Update: For the reasons stated below explaining why S 2663 is a more comprehensive bill than HR 4040, call your Senators now at 1-202-224-3121 and urge opposition to an anticipated DeMint (R-SC) amendment to be considered around 5:30 PM. The DeMint amendment would substitute the language of the narrower House bill, HR 4040. S. 2663 also reauthorizes the CPSC for 7 years, not 3 years as HR 4040 would do, and increases its budget and staffing and ability to protect us that us much more.
S 2663: Provides the CPSC $155,900,000 for fiscal year 2015.
HR 4040: Provides the CPSC $100,000,000 for fiscal year 2011. No further increase.
Last night, the Senate overwhelmingly (86-1) approved a procedural motion (60 yeas required) to begin debate on the CPSC Reform Act. It appears that industry opponents were convinced not to make Senators walk the plank over kid safety, so members were not put under pressure to block debate on the bill. Instead, debate on the floor today, so far, has been around a package of industry-backed amendments that would weaken the bill. Industry's strategy all along has been to either kill the bill (preferred) or get the Senate to simply adopt the narrower House bill, HR 4040.
As Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR), chief sponsor of S.2663, pointed out in a news conference today in the U.S. Capitol's Mike Mansfield Room, the Senate bill is "more comprehensive" than the House-passed bill, HR 4040. [That's Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) at his right and the mothers of two children who swallowed toxic toys (Aqua-Dots and a 39% by weight lead figure) behind them.] Sorry for again violating my "no more low-res cameraphone photos on the blog" rule).
Among the reasons that the Senate bill is more comprehensive:
it establishes a public database of complaints and other incident-related information provided to the CPSC; it protects product safety whistleblowers; it gives states attorneys general broader authority to protect the public.
The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), President Bush, the Heritage Foundation and the CPSC's acting chair all oppose all or part of these provisions. The nation's leading consumer groups, doctors and scientists support the bill including these provisions. Action will continue today with a final vote either late tonight or sometime Wednesday.
