and we'll talk about how we would restore those cuts as we get towards the end of the end of the presentation. We still believe we're presenting an incredibly ambitious robust operating plan and particularly when we talk in the standards context. But it's important to note that in certain circumstances we do rely on on some of those contracting funds to help support the work of staff. And while we don't anticipate that the current. Land rules table would be immediately impacted by it. It's certainly possible that something in here that has an unanticipated research need. Could be impacted and certainly the more likely impact would be the. The next set of standards activities. So. Just with that as a note, but again, slide 7 has. Another version of what's on page 21. In the plan again, it's a table it is. You know, as mentioned, I think very ambitious similar to the ambitious. Plans we laid out at the beginning of fiscal 23, many of which we did bring across the line. As you mentioned, Mr. Chair, some of which are coming. Did not make it through all the way in 23, but we'd certainly expect, for example. Bassanets and filing 2 examples of things we expect very shortly. In in fiscal 24, which. You know, we're expected to be completed in fiscal 23, but we're optimistic that can be. Brought forward in 24 and keep moving forward and keep that momentum moving forward. And there's a variety of those we, you know, we'd also note. It's more alphabetical than than sort of programmatic, but the, you know, on the left side of of the table. We do see a number of 104s and a lot of this would be the beginning work on some of these up on some of these updates to. 2 products for which we're looking at firmness that comes out of that Boise State study that was being discussed earlier today. You know, we're looking at final rules. For some of the other products that we've been talking about nursing pillows, for example. Updates to. I mean, again, I'm not going to read through all of them, but updates to a variety of other 106 products. Within the F 9, 63 toy standard. And then on the right side again, this is. Not necessarily programmatic, but in terms of substance. We're looking at bringing forth the aerosol duster petition. Response e bikes, which is a new. A new project. That's the, uh, dance. I suppose rulemaking concept that I'm sure we'll talk about as the day goes on. That's more focused on mechanical issues with respect to electric bikes. The lithium ion batteries. NPR is going to be focused on lithium batteries for micro mobility products, but that will include. Those batteries for electric bikes. And, and you'll also notice the notice of. Those are availability. Sorry for a number of items. And this is in response to the WCMA, the US. A recent decision and a need for the commission to make available some of our data that had not previously been made available. And this is a new process for us. And this will create some unknowns in terms of our abilities. And timing on some of these rule makings and we'll be keeping the commission updated as we move through on that. But as you also will know, we do expect to be able to bring forth. A final rule on, on portal generators and table saws and these other items. So we do plan to keep moving forward, but it does introduce a new unknown that we did not have. Six weeks ago, let alone 12 months ago, when we put together the last operating plan. And so now I'm not, you know, again, I'm not going to read through every single priority for every single office, but I do think there's a number of things that are worthy of highlighting. I just mentioned some of these rule making packages. Nursing pillows, lithium ion batteries, portable generators, but also sort of noting that. In areas that there's standards activity. There's standards activity bicycles or OHVs. There's also research ongoing and some of that's contracted some of that's in house. But it both supports our mandatory work. And often our information education work and often also our compliance work and that's something that isn't explicitly noted here is the support that. Our house your reduction team provides to our office of compliance. That is important and critical and also takes us away from doing rule making on a given basis. And so we're always trying to juggle those 2 priorities as we go through. And another thing we'd highlight for fiscal 24 is additional research on older consumers. Safety hazards. That's the last time we did that project that report, I believe it was fiscal 22. So this will be an update to that work, which is an area that suffers a lot of our injuries and deaths. In terms of demographically next slide please. Speaking of compliance. You know, I think 1 of the biggest changes over the last year or 2 has been the new legal requirements. The office has been and the agency has been required to enforce and whether we're talking with the durable nurseries. Products. Infancy products could bumpers mattresses or we're also talking about what matches new rule makings, magnets, new rule makings, clothing storage units, adult portable bed rails. ATVs, but in battery packaging. So this leads us to increase regulatory work from out of compliance, which is very important, but is less than our traditional focus on compliance. It often domestically at least been much more on the defect side. And so we certainly are doing far more regulatory work than we had previously at the office of compliance and field operations. I think we're doing a great job at it, but it is a continued emphasis and a continued shift and the work of that office. I just think that that's worth noting. Similarly, our increase continuing increase of online surveillance. When we're looking for removal or investigation based on what we learn there and the tens of thousands of requests and take downs that we get every year out of our team who does such great work. As we continue to target, particularly when we do do our efforts to sample and evaluate, we are continuing to try and expand those efforts and underserved communities. As we try and go out and bring that regulatory effort into communities, trying to make sure we are being as broad as we can with our limited resources in those variety of communities. And then as we've seen with our increased civil penalty activity, there is a timely assessment required for all recalls and we're continuing to do that when we look at civil penalty investigations. Next slide, please. So some of the areas I would highlight for our office of inform of import surveillance. Obviously, their core functionality is the interdict interdicting of high risk shipments. But in particular, the focus on e-commerce in particular, the minimum as the e-commerce shipments is something that we will continue to increase our efforts regarding both our work with CBP and just generally the more we do it, the better we get at it. You know, our work where it overlaps with the Customs and Border Protection with respect to counterfeit products that do pose a safety risk also helps us sort of amplify our work through their work. And that's something that they will continue to emphasize in fiscal 24. As we've talked about a lot, the e-filing project, the beta pilot is getting up and running in the next week or so, and we're looking forward to bringing forth the rulemaking itself in the very short term. And working to train importers and trade in general and our office of Small Business Humbudsman works very closely with the Office of Import to get that done. And the Office of Compliance as well. Next slide, please. Our Office of International Programs, a similar note to what we're talking about with our SPO, working to help educate and train foreign governments, foreign trade on our rules, on our requirements. And so sometimes that involves exchanging information under all of our protections, of course. Sometimes it just simply involves trading information about recalls, making sure our recalls are getting posted internationally and trying to do the best we can to receive information from foreign regulators. And as well as literally going out and educating in international forums. Now, you know, an example of places that will see a diminishment in activity through the debt ceiling level budget will be some of the opportunity to go out and do some of these trainings in person. And while some of them can be done remotely, some of them can't. And that will obviously be an unfortunate reality if we're to be stuck, I would call it at the debt ceiling level. Next slide, please. So just a few, very few of the highlights of some amazing work that O. C. M. that our Office of Communications does on a daily basis and, you know, when when they have the statistics, which you've all seen in talks of reaching hundreds of thousands, millions, sometimes billions of people with safety messaging. It really always impresses through the variety of means that they use. There are four major campaigns that are outlined in the operating plan. Pool safety and drowning prevention furniture and TV tip over prevention, baby safety and carbon oxide. But there's also a host of other activity that the office communication undertakes is working has a plan this year to be doing some community outreach directly to underserved communities, raising awareness of, of CPSC, obviously, but more importantly, why that's important is trying to provide information about what we do, how to prevent injuries, how to prevent doubts about consumer products. So, signing up for our recalls, taking advantage of the materials that the office and the agency puts together, but those are all well and good. If we can't reach people, then it makes it more difficult to deliver it. So this is a real focus for the office in 2024. Next slide, please. Our Office of Information Technology and this is, you know, one of two slides that really dig into our support mission. And so, you know, just about everything else we just talked about has this very outward facing component to it. Most of the rest of the things we're going to talk about on these two slides are inward facing, but without it, we can't do all that other work. And so the 24 plan does outline the work and specify the work that IT will be doing and everything from developing, the finalizing the development of the filing, working to modernize our public website, which was a project that was started at midyear. This past year, working to get the case management system moved forward. And that's a long overdue project, but is actually coming to fruition through funding and hard work of a lot of different people. Upgrading our cybersecurity requirements as outlined by OMB and moving forward with that. And, you know, everything through and up to continue to modernize our IP systems, our nice systems. We have a lot of legacy applications that are creaking along, but we'll do a lot better if we get them up to speed and help us move faster. Next slide, please. And here I do want to go through all these because these like these are single bullets, but they represent literally, you know, every one of these these offices that again don't really often get a lot of. A lot of the direct attention from the office of equal opportunity. And diversity inclusion office executive director general council legislative affairs, financial management and resource management. Within the operating plan, you'll see plans to update the racial equity action plan develop more focus outreach. In terms of attendance and getting leadership development training done, even in circumstances with incredibly limited resources, we're going to try and really get as much as we can in terms of training our training our leaders and making them. Giving them the resources that they that they need all the way through making sure that Congress is aware of the amazing resource that we have out at the national product testing and evaluation center. We're seeing the work that we do at ports of entry, continuing to improve our transparency with the FOIA responses. And continuing to make sure that we are hitting our marks for total eligible contract spending to small disadvantaged businesses, which we generally hit on an annual basis. Okay, next slide please. So everything I just talked about is conceived of happening at the debt ceiling level. And again, so what that will mean is we'd be operating at the $151 million level. We would be keeping folks on board. We'd be moving out an additional eight FTEs over to the American Rescue Plan Act funding. And we would stay there if we had to at $151 million. If we receive the current services level. It's important to understand what we would restore and what we would start with is bringing the people back because people are our most important resource. And then we would move through our restoration essentially in this order. You know, we work to make sure our compliance activities are fully funded. We come back to our EXHR projects, which are approximately $1.7 million to make sure we do have the ability to undertake contract research product testing and support of our standards development, particularly as I mentioned, chemical hazards, chronic hazards, electrical hazards. And then we'd also make sure that we can replace our equipment, modernize projects. What's nice about some of that is it often can wait till towards the end of the fiscal year. So depending on when we have funding, you know, we wouldn't hopefully see too much of a hit if we were to get it towards the end of the year. Then we would move to those support projects. It's a big bucket, but because it covers so many things and whether we're talking about it support restoring our help desk to 100% of current levels. Improving website maintenance in terms of getting things up on the website faster. Whether we're talking about making sure we've got the training, you know, some training we can do and how some training we do get at no cost, but a lot of training does cost funds, whether to bring in trainers or to send some of our folks to training. And then again, you know, as we'd work through the office communications is taking about a million dollar hit on its variety of different contracts surveillance. Again, this for example that point 2 million would be as I mentioned the replacement equipment. International programs. This would would help us with some of our overseas activities, particularly in Asia. And then at the inspector general's office also, because we spread it out across everyone would be restored for that. I think it's closer to 57,000 for them, but it's under a million. And I want to abbreviate a low on the next slide please. So, you know, sort of a higher level description of that restoration. Again, so our annual salaries would be 158.6 again that 4 million for the grants is still there so that would bring us back to the full 162. What's different between these 2 levels that 5.2% pay increase remains, but all 585 fte's would be funded under our under our salaries and expenses. So that brings everybody under our base appropriation. It would restore all of the contracts we just talked about. We would keep we would still wouldn't bring back that that the space we gave away. You know, that extra 10,000 square feet would remain with GSA, but that's still built into the math here. And again for our, but we would restore the funding that we are displacing for bringing those 8 folks over and in fact were we to get the 162.6. It would potentially if all the numbers line up as we would hope it would provide actually an additional $1.7 million for our projects, which point we would come back. And make recommendations to the commission for how to spend those funds and that would come from being able to bring as we've talked about there were 9 individuals who were who were designed to be paid for under. The ARPA plan the past last spring. We would bring those 9 back over that at approximate cost of $1.7 million. So that would be where we'd find that extra 1.7. Again, this would only happen at the current services level. And that is that I'm ready for questions. Last slide or no slides. You take it down. Thank you. So, thank you to living for the presentation. At this point in time, we are going to turn to questions from the commissioners the 10 minute rounds as multiple rounds if necessary. So, I'm going to start with myself. You laid out obviously the 2 levels that we're looking at and we are in an unknown world at this point in time. We are under CR for the next 30 or so days. And then we will find out what is going to happen next, which there are many options at this point in time and we don't know what that's going to be. But assuming looking at the numbers that were in the Senate and the House, there are lower than what our current operating levels are. Just to go into a little bit more depth on terms of what the impact of that's going to be. So, you had in the list, there was a reduction of 0.3 million for compliance. Generally, you have about 1.7 in the hazard identification projects. IT and communications as well. Can you go a little bit more into the compliance and hazard identification projects as to what that lesser level of funding is going to mean not only for the next year, but also potentially. Years and the out years as well. Sure. Thanks. Thanks for the question. I think. Compliance. It's probably easier to to to out line just because it's less funds that we're talking about in terms of the cut. Again, because we focus so much on people over contracts, the offices that don't have a lot of contracts are seeing the lesser hit as it were. So, for the office compliance and field operations, it's mainly broken into areas 1 would be available funding for future. Expert witnesses. There's still some funding available there, but I think that the portion that they budget for that is cut essentially in half. And then on the field side, while we will continue to work person to person and state and locals, local levels, we do have some contract relationships at state and local levels in terms of supporting. Small programs that are done to help support our product safety. Education and enforcement efforts that are done out of compliance and field and the the available funds for the paid piece of our. Of our local state and local programs through the office compliance field operations will be reduced. That gets us to about the 1st, it's about $300,000. I think that that that's where that comes from. On the X HR side, it's a little more complicated just because there's more of it. I think at the most basic level, the 2 areas that would be impacted are. Future unplanned research and equipment is probably the way that I think of it and break it out. You know, we talked about. Generally speaking, the way we budget is to make sure that there's available funds for unplanned work. In terms of a need to contract for something that we have not currently researched or we don't currently have either bandwidth or expertise or equipment on site to undertake. And so we'll set aside a little bit of funds for a variety of categories. Children's. Children's hazards, electrical hazards, chemical hazards, chronic hazards. And while we maintain made sure to maintain the funds for children's hazards, some of those other areas electrical and chemical in particular. Those those. Those buckets are essentially stripped out of the debt ceiling level in terms of again unplanned work. Now this wouldn't be anything that's currently ongoing, but this would be something that we hadn't thought of that. Was new that the commission directed was new in the news that had no one had been thinking about or planning for. And so I think that's that's 1 side of it and the other side of it being our ability to make sure we continue to update, modernize and fix our existing equipment. And every year where we have a cycle of equipment that we want to make sure we are updating and modernizing and replacing and this would take a hit for that. And again, we'd be able to try and stretch dollars as long as we can, but at some point that does see an impact. So going to compliance for 2nd, presumably if we ended up for some reason needing experts who would. Money could be shipped to by the commission, but it would cost somewhere else on the way. Right. And that's yes. And that's I should know that's true for all of us. Obviously, I mean, and certain things certain things would be much harder to cut payroll. But, you know, some of those sorts of things, but yes, in most cases, there would be an ability to move things, but there'd need to be a trade. Right. There's always a trade that's prioritization and then on the compliance side just to without. Things that come up out of the sort of out of. Emerging hazards that we've seen. You know range and not necessarily think that this has contracts associated with it, but certainly in the last year we have seen. Fires from e-bikes and from micro mill devices become front and center for the commission in a way that I don't think staff anticipated or the commission commit anticipated. A couple of years ago, things like water beads is another one that can think of off the top of my head where we've seen a lot of injuries associated with this in a hazard that has grown where where we didn't anticipate. So having those funds out there to be able to do that work is critical because the marketplace doesn't stay still and neither can we in that process. So that seems to put at jeopardy those sorts of cuts stability do that. Obviously we can reallocate funds, but then something that was planned would then not be funded. Is what I'm hearing you're saying. If the appropriations were, it was a level somewhere between the debt ceiling and the current level of services. Um, sort of what order would the funds be sent? How would, how does staff work within that? If this draft as proposed was approved. Sure. I think the, the immediate plan would be to. Again, because we value the work of our people, the work of our experts. First and foremost, I think that's what drives the agency and the amount of successful work we've been able to do. So the 1st thing we would do is make sure we are trying to bring those folks back into our base and make sure we're paying for. For the FTS. So that would be our 1st, which is the same thing we did. Um, pardon me in 23, uh, when we find got our final appropriation. The next step, I think as, as noted in the slide, 15 or 16 would be to work to compliance. We would restore and then our next step would be to work through the projects with any XR. Um, and then we, we sort of worked down the list. As laid out, and I believe there's a page in the operating plan that also lays that out towards the back as well. Um, but I think we would, we would want to work. Uh, down again, it's not so much anything other than recognizing choices need to be made. Um, and we would want to work quickly to, to avoid the delay, particularly if we've got a late appropriation. Um, uh, the amount of time it takes to get procurement going can be lengthy. And so our desire to move quickly and sort of have a preset list. Um, to, to be able to activate it as quickly as we could. So we, you know, we would work from compliance to hazard identification. Uh, into the support levels to communications to that imports of ounce replacement equipment. Uh, down to international programs. There's something for us to consider as well as we're viewing this. Um. And notice my time is running down presumably if the appropriations are significantly above what's in the plan or significantly below with the plan. Uh, what would happen? Sure. So, uh, significantly above, uh, we'll take that we would come back and, uh, in addition to doing all the things we talk about doing at the current services level, we would. Come back and make some proposals on here's what we are going to do with this unexpected additional funding. If they were significant, you know, if they were rounding errors on, on the debt ceiling level, we probably. Um, within a margin, you know, would recommend just, you know, maybe making a slightly smaller, slightly larger cut to some of the contract areas, depending again on on the size. But if it's something much more significant, we would probably need to come back and have conversations about. Do we need more more fte's to move over to the ARPA funding? Do we need to look at other places where we can delay contracting? Um, but at a certain point, this has been cut 20% cut is very dramatic. I do want to emphasize that in terms of our. Um, our non pay activities. I know that I only have 30 seconds left. So, uh, I will make it more of a statement than a question. Obviously, we don't know what's going to happen with, um. Uh, our budget for the next year we have the CR going on. Um, and if there is a shutdown as a result, um, and we are closed for a while, presumably that would mean that we'd have to reevaluate the feasibility of some of these projects as well going forward. Um, but that would depend on the length of the shutdown and the impact on on the work that we do, but that's why. Yeah. So, so, uh, um, devastating, not only in the media term, but in the long term as well. Uh, with that, I'm out of time. So commissioner Feldman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr. Levine for the presentation today and your work putting together the proposed operating plan. Um, on slide four, you list the strategic goals from the current strategic plan and the priorities from the FY 24 performance budget request to Congress. I just want to clarify, as you presented, particularly the priorities from the 24 budget request, are these presented in ranked order? I believe these are just presented in the order in which they appear in the 24 budget request. Okay. Is that pretty sure that we can check on that, but I'm pretty sure this is just the way that they are. Okay. Listed in the 24 request. On slide five, you discussed the proposed $1.5 million reduction in the AI, the artificial intelligence and machine learning. Um, and the, uh, IDI modernization projects. Um, hoping to get a little bit more meat on the bones about what this would look like if it was fully funded. Um, particularly what do these projects mean in terms of practical deliverables? Um, what could we as the commission expect to see if those projects were fully funded? And, uh, your views on, um, You know, as proposed, um, did the reductions contemplate any activity with respect to these projects? Or, uh, is it essentially just putting everything on ice? Oh, no, great question. Um, look, so they're, they're two different projects with respect to the machine learning. What we called it here was machine. Yes, machine learning, uh, for hazard and defect identification. So this again, as, as, as a refresher, I know we spent a lot of time talking about it, but there really were two different projects involved. When we talked about it at mid-year or mid-year timing, uh, one was taking unstructured text and, uh, and paying coders to go through it and code it. Particularly for the way we identify injuries, the way we identify, um, the way we identify injuries and incidents and deaths and currently when we do that manually. So we'll receive death certificates, we'll receive injury reports, we'll receive a variety of different incoming text that is not pre-coded for us. Uh, we will, you know, we have our coders, uh, many of whom are already, um, contracts, some of them are internal, uh, and go through and code that text. This is designed to take a significant number. I want to say it was 40 to 50,000 incidents and code them, actually have them coded twice to avoid sort of. When you say code, are they writing lines of computer code or is this a data entry project? No, it's a data entry project. Okay. It's a data entry project, which would then taking the 40 to 50,000 incidents, um, and having them, uh, entered, uh, into our, our database, the way we enter, the way we enter incidents and, and, um, we put them into our systems currently. We would then take that incident database, let's call it a separate, it's not separate database, but that, that set of data. Um, and train, um, an AI ML machine learning program to read that sort of unstructured text incident reports, test certificates, etc. To code it ideally in an automated fashion. Um, so it's a two part project. One is doing the, let's call it the manual labor of data entry. The second part is writing the program, the code. So it would be writing the code piece. Um, so the reason, so to answer your are things stopping. No, they're not stopping the coding pieces ongoing. Currently it just got started about a month ago, I believe. Um, so that's going to be, that's a project that probably take most of the fiscal year. Um, so the second part can't happen until the 1st part happens. But the other reason this was a good candidate to delay in our opinion is this is, as you can imagine, a very rapidly changing field. Um, and so it is our hope and belief that when we are at a position to procure for that 2nd piece of the project, we may be able to do it less expensively. Then we had originally budgeted for this originally budget at $900,000. We are hoping that as technology improves and advances. So. Not stopping and we're actually hoping we can save money on the back end with respect to the collection data collection automation. This is really creating a basically a better. Electronic, um, this is another data entry piece, but this is for our folks in the field to have a more modern tool to do the IDI collection that they're doing. Um, so in terms of that work on go, it's ongoing. It happens every day. Um, but the, the updating the modernizing of that tool would be delayed because we don't currently, you know, we had to pick something. How are you proposing to modernize the tools that are currently in the field? Oh, so the, the IDI project, um, and we, we ran a pilot on this, which. Demonstrated we could do it, but it basically. Um, I think it's using a tablet, so it's using it as opposed to using paper. It's, it's entering things directly in the field and an automated in an electronic fashion. And then being able to directly. Um, uh, pardon me, upload the, the data that has been captured electronically into our system. So it's fat. It's, it's ideally more accurate on the front end because being done in electronic fashion and it's faster on the back end. Um, and it will, um. When up and running would feed more quickly into our systems, it doesn't create sort of a secondary need to review a paper form. Have someone retype it sort of a thing. One of the areas where we were recently criticized by the DC circuit and the WCMA court had to do with the agency sharing of data and specifically. Incident data IDIs with relevant stakeholders when promulgating rule makings. Obviously, there's some privacy concerns that, that, that apply and requirements that we need to meet in terms of how that information is shared. Would the IDI modernization project help us meet our obligations. On the data sharing front. Uh, I don't know. I'll take it back to you on that. Okay. Thank you. I have no further questions. I did want to, I did get an answer. Yes. These are listed in the order they were listed in the budget. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that. Let me pick up that last thread because I think that's a good idea as we do that IDI modernization and if we're doing the data entry in electronic form in the first place. I mean, I have to imagine they would be able to flag what they see as information that should be redacted. Which, which if we put a box in for them to check next to certain information that could that could streamline that process potentially. Sure. So I, so I think it's, there's no question that being able to. Electronically add our in-depth investigation files to our system would allow for an easier redaction process. I think the, the 2 questions without getting. Well, I don't want to get any farther into it. I just want to say, I thought that was a good idea and I hope we keep looking into it. Yeah, I think that part of it, but I think the sort of larger questions of how it directly impacts the rulemaking reliance on those pieces is what I want to get back to you on. Yeah, makes sense to me. So I'm glad to see the water beads appear on the mandatory standard chart. You know, once he's in an environment, they're near impossible for caregivers to guard against and they're very difficult to die for doctors to diagnose and treat. So we advise parents not to have them in the homes around around young kids. And as we recalled one prominent brand, we rolled out the most comprehensive and clear messaging campaign that I think I've seen launched since I've been here. Our communication team met the urgency of the moment and I believe that our rulemaking team can do the same. And that's why I'd like to see not just an NPR staff as proposed, but also a final rule this year. And I do have a question for you on the approach here. So this appears as a 106 toy rule, but not all the water beads are sold as toys and it'd be kind of easy to flip what they are marketed as on online. So, you know, some are flower arrangement things, various other things. If we keep this as drafted in the toy context, will we be able to cover all of the relevant products in this rulemaking? Well, I mean, I think your question sort of answers itself. I mean, the toy standard only covers products that are defined as toys. So, to the extent there's a product. I mean, we recently seen the flip side of this with respect to Teresa's law. And there were those are products not, you know, the button batteries we covered and that were covered on the law were not toys and which is why 106 or why the operating plan talks about dealing with button batteries in toys. And so I think similarly, to the extent water beads were to be covered were to be a product that would not be subject to the definition. I think it'd be hard to say that they'd be covered by a rule that fits within our mandatory toy standard. Okay. Well, I appreciate that clarification. I will have to rethink how we approach that potentially because I do want to make sure we gather the entire field of relevant products here. But we have historically said that you can't sort of just define if it looks, smells and walks like a toy, it's a toy. And we haven't allowed, you know, just something that clearly fits in one category just to be simply labeled away, historically speaking. I won't speak for any one particular product. For lithium ion batteries and micro mobility products, including e-bikes staff has proposed an NPR this year. We had a tremendous forum in this room very recently on this issue. FDNY asked us for a mandatory standard industry asked us to create a mandatory standard, even you well the voluntary standards body said we needed to create a voluntary standard. I'm sorry mandatory standard. And there seem to be unanimity among those groups as to the types of things that should be included in that, not just the UL standard as a floor, but every time we said something more protective, the chorus of experts was yes, we should include that too. So I've never heard as ripe an environment to move forward quickly with comprehensive rulemaking. And I look at this rulemaking as a prime candidate that we should move fast on. And if we could do an NPR and a final rule in the same year, that would be ideal. I'd like to see that here. I hope we step up to play because I think a lot of people are justifiably scared question on a related but not the same one on the mandatory standard chart. So in the comment period launched by the CPSC's May 25 2023 federal register notice on bicycles, the agency provided a broad opportunity for the public to comment that thanks to Commissioner Boyle on those bicycle regulations but specifically on e-bikes. So, why isn't a NPR on the mechanical issues on e-bikes necessary during fiscal year 2024? Haven't we already done that? Well, you know, I mean, I think. I think there's a couple of reasons that I think the to answer the. I understand the question. You know, we're certainly hopeful to receive helpful information beyond the specific bounds of the petition. As part of responses to the RFI, but we can't be sure that we are and I think those were. So I think that's 1 piece of it. We can't be sure that we're going to receive because it while because those questions while. Related obviously to the top of the petition that the petition was something slightly different actually explicitly different than e-bikes. And so I think there'd be we're not sure that we're going to get enough information back in that context. I think separately the concept for the NPR for. E bikes is I think broader in terms of. Making sure that we are covering the ground of. Of mechanical issues on e-bikes and I think staff. Believes that targeted questions in that area are going to be more. Successful at bringing in the type of information we would need. Because there, you know, there remain a lot of open questions about how we should go about taking on something that simultaneously new. And also similar to an existing product that we regulate. Okay, well, you know, I hope we stay flexible and see what we get back on that request and maybe we get plenty of robust information. So the first item listed on our on our mandatory standards chart on OS 21. Is also one of the top of my list ATVs other which which is the stability standard. It's listed as DATR. Despite the fact that the last time we talked about this in the mid year, you confirm that the last research contract we had on this thing was being completed. So I think it's time to empower staff to move forward with an NPR on this long standing issue we need to let loose all of their vast knowledge on this issue. Separately for the fire hazard item. Under last year's operating plan and NPR was expected by September 30. Where can you give us an update on where that NPR stands. Sorry, this is on the fire debris from the fire fire. Yeah, just fire. Not to break. Yeah, I mean, I think as mentioned. There was a very ambitious list at the beginning of the year. We tried to get to as much of it as we could. And this was one of the ones that. We were not able to move forward in terms of a mandatory work that the mechanical group over in engineering does. A lot of work and it includes many of the things we've seen this year, whether we're talking about OHV debris. We're talking about the SBIA. I understand all that things slip. Those things happen. We have other priorities. I'm just trying to understand because this is not listed as that NPR anywhere on this chart right now. And I want to find out is that one that we're going to see soon like some of the other projects that slipped or is that one no longer in the plans at all. Well, it's certainly still in the plans. I just in terms of committing the available people and resources we have to the other projects that are covered by that group. This one is not. Likely to get completed in fiscal 24 because other things are ahead of that in the list as even an NPR. Correct. Okay, well, so, so last year's operating plan, we had this as an NPR and if things have to slip. I think everyone here can understand that, but I would like to see better communication. We shouldn't be finding out after something's do that it's not happening at all. I mean, you had to know earlier in the process than this and I just we'd like a pipeline for communications that whenever that decision was made that other things moved in front of it in the line. I just like to hear that. Sure. Well, quite frankly, this is staff's proposal as to what should happen in fiscal 24. But this is from the 20. But this is from the 23 plan. And so if it was not going to be done by the end of 23, there's got to be a point at which we get a heads up and say, Hey, this one's not happening. There's why. And I think people are pretty understanding that we have a lot going on, but I just want to know a little bit sooner in the process. Sure. Never to do better for the rulemaking entitled disclosure of interest and commission proceedings. It's listed as DATR despite the fact that we've already put out an NPR and despite the fact that it is the lightest lift on this agenda, as it requires input from the fewest departments, namely only one. That should be a final rule this year. And we voted today on the CO poisoning NPR for furnaces in the ordinary course. That would also be a candidate for a final rule in fiscal year 2024. I think it should be, but much more importantly, our expert, Mr. Jordan agreed. He said that absolutely it should when asked if he supports a goal of a final rule in 2024. Just this morning. I have 10 seconds. I'll yield those back. Thank you, Mr. Bo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Levine for your presentation. I do have a couple of questions I wanted to ask you about the voluntary Sanders table. And the last three items on the voluntary Sanders table, I believe it's on OS 24. It lists three categories wearables wearable infant blankets and weighted blankets. I'd just like to ask you to explain each of those items in terms of the scope and staff's participation in those. Sure. Thank you for the opportunity. And so wearables is probably the least similar of the three. That's UL 8400 that includes things like fitness trackers, smart textiles, virtual reality, augmented reality products. And there's a current focus right now as I understand it in, in that activity on those. The VR augmented AR type products. The, the wearable infant sleep products that's currently ASTM working group 81176. I'm sorry, just to interrupt it. Yeah, it says wearable infant blankets. Is that different? Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. No, it is not different. Yes. My notes are my notes say wearable infant sleep products, but you're right. It is referred to on the list as wearable infant blankets. But I believe the actual working group itself and someone can correct me if I'm wrong is wearable infant sleep products. But we'll double check on that, but I believe that the working group WK 1176 is wearable infant sleep products is the name of that. Group. Now, there's no standard for the category yet. So I imagine that could also change in terms of its name. But in terms of what is covered under that, which I think is what you're interested in. The, there's a draft scope that the working group is put together and it includes products such as wearable swaddles, transition swaddles, wearable blankets, weighted swaddles, weighted transition swaddles, weighted wearable blankets, along with the modular components that are attached to change product size, shape or use. And then the, the weighted blankets, number 91, which is for ages three plus is again focused on those products for consumers age three and older. And there's no standard as yet in place for that. I'm sure there's a scope beyond just weighted blankets for three plus. I know you did that a little quickly. So I just want to know, please, I got it all in wearable infant blankets right now. The scope includes weighted infant. Correct. Okay. And I wanted to ask you about a letter that staff sent to ask him on the wearable blankets for infants and toddlers and staff stated that it favors keeping weighted products within the scope of the wearable infant wearable blankets standards because adopting performance requirements, test methods and warnings for weighted products is an improvement in safety. That's essentially a quote from the letter. And I just like to ask if you could please elaborate on why staff believes that participation, why that's the case and why participation contributes to an improvement in safety on those weighted products. Sure. Thank you for the opportunity. Um, staff is concerned that completely dropping these products out of the work of that standards committee could lead to a circumstance where there are no standards of any kind related to these types of products. And as is currently no consensus definition of a weighted blanket for infants staff believes there's value in working with the interested stakeholders and crafting such a definition in order to best address related hazards. I'd also note there have been identified hazards such as submarineing where like wearable blankets are writing up over infants nose and blocking breathing that are intended to be addressed by the standard. Separate and apart from the weighted part within this. Yes, but within within this standard body. Okay, but yes, that's not exclusive to. Right, so there are there are issues that can be addressed. Yes, separate and apart from the weighted, which is what I think you were saying and it sounds like. Okay, so just staff participation in the voluntary standard mean that staff disagrees with the American Academy of pediatrics opposition to the creation of a voluntary standard for weighted infant sleep products. Staff does not have a position currently on a piece statement other than. Generally finding value in working with the committee to improve safety of the products. However, staff is eager to work with a P on a definition of weighted infant sleep products. Unfortunately, the statement does not provide a definition or what constitutes a weighted product. And as basically all blankets and wearable products have weight. We, we really need a definition to help further safety efforts. Do you have any response to the, they send a letter to the chair, I believe. Saying that such a standard quote will send parents and caregivers the incorrect message that these unnecessary products are safe. I'm just wondering if you have any or staff has. I mean, again, staff is just doesn't have a particular position on a piece. Statement other than to be eager to find. Consensus around a definition of the product. I think there's been a lot of indication of the need to address whether whether through education, through standards or otherwise. These products, the current. Performance standard sort of problem is an exact definition of the product itself. Okay, so again, is there a concern that there we're at odds with AAPs when they updated their safe sleep advice about a year ago? I think they explicitly stated that weighted swaddles and weighted clothing is not safe for sleep. I'm just trying to style that. Sure. And, and, you know, and, and obviously the, the goal is to make sure that. Staff is using the best most current data and. Advice for parents and for caregivers, but even within that statement, the. The definition of what is a weighted swaddle remains open to interpretation and it's not clear what which products would fit into that category and which products would simply be. Swaddles because there is no definition and everything, of course, has some weight to it. And so I think staff is eager to work with a P and all stakeholders on coming up with a definition that could then lead to whether it be a standard or other activity. But until we have that, I think staff is. Things being part of the process is worthwhile. Okay, I appreciate that. Just moving on to e-bikes. I know commissioner Trump did raise the question about an and PR and I am happy to see the work being done on that. I understand we did ask a question in the context of the sidewalk bicycles, but appreciate that the scope of the issues that staff is going to be looking at is substantial. I would like to confirm that e-bikes right now are currently regulated as traditional bikes and the idea would be that this would include speed, acceleration, brakes, weight, and a whole host of other issues. And I certainly agree with my colleague. I would like to have it move faster. So if that's the case, I'm all for it, but I was happy to see that there was some planned work on this. Thank you on that. I did want to ask in connection with that is staff contemplating any work on evaluating the adequacy of traditional bike helmets for the use on e-bikes. Glad you asked staff is considering, including this topic in the scope of the NPR as e-bikes do increase exposure to higher speeds. So it's no decisions have been made, certainly, but is under consideration. Okay. And also on the list of planned epi reports on OS 25, one of the items is a bicycle report, which I don't recall seeing in the past and explicitly says it excludes e-bikes. Could you describe what's planned for that report? This is a traditional epi report focused on deaths and injuries associated with non-electric bikes, given the number of injuries fatalities associated with traditional bicycles. Staff assess that it would be appropriate. It is appropriate to periodically do a deeper dive. I think we've done them in the past, but not necessarily on an annual basis. And so staff believes that. You've done bicycle report. I guess I'd like to, and I don't know when the last one was, I looked through the making of operating plans in the last few years. And I guess my concern is because e-bikes, we don't have an appropriate code right now for e-bikes, how that works, how you're going, if we don't know how many of those incidents are actually e-bikes because of the coding issue. How do you make an analysis that is accurate on traditional bikes in that context? Sure. And we'd be happy to discuss further. I think the short answer would be this would be based on data that we currently have access to, right? And the next round would be able to allow us to do that, have the more specified separate coding because that's what's going to be in play next calendar year. And so it will actually allow us to baseline and then move forward. But let's get the folks together and have a deeper conversation. I have some follow up questions on that. So I appreciate that. And I just have one other question on the nice data. I think the proposed 24 milestone specify a goal of 11 new hospitals. I think that was the identical goal in 23. Can you provide us an update on where we are? Sure. We're out of time. I don't know if we're doing another round. So I'm happy. Oh, so I don't know if you want to just wait. Should I answer or should I? No, I'm looking at the chair. If you have a short answer. I have a short answer. Your answers are four added in fiscal 23 and there's more in the current under negotiation as we speak. Okay. All right. Thank you. As I mentioned, there is a request for another round and I'm learning from my colleagues. So I will go down and Mr. Feldman. Thank you, Mr. Sherman. I don't have further questions at this time. Mr. Trump, go back on the way to the infant blankets. Commissioner Boyle brings up a very important point there. The fact that a AP came out with a strong statement saying don't use these and then our response being staff has no position on on a AP statement could create a dangerous confusion in the marketplace. I think that if staff has no position, the four of us should get together and and give some direction as to what we should be saying to the public there to make sure we're not undercutting any other messaging that's already out there and then we're getting the best information out. You know, I think in terms of the voluntary standard. I don't know where this effort stands, but I am aware that the manufacturers of the weighted products we're trying to get into an existing standard, which would lend their products legitimacy. If that effort fails, but but I if that effort does not. And, you know, I will know that as far as I know all of the consumer advocates are against that effort. So, so CPSC staff letter would be flying in the face of consumers wishes on this one. I think we should not participate in a voluntary standard if they have entered that definition. So can you do you know that the status of whether they are in definition of that or not? Has that been finalized yet? I'm sure I'm sorry definition of if the weighted infant products. There was a ballot out as to whether they should be part of the voluntary standard on wearable infant blankets and I don't know if it's final yet. To the best of my knowledge has not been excluded at this time so I would expect it to be included in the final but I think it still is important to note there's no definition of the product. So the scope of the standard might include the phrase weighted infant sleep product, but it doesn't define what that is, which is. Well, I understand that would be their their argument fabrics have different weight but but adding weight to a product is something that is easy to figure out. We move on that and hopefully you can figure out if we have a final answer on that ballot. If we do, I think that'll guide whether we should continue participating in that voluntary standard or not on button batteries and toys. We very recently issued a final rule to protect kids from button batteries and everything except toys, which you alluded to earlier. I'd expect very similar solutions or I'd hope for very similar solutions to be proposed to protect kids from the toys that are intended for them. So we'll having just gone through that rule making on this very issue. Give us a strong base to draw from and help us draft quickly. I want to be careful. I think. I think the answer to your question is yes, but I think it's also important that we will need to go through the required. We'll be doing this under section 106 as the intention, which is a different faster route. I like that word. I like that word faster. And I think to that extent we can also potentially wondering if we can gain some efficiencies by combining very similar rules. We've got all these 104 updates for firmness on very similar inclined infant products. And I think we ought to put our heads together on whether combining those into one could gain efficiencies and save us some time. You know, tackling chronic hazards is something that we've talked about a lot. It's always been a top priority for me. So I wanted to ask you about a statement on OS 17 that I found a bit disappointing, but I think I understand it. The proposal specifically states that no resources will be provided for technical support on chronic hazards. But that just means that we don't have any planned research, right? Because, you know, what I want to make sure is that, you know, let's say Congress direct us to tackle a chronic hazard. This wouldn't prevent us from fulfilling that directive, would it? I think there's two questions there. I want to make sure I answer both of them accurately. The first question would be this would refer to chronic hazards which are not otherwise discussed in this operating plan. So think about something along the lines of work on organic RFRs or PFAS, something like that. So something where we have already laid out in here that we're doing work. That's not what this is referring to. This would be the new chemical, the new chronic hazard about which we are not currently talking, which isn't currently covered in here. So just in terms of what this refers to. So with respect to the should Congress direct, of course, if Congress directs, we will do our best to implement Congress's direction. I think it would be important to note, however, funds would need to be moved from something else to take on the work that Congress directs just because Congress is directed. If it requires contract dollars, you mean? Well, contract dollars or people, people, you know, all of our people hours have also been, you know, all the people have been assigned to these given projects. So we would need to, you know, which we do every year. But I guess my question, this language wouldn't preclude us, you know? It would not preclude us from so doing. It just, you know, this is the plan is currently laid out. There's no anticipated work. But no, no, no, this doesn't sort of bind our hands. Okay. That would just be a note that we need to move something around. I appreciate that. And I asked because, you know, we've got congressional direction in CPSIA to take a look at lead standards at periodic intervals. And we haven't done that in about 10 years. And so technological feasibility on reducing lead in children's products and in paint is something that we've been directed to do. And I think we ought to take a look at whether technological feasibility has advanced in that time period that would allow us to go to a lower level there. So I'm glad to see this doesn't preclude us if we want to go that direction. You know, and one other thing to appropriately consider how we move all of the various priorities in this operating plan. I think it'd be super useful to understand the quarter of the fiscal year that we think these projects in the mandatory standard chart on OS 21 where our current goal is on when they would be completed. There were a few that you've already said, hey, that's going to be pretty quick. That's coming soon. So I assume quarter one. I don't want you to rattle those off on the spot, but is that the kind of thing that you could follow up in and writing later this week with the current goals. And I get the things change, but where we're at. Well, that would be difficult because there currently is no such plan. One staff wouldn't want to presume what the commission would be doing with the operating plan. And we're living in a very dynamic environment with respect to people and resources. Availability. We're also, which is unusual. So those, those would always be the case where they're talking with this year last year, the year before. We're currently dealing with an environment that involves responding to WCMA, the US and the exact implications on our rulemaking in terms of resources and time are also as of yet unknown. We're still working through that. So it would be very difficult for staff at the moment to, to have such a list. Now that said, we'd certainly welcome commission prioritization on behalf of, you know, in terms of, but it's very difficult to do if you say, Hey, item 10 on this list, the earliest it can possibly be done because we're waiting on a contract to come back as Q4. And so if I sit here and say, well, that's my number one priority, I'm going to amend that to an NPR and a final rule this year, that's not realistic. If, but I don't have the information that I'm asking you for. And so if you give us your best guess, I get that we could shut down. I get that things could change, but your best guess this week is what I'm asking for. It could, could you put together a rough draft on that? I'm not sure that we could, but we'll talk to the staff. It seemed like a pretty simple request. Unfortunately, I'm happy to continue discussing this offline or here. Unfortunately, it's not a simple request far too many of our rule makings involved the exact same personnel. And far too many of our rule makings are going to be impacted by an unknown budget environment. And far too many of our rule makings are going to be impacted by a court ruling, which we have never had before and never dealt with before. And are going to be working through probably for quite a bit of the first quarter of the fiscal year. And because of all those things, it would be very unfair for you to make this document and me to hold it up at the end of the year and say, why didn't you hit these? Because I understand all those variables could impact this and likely will. So let's keep talking. But what I want is just the best guess as to today so we can understand what's movable and what's not. You know, and I think one of the other things that that's kind of a similar request, hopefully not a similar answer, you know, our regulations require the commissioners to set priorities in an operating plan using several enumerated factors, including things like the frequency and severity of injuries, the unforeseen nature of risk, the vulnerability of the population at risk. You know, and I'd like to get a staff proposal on this for a mechanism that we could use in the upcoming year. Providing information to us on the frequency and severity of injuries associated with consumer products and our jurisdiction. And to be clear, I know that staff is already doing this before you send a package up to us. You're looking at comparative risk. But but I think from our perspective, you know, we'd like to see I'd like to see a fuller picture currently, you know, we're looking at each item as it comes up and not in that greater context. I'd like a more uniform means of comparing product categories, even before they come up as an NPR or final rule, something that could allow us to evaluate whether we're missing regulations and categories causing significant harm. And I'd like to work with you on that as well in the coming days so that we can have something that if we need to we could add to the operating plan before we have that vote so can we keep that conversation going as well. Can I respond. Happy to have those conversations. I think the staff is acknowledging and. Uses the non exhaustive list in 1009.8 produces. Many epidemiological reports on an annual basis that go directly to this, but we also are tackling. So, more on the range of 57,000 deaths and 32 million injuries every year and frequency is a very difficult thing and severity is a very difficult thing to calculate and we could look at what we should stop working on to do that, but we can do that. Absolutely. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to button up the nice discussion we were having Mr. Levine. So, I think you said 4 out of the 11. Okay. Thank you. And are any of the budget cuts that we're anticipating perhaps going to affect recruiting in 24. Or is that not part? No, we don't. We don't believe, I mean, so the two different pieces nice fully funded. Our anticipated payments to the existing hospitals within the network. And the very, very limited contract dollars towards recruitment or. Obligated in fiscal 23. So we don't anticipate it impacting. And a lot of that's also done in house, but the limited part that's done outside. Is already been obligated. So, no, we don't anticipate. Are we making any changes to see if we can do better than 4. I mean, we are. As I mentioned, we have others still in the queue. So we're, we're, we're hopeful that that number will increase. In fiscal 24, but we are, you know, it's a very difficult environment we, you know, to. To to recruit. We have to recruit within a very specific, very small sample. And it is not as simple as just as, you know, finding hospitals that are interested. It's finding hospitals that are interested that that into our sample. But we think we've made some progress. So we think we have more opportunities to make progress this year. We do feel like we've built a little bit of momentum over the last 2 years, particularly now coming fully out of COVID. But it is something we're constantly reevaluating. How do we make sure we have a sufficient sample to provide the tracking data. And then just 1 final question 1, 1 of the other goals identified in 23 and 24 is recruiting hospitals in underserved communities. Can you just kind of give me a status update on. The results in sure that remains top of mind while we're taking the recruiting. You know, our current most. Highest priority insurance of hospitals are small hospitals is probably the area that we're we're missing. Or not missing the smallest part of our sample. No pun intended often rural, but not necessarily rural could could also be urban, but smaller hospitals are the piece we're missing. But we do. Use essentially when we're recruiting hospitals, whether they're large or small and looking for that geographic diversity. We're using what we would consider on just hospitals in underserved communities is like the tie breaker for which ones we should be pursuing. And so I don't have a data point on sort of. Had that success rate, but I can say that that is built into how we undertake the recruiting, which is if we're looking at, let's say too small to medium too large to rural. To to urban, et cetera, et cetera, hospitals. We're going to focus on the 1 in the underserved community if we're, you know, if we're dividing. So out of the 4, I need to check, I would need, I need to go back, but I believe those were the recruiting for those started. Last year, so I don't know like early, early on last year, but so I don't know if the the emphasis was part of those 4 or as part of the current recruit knows, I guess what I'm saying, but we'll come back. Okay. Thank you. I don't have anything else. Thank you. There's a request for another round of questions. Let's start with myself just to make a comment. I mean, I know that we have on here the for continuing work on battery and closures and we have done a lot to work this year to get the item out. The 1 thing I would have concerns about that that are trying to think mark for my own benefit is there are some things that we're allowing in products that are beyond toys that perhaps wouldn't be appropriate in toys. So I'd want to make sure that we do the full analysis to make sure that what we are applying in a toy situation is actually the safest and most appropriate. So while there's good work that has been done. I don't think necessarily they can be picked up and then put on toys whole cloth without some reevaluation. Don't have any questions. Commissioner Feldman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With respect to planned work on mandatory standards. I see that e filings listed in the plan as an NPR final rule, given both funding scenarios are both of those still on track. As of this moment. Yes. Okay. Thank you. No further questions. I did. Mr. Chair have a follow log is to be for Mr. Trump. Before I ask you what is the follow up on. I was just told is we, you know, we do actually have a report currently in clearance that may answer exactly your question, which is news to me. In terms of an overview on deaths and injuries. We currently have something that may actually answer the bill. I look forward to what do we know. I mean, can you tell me a little bit more about what that report report that we do periodically. Which is. An attempt to get at the larger. You know, we appropriately spent a lot of time on the discrete product and projects, but sort of. As I mentioned, we generally look in the 55,000 and the numbers are always updating. Yes, associated with your products every year and there's 30 something million injuries. I know many of those are, are hard to get after, but we do try and. Collect all of that data and what that's from death reports. It's death certificates. One of the reasons we're constantly looking to update our files. Is to give us a more complete picture and that sometimes there are data points and severity that come out of that sort of analysis. That is separate and apart from a single product and the example I'd give. Is, you know, the current work we're doing in older consumer safety grew out of this sort of report where there was a recognition. 10 or more years ago of the significant disproportion of the impact of consumer product related deaths on that population. Yeah, that hadn't really sort of been looked at because we were looking more and sort of product by product as a larger so that may actually I think go right to. The frequency and severity question, but if not, I think it does and it doesn't because it has the value as you pointed out we can pick up things like that. But if this is the report I'm thinking of where it where it mix and mixes and matches outcomes with products where it would say here's how many falls we had here's how many burns we had as and then also next to those. Here's how many ATV injuries we had as opposed to one that only looked at product categories that we could regulate, which is what I'm interested in. And they might complement one another, but but I'm not sure it's a one for one replacement. So why don't we will, why don't we get together and talk about what that report is and then go from there. I appreciate that. And then one of the key performance measures that I wanted to ask about is as we set that 20 voluntary standards that we participate in would result in a change that increase safety in that product category. Did we hit that goal over the last year. We did. Excellent. And what would be the easiest way to let us know what 20 or 20 plus we've hit and there were there were 23 I could I could read them or we could just send you the list. If you just want to send the list that'd be fine and just kind of an understanding of how we improve safety and those but that's great. I'm glad I'm always glad to see a succeeding expectations. So good to hear that one. I know we have a goal of making sure that our message reaches consumers and we've taken some very active steps towards making sure it reaches a broader audience of consumers recently. And so we included resources to have recalls translated into Spanish, which I think is a great idea. Now we're sending recalls to a contractor to translate them and I understand there's been a lag and so at one point it was maybe six weeks to get a translation back now it's around three weeks as I understand it to get a translation back. And I'm wondering if there could be a better way of doing this and the way that I was hoping we could explore is if we you know compliance negotiates these recalls with companies who are doing the recall. If they could ask if if the companies would recall or translate the recall notices at their expense. That might be a good way of doing this because there's a one time cost for a firm the price is negligible. I mean our price and our issue is that we have so many of these. But I would expect them to provide simultaneous translations and maybe not just into Spanish if it's just a one time thing that you don't have to do this again, they might be able to do the top 10 most spoken languages in the US. So step one is could we ask companies to do this and could we could we ask companies to do this. Can always ask. Well, I think we should. And I think maybe we could even set as a key performance measure the percentage of recalling firms that have done this and baseline it for the next year to see how successful we are at getting them to do this because it could not only move this quicker and get these out to a much broader audience, but to do so at no cost to us. And I think that'd be very useful. I have no more questions. Thank you. Commissioner wall. Hearing no more questions. I want to thank the staff for this informative briefing and for the commissioners for active participation on all three matters but obviously there's a lot of questions on the operating plan we have work to do in terms of, you know, reviewing it and working together to to hopefully get to a place where everybody can support it and with modifications as appropriate from the commissioners. So thanks again to facilities as well and the communications staff the office of the secretary for your support and putting together all this meeting. And with that this meeting is adjourned.