K.T. Safety Act of 2007

Madam Speaker, I thank Chairman Rush for yielding to

me and for your support. I also want to extend my appreciation to Chairman Dingell whose assistance and guidance were critical in bringing this important bill, H.R. 1216, the Cameron Gulbransen Transportation Safety Act, to the floor today.

One of the most painful things I've been a part of as a Member of Congress are the press conferences which come about every 6 months or so in which parents and grandparents come to share pictures of their children and loved ones, some of whom they have accidentally killed by rolling over them with their vehicles. Imagine that for a moment, particularly in this time of year, as we wish to be with those we love the most.

I am here today because of these courageous people, driven by such horrifying accidents. Today we can pass this bill and reduce these unimaginably tragic and unnecessary deaths and make them a thing of the past. At just 2 years of age, Cameron Gulbransen was tragically killed when his father, a pediatrician from Long Island, accidentally backed over him. This bill is a tribute to him and the hundreds of other young children who have died.

This legislation was first introduced back in 2003 with my colleague from New York, Congressman Peter King, whose constituent is Dr. Gulbransen. But today I stand here with strengthened resolve. Just 2 days ago as her mother picked up snow shovels that had been left in the driveway, Ashlynn Lauber, an 8-year-old from just outside Collinsville, Illinois, my State, was killed when the family car rolled over her.

Unfortunately, since we first introduced H.R. 1216, well over 1,000 children have needlessly died in preventable accidents, and this year alone 200 children have died of back-over accidents. Many children are killed in these kinds of accidents each year without ever leaving their driveways, suffocated by unsafe power windows, backed over by cars with major blind spots, or hit because a car was accidentally put into motion by a child who could not control it.

H.R. 1216 is commonsense, consensus legislation that reflects input from the auto industry as well as child safety advocates. This legislation will require the Secretary of Transportation to set minimum safety standards for cars, SUVs and trucks, and to begin rule-making in three areas: Expanding rearward visibility, enabling power windows to automatically reverse direction when an obstruction is detected, and requiring brake pedals to be engaged when a vehicle is not in park.

Expanding the rearward visibility standard will give drivers a better means of detecting when small children or objects are behind their vehicles. Some SUVs have rearward visibility so poor that up to 62 children could fit in their blind spot with the driver being none the wiser. This provision will enable drivers to detect areas behind motor vehicles and will help reduce deaths and injuries from backing incidents, particularly for children and the disabled.

Instructing the Secretary to consider requiring power windows to automatically reverse direction when an obstruction is detected will help prevent small children from being caught in or strangled by windows. These accidents have taken a minimum of 21 lives over the last 5 years.

And finally, requiring every vehicle's brake pedal to be engaged when the car is shifted out of ``park'' and into another gear will prevent anyone not intending to drive the car, such as a child who cannot typically reach the brake pedal, from accidentally setting the car into motion. In the past 5 years, at least 80 children have lost their lives in this kind of accident.

Families want safe cars. They deserve these commonsense safety features. It is time that we make sure they get them. And one of the best parts of this bill is that it will direct the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration to create a publicly searchable database of nontraffic, noncrash-related motor vehicle injuries and to establish a child safety information program to help consumers address ways in which parents and caregivers can reduce risks to small children.

Better design and technologies already exist, and they are getting better and cheaper every day. Many companies already offer these added safety features on their higher end vehicles, but protecting our children is not a luxury to be priced out of reach for most Americans. It is time that manufacturers include these features in every vehicle.

I'd like to publicly thank Kids and Cars and the Consumers Union for strenuously advocating for the safety of children and for taking on the critical problem of unsafe cars. And I, again, want to thank Chairman Dingell, Mr. Barton and Mr. Stearns for their efforts. And I would like to thank Jonathan Cordone and David Cavicke on the committee staff for all their hard work on this bill. I also want to extend a special thanks to Congressman Peter King for his leadership and resolve that he's demonstrated over the years.

And finally, I want to thank Diane Beedle, my former legislative director, who worked tirelessly on this issue, and the families who have turned their tragedies into advocacy.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding, and I thank him for the support which he has given to this legislation here today.

I also want to thank Chairman Dingell and Chairman Rush and, of course, Congresswoman Schakowsky for the tremendous leadership that she has shown on this issue, working in a truly bipartisan fashion and, most importantly, getting the job done. I just want to thank her for that.

I also want to acknowledge Senator Clinton and Senator Sununu, who are also pursuing this legislation in the United States Senate.

But most importantly, I want to thank Dr. Greg Gulbransen and his wife Leslie Gulbransen for coming to me almost 5 years ago after the tragic death of their son who was killed when the family car backed over him. I can't imagine a more horrific circumstance for a family to go through, for parents to go through. And yet Dr. Gulbransen and Mrs. Gulbransen, they took this tragedy and opportunity to save the lives of other children throughout the Nation, and they have been steadfast and they've been unyielding in their support of this legislation. And as Congresswoman Schakowsky said, so many other parents have gone through the agony of appearing at news conferences, of coming forward and lending their support and their own terrible, terrible experience to advancing this legislation.

So my heart goes out to them, but most importantly, today I thank them for the efforts which they have given. Cameron Gulbransen was a young man in my district who was tragically killed 5 years ago, and as Congresswoman Schakowsky said, every year we have more than 200 children killed, 200 children killed despite the best effort of their friends, of their neighbors. We're not talking about negligence here. We're not talking about people who are at all uncaring. We're talking about people who took every possible safety measure, and yet in spite of that, these tragedies occurred.

So I'm not going to go through all the detail of the bill. I just want to again thank Congresswoman Schakowsky for her effort, thank Ranking Member Barton for extending me this time today, and most importantly, thanking Dr. Gulbransen and Mrs. Gulbransen for, again, their unyielding courage, for their dedication, and also the people on my staff who worked on this bill.

And again, this is a great day for the children of America, a great day for the parents of America, and it's a day that all of us will look back on with pride and, most importantly, with thanks and gratitude for the lives that will be saved because of that.

And with that, Madam Speaker, I urge the adoption of the legislation.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1216) to direct the Secretary of Transportation to issue regulations to reduce the incidence of child injury and death occurring inside or outside of light motor vehicles, and for other purposes, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I want to commend my colleague and my friend from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) for the bill on the floor today, H.R. 1216, the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act of 2007. As vice chairman of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection, her leadership on consumer protection issues is highly valued in this Congress.

I also want to commend the gentleman from New York (Mr. King) for his bipartisan cosponsorship.

Madam Speaker, Ms. Schakowsky will speak more fully on her bill, but briefly, H.R. 1216 sets mandatory safety standards for automobiles for nontraffic, noncrash-related accidents. Such accidents include children being backed over by a vehicle, strangled by power windows or inadvertently shifting a car into gear and rolling it into an accident. H.R. 1216 is a bipartisan bill that has been negotiated with consumer groups and the auto industry and is worthy of quick passage on the Suspension Calendar today.

Madam Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote by Members of this body.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), the author of the legislation and the Vice Chair of the subcommittee.

Madam Speaker, it's my pleasure to now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the chairman of the full committee, my friend.

(Mr. DINGELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and this issue is so important, H.R. 1216, and I certainly rise to support it.

Madam Speaker, I thank Ranking Member Barton from Texas and Chairman Dingell, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Rush and others for bringing it forward.

Madam Speaker, when I was in the Georgia general assembly serving in the State senate several years back, I became so involved in teen driving issues. I was an OB/GYN physician, and some of the youngsters that I had delivered, all of the sudden, they were 15, 16 years old, and some of them killed tragically in automobile accidents just simply because they weren't safe. They didn't have the proper training, and so these issues are so hugely important.

I became aware of this bill when a couple from my district came to me in Washington several months ago, and their son, their 4-year-old son, had been tragically killed by a vehicle backing over him. And you know, you can't bring these lives back, of course we can't, but this kind of legislation and bringing this kind of safety to help prevent maybe my grandchildren, somebody else's child from going through a tragic situation like that, from which the family never recovers.

So, again, to be here today to offer a few words of support for H.R. 1216, the things like automatic power window reversal, rearward visibility, this bill addresses safety risks which have already resulted in the deaths of so many children in this country. So we can't bring them back, but we can help protect our young people in the future, and I strongly support it.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of the K.T. Safety Act of 2007. This is another example

of commonsense legislation, bipartisan approach to regulating an industry and adequately protecting our people and our children.

I want to commend Representative Schakowsky and Senator Clinton for working with me and with the able and distinguished chairman of the subcommittee, Mr. Rush, in achieving this compromise.

I cannot praise too highly the cooperation and the assistance of our good friends on the other side of the aisle, Ranking Members Barton and Stearns, for their fine support and for the very cooperative way in which they have worked with us, and I thank them and salute them for that.

The legislation requires the Department of Transportation to issue regulations to reduce injury and death for nontraffic accidents involving automobiles, particularly to protect children. This is the right thing to do, and it must be, and under this legislation will be, implemented in a responsible manner.

The bill has the support of safety advocates, including Public Citizen and the Advocates for Auto and Highway Safety, as well as the automobile manufacturers.

This is an important bill for our children, including Franklin Dean Beedle Atizado whose mother worked on this legislation.

I urge its swift passage, and I do again commend its author, Representative Schakowsky, for her remarkable leadership in this matter.