Blumenthal Delivers Opening Statement at Spotlight Forum on Impact of Trump Administration's Attacks on Consumer Product Safety Watchdog

[WASHINGTON, DC] – U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) today hosted a spotlight forum on the impact of the Trump Administration’s efforts to undermine the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on American families and businesses. The forum, “Buyers Beware: Attacks on Product Safety Watchdog Threaten Americans’ Safety,” highlighted the CPSC’s critical role in protecting Americans from hazardous—and even deadly—products and called out the Trump Administration’s attacks on the independent, bipartisan Commission. 

Today’s forum comes on the heels of the Trump Administration’s attempts to fire Democratic CPSC Commissioners and the White House’s proposed budget that calls for the elimination of the CPSC and for the Department of Health and Human Services to absorb its core functions, diluting the Commission’s work and potentially enabling dangerous products to remain on store shelves and in people’s homes.

“Right now, the Administration is about to waste both lives and money by essentially dismantling this organization and strangling it with a lack of funding. It has always been underfunded, but the strategy the Administration now seems to be that it will, in effect, decimate an independent and bipartisan Commission,” said Blumenthal.

Blumenthal pointed to how the CPSC has helped promote public safety by establishing industry wide standards to protect children from dangerous products, “It saves dollars and it saves health and lives, and I’ve seen it again and again and again, whether it is button and coin cell batteries that destroy organs when they’re swallowed by children, furniture tip overs, crib bumpers, inclined sleepers and water beads, rockers.”

“Part of what we are here to do today is to make Americans more aware of the integral, essential role played by this Commission that ensures product safety—from everything that we have in our homes to stuff we buy for our kids—across the board,” Blumenthal concluded.

A video of Blumenthal’s opening statement can be found here, and a transcript can be found below.

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT): Well, thank you all for being here. I apologize for the delay. We’re in the midst of votes, and we were waiting for a vote to begin, and evidently, the Majority Leader has not made his appearance just yet. So, we’re going to get started. And again, my thanks to all of our witnesses, to everyone who's attending, and to colleagues who will be here. I just spoke to Senator Klobuchar, and she will be joining us shortly.

Let me just say about the Consumer Product Safety Commission. I worked with this agency when I was Attorney General of the State of Connecticut. I’ve worked with it since becoming a United States Senator, and there is no agency that saves more lives or more money. And right now, the Administration is about to waste both lives and money by essentially dismantling this organization and strangling it with a lack of funding. It has always been underfunded, but the strategy the Administration now seems to be that it will, in effect, decimate an independent and bipartisan commission.

It’s been under attack for months, but the point I want to just make quickly and all of you know it is that it is cost-effective. It saves dollars, and it saves health and lives, and I’ve seen it again and again and again, whether it is button and coin cell batteries that destroy organs when they’re swallowed by children, furniture tip overs, crib bumpers, inclined sleepers and water beads, rockers.

I pass a playground, many of them often in Connecticut, and I’m reminded every time I pass a playground of the role of the CPSC in urging communities to install different kinds of floors and in effect, protective cushions, instead of the cement that existed on playgrounds when I was growing up and probably accounted for more scrapes, broken bones, bruises, but real safety hazards and the equipment on those playgrounds, things we take for granted that have been the work of the Consumer Product Safety Commission in everyday lives.

And so, part of what we are here to do today is to make Americans more aware of the integral, essential role played by this Commission that ensures product safety—from everything that we have in our homes to stuff we buy for our kids—across the board. And with great timing, my colleague has joined us, as I’m about to finish and Senator Klobuchar, if you’d like to make some opening remarks before we turn to our witnesses.

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