IP-Enabled Voice Communications and Public Safety Act of 2007

Madam President, I wish to notify our colleagues that I think we are making great progress on this legislation. Senator Cornyn is here to talk about one of his amendments. We know there are a few other amendments that are being discussed right now, maybe in the cloakrooms or in Senators' offices. That is very encouraging. The feedback we have received has been very positive. It looks as if there are some amendments that will require votes.

I encourage all Senators who would like to come and speak to make plans to do that at some point today. I encourage anyone who has any amendments that they would like to have

considered to run those down to the floor as quickly as possible, if they have not already. We are really making good progress. I was encouraged yesterday by the vote we had at 5:30.

Here, again, we find that the Consumer Product Safety Commission is an agency that needs our reform. They need us to come in and to not just give them more resources--it is not a matter of just throwing money at the problem. They need more tools in their tool box and more resources and a little bit of restructuring. It has, again, been the goal of this legislation to make sure the American marketplace is safe, make sure that when people go to a store and buy a product, they can rely on the fact that there are safety standards, that it doesn't have materials in it that are dangerous or harmful. Really, this is an effort for us to accomplish something great in this Congress, in this election year, for the people of this country. So I thank all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their diligence in trying to get this done.

I ask any colleagues who would like to speak or anyone who has an amendment, please let us know because I am starting to get this sense that there are many who would like to wrap this bill up as quickly as we can.

With that, I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object, once the Senator finishes his presentation, we will go back to the pending amendment.

Madam President, before the Senator from Texas leaves, I wish to thank him publicly. He has been very constructive in this process. He has offered a couple of amendments that he feels very strongly about, and we met with him and his staff on them. So I have talked to him about them. He is being very constructive in the process. I thank my colleague from Texas.

The other thing I noticed, Madam President, is that Senator Collins of Maine just walked on the floor. This bill has been called the Pryor- Stevens bill, but I could not exaggerate the amount of contribution Senator Collins has made to this effort as well. I have found her, in the last 5 years, to be a wonderful colleague to work with. She has made this bill better in some very fundamental ways--maybe not very exciting ways, but she really focused on one of the major problems we have with the CPSC today, and that is that the CPSC, with all due respect to the people who work there, has been almost incapable of dealing with imports in the way they should.

Senator Collins, I believe, had four amendments. We accepted all four. We have worked with her office and with her personally to make sure the language is right, to make sure the policy is right, to make sure it is smart law, which I think it is, and also to make sure it is a big improvement over the present situation; I don't think anybody can look at her sections of the bill and ever say she is not greatly improving our ability to protect our shores from dangerous and unsafe products. I am certainly glad she is here this morning to help manage this legislation.

The other point I wish to add is, Senator Collins has a lot of respect on both sides of the aisle. The fact that people know she worked on the legislation gives a comfort level on both sides of the aisle, but certainly on the Republican side, because they have seen how she has conducted her business since she has been in the Senate, but also the fact that she has had hearings in her committee on CPSC and some import problems. She has been a key player, a key architect in this legislation. I thank her.

I know we are going to have a lot of amendments today and a lot going on in this Chamber. We are going to try to clear a lot of amendments. Again, I encourage colleagues to come to the floor if they do have amendments or wish to speak. We are going to try to be in that process today of clearing amendments, putting a managers' package together, and having votes.

Before the day got crazy and confusing, I wanted to thank Senator Collins for her leadership.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I would like to talk about a provision in the Consumer Product Safety Commission Reform Act that deals with a database to make sure information about dangerous products is available to the public.

Here again, this has changed through the process. We have tried to build in safeguards. I want to talk about those. We have tried to find something that is balanced, that provides information, but also has some filtering so we make sure erroneous information is not disseminated. But the goal of this provision is that the public has the right to know when products are dangerous.

We have many examples--and I will go through some of these right now. But I promise you, for every one example I am going to give, there are probably 100 others I could talk about--we have many examples of dangerous products that are being sold and used while the company and the CPSC know of the risks of the product. But because of the inability for CPSC to get a mandatory recall or the inability of them to work out the terms with the manufacturer in many cases, the public does

not know about these dangerous products. So what happens is that the product continues to be sold and continues to be used when the Government and the manufacturer know it is a dangerous product.

Let me start with this one statement. This is from OMB Watch. It says: ``CPSC estimates the number of toy-related injuries''--just toy- related injuries--``jumped from about 130,000 in 1996 to about 220,000 in 2006--more than 600 injuries every day.''

Now, this is over a 10-year period: to go from 130,000 injuries--we are not talking about incidents; we are talking about injuries--130,000 in 1996 to 220,000 in 2006. We are not talking about isolated incidents where there might be the occasional toy or the occasional product that might cause a problem. We are talking about 600 injuries every day--600 injuries, not incidents--to children. This is just in toys. This statistic is just for toys. So, again, we are not talking about things that are in isolation that do not matter in the real world. This bill matters in the real world.

The next chart I wanted to show you is the recall process. This is a flow chart about recalls. My colleagues can see how complicated and how long and how many steps there are in the recall process. Listen, it is not that important about what each and every step is. But this is how it works. You can see, for a product to be recalled, there are a lot of hoops that have to be jumped through. Those hoops take time.

There again, as I mentioned just a moment ago, we know of many instances. I will give you one right here. There was a product called Stand & Seal, which was a product that, apparently, you spray on tile to seal the tile. That product was dangerous, was actually killing people, and definitely injuring people. The company knew about it, the CPSC knew about it, but the public did not know about it.

What happened was, in the one incident I am most familiar with-- again, there are many others--in the one incident I am most familiar with, Home Depot continued to sell this product not knowing that it was a dangerous product, not knowing it was injuring people, not knowing it violated U.S. safety standards. They were selling it to the public.

Well, at the end of the process, guess what happens. Home Depot gets sued. They get sued for selling a product for which they had no knowledge of the problem. The CPSC knew, the Government agency knew about the problem, but the general public did not. The retailer did not know. So part of the reason we get into that situation is because of this long recall process.

Now, we are going to address a lot of this in the legislation. We are going to give the CPSC the ability to move through this process much quicker. We are going to give them the leverage they need to make decisions. Right now, the manufacturers, unfortunately, in many instances, have the leverage, not the CPSC. So we are going to try to address some of this.

But that is not even what I am talking about because I want to talk about the database. The database provision that is in the legislation, we believe, is a very important provision. It is very balanced. We have tried to find that right balance.

Let me, if I can, talk about one specific toy which has actually received a lot of attention nationally because of some of the egregious injuries and the serious problems. This is a toy made by Rose Art, which is a company that makes a lot of toys and crayons and art supplies and lots of other things--a lot of craft kinds of stuff. Rose Art makes a toy called Magnetix. This is the ``Xtreme Combo Flashing Lights Castle.'' Well, you can understand why this would have a lot of appeal to parents and children. Just look at the box. It looks like something that would be fun to play with.

If you can notice on this picture, there are these little silver dots, these little silver balls. Those are magnets. That is how you put this together. You can see right here in the picture, in someone's hand, that little dot. I hope it shows up on television for the folks watching around the country. That is one of those little dots.

The problem with these little magnets is they fall off. They can come loose. In 2007, over 1,500 incidents were reported before the 4 million units of Magnetix were recalled. So we have 1,500 examples of these either falling off or, in some cases, children swallowing pieces with the magnet still attached. The reported incidents included 28 injuries and 1 death.

I do not want to go into the details of this on the Senate floor, but the medical issues that children have to go through when they ingest one of these is not pretty. Again, I do not want to go through that on the Senate floor and turn this debate into a gory example. But, nonetheless, trust me when I say these toys, this Magnetix set--there are many varieties--has caused a lot of hardships for parents and children.

But what do kids like to do? They like to put things in their mouths. They eat things. They suck on things. We know how it is. But this is why we need a database so that people can know what is going on out there. We have 4 million units of this toy that were eventually recalled, but there were over 1,500 incidents reported before the recall. That is 1,500 incidents where parents and grandparents, et cetera--day care centers--had no way of knowing this was a dangerous product. So the database solves that problem.

Again, this is just a chart to run through the timetable. We do not have to spend a lot of time on the details. But in 2003, Rose Art introduced these building sets. They were very popular. By the way, they were on lists for a couple of holiday seasons about the best toy for kids, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The retailers loved them because they just flew off the shelves.

We could go through this long process, but you can see the first attempted recall was in March of 2006. That is almost 3 years later. They later had to do another recall, a more comprehensive, clearer recall. They did that in mid-2007. So these were on the shelves for a long time. But I am telling you right now, the parents have no way of knowing these are dangerous until the CPSC does their recall.

One of the things I want my colleagues to understand is that, again, this is not an isolated incident. We mentioned Magnetix. We are not trying to pick on Rose Art. We are just reporting the facts as they exist. But here is Magnetix shown on the chart. There were 1,500 incidents before it was recalled, before the public knew of the problem.

Again, we are not going to go through this, but you can see this next particular product had 679 incidents, this one had 400, this one 278, and on down the line.

My fellow Senators, we could print 10 or 20 or 30 of these charts and go down the numbers. You can see the different types of hazards we are talking about. I am telling you, the evidence is overwhelming that in the legislation we need to fix the CPSC.

So what is the best way for the public to know? Well, I would say the best way for the public to know is to inform the public, give the public some information, let them look at it. I must be candid right now to say we have had a few people--not all. I want to be fair. Not all, but a few people--a few companies in the business community, a few associations that have been opposed to this database idea. They think it will create a hardship. They think it will smear companies. They are concerned about the uncontrolled nature of that.

Well, we keep pointing them to the NHTSA Web site. What we are proposing is not novel. It is not new. It is tested. We have seen it in action for years, and that is the NHTSA Web site, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration Web site. It looks like safercar.gov might be at least one of the ways to get there. But this is actually a copy of the NHTSA Web site.

When you go to safercar.gov or nhtsa.gov, I guess, you can come up with this page. You can see, it has ``Defects & Recalls.'' You can click on this and find out about the defects and recalls.

Let me walk the Senate through this, if I may, for just 1 minute. Here again, you click on something; you go to this page, you click on ``Search Complaints.'' Here again, we are talking about complaints from consumers and from third parties such as hospitals, day care centers, et cetera, who can put their information on a Web site. You put your information on the Web

site. If you are a parent or grandparent or day care center operator, and you are searching on a Web site, you would come to a place like this one or two or three screens later--and it is probably a little bit hard to tell on television, but right here it says ``To use the `Drill Down' search method'':

What they do is walk you through these tabs--1, 2, 3, 4, 5 steps--and you put in information about the product that you are curious about. What happens is, you go through these steps. I did it yesterday in my office. I am going to tell you, you can look up a product in about 1 minute. It just takes that long. It is easy to use. It is very user friendly.

NHTSA has been doing this for years and years. This is the kind of thing, we would hope, when this legislation passes, that the CPSC would set up. It could be very useful for people all over this country. But you go through the tabs, and you set up what you want to set up. You search the items you want to search. You finally come to this page. This is the page that is the page that most Americans would love to see the Consumer Product Safety Commission offer. They would love to see this type of information.

This is a ``Complaints'' page. This information was filed by a consumer. In many cases, it is done online. It does not have to be, but in many cases it is done online. It is real easy, very inexpensive to do--not a lot of manhours for most of this. It has a ``Report Date,'' which in this case is March of 2008. That is when we ran this. It has the ``Search Type,'' and you see we typed in: ``child safety seat.'' We typed in the name: ``Fisher-Price.'' And for the ``Model,'' we just put the generic child safety seat model. This is all on little pop-up menus and little scroll-down-type menus. It is very easy to use. So we looked at Fisher Price. Crash: No. Fire: No. Number of injuries: One.

We come down here to this child seat: Tether, or strap.

Here is the summary, and this is pretty much what the consumer wrote, right here. It says: The consumer states that the harness strap of the child seat snapped from the back, causing the child to fall out of the seat, and there were some minor injuries.

You will see it has an ID number so they can track each record.

Here again--this is important. Part of the compromise we reached with Senator Stevens and Senator Collins on this issue is that we don't provide information about the complainant. In other words, some in the business community--again, not all, but some--were concerned if we provided information about who is filling these out, then they get a letter from a trial lawyer and all of a sudden you have a lawsuit. We are putting the safeguard in to make sure that doesn't happen. The CPSC under our bill cannot provide that type of information.

Another thing we require of the CPSC is to remove any incorrect information that may be offered by the consumer, by the complaining person. We also allow manufacturers the opportunity to comment on information in the database. For example, they may offer a comment which said: Be sure you follow the instructions because if you don't get it buckled in right, you may have a problem, or whatever; I don't know what their comment may be. But these comments can actually be very useful to people who are searching this. So we built in these safeguards to make sure this NHTSA-type database will work with the CPSC. This is the goal we are trying to get to. We are trying to get to providing that information. While the CPSC is going through this long recall process or working through whatever they have to work through, at least the public has the right to know.

I know I have at least one colleague here who wishes to speak, so let me wrap up on this one final point.

There is a girl who was 14 months old. Her name is Abigail Hartung. She is from New Jersey. When Abigail was 14 months old, she was trapped by a crib. The crib collapsed and her hand was trapped in it. She was 14 months old. It turned out she didn't have a very serious injury, but certainly it was upsetting to the parents and to the child. When the father, Mr. Hartung, called the manufacturer to ask them about this and to tell them about it, the manufacturer told him on the phone: Well, this is amazing. We have never heard of this before. Are you sure you had it set up right? Are you sure the child wasn't somehow abusing the crib, Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Come to find out, the company told him they had never heard of this happening before. Come to find out, the company had already received 80 complaints about this happening--80.

This database will build in the accountability for some of these companies that are going to do that. Some of these companies--again, not all; I don't want to paint with a broad brush here, because many of these companies are very responsive. They take these consumer complaints very seriously. They are trying to do the right thing; others, not so much. So for those who are not going to respect the safety and the welfare of their customers, this database will help level the playing field. It will provide information to families and consumers of all sorts to know that there is another place they can go and check and find out if this product has a problem, so companies won't treat others as the Hartungs were treated.

Mr. President, I see I have a wonderful colleague who wants to say a few words, so I will yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object, to make sure, we will go back on the pending amendment as soon as he completes his presentation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, it looks as if we have a couple Senators who are preparing to speak. I wish to follow up on the comments, very briefly, that the distinguished chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee made about the attorneys general.

This idea of allowing State attorneys general to assist Federal agencies with enforcement of Federal decisions is not new in this bill. This has been around for a long time. I have nine examples I want to mention very quickly.

In the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Telephone Disclosure and Dispute Resolution Act, the Children's Online Privacy Protect Act, the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act, the Credit Repair Organizations Act, the Controlling the Assault of Nonsolicited Pornography and Marketing Act, and one section of the Truth in Lending Act all provide for State attorneys general to have a role in enforcement.

My last point--and this is the ninth one I want to mention--a few years ago, the FTC's telemarketing sales rule went into effect. They said at one point:

The commission believes that the joint Federal-State

enforcement model under the Telemarketing Act provides a

practical framework for coordinating our efforts with those

of States and results in an efficient and effective law

enforcement program.

We are utilizing a model that other Federal agencies that had this model before recognize is an effective and efficient use of resources.

My last point on adding the attorneys general to the enforcement of the CPSC rules, regulations, and decisions is that it is a very efficient way to do it. If we wanted to, the Congress could add another $5 million, $10 million, $20 million, $50 million--whatever it may be-- in appropriations to this Federal agency to put people out there around the various States to do the very same work the State attorneys general offices can do without any Federal taxpayers' dollars involved.

I thank the distinguished chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee for his comments.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a vote immediately in relation to Klobuchar amendment No. 4105, as modified, with 2 minutes of debate prior to the vote, equally divided; further, that no second-degree amendments be in order prior to the vote; that following the vote in relation to the Klobuchar amendment, there be 1 hour of debate on Cornyn amendment No. 4094, as modified, with the time equally divided between Senators Cornyn and Pryor, or their designees; further, that a vote in relation to the Cornyn amendment occur at a time to be determined by the two leaders; that no second-degree amendments be in order prior to the vote, and there be an additional 10 minutes of debate prior to the vote in relation to the Cornyn amendment.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum, and I ask unanimous consent that the time run equally.

I suggested the absence of a quorum and that the time run equally on both sides.

Madam President, I thank Senator Stevens for his comments on the Cornyn amendment.

I oppose the Cornyn amendment for several reasons, although I must say Senator Cornyn has been very fair in his dealings on this amendment. We have sat down with him. I have talked to him several times on the Senate floor. But let me give you a few reasons I oppose this amendment. I know some other Senators want to come and speak.

First, we have to remember what we are doing in the context of this legislation. We have drafted a bill that contains a provision where the State attorneys general can enforce what CPSC says. We made it very clear in this statute that the State AGs must follow the CPSC. They cannot get out in front of the CPSC.

One of the concerns by some in the business community, in fairness to them--not all but some in the business community--is where they have had the concern that there are going to be 51 standards; that it is going to be a patchwork, a crazy quilt of AGs running around out there. That is not what we are doing in this legislation. I believe we drafted the legislation very clearly, where the attorneys general must follow the CPSC. The CPSC remains in the driver's seat. That is very important.

The second limitation on the States in this legislation is that the State AGs can only pursue injunctive relief. In layman's terms, what that means is there are no money damages. They can only pursue injunctive relief. If you think about it, given the nature of what we are talking about, I think it is going to be the rare exception when a State would ever want to use outside counsel because by the nature of what we are talking about, if they found some dangerous product that is in circulation in their State, they--in my experience as attorney general--probably will approach that business, and probably that business will immediately respond by taking corrective action. That is probably what happens 99 percent of the time because the company does not want the bad publicity. They do not want the legal headache. Once you point out to them they are in violation of some Federal law, they are going to pull those products off the shelves, whatever the case may be. So it is going to be very seldom used.

But in the event the company does not do that, in every case I have ever heard of--and I used to be the attorney general of my State of Arkansas--in every case I have ever heard of, when the attorney general sues--excuse me, has to hire outside counsel to do it--those are complicated and expensive and in some cases long-term cases.

This is not one of those kinds of cases. These kinds of cases will be that when they find some violation in their State, they will want to act quickly. They will not want to have to go through maybe an RFP process. Or in our State, we had a statutory process we had to get signed off on by the legislature, signed off on by the Governor. All that takes time; you have to negotiate a contract; you have to bid it. I am going to tell you right now, most

States are never ever going to use outside counsel when it comes to trying to enforce CPSC rules.

Another reason--and this is just a practical reason, where the rubber meets the road--they are not going to pursue outside counsel to help them because it is injunctive relief only. In injunctive relief cases, there is no money, so there is no way to pay for the litigation. I think it is going to be very seldom used.

Now, I have had brought to my attention--at least one and there may be more--fee agreements that have been negotiated where there is some sort of contingent fee based on injunctive relief. Again, I have never heard of that. I do not know how you enforce that. If you do a contingent fee based on some value of injunctive relief, that money is going to have to come out of the State's hide. It is not going to come out of the defendant in the lawsuit.

So there, again, I think people are concerned about this, and I do not doubt their sincerity but, really, I think you are going to see this happen very seldom, if ever.

The last couple of things I want to say about the States attorneys general before a couple of my colleagues come and talk on this bill and other matters are, we have to remember who the State attorneys general are. They are elected officials. They were elected by the same people who elected us. The people in their home States trust them. They like the fact that the attorney general is out there looking after the public interest. They like the fact that the attorney general is looking after public safety issues. I will guarantee you, they like the fact they are out there making sure unsafe toys are taken off the shelves. So the people of the States, they have elected the attorneys general to do things such as this.

My experience in Arkansas and in talking to other AGs around the country is the people in those States have a high level of trust and confidence in their attorney general. And they know--we may not always understand this--they know the attorney general will not abuse this right they will be gaining under our Senate bill.

This Cornyn amendment smacks of micromanagement. I understand what he is trying to do. I appreciate it and I respect it. Like I said, I do not think you are ever going to see any contingent fee cases anyway. But regardless of that--maybe you will under some circumstances--let's allow the States to make that decision.

Again, almost all these States have some sort of a legal process they have to go through before they can hire outside counsel. Let's let the States do it. These State AGs in most cases are elected by the people of the State. There are a few who are not. A few are appointed by the Governor; appointed in one case by the State supreme court. But, nonetheless, let them make that decision. We do not need to micromanage this. Let them do what they believe is in the State's best interest. That is what this bill is all about anyway.

So I oppose the Cornyn amendment. But I certainly appreciate Senator Cornyn reaching out in the manner he has to work with us on this legislation.

With that, Madam President, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that during this quorum call, the time run equally against both sides.

Madam President, let me say that, again, I thank the Senator from South Carolina for being very constructive during this process and working on this legislation this week. We sat with him and his staff on a number of occasions to try to work through language in amendments. He has been a delight to work with on this matter. I appreciate that.

Let me talk about this garage door provision that is in the Senate bill. I think it is important for colleagues to understand the history of why, and why it is in there. You can look at existing law and, basically, what the Congress did years ago was to more or less allow Underwriters Laboratories to set the safety standards for garage doors. For years and years, there was a two-part safety standard. One dealt with pressure for a motorized garage door that, when it hit a certain level of pressure, would stop and reverse, and also some sort of noncontact systems, where if someone were to pass under the garage door, such as a baby crawling or whatever it may be, it would trigger these sensors and the door would never come down and touch in the first place. That has been the standard in this country for a long time.

But what has happened over the last year or so, UL has changed their standards and they have actually gone, in my view, backward by saying this pressure sensor is enough. They have updated the standard--and I may be overgeneralizing that a little, but they are basically saying you don't need that second safety mechanism. We all probably remember the years of the 1970s and 1980s when it was common for garage doors to kill people. It is not as common anymore, and power garage doors are much more common today than they used to be.

In section 31, we tried to not just restore the old law, but we tried to enhance it and improve it. This is what it says:

All automatic garage door openers that directly drive the

door in the closing direction that are manufactured more than

6 months after the date of enactment of this Act shall

include an external secondary entrapment protection device

that does not require contact with a person or object for the

garage door to reverse.

This is a technology-neutral provision. Many companies make this laser technology we have all seen. I used to have one on my garage door where there is a mechanism that shoots a little beam of light. When you interrupt that contact somehow--I don't know exactly how it works--it triggers the door, stops it, and it opens. That is actually a fairly cheap piece of technology. I have heard estimates of that technology costing something around $10 per door. I am sure it depends on the brand, who installs it, where you buy it, et cetera. Roughly, as I understand, it is about $10 per door. It is very cheap, very inexpensive, very effective. That is the traditional laser technology.

As we might expect in today's world, there are all kinds of new emerging technologies. We do not know what the future holds. We do know that this technology the automakers are putting on their bumpers now, the reverse indicator, the backup warning--when you are backing up your car, some cars that have this technology will beep when you get too close to an object behind. Apparently, as I understand it--do not ask me to explain it in any detail--apparently, that is some sort of radar technology. Again, it is pretty cheap and pretty effective. Supposedly, the garage door people are coming up with some sort of new radar technology that some believe may be better or may be a good alternative, at least, to the laser technology. Apparently, there are other types of motion sensors. Again, I don't know all the technology, and I don't know how the technology is going to emerge.

What we are trying to do with this provision in this act is, quite frankly, have a little belt-and-suspenders here. We want to make sure we have two safety mechanisms on doors. That has really been, again, what Underwriters Laboratory set as the U.S. standard for years and years. Now they reversed that standard. I think they are going in the wrong direction. They are going back to basically one type of safety device, not having two per door. This is a stronger safety provision than what is currently under U.S. law.

Another point I wish to mention is there has been some discussion that this might set a bad precedent for us, the Congress, to set a safety standard; isn't this what CPSC is supposed to do? The answer is yes, this is what they are supposed to do, but there are many occasions where the Congress has specifically laid out safety standards. I will give a few: lawn mowers; garage door openers; bicycle helmets; a toy that has been banned called Lawn Darts that was unsafe, and Congress actually banned it; lead-lined water coolers. There are safety standards Congress has mandated on refrigerators and other products. Certainly, we authorize CPSC to come up with a lot of safety standards, and they should; they are the experts, but there have been many occasions in the past where Congress has laid out a safety standard for a specific product or specific item.

Here, again, this approach we are utilizing in section 31 is a little bit redundant. With safety, it is not all bad to be redundant. It is a little bit of belt-and-suspenders. Again, it basically would reestablish a previous standard in the United States that when you have a power garage door, there would be some sort of pressure mechanism with the motor, that when it feels the right amount of pressure, it will stop and reverse.

Also, there will be some, as it says, external secondary entrapment protection device. In other words, it would be separate from the motor. This is a very technology-neutral, very vendor-neutral phrase, and we will let the industry sort out what an ``external secondary entrapment protection device'' may mean because there may be technology on the drawing board today we know nothing about, maybe designs of these garage door systems about which we know nothing. Nonetheless, we want to make sure we have that double protection.

Absolutely.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote in relation to the Cornyn amendment, No. 4094, as modified, occur at 4:45 p.m., with the provisions of the previous order remaining in effect.

Mr. President, I wish to address my colleagues here for a minute and tell them about our status and what we are trying to accomplish this week. Of course we are on the Consumer Product Safety Commission reauthorization bill.

Again, I thank all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their spirit of cooperation that we have seen all week. It has been exemplary. I appreciate it. I have told several of you that privately and publicly. It has been great.

Our status is right now we are going to have a vote at 4:45 on the Cornyn amendment. It deals with attorney's fees with regard to attorneys general. We are going to have a vote on that.

Then we would love to set up more votes tonight. We have several amendments that have been filed that are pending. It is not a long list, but we do have several. We would love for Senators, if at all possible during this vote, to come and talk to me or talk to Senator Stevens or talk to our staffs about how you wish to see your amendments sequenced.

I think it is very realistic that we can finish this bill tomorrow. At some point tonight, we are all going to sit down and begin to work very diligently on a managers' package. We have had several amendments, noncontroversial, or that we have made modifications to. There has been a lot of progress made. I know sometimes when you watch the Senate you wonder if anything is going on. A lot of progress has been made. Again, I thank all of my colleagues for that.

So we are going to sit down tonight and work through a managers' package. If a Senator wishes their amendment included in the managers' package, please let me or Senator Stevens know. We are going to be working on that very diligently tonight. That is where we stand.

We encourage people, if they want votes for their amendments, to please let us know. We encourage people to come in and talk about their amendments. We encourage Senators to work together and either try to get their language included in the managers' amendment or have a vote on it tomorrow or tonight. We would love to have some more votes tonight. We think there are at least one, two, or three that we may be able to vote on tonight, realistically. So I wanted to alert Senators to that fact.

I yield the floor.

Yes. I have no objection to that. We have spoken on the Cornyn amendment extensively.

I yield back my time.

I move to table the Cornyn amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, just to reiterate what the leader said a few moments ago, we are making great progress. Again, I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Everyone has been very reasonable.

My sense is that this body really wants to get this done tomorrow. I can tell my colleagues right now that our staffs will be working, burning the midnight oil tonight trying to put together a managers' package. We made progress during this vote, with one or two amendments going away.

So thank you to all of my colleagues who have been working so hard to get us where we are today. We will continue to work. Again, if any Senator's staff wants to come and talk to us about amendments or something they would like to see in the managers' package, now is the time to do it because we are about to work very hard to try to get this bill done tomorrow.

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, I rose to address the Senate less than a week ago about this present economic set of circumstances in the country. Obviously, the foreclosure issue is a major question that is causing serious problems all over the country. In fact, it is now becoming more of a global issue than just a domestic issue. I know there have been serious efforts, and I commend the majority leader and others who have tried to put together--along with those of us on the Banking Committee, the Finance Committee, and the Judiciary Committee-- a proposal that would offer some hope and some confidence-building measures to grapple and deal with the foreclosure issue, which is the epicenter, obviously, of this economic crisis we are all seeking answers to.

I thought it might be worthwhile to take a couple of minutes this afternoon to again urge the minority--I have worked closely with Senator Shelby, and let me just report on a favorable note that I think we are fairly close to having an FHA reform bill that we will be able to adopt very quickly. While that is not going to solve all of the problems, it is yet another piece in this economic puzzle that deserves our attention. I am hopeful and confident we will be able to do that in relatively short order.

I commend the chairman of the Financial Services Committee, Congressman Frank, Barney Frank of the other body, for his work--the work they put together on a bipartisan basis in the House--and his willingness to compromise on this issue so that we can achieve a proposal that would enjoy broad-based support both here and in the other body.

This issue we are facing today is a very serious one. I hope all of my colleagues appreciate that statement. That is not hyperbole; the realities are there. One cannot pick up a morning newspaper--it is no longer just in the business section; these issues are now front-page stories with fears of growing economic dislocation, a slowdown in our economy that we have not seen in years, with housing values falling nationally at rates that one has to go back literally to the Great Depression to find similar national statistics. We have rising unemployment rates and rising inflation rates. The cost of a barrel of oil once again is exceeding $100 a barrel. Food prices--my colleague from Rhode Island, the Presiding Officer, pointed out the other day, just in terms of bakeries in the country, the rising cost of wheat. The price of wheat has risen dramatically in the country. These are examples of what is occurring that contributes, obviously, to a worsening economic situation in our country.

All we are hoping for here--or I had hoped for before the Easter Passover break--is that we would be able to adopt a series of measures that would attract broad-based support that could offer some relief, some confidence, some optimism to people across the country. I am less optimistic that it is going to happen in a broad sense, but I am still hopeful that FHA reform might be adopted before we leave.

We are facing a very serious situation, and we are doing so in a much weaker position than we were just 7 years ago, the last time that our nation was on the brink of a recession. This is not a partisan or an ideological statement. When the Federal Reserve Chairman, Governor Bernanke, was before the Banking Committee last week, I asked him whether he thought we were in a worse position today to respond to the problems we are facing than we were when we last faced a recession in 2001. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve agreed that we are indeed in a worse position today than we

were 7 years ago. He specifically said that the standard monetary and fiscal policy tools we have to confront economic downturns are far more constrained today than they were 7 years ago. He also said the American consumer is facing the brunt of this economic downturn.

The incoming economic data show how serious the problem is. The Nation's economy has slowed to a near standstill in the fourth quarter, with overall GDP growing by less than 1 percent and private sector GDP growing by only one-tenth of 1 percent.

The country had a net loss of jobs in January. That is the first time we have lost jobs in over 4 years. Incoming data on retail sales has been very weak, and most projections, by the way, by private economists and by the Federal Reserve for economic growth this year have been revised down sharply.

The Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve, testifying before the Banking Committee yesterday, indicated that the next several quarters do not offer much hope at all that this economy is going to strengthen. Credit card delinquencies are on the rise as consumers find themselves increasingly unable to tap the equity in their homes to help pay down credit card debt and other financial obligations.

Lastly, as I mentioned a minute ago, inflation has increased by 4.1 percent this year. That is the largest increase in 17 years, driven mainly by the rising cost of energy, food, and health care. Oil prices are above $100 a barrel, and the U.S. dollar is at the lowest point in modern history since we began freely floating our currency in 1973.

This economic decline has been reflected in the falling stock prices, the falling currency, and the increased volatility in the securities markets.

Our economy is in trouble, which is to state the obvious, and the data clearly confirms that, but we don't necessarily help the situation by just acknowledging that. What are we doing? What steps are we taking in this body and in the other body? What steps is the administration taking? What steps is the Federal Reserve taking, and others, to reverse these trends and to offer some hope?

I don't want to engage in a self-fulfilling prophecy by reciting the data that is going on here without suggesting that we might not be able to do some things that could help.

As I said previously, the catalyst of the current economic crisis is the housing crisis. Overall, 2007 was the first year since data has been kept that the United States had an annual decline in nationwide housing prices. A recent Moody's report forecasts that home values will drop in 2008 by 10 to 15 percent, and others are predicting a similar decline in 2009. This would be the first time since the Great Depression that national home prices have dropped in consecutive years.

If the catalyst of the current economic crisis is the housing crisis, then the catalyst of the housing crisis clearly is the foreclosure crisis. I have said that over and over again over the last number of weeks.

What steps have we taken?

Last week, it was reported that foreclosures in the month of January were up 57 percent compared to a year ago and continue to hit record levels. When all is said and done, over 2 million Americans will lose their homes, it is predicted. There are already 1.4 million homes in foreclosure nationally, including over 14,000 in my home State of Connecticut, according to RealtyTrac, which publishes these figures, as a result of what Secretary Paulson himself has called ``bad lending practices.'' These are lending practices that no sensible banker, no responsible banker would have engaged in. Yet they did. Reckless and careless, sometimes unscrupulous actors in the mortgage industry allowed loans to be made that they knew many people would not be able to afford, particularly when they reached the fully indexed value and price. They engaged in practices that the Federal Reserve, under its prior leadership, did absolutely nothing, in my view, to effectively stop.

This crisis affects more families who will lose their homes. Property values for each home located within one-eighth of a square mile will drop by $5,000. That is another specific decline. Another statistic which is not often quoted is that when you have neighborhoods that end up with foreclosed properties, the crime rates go up about 2 percent automatically. So you get declining value with increased crime rates, and, of course, declining values and foreclosed properties mean less property taxes coming in to local counties or communities, which, of course, affects services, including fire, police, and emergency services, not to mention social services. So you get a contagion effect.

We now know it has spilled over into student loans. The State of Pennsylvania and the State of Michigan have indicated there may be no student loans available this year. For hard-working, middle-income families who may be current in their mortgage obligations and who are managing their finances well, to find out that their students, their children may not qualify or find student loans available will be yet another added hardship in this country.

So this matter is spilling out of control. I know from time to time people say that is excessive language. It is not excessive at all. What disturbs me deeply is that while I don't claim there is any one silver bullet answer to this, and I would be the last to suggest there was a simple package of four or five items that might help cure all of the housing problems.

I am not saying anything that is not known by others. The troubling data on the housing market and the economic situation is readily available. It is being reported on a daily basis in the national media. The question is, what are we doing, if anything, to try to reverse these serious trends; to offer some optimism and confidence from this body, the Senate, the Congress of the U.S., the administration, and the regulatory bodies? What can we do to act in a responsible and constructive manner to get the country back on the right track?

Yesterday, I chaired a hearing in the Banking Committee with representatives of the Federal bank, thrift, and credit union regulators. The evidence strongly suggests that they were asleep at the switch as this crisis built and when the alarm went off, they merely hit the snooze button. The Federal Reserve, in particular, candidly acknowledged--and I appreciate Don Kohn's testimony--that they failed to properly assess and address excessive risks that were being taken.

The regulators abandoned proven standards of applying good judgment and strong supervisory oversight. Instead, they relied on models and estimates that were being used to justify that there was no housing bubble. These models and estimates were wrong.

What is so troubling is that questions were raised about them some years ago, before the bubble burst, by regulators people such as Ned Gramlich who, when he sat as a Governor of the Federal Reserve, warned that this problem was growing. The staff at these agencies knew this as well. Yet nothing was done. The warning flare shot into the sky by him and others went largely ignored.

Now that this bubble has burst, the regulators are telling us they are ``studying'' what went wrong. While studying the problem has its place, and I appreciate that, I must say that conducting studies of the crisis in the economy and financial markets is, of course, like firefighters responding to a fire by picking up a book and studying how to put out a fire rather than going and doing the job.

I think we all know we need action today, not complacency by the frontline bank regulators. That is why Senator Shelby and I will continue to press the regulators for the actions they are taking to address the serious problems that our country is facing. I commend Senator Shelby, who I thought yesterday had good and strong questions for the regulators. The answer we got was that people were too complacent. Many speeches were given and informal conversations took place, but the job of a regulator, the cop on the beat, is not just to give speeches and have informal conversations. If the staff at these agencies knew this bubble could burst, that there were serious problems, that Governors at the Federal Reserve Bank were warning about this problem we are facing, giving speeches and having informal conversations was hardly the kind of action we should have been expecting from very important agencies charged with the

responsibility of seeing to it these kinds of problems would be handled before they became as significant as they are today.

Congress, too, I think should act. Again, I am not suggesting any one specific action, but the idea that we have no role to play while we are watching this wave grow of people who are going to lose their homes--by the way, the estimates are we could be looking at as many as 2 million to 2.5 million families who could lose their homes, and the effect will be as many as 44 million to 50 million homes as a result of the value of homes exceeding, of course, the financial obligations on the residences. If that is the case, and if it goes on too long, and if unemployment rates continue to rise and energy costs continue to rise and student loans become less available, and the cost of education goes up, and health care continues to go up, families who would have been able to manage owning a home under normal circumstances will have serious trouble surviving these economic circumstances. If these problems increase, for families that have a mortgage in excess of the value of the property, and the home value continues to decline, obviously, those families are going to face additional troubles. Therefore, the problem spreads beyond just--not as if it were just 2, but 2.5 million who are losing their homes to a much larger constituency in this country.

So this problem is serious. We are now in another week. I have great respect for what is going on here and dealing with the legislation at hand. But as the majority leader said over and over again, this housing matter is the most serious one in the country. I think the failure to get some agreement and understanding on a package of proposals that we could go forward in a bipartisan fashion is tragic. We will be in here next week on the budget and then we are gone for 2 weeks. While this may seem like academic issues to some people here, if you are that American homeowner out there who lost your job and is watching energy costs go up, with kids you were planning on getting a college education, and student loans may not be available, then this is not an academic issue to you at all.

The question is, Where are the people here doing their job? The majority leader offered and said this is the problem we ought to be addressing. Yet because of whatever reasons, we are unwilling or unable to come together to offer some ideas that could offer relief and optimism. I think it is terribly wrong and I worry about the consequences of inaction.

I know there have been disagreements about what steps to take. That is legitimate. Candidly, this issue ought to be addressed in a far more urgent fashion than is the norm. If there are different ideas on bankruptcy or tax policy or even on the community development block grant idea or the counseling ideas that are all part of a package we had suggested, then let there be a debate about it; let alternatives be offered. But if we cannot spend a few hours or days talking about an economic crisis that has as its center a foreclosure crisis and a housing crisis, then what are we doing here?

This problem is mounting, growing, getting more serious every single day. The failure of this institution to respond in a more responsible way I, again, deeply regret. One point I hope we can all agree on is that doing nothing is not an option. Yet that is what is happening at this very hour.

We need to work out these differences and provide solutions that will work. To that end, I will continue to work with my colleague from the Banking Committee, Senator Shelby, on several key issues. I thank him again for his willingness to move forward. We are working together with our counterparts in the House on a final version of the FHA legislation that I mentioned. That bill passed 93 to 1 just weeks ago. My hope is that the House and Senate can resolve those differences and present a final product before we leave next week.

Modernizing the Federal Housing Administration is a critical step in responding to the housing crisis. Another important step is comprehensive Government-sponsored enterprise reforms, GSE reforms. I am committed to that issue. We have another hearing I will be holding on that tomorrow, in fact, at the Banking Committee level. So we can hear views from all sides before drafting what I hope will be a bipartisan bill, that we can bring to the Chamber rather quickly for its adoption.

As Chairman Bernanke said several days ago in the Banking Committee, our country is in a worse economic situation today to face a recession than we were 7 years ago. Traditional monetary and fiscal tools might not be adequate to face the unprecedented challenges our economy is facing, with national home prices falling, as I mentioned earlier, for the first time since the Great Depression. We must hear new ideas and proposals to address these problems. The strength of our economy 7 years ago is not there today. We don't have the strength of the dollar, we don't have low inflation, and we don't have low unemployment. Our fiscal situation is a far cry from where it was 7 years ago. So we are in a very different situation to rely on traditional market forces to act as a cushion against a likely recession. We need to think creatively about ways to avoid what is growing and, quite obviously, going to come if additional steps are not taken.

Unfortunately, the administration has so far been reluctant to hear new ideas and take action on proposals to address these problems. At every single turn of this housing crisis, the administration has been one step behind, unfortunately: one step behind the 2.2 million homeowners facing foreclosure last year; one step behind the financial markets which started tightening credit for student loans and other consumer needs last summer; one step behind those of us in Congress who have called for solutions to the foreclosure crisis for more than a year now; one step behind the regulators at the FDIC who have urged broad-based modifications for homeowners since last spring.

Sheila Bair, former legal counsel to Senator Bob Dole, deserves great credit. Almost a year ago, the FDIC, under her leadership, was calling for actions to be taken. Had we acted then, I think the problem would have been a lot less severe than it is today.

Now the administration is again one step behind this time, behind the Federal Reserve who is now calling for more action before the housing crisis gets worse. I commend Chairman Bernanke again for his candor and for the speech he gave yesterday in Florida, calling for more creative action before the problem grows worse, as it does almost hourly.

It took some time for the Federal Reserve to acknowledge the severity of the housing problem, but they have come around. Days after I convened the first hearing of the 110th Congress on foreclosures, Federal Reserve Board Governor Susan Bies said she didn't ``think there will be a large impact on the prime mortgage industry.'' Last March, Treasury Secretary Paulson reinforced that benign and incorrect view, saying that the economic fallout from the housing market would be ``painful to some lenders, but . . . largely contained.''

By the time I held a second hearing on the subprime abuses on March 22 of last year, the Federal Reserve finally acknowledged that the Fed had acted too slowly to address mortgage lending abuses. The Fed pledged then to do more to protect homeowners. Unfortunately, the administration continued to deny the severity of the problem.

Throughout last spring and summer, the Treasury Secretary commented that ``we are at or near the bottom'' of the housing correction and there was no risk to the economy overall. When the Treasury sends such rose-colored messages to the public, it is no surprise that the administration and the industry were slow to assist homeowners with broad-based loan modifications.

I organized the first Homeownership Preservation Summit in April of last year, to bring together the Nation's leading mortgage loan servicing companies, regulators, and community organizations to discuss a timetable and a tangible solution to reduce foreclosures. But the private sector, acting alone, yielded minimal results. Moody's found that just 1 percent of loans had been modified in the spring and summer of last year. Instead of taking action throughout these months to help homeowners, the administration continued its happy talk about the

housing market and the economy. The Treasury stated in July that troubles in the housing market were ``largely'' over and ``contained.'' It wasn't until November, just a few months ago, that the administration convened its own homeownership preservation summit. Unfortunately, during those 7 months that passed, tens of thousands of new homeowners became delinquent on their mortgages.

Instead of working with us in the Congress to develop solutions for homeowners over the summer, the Treasury Secretary said on August 1 that he did not see anything that caused him to reconsider his views, that the economic damage from the housing correction was ``largely contained.'' Echoing Secretary Paulson's benign assessment of the housing market, just days later, President Bush said, ``It looks like we are headed for a soft landing.''

Later that month, in August, I met with Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, urging them to use all of the tools at their disposal to address the mortgage market turmoil. I wrote a letter to the Treasury Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development urging them to move expeditiously to make administrative changes to the Federal Housing Administration single family insurance program to help borrowers escape abusive mortgages by refinancing into more affordable FHA loans.

Throughout the fall, FDIC Chair Sheila Bair and I advocated for systemic loan modifications to help homeowners facing foreclosure. Instead of using his authority and influence to promote such solutions, the Treasury Secretary said, ``The idea of across-the-board modifications is not something that this group [of large subprime servicers] is looking to do . . . and it's not something we in this administration are advocating.'' Weeks later, however, the Treasury Secretary changed his view, saying they saw an ``immediate need to see more loan modifications and refinancing and other flexibility'' and a standardization of loss-mitigation metrics to evaluate servicers' performance goals.

If I have learned one lesson from this housing crisis, a lesson all of us should have learned, it is that delayed action will cost families, neighborhoods, the economy of our Nation, and, of course, the taxpayers more and more money than timely action would have avoided. Instead of turning a tin ear, we must listen to the growing chorus of homeowners, lenders, servicers, housing counselors, economic experts, and regulators who are calling for bold action to prevent this housing crisis from becoming worse than it is today. I believe bold action must include financing options for homeowners through FHA, the GSEs, and a new fund at FHA that I propose to use to preserve home ownership.

We must also do more to slow the tide of foreclosures that are overwhelming many of our communities. And we need to give our local officials the tools and resources to cope with these increases in foreclosed properties. In doing so, we will help break, I believe, the downward cycle that is pushing our economy toward a recession, if we are not already in the middle of one.

By acting, we can bring some certainty where today only uncertainty exists. We can help restore the confidence of consumers and investors that is indispensable to economic progress for our Nation.

There are some steps we have taken in the housing sphere already. Working closely, again, with Senator Shelby, ranking member of the Banking Committee, we have been able to pass FHA reform legislation. As I mentioned, we have been working with the House to resolve our differences on that legislation.

I am committed to working with my colleague from Alabama and the administration to pass a GSE regulatory reform bill so Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks can expand their efforts to help people keep their homes.

The committee also held extensive oversight hearings on the problems that plague the housing market, including a hearing on January 31 to look at the foreclosure issue. We held a hearing on the state of the economy and financial markets with Secretary of the Treasury Paulson, Chairman Bernanke, and SEC Chairman Christopher Cox. We held a hearing with Chairman Bernanke last week to receive the semiannual monetary policy report, and we held a hearing yesterday on the state of the banking industry with all the Federal bank regulators. We are holding a second hearing on GSE reform tomorrow, and there will be more hearings to come.

I also believe that S. 2636 would help address the problems we are facing in the housing and mortgage markets in a number of ways by providing counseling services, dealing with bankruptcy reform, improving disclosures, increasing availability of mortgage revenue bonds, and appropriating emergency funds for local communities struggling with these empty properties. Again, I commend Majority Leader Reid for his leadership on this issue. I emphasize those ideas I mentioned are, by and large, noncontroversial, but I know there are those who disagree with them, as one might expect. That is not a reason not to try to move forward and allow a debate to occur, amendments to be offered to modify any of these ideas or additional ones people might bring to the table.

But, doing nothing at all is inexcusable. The fact that days go by, despite the growing alarm bells going off about the seriousness of this problem, as I said a week ago, will be indictable by history if we do not to step up and offer some ideas to get this right.

At the end of the day, this legislation by itself is not going to stop foreclosures or restore our communities to economic health. In my view, we need to do more to bring liquidity to the mortgage markets, to help establish value for the subprime securities that are clogging up the system and a way of clearing them out of the markets so capital can once again flow freely. I continue to work on the details of a home ownership preservation entity that makes use of existing platforms, such as FHA or GSEs, to help achieve this result. There are other ideas that I welcome, maybe not this idea, but something similar to it will work. Whatever it is, we ought to bring our practical talents to bear on all this and do something rather than sitting around doing nothing about this issue.

The home ownership preservation entity will facilitate the refinancing of distressed mortgages. This idea was originally proposed by the American Enterprise Institute and the Center for American Progress, two organizations that do not normally come together on economic ideas, but they did on this one; two organizations that approach economic issues from very different philosophical perspectives but that agree more action is needed to stem the housing crisis.

In its general outline, the home ownership preservation entity would capture the discount for which delinquent and near-delinquent loans are trading in the marketplace through a transparent, market-based process and transfer the discounts to the homeowners so more families can stay in their homes.

I would hope such an entity could purchase and restructure these loans in bulk so we could help as many people as possible, but a case- by-case approach is possible as well. I would not rule that out. It would require lenders and investors to recognize losses so there would be no bailout. In my view, this entity should make use of existing institutions, such as FHA and the GSEs, to expedite the process and maximize the process. Every day that goes by without action means more families are going to lose their homes. Obviously, many details need to be fleshed out, I know that, but I am currently drafting legislation for such an idea and plan to introduce it in the coming weeks. The legislation closely mirrors the approach recommended by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in a speech before community lenders he gave yesterday morning in Florida.

Again, I encourage all my colleagues to work with us. I see the Senator from Iowa on the floor, the former chairman of the Finance Committee, the ranking member today. I commend the Finance Committee. They have offered some very sound ideas out of their committee to deal with revenue mortgage bonds and other ideas. Again, those ideas will not solve everything, but I commend their committee for stepping up and saying: Here are a couple things that may restore confidence, increase

optimism, and may save some families from falling into the worst of all situations.

Remember, only 10 percent of these subprime mortgages went to first- time home buyers. Most of them went to people who are making a second mortgage to take care of financial obligations, people who have been in their homes for years building up that equity to take care of future economic difficulties, student loans, health care problems or retirement, and to watch the wealth that accumulated for years disintegrate before their very eyes. Many end up losing the only wealth creator they have had, the long-term financial security for retirement goes out the window, and we are sitting around doing absolutely nothing about it. It is reprehensible. Again, not everyone is in that category.

The Senator from Iowa, Senator Grassley, to his credit, and Senator Baucus and their committee have stepped up, and I commend them for it. We are doing our part. What I regret is we cannot find the time for a couple of days to let some of these ideas at least be raised for debate, discussion, and possibly action before we leave.

As we take off for our 2-week break and enjoy our families, travel, and do whatever else we do, in that time there will be people losing their homes in the country, and maybe, just maybe, if we stepped up to the plate, we might have avoided that from happening.

I think it is sad, indeed, that we cannot find the time to do it, unwilling to sit down and engage in what this body was created for--for healthy, responsible debate about actions we ought to be taking to avoid this problem that grows worse by the hour.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I again congratulate the Senator from Arkansas and the Senator from Alaska for working on an important piece of bipartisan legislation, this reform of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. This is very important to all Americans.

I agree that we ought to be able to move through the amendments that are being offered. I have tried to offer amendments early so we don't backload them and create problems later in the week. I appreciate what the Senator from Arkansas had to say.

I have one amendment pending. In a moment, I intend to offer another amendment, so it will be pending. I have told Senator Pryor that I am more than happy to agree to a short time agreement and a time for a vote after a debate and everybody has had a chance to be heard. These are not complicated amendments, but they are important. I hope we can move through this and vote on the amendments and complete our work shortly.

I told Senator Pryor that I do have another amendment I would like to call up and get pending.

Amendment No. 4108

Madam President, at this time, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 4108 and ask for its immediate consideration.

I agree.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Madam President, I will explain to my colleagues what the amendment does.

Under the bill as offered, it creates, unfortunately, a bounty, so to speak, for alleged whistleblowers up to $250,000 in attorney's fees and penalties, which I think, rather than creating a level playing field and trying to address the legitimate concern that I happen to agree with, that people who disclose or identify illegal conduct need to be protected against arbitrary termination of their jobs when they are just trying to make sure the law is complied with and help contribute to the public safety. I think this bill, as currently written, tilts the playing field too far in favor of whistleblower complainants and has the unintended effect of encouraging frivolous and bad-faith allegations against employers.

So what my amendment would try to do would be to level that playing field while protecting legitimate whistleblowers but not actually encouraging people who have, perhaps, engaged in other misconduct and giving them a bounty, so to speak, to sue for under this statute.

Under the bill, an alleged whistleblower may file a complaint with the Secretary of Labor, and if the Secretary of Labor fails to act, then with the Federal district court. If the complainant prevails at a hearing or action, he or she can receive an unlimited amount of costs and expenses, including attorney's fees and expert witness fees. If the Secretary finds that the complaint is frivolous or brought in bad faith, the amount the employer can recover is limited to $1,000.

Let me make sure my colleagues understand that. If the employee prevails in the action, they can recover unlimited damages and costs, including attorney's fees and expert witness fees. If the Secretary of Labor finds at the administrative level that it is frivolous or brought in bad faith, the employer can only recover $1,000--obviously an unequal playing field and one that will have the unintended impact of encouraging bad conduct. If the case goes to district court, the employer cannot recover attorney's fees at all.

I submit that the rules ought to be fair for both parties and that $1,000 is not a significant deterrent to frivolous and bad-faith suits. If the complaint process is going to have any integrity, there have to be consequences for abusing the process with frivolous and bad-faith complaints.

What is more, the $1,000 limit on attorney's fees in the bill is inadequate to compensate an employer for the cost of defending against a frivolous or bad-faith complaint. An employer who is a target of such a suit will almost certainly incur more than $1,000 in fees just to have a lawyer review the file, file a brief, and attend a hearing. If the case goes to district court, the attorney's fees will be even greater but will not be recoverable at all under the bill as written.

This amendment levels the playing field by capping the costs and fees recoverable for both parties.

I might just add that I have to raise the question of whether a whistleblower provision is necessary. We are still researching the matter. Under most State laws, including the law in the State of Texas, an employer cannot fire an employee for reporting unlawful conduct. There are already remedies in place under State law, and I have to question whether it is necessary to create an additional remedy under Federal law. Assuming there is, I think we should, I hope, agree that there ought to be a level playing field.

My amendment strikes a reasonable balance between the interests of punishing retributive employer conduct and of discouraging frivolous and bad-faith claims. The amendment punishes wrongdoers and makes victims whole without creating incentives for employees to sue employers for frivolous or harassing reasons.

The amendment is fair to complainants, who can recover costs and fees whenever they prevail, as opposed to employers, who can recover only when the whistleblower complaint is shown to be frivolous or brought in bad faith. My amendment fully compensates complainants who prevail. Complainants can still get unlimited injunctive and compensatory relief. In other words, they can get their job back and recover backpay to be made whole. In addition, complainants can receive consequential and punitive damage that are not available to the employer, which is why the amendment allows complainants to recover up to $50,000 in total costs and fees and consequential and punitive damages, while employers can receive only $15,000 in attorney's fees.

I believe this is a reasonable amendment offered in the spirit of compromise, and I hope the other side will take a look at it and agree to accept the amendment. If not, I am willing, as I said earlier, to agree to some reasonable time agreement so we can debate it further and then have a vote on it.

I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the managers of this legislation, Senator Pryor and Senator Stevens, have introduced what I think is, by and large, a very good bill designed to protect consumers. As a matter of fact, I support the expansion of enforcement authority not only to include the Department of Justice, Federal law enforcement authorities, but also to deputize State attorneys general to seek injunctions for violations of the act. That comes from my experience as serving as the attorney general of my State for 4 years.

I think the State attorneys general can provide additional resources in their capacity as the chief consumer protection officer of their State to make sure that consumers are protected. Although in talking to my colleagues, the question was raised, well, if there is only an injunction sought, then why do we need a prohibition against contingency fees that might be paid to outside lawyers to whom this job would be outsourced? And the answer to that is, lawyers can get pretty creative sometimes and figure out a

way to pay an outside lawyer a contingency fee even when all the relief that is granted is an injunction.

I want to be clear about what this amendment is and what this amendment is not. This amendment has no bearing whatsoever on the right of an individual if they can't afford any other way to hire a lawyer than based on a contingency fee arrangement. Historically, since the days of England, or Anglo-American jurisprudence, we have recognized the contingency fee as the poor person's key to the courthouse; being able to sign a piece of their recovery, whether it is a settlement or a judgment of a court, as a way to get into court, to sort of level the playing field.

But this is not a case of a person who cannot afford to hire a lawyer unless they hire them using a contingency fee. We are talking about the Federal Government. We are talking about the State governments. And I think there are important reasons to make sure the people who represent the sovereign State of Texas and the other 49 States or the U.S. Government are accountable to the public and are not only in it as bounty hunters seeking to maximize their recovery without any sort of political accountability. That lack of political accountability happens when lawyers for the Government outsource their responsibilities, or at least the job of suing, to private lawyers but without any political accountability associated with it.

I would point out there are tragic examples of what I am talking about. It is not a hypothetical. Before I was elected as attorney general of my State in 1998, my predecessor hired outside lawyers to pursue tobacco companies in the much ballyhooed tobacco litigation. The justification for that was supposed to be that the money was going to be used to stop underage smoking and to try to make sure the public was well educated about the dangers of tobacco. Well, I am sorry to say, as a result of that litigation, the private lawyers hired by the then- attorney general of Texas received more than $3 billion--billion dollars--in attorney's fees that I believe should have gone to the State of Texas to help in those targeted sorts of programs.

There is no accountability. There is no reason the State or the Federal Government should have to outsource its responsibilities to private lawyers. And my amendment is designed to make sure that does not happen under the context of consumer protection.

We found out, though, what is being circulated by an organization that used to be called the American Trial Lawyers Association, now called the American Association for Justice--interesting selection of names--that is opposed to my amendment. It makes clear the concerns I had that ultimately this bill, which would provide only for the attorneys general to seek injunctions, is perhaps to be used as a vehicle to expand that to allow private lawyers, acting under the authority of the State attorneys general, to seek money judgments against any business they are big enough and bad enough to sue.

As you can see, in the fourth paragraph of this document, it says:

Proponents of the Cornyn amendment are desperate to prevent

an even playing field for consumers. Prohibiting the use of

contingency fees will result--as the proponents of the

amendment know it will result--in State attorneys general

being wholly unable to utilize private attorneys in those

very cases where litigation expenses and complexity make the

assistance of private attorneys essential.

It is ironic, that it is the very outside lawyers--the trial lawyers--who hope to be hired by the State attorneys general to pursue that litigation who are opposing this amendment, even though they know that under the consumer product safety laws that are currently on the books it provides for the computation of a reasonable attorney's fee in the recovery and pursuit of a claim. As a matter of fact, it provides an attorney's fee based on actual time expended by the attorney in providing the advice and other legal services in connection with representing a person in an action brought under this law, such reasonable expenses as may be incurred by the attorney in the provision of such services, which is computed at the rate prevailing for the provision of similar services with respect to actions brought in the court which is awarding such fee.

So it is, unfortunately, clear this provision, in this otherwise good piece of legislation, is being used as a Trojan horse not just to protect consumers but to benefit outside lawyers and to have a lack of political accountability that is, I believe, required to make sure the lawyers who represent the United States of America in the Department of Justice or the State attorneys general conduct themselves in an appropriate and accountable sort of fashion.

I mentioned this before, and I will mention it again, that there are examples where this very arrangement has resulted in corrupt bargains. My predecessor's attorney general has just recently left a Federal penitentiary, having served time in prison because he used this outside fee arrangement basically to funnel money to a friend. So this is a very real and present problem.

It is clear the provisions that have been negotiated between the distinguished Senator from Arkansas and the distinguished Senator from Alaska, which would limit it to just seeking injunctions, that perhaps there is a design or plan or the possibility that this will be expanded in conference to include authorizing private lawyers to then sue small businesses and large businesses across the country and authorize the delegation or outsourcing of those responsibilities that the Department of Justice or these attorneys general have to outside counsel, with no accountability, and the very real prospect that there will be abuse and, in some cases perhaps, even corruption.

So I hope my colleagues will learn from the experience of the past, the sad experience of the past, where these sorts of arrangements have been entered into in a way that has resulted in not only not accomplishing the goals sought by the legislation but also outright corruption.

Amendment No. 4094, as Modified

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my amendment be modified, with the changes at the desk, and I reserve the remainder of my time.

Reserving the right to object, I did not hear the request.

Mr. President, if I may, I will object only for the purpose of asking unanimous consent that the document that was depicted in the chart be made a part of the record following my remarks.

Reserving the right to object, and I will not object, I am happy to do that as long as I preserve my 5 minutes before the vote.

Mr. President, I ask that my amendment be modified with the changes at the desk. My modification makes clear that the expert witness fees are part of the recoverable costs and fees that the State attorneys general can recover. I appreciate Senator Stevens for raising this concern to me and hope my modification is responsive to his concerns.

Mr. President, first we are told that the reason why State attorneys general need to be explicitly authorized under this statute to pursue these consumer complaints is so there is no risk of runaway lawsuits, because they will be confined to seeking an injunction in Federal court. I actually support that provision of the bill.

Then we are told there is an objection to my amendment, which would prohibit State attorneys general from entering into contingency fee arrangements in order to pursue authorized activities under this bill, that there is no reason for the amendment. Next thing I know, there is a document circulated by the American Trial Lawyers Association arguing the only way consumers can get access to the court is by allowing the outsourcing of the responsibility of the State attorneys general under a contingency fee arrangement which makes me mighty suspicious whether this is, in fact, a Trojan horse to allow trial lawyers basically to do the work elected State attorneys general should be doing and that currently the Department of Justice is doing. All my amendment is designed to do is to make sure the purpose for which the State attorneys general are authorized--that is, to seek an injunction only-- is maintained and that it not be allowed to serve as a Trojan horse to outsource these responsibilities. There are some very important public policy reasons for that. No. 1, trial lawyers hired by State attorneys general are not accountable to the public.

We have seen examples. I mentioned some in the tobacco litigation, where there were serious abuses that could not be rectified by the electorate when it came to holding public officials accountable. Those public officials in some cases left office; some, such as my predecessor, as attorney general in Texas, went to Federal prison because of misconduct associated with those kinds of arrangements. This amendment is prophylactic in nature. But I will tell you I am concerned it has been mischaracterized. It will not prohibit State attorneys general from contracting with outside lawyers on an hourly rate arrangement under the same circumstances under which lawyers can be reimbursed now. But it will prevent the sort of trophy hunting and the outlandish attorney's fees that were awarded in the tobacco litigation through these contingency fee arrangements. It is something that is within the power of this body to correct. I hope my colleagues will join me in passing this commonsense amendment which is entirely consistent with the underlying purposes of the bill. I worry this is being used as a Trojan horse for other purposes. But if my amendment is passed, I think we can all lay this matter to rest and realize consumers will be protected, but it will not be used as a pretext for enriching private lawyers and political constituencies.

My understanding is there was 10 minutes divided. If there is no other response, I will yield my time back, if the majority yields back their time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the

pending amendment and call up my amendment, No. 4105, as modified.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, as a member of the Commerce Committee, I appreciate the leadership of Senator Pryor on this bill and the work all of us did, as well as Senator Durbin and Senator Nelson. I believe this is landmark legislation. I have been to this floor many times to talk about this bill, how important it is to have that Federal mandatory lead standard, as well as the recall provision our office was instrumental in writing.

I think it is a very good bill. There is one change that I think would make it even better. This is an amendment Senator Menendez and I have.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission Reform Act is not just about increasing staffing, funding, and oversight of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, it is also about making the Commission more accountable to the public.

The Commission must make consumer safety an absolute priority. But it must also perform its duty outside the influence of the people whom it is supposed to regulate, outside the influence of the manufacturers, the retailers, the lobbyists, and the lawyers.

In November 2007, however, an appalling picture of the CPSC came to light. What you have to understand is when we found out about this travel, hundreds of trips and thousands of dollars of travel that had been paid for by the industry that this Commission was supposed to regulate, we were in the midst of this bill, we were in the midst of looking at recalls, now up to 29 million toys that have been recalled.

We were in the midst of finding out about kids who went into a coma from swallowing an Aqua Dot that turned out was laced with the date rape drug. That is what we were doing when we found out that for years the head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission had been traveling on the consumer dime, on the dime of the industries they are supposed to be regulating.

Through an article in the Washington Post, we learned that thousands of dollars' worth of travel had been taken by the current Consumer Product Safety Commission Chairwoman Nord and her predecessor, Hal Stratton.

Since 2002, Chairwoman Nord and former Chairman Stratton took 30 trips--30 trips--on the trade associations', manufacturers', lobbyists' or lawyers' dime, totaling nearly $60,000. So that is 30 trips totalling nearly $60,000.

In one particularly egregious instance, the Consumer Product Safety Commission Chairman accepted $11,000 from the fireworks industry for a 10-day trip to China. The claim was the industry had no pending regulatory requests but had a safety standard proposal before the Commission. Now, you try to tell this to the moms whom we were with yesterday, of those kids who were swallowing toys, one that was laced with lead and one had morphed into the date rape drug. You tell them they had the proposals before them--and they were not pending regulatory requests but they were proposals pending--they would see through this.

This kind of abusive Government practice must end. With this amendment, the amendment that Senator Menendez and I have offered, no Commissioner or employee of the Consumer Product Safety Commission can accept payment or reimbursement for travel or lodging from any entity with interests in their regulations. So it simply means people and the companies the Consumer Product Safety Commission is regulating cannot pay for their trips to China or their trips to Florida or to California. It is that simple.

Now, what is interesting about this is that many agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission, have similar rules restricting industry-sponsored travel. CPSC doesn't have that rule. As the Senate considers this sweeping reform in consumer product safety, we believe we should be free of any appearance of impropriety or undo influence of regulated industries on the CPSC.

Senator Menendez has a bill, a very good bill--and I am a cosponsor; many people are cosponsors--that extends this to all agencies. And I hope very much the Senate will consider this bill very soon. I am so pleased we are working together on this amendment, which is focused on the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Leaving the Commission vulnerable to charges of impropriety is simply unacceptable, especially at a time when the public has completely lost faith in the CPSC's ability to regulate the industries they are supposed to be watching.

Ethics is at the core of government and democracy. Without ethical leaders, our entire system fails. Ethics is woven into the very fabric of how government works, and ethics reform goes to the very heart of our democracy, to the public trust and respect that is essential to the health of our Constitution.

Like you, Mr. President, I came to Washington to bring ethical government back to the city, and I am so proud that shortly after we joined the Senate, the most sweeping ethics reform legislation since Watergate passed the Senate and became law. But as seen by the actions of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, our job does not stop with one law. We must be resolute that ethical government is not optional, it is not voluntary, and it is not limited to elected officials.

With this amendment, we will send a signal to the Commission that their priority is keeping consumers safe. Their priority is not going on trips financed by the people they are supposed to regulate. Their priority is looking out for those two kids who almost died from those toys, or the family of little Jarnell Brown, that is still watching what is happening here today--this little 4-year-old boy who died when he swallowed a charm that was 99 percent lead. That is their job, not going on trips paid for by the fireworks industry.

It is my hope that my colleagues will support a travel ban amendment to the Consumer Product Safety Reform Act of 2008. I am very pleased to be sponsoring this amendment with my colleague from New Jersey, Senator Menendez.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senators Chuck Schumer and Barack Obama be added as cosponsors to amendment No. 4105 to the Consumer Product Safety Commission Reform Act. This is the amendment Senator Menendez and I have introduced to ban industry- sponsored travel by those who regulate them.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, I rise to commend the House for bringing today before the House a step that will bring our Nation closer to achieving long overdue fairness for people suffering from mental illness and chemical dependency.

We are now one step closer as the House considers this important mental health parity bill today, one step closer to realizing the dream of my friend, the late Senator Paul Wellstone, who championed equality for those with mental health needs, until his untimely death in 2002.

If this law passes, as it should, we can thank the persistence of leaders such as Representatives Jim Ramstad and Patrick Kennedy; we can thank Senators Pete Domenici and Ted Kennedy; and we can thank the Wellstone sons, particularly David, who continues to carry the torch lit by his father.

While Federal law may not alleviate the stigma that surrounds mental illness, it can bring us closer to ending insurance discrimination and easing the unfair financial burden borne by patients and their families.

Most health care plans currently have barriers to mental health and chemical dependency treatment. Individuals seeking treatment for these health problems face higher copayments and higher deductibles, as well as arbitrary limits on the number of office visits or inpatient days covered. These people pay the same premiums as everybody else, but when they get sick, their insurance doesn't cover them.

The House and Senate proposals build upon the Mental Health Parity Act of 1996 by mandating that if an insurer offers mental health and chemical dependency coverage, the treatment limitations can be no more restrictive than for medical benefits.

Minnesota is proud to have one of the strongest mental health parity laws in the country. But this law only goes so far. Federal action will expand mental health parity protections to those covered by self- insured plans--117 million people--and move us toward real equity for those needing vital services.

It is appropriate that this legislation in the House is named in honor of Paul Wellstone--an inspiring figure whose ceaseless motion and tireless pursuit of a better world was brought to a stop only by that tragic plane crash.

Many in this body, including myself, counted Paul as a friend. We all know Paul was a crusader and a man with many passions. But anybody who ever met or talked with him quickly found out that he had a special place in his heart for helping those with mental illness. This deep and abiding concern was shaped by the suffering of his own

brother. Paul's brother Steven suffered from mental illness. As a young child, Paul watched his brother's traumatic dissent into mental illness. As a freshman in college, he suffered a severe mental breakdown and spent the next 2 years in mental hospitals. Eventually, he recovered and graduated from college with honors. But it took his immigrant parents years to pay off the hospital bills.

Writing about this, Paul recalled the years that his brother was hospitalized. For 2 years, he said, the house always seemed dark, even when the lights were on. It was such a sad home. Decades later, Paul knew there were far too many sad homes in our great Nation--too many families devastated by the physical and financial consequences of mental illness.

Paul knew that we can and should do better. For years, he fought to allocate funding for better care, better services, and better representation for the mentally ill, and for years he fought for mental health parity and insurance coverage. For Paul, this was always a matter of civil rights, of justice, and of basic human decency. Of course, on this issue, as with every other issue, Paul and Sheila, his wife, worked together.

We should all care about securing mental health and chemical dependency treatment equity for the same reasons that Paul did. We should care because of the suffering and stigma that individuals and families endure due to mental illness and addiction. We should care because it is cruel when people with mental health or addiction problems receive lesser care than those with physical health problems. We should care because of the enormous financial cost of these diseases for our society and because the economic research shows how cost effective good treatment can be.

I saw this firsthand as a county prosecutor. I cannot tell you the number of violent crime cases I remember where the right treatment could have prevented a horrible crime, and the later costs of imprisonment, or maybe the right medication would have stopped someone from spiraling downward to a point where they committed a crime. This is not to excuse the crime, and it doesn't mean that we didn't prosecute them aggressively and that they didn't go to prison; it just means if we can prevent the crimes with appropriate treatment and medication, then we must do it.

Untreated mental illness and substance abuse adds an enormous burden to the criminal justice system every day. That is why we created a mental health court in Hennepin County, where I prosecuted, which has had many successes, as well as a drug court. But it would be better to prevent people from getting into the system in the first place. That is why this legislation is so important.

Finally, we should care because we know that people who are suffering need help. Mr. President, 54 million Americans suffer from mental illness or substance abuse. Almost 15 million suffer from depression. Over 2 million suffer from schizophrenic disorders. Over 20 million Americans need treatment for alcohol or drug abuse. These numbers are staggering, but ultimately what convinces anyone of the importance of this issue is when we see how real people close to us suffer, whether it is a son or a daughter, a mother or father, or, as in Paul's case, a brother or a sister, a neighbor or a coworker.

Patrick Kennedy and Jim Ramstad have been brave enough to talk about their own struggles, and that really adds some moral compass to their leadership in the House. I have seen it in my own family with my dad, who suffers from alcoholism, a larger-than-life dad who could climb the highest mountains, whom also I have seen plunge to the lowest valleys with his battle of alcoholism. My dad finally got the treatment he needed, and I have never seen him so happy as in the past 10 years. Other families need to be, as my dad puts it, ``pursued by grace.'' This legislation offers crucial support for people in need.

Several months ago, our Senate unanimously voted in support of mental health parity. The House is now passing its own legislation. I will say that the House bill is stronger, and I prefer the House bill over the Senate version, but I trust these two bills will be reconciled and signed into law, and I hope my Senate colleagues involved in the conference committee will get us and bring us back the strongest bill possible. This will be a victory for millions of Americans living with mental illness who face unfair discrimination in their access to affordable health care treatment.

Again, I thank my colleagues, Senator Kennedy and Senator Domenici, for their leadership on this issue. I thank Patrick Kennedy and Jim Ramstad for their continued leadership. But in the end, I am here today with respect to Paul Wellstone, who led this fight for so many years. I know he is looking down on us today and looking down at the House of Representatives that is passing this bill with his name in his honor.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to address one point related to the amendment that the Presiding Officer and I have, amendment No. 4105, which is coming up for a vote shortly.

I received an e-mail communication from the Consumer Product Safety Commission which pledged Chairman Nord's support for our amendment. I am pleased she is supporting our amendment which basically bans industry from financing travel when it involves industries the Consumer Product Safety Commission regulates.

They also clarified in the amendment that there were, in fact, I think 29 instead of 30 trips that were taken in the last 7 years but also that Chairman Nord herself took only 3 of these trips and that the rest of the trips were her predecessor who went on trips to places such as China. I would point out that one of the trips she took, which they call mundane in this e-mail, was to New York that was financed by the toy industry itself. As my colleagues know, we are now dealing with these toxic toys. Another one she took which wasn't mentioned in her e- mail, but I am getting out of the Washington Post article, was $2,000 in travel from the Defense Research Institute to attend its meetings in New Orleans on product litigation trends. Her predecessor had attended the same group's meeting in Barcelona.

My point is to clarify the record. We are pleased to have Chairman Nord's support for our amendment. But I would note the issue that doesn't seem to be grappled with in this e-mail is the consumers who have to deal with this--the families with whom Senator Pryor and I met, including the mother of the little boy who swallowed the Aqua Dot that morphed into the date rape drug--they were not able to finance the travel. They were not able to spend 2 days with the head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission to make their case.

That is why I believe it is very important, as we look at the ethical accountability issues related to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, that this amendment pass.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I will divide my time with Senator Menendez. We feel strongly about this amendment. This is an amendment that basically says the Chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and other employees cannot finance their travel from the industry they are regulating. This was a major scandal this fall, right in the middle of the time that we found out that 29 million toys had been recalled, that employees of the CPSC were taking travel paid for by the industry they are supposed to regulate. It is not consistent with what SEC and other agencies do. We believe this amendment is very important. We heard from the chairman of the Commission that she doesn't oppose this amendment. Thank you.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 4094

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside.

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be considered as read.

Mr. President, I send another amendment to the desk and ask for its consideration; amendment No. 4098.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the amendment be considered read.

Mr. President, this issue of imported products from abroad in an increasingly globalized world is a very significant and serious issue. I am not one who suggests we can retreat from the global economy. Clearly, the global economy exists. I would say the rules for the global economy have not nearly kept pace with the galloping movement of this global economy and, as a result of it, we have some very serious trade issues, we have imbalances in trade, we have the largest trade deficit in human history, we have the loss of American jobs being shipped overseas, and then we have, in addition to all that, we have products that are now made overseas, shipped into this country, that we have discovered are dangerous products.

My colleague from Arkansas, Senator Pryor, under his leadership, and with others, have brought a bill to the floor of the Senate. I am on the Senate Commerce Committee, and I was pleased to work with them and play a very small role in helping create this legislation, but I wish to commend my colleague and others for bringing a bill to the floor that gives the Consumer Product Safety Commission some additional authority.

Now, the Consumer Product Safety Commission is headed by somebody who didn't want the authority; didn't seem to think it was necessary, unfortunately. We need someone at the Consumer Product Safety Commission who is very interested, very alert, and very engaged on these issues. Because the fact is, these can be life-or-death issues. That is a plain fact.

Now, the amendment I have offered, the second amendment, is relatively simple. I wish to describe it. It is an amendment that says the Consumer Product Safety Commission should have the authority to permanently ban imports from certain producers, foreign producers, that have shown a persistent pattern of shipping unsafe products to our shores. Let me repeat. This simply gives the Consumer Product Safety Commission the authority to ban imported toys from unsafe producers.

Under this amendment, the Consumer Product Safety Commission would have the full discretion to decide whether a particular case warrants such a ban. I think it would shock most Americans to learn that there is no such authority that exists at the moment. We can have a company that sends us once, twice, 4 times, 5 times, 10 times or 20 times unsafe products into this country, and there is no authority for anyone to ban that company from shipping products into the U.S. marketplace. That is wrong.

So let's say that a company, in this case let me say China--and I don't mean to pick on the Chinese, but the fact is 85 percent of the toys that come into this country are coming in from China--let's say a manufacturer has a complete and persistent record of painting their toys with lead paint. How often should we allow that company to be caught sending toys into this country with lead paint; lead paint that has a significant capacity to provide injury to children? How long should we allow that to happen? Under current law, the answer is, there is no limit.

Hopefully, we will find the toys and prevent them from being on the store shelves. But at the present time, there is no limit, and no one has the capability to ban the producers from sending those products into this country.

There are Chinese companies producing for U.S. brands that have had many repeated problems. In September, Mattel, Incorporated, announced the third massive recall in a 5-week period. At that point, Mattel found 848,000 Chinese-made Barbie and Fisher-Price toys that had excessive amounts of lead paint. Toys were pulled from the store shelves at that point, and that included Barbie kitchens, furniture items, Fisher-Price train toys, and Bongo Band drums, among others. The surface paints on these toys contained excessive levels of lead, which is prohibited under Federal law because, frankly, it is unsafe for children.

Now, in addition to those recalls, Mattel has recalled nearly 9 million Chinese-made toys coated with toxic lead paint and other safety problems. The plastic preschool toys sold under the Fisher-Price brand in the United States include the popular Big Bird, Elmo, Dora, and the Diego characters.

In June of last year, RC2 Corporation recalled 1.5 million wooden railroad toys and set parts from its Thomas & Friends. Most parents of young children will recognize Thomas & Friends, the wooden railway product line, which was made by Hansheng Wood Products factory using lead paint. So 1.5 million of these toys were headed to the store shelves in this country.

Now, the question: Why would a producer anywhere use lead paint? Well, because lead paint is bright, it is durable, it is flexible, it is fast drying, and most of all, it is cheap. China mass produces lead paint and coloring agents such as lead chromate because they are generally cheaper than organic pigments.

But lead is dangerous even in small quantities. We have known that for a long while in this country. Going back to 1978, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission made it illegal to use any paint containing more than 0.06 percent of lead for residential structures, hospitals, and children's products.

We have known about lead for so long that Ben Franklin wrote about the dangers of lead. Ben Franklin wrote a letter about the bad effects of lead taken inwardly. Some 19th century paint companies advertised their paint in newspaper ads bragging it was lead free. So this isn't some new discovery, that lead is a problem and a potential human health problem. And it is no accident that some of these toys are containing excessive levels of lead paint. Because, as I said, lead is cheap, the contractors that are making these products are trying to lower costs, and they are not spending a lot of time wondering about human health issues.

Now, let me describe this silver chain. This is a Chinese-made charm.

This charm is an example of a heartbreaking case. This happened in March 2006 when a 4-year-old Minnesota boy died of lead poisoning after swallowing this small, heart-shaped charm that came as a gift with a purchase of Reebok tennis shoes. A little 4-year-old boy swallowed this, and this was 99 percent lead. The fact is, these kinds of circumstances can kill. Unsafe toys can kill.

Jarnell died because a trinket, made of 99 percent lead, was included with a shoe, and that trinket was swallowed by a young child, and he is dead.

Ann Brown, who headed the Consumer Product Safety Commission from 1994 to 2001--and by the way, I might say, she was an extraordinary public servant, did a wonderful job. She said there should be an outright ban on any lead in any toy product. She said: If I were at the CPSC now, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, I would say that trying to recall tainted products is like picking sand out of the beach: it is just not possible. I agree with that.

The only way to make certain our products on our store shelves are safe, and especially toy products that are going to be used by our children, is to give the officials who are supposed to be monitoring this and regulating this the authority to permanently ban unsafe producers. Short of that, we are going to continue to see these problems. Then we are going to scratch our heads and wonder: Why do these still exist? The reason they still exist is the same companies are shipping us tainted products and unsafe products. This is not rocket science. We have seen the products, we have read about the products, we have heard about the products. They include, yes, a trinket with a tennis shoe; they include a small wooden toy painted with lead paint; they include toothpaste; they include cat food, contaminated shrimp, car tires--you name it.

The question is, Who is going to stand up for and support the interest of American consumers? I think it has been the case that when these problems came to light and people lost their lives because of them, many of the producers, particularly some in China, said: None of this is true. These are problems that are exaggerated, and our products are safe.

Then, in June, when there was a tremendous outcry here in the United States, regulators in China finally said they had closed 180 food plants and that inspectors had uncovered more than 23,000 food safety violations. China Daily, the nation's English-language newspaper, said industrial chemicals, including dyes, mineral oils, paraffin wax, and formaldehyde, had been found in everything from candy to pickles to biscuits to seafood. China announced on July 9 of last year that it had actually executed the former head of its food and drug safety agency for accepting bribes in excess of $800,000 in exchange for approving substandard medicines.

Well, we know the problem. That is why we have a bill on the floor of the Senate. We know at least a part of this solution. The bill on the floor of the Senate is a good bill. But I have an amendment that would improve it, so that when you have a company that has a persistent and consistent and relentless problem of shipping unsafe products to this country, we can say: Stop, you cannot do it anymore.

I read a while back about a guy in my home State who was picked up 13 or 14 times for drunk driving. Our State said: Stop. You cannot drive any more. It is over. We are not putting up with this.

We ought to do the same thing with companies--not only in China but elsewhere--that send unsafe or tainted products that are unsafe for American consumers and especially children. We ought to do the same thing to companies that do that over and over again. If they are not willing to abide by the regulatory processes and by the standards we set and adopt in this country, then they are not welcome any longer to ship products to our store shelves. So I offer an amendment that would allow us at least the authority--not the requirement, the authority--to outright ban products from companies that have a record of persistent problems in sending unsafe or tainted products to our store shelves.

Again, I wanted to say that as all of this has played out, this is all part of the global economy these days. You know, you produce somewhere and ship it somewhere else, and someone consumes it. I have spoken extensively about this, this issue of the global economy that has galloped forward, but the rules have not kept pace. This is one more area where the rules have not kept pace, and this underlying piece of legislation is an attempt to establish better rules.

Now, the fact is, we cannot force this to work unless we have people in agencies who are hired and paid by the Federal Government who want to do their job. The fact is, we have had abysmal leadership at one of the agencies that ought to have been involved in stopping this. It is unbelievable to me that someone collects a paycheck and has a sense of self-worth if they are not interested in standing up for what their agency should stand up for, but that has been the case.

So we bring a piece of legislation to the floor that is a good piece of legislation, that establishes new rules, rules that will provide for safety for American consumers. But we need better management and better leadership as well at some of these agencies who have decided they are going to stand up for consumers too.

Amendment No. 4122

I wish to mention the second amendment I have offered, which is one about which I will not speak at great length. I wish to visit with the manager of the bill at some point. That is an amendment which would strike the provision that allows the Commission to certify a proprietary laboratory for third-party testing. I would like to see independent testing. Let me hasten to say I accept the good intentions, the good will of those who wish to test themselves, but in my judgment, when you have proprietary testing, it is a step or several steps away from independent testing. I wanted to talk to the manager of the bill about this amendment to see if we can find a way to at least make sure all testing that is done represents truly independent testing.

Strategic Petroleum Reserve

Mr. President, I wish to finish my comments with another point.

Yesterday, I came to the floor, and I was going to offer an amendment, but there was an objection because my amendment is admittedly not germane. I will not attempt to offer it today. I understand others are not offering the nongermane amendments, so I will certainly not offer mine, except to say I intend to offer it every chance I get. I will find a crevice someplace on an authorization bill or I will do it on the Energy and Water appropriations bill that I write because writing the chairman's mark gives me an opportunity to simply write it in.

It deals with this question of today, on Wednesday, we are sticking 60,000 to 70,000 barrels of oil underground in one of our domes to save it for the future, at a point when the price of gasoline is at $3, $3.50, going to $4 a gallon and oil is rocketing up around $103 a barrel and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, where we store oil underground for a rainy day, is 97 percent full. We have the administration taking oil from the Gulf of Mexico as royalty-in-kind from oil wells, and instead of putting it into the supply and converting it to money for the Federal Government, they are sticking it underground and saving it for a rainy day. This is, by the way, a subset of oil called sweet light crude. What that does is put upward pressure on oil and gas prices at exactly the wrong time.

This is not rocket science either. Why would you pick the highest price of oil and say: By the way, the Federal Government has decided, in addition to all of the other issues out there with respect to energy policy, we have decided to see if we cannot put some upward pressure on gas prices, and they have. Government witnesses testified before the Energy Committee yesterday and admitted that this puts upward pressure on gas prices. So why on Earth would we stick 60,000 or 70,000 barrels of oil a day underground? That is unbelievable to me. It is going to double. There are going to be 125,000 barrels a day in the second half of this year, sticking it in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

I now have a piece of legislation that would say: You cannot do that. There has to be a 1-year pause unless the price of oil goes back below $75. But if it does not, there has to be a 1-year pause, that the oil has to go into the supply, not underground.

The Federal Government ought not be making things worse for consumers, you know. There are a lot of interests here that are causing American drivers to be burned at the stake, but the Federal Government is carrying the wood when it is putting oil underground. That makes no sense at all. We have OPEC, all of these other issues. We have unbelievable speculation in the market, with hedge funds and investment banks knee-deep in a carnival of speculation.

We had a witness testify that the oil futures market has become like a 24/7 casino--never closes. The result of all of this speculation by people who are trading in oil--and they will never have the oil and never get oil, yet they are trading futures contracts and driving up the price every time as all of that speculation goes on. I think that deserves and needs an investigation.

Our Federal Government has decided on a policy of taking oil out of the supply and sticking it underground. There is only one word for that; that is, ``nuts.'' We have to stop it.

I was not able to offer this amendment on this bill yesterday, but I will be back with this amendment. In my judgment, we will have a vote on it in the Senate because we have the votes to pass it and say to this administration: Stop it. Put an end to it. Put that oil in the supply and put downward pressure on gas prices and downward pressure on oil prices.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.