Food and Drug Administration. Then Mr. James Grant, Deputy Commissioner of Food and Drug; Dr. Charles Edwards you already identified, the Commissioner of Food and Drugs; and on my immediate left, Mr. Steven Kurzman, Assistant Secretary of HEW for Legislation. On Mrs. Knauer's immediate right is the Deputy Director of the Office of Consumer Affairs, Mr. William Walker; and on his right, Mr. Jack Pearce, Deputy General Counsel of the Office of Consumer Affairs.

Mr. Chairman, you have, I believe, just received a letter from the President to you, and I would like, with your permission, to proceed as follows: First, to read that letter; second, to ask Mrs. Knauer to present her statement, after which I will read mine, and we would both prefer that the committee's questioning be deferred until after both statements have been finished.

Senator Moss. We will proceed in that manner. We are very happy to do it. So if you will proceed to read the letter, which was just delivered to me, and then we will hear from Mrs. Knauer.

Secretary RICHARDSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. The letter is dated July 19, 1971. It is addressed to you, Mr. Chairman, and reads as follows:

In my Consumer Message of February 24, I proposed comprehensive product safety legislation authorizing the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to regulate hazardous consumer products. Subsequently S. 1797, a bill incorporating this proposal, was introduced on behalf of the Administration and referred to your Committee.

As part of the preparation of this bill, I asked Secretary Richardson to undertake a careful study of the organizational structure within the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare that would most effectively implement the consumer product safety authority proposed in S. 1797.

Today, Secretary Richardson will announce, with my approval, that upon enactment of this bill, he will create within DHEW a new Consumer Safety Administration. This unit will build upon the activities, personnel and facilities of the Food and Drug Administration, which has a long and distinguished history in the field of consumer safety, primarily in the vital regulation of the foods we eat and the drugs we use.

The Consumer Safety Administration will continue the work of the FDA. At the same time, the new unit will be structured so that the regulation of hazardous consumer products authorized in S. 1797 will have the facilities, the personnel, and the organizational prominence that will ensure an effective, efficient and responsive product safety program. Finally, where possible, common facilities such as laboratories and field offices will be utilized to gain the maximum possible cost effectiveness.

S. 1797 is a strong bill which will fully satisfy the public need for adequate protection against hazardous consumer products, and Secretary Richardson has acted to ensure that his Department is fully capable of implementing this needed authority. I urge your Committee to report S. 1797 favorably to the Senate. Sincerely,

RICHARD NIXON.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I would like to turn to Mrs. Knauer, Special Assistant to the President for Consumer Affairs.

Senator Moss. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

Mrs. Knauer, we are pleased to hear from you.
Mrs. KNAUER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Before I proceed, may I introduce my other Deputy Director, Elizabeth Hanford. She is sitting in the audience.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee: I appreciate the opportunity to discuss consumer product safety legislation with you today.

First let us take a look at the dimensions of the accident situation in and around the home. It is a human problem, but so large that we must address it in statistical terms. The bills we discuss today will not deal with all dimensions of this situation, as I will point out in more detail later.

Also, our records and surveys of accidents and injuries are far from complete. But we can get some appreciation of the general context of our problem. An estimate by HEW's National Center for Health statistics indicates that each year, in and around the American home, about 30,000 persons are killed, 110,000 permanently disabled, 585,000 hospitalized, and more than 20 million injured seriously enough to require medical treatment or be absent from work a day or more. One estimate has put the annual dollar cost to the economy at over $5 billion. Other surveys give us additional information. None indicates that the accident toll is of less magnitude.

According to the National Commission, the most dangerous years are those between one and five. About 7,000 children under the age of 15 die each year in home accidents-a death toll higher than that of cancer and heart disease combined. Studies indicate that a wide range of commonly used products are frequently involved in severe accidents. My office receives a continous stream of inquiries, pleas, and complaints by people who are concerned about actual or potential injuries from power lawnmowers, children's furniture, ladders, boats, glass doors, and numerous other products.

Unfortunately, we cannot assume that we are going to end this toll completely, or effect an immediate, drastic reduction. Ours is a large and active population. It employs a great many devices, and much mechanical and electrical energy of an intensity sufficient to inflict serious harm. The price we pay for the availability of this technology is some degree of unavoidable risk. Moreover, we must recognize that safety has some costs, both economic and in terms of freedom of choice.

Nor can we expect that we can eliminate the problem simply by changing consumer product characteristics. The level of consumers' knowledge of risks, their habits of behavior, and the way products and people interact, all contribute to injuries. All these factors must be addressed in any effort to reduce injuries.

In this and other western nations, however, we have made steady progress in this century in diminishing the extent to which people suffer accidental death; the permanent deprivation of the capacity to live and work with all the human endowment; and the physical and emotional shocks of severe lacerations, fractures, and burns.

This progress is in part embodied in longstanding laws governing foods, drugs, and poisons. In the decade of the 1960's the Nation took several swift steps to expand and improve such protections. The Flammable Fabrics Act was strengthened. The Motor Vehicle Safety Act created the programs which are now reducing the massive toll on the highways. Radiation from consumer electronics was identified as a hazard, and brought under regulation. A bill to reduce risks of poisoning by improving packaging has become law. The Toy Safety Act was made law.

What we address here today is the logical next step in this development-the establishment of Government authority to take action for

safety purposes, when needed, across the full range of consumer products. We have begun to look at the situation from the consumer's point of view. This legislation will expand the protection we give him to all parts of the consumer marketplace.

Both general bills before you, S. 1797 and S. 983, embody well understood and useful means of reducing the incidence of accidental deaths and injuries. I know that the committee is also considering S. 1685. However, because of the limited scope of that bill and the fact that its intended objectives are encompassed by the two broader proposals, I will not comment upon it at this time. I would like to emphasize that the two major product safety bills before you are fundamentally very similar. They both draw upon the concepts and practices of several safety bills before them. This agreement in intent and basic provisions should lead to prompt enactment of legislation in this critical area.

The administration bill results from careful study of the Safety Commission's recommendations, other bills, and other information. We think it improves on the initial draft of proposed legislation prepared by the Commission, embodied in S. 983. We recommend it as a sound, balanced measure, which takes all major factors into account. The administration bill, and the Commission bill, would give the Government this basic authority:

First, to gather and disseminate information on consumer product-related injuries and deaths, so that consumers, manufacturers, and vendors can take steps to reduce the toll;

Second, to draw a red line on what the market place can offer, where necessary to prevent unreasonable risks to the populace, by prescribing mandatory safety standards for products; banning products which constitute imminent hazards to life and limb from the market, pending attempts to make them safe by establishing standards, or a determination that they cannot be made reasonably safe: and

permanently banning products which cannot be made reasonably safe by the establishment of standards.

Third, to require suppliers to notify purchasers of products which violate a safety standard or ban, and to meet repair and replacement obligations.

In addition, the administration bill recognizes, as does the Commission bill, the desirability of making use of private standard making processes, and provides for direct consumer suit to restrain violations of the act's requirements.

The most obvious difference between the administration bill and S. 983 is that the administration bill vests the authority for these functions in HEW.

Let me spell out the administration's reasoning on this choice to some extent. Those who favor an independent safety agency do so in hopes that this will be useful in achieving our common goals-assuring visibility, public accountability, a quick start, and vigor for an important new program. But this is not necessarily the best way to achieve these ends. And it runs counter to a current need to consolidate, not proliferate, agencies. We all know that we cannot indefinitely proliferate agencies for a multitude of special needs. The problem of proliferation of agencies has become acute. For this reason, the President is seeking to consolidate and simplify the Government structure.

Further, there are a number of concrete advantages to placing this function in HEW. This agency now has responsibility for a number of related programs-toy safety, radiation control, poison prevention, and, of course, the major food and drug functions. The facilities and information developed for these programs will be helpful in initiating this program. Using them will avoid the costs of duplicating them elsewhere. We can avoid the significant delay entailed in creating an entirely new agency.

In sum, we believe that, over the long run, this important program can be most efficiently and effectively managed in a major department which has similar and complementary programs, supporting facilities, and a high degree of visibility in the public eye. And we believe that the present Secretary of HEW, Elliot Richardson, will get this consumer product safety program off to an excellent start.

Since Mr. Richardson's Department will administer the legislation, I will defer to him for a further discussion of its particulars.

Senator Moss. Thank you, Mrs. Knauer for your statement. The Secretary indicated that he would like to give his statement before we have any questions.

We will postpone questioning and hear from the Secretary.

Secretary RICHARDSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and members of the subcommittee.

I am very pleased to be here today to present the administration's views on the several bills before the Committee on Consumer Product Safety.

Particularly, I would like to outline the principal features of the administration's consumer product safety bill, S. 1797; to point to the most significant ways in which it differs from the bill proposed by the National Commission on Product Safety, S. 983, and to explain the reasons for those differences.

Both bills respond to a problem-injuries from defective consumer products-whose true dimensions are unknown. There is no coordinated system within Government for determining how many of the staggering number of accidents that occur each year in and around the home-a number estimated by the Department's National Center for Health Statistics to be 20 million-are traceable in whole or in part to product defects.

İnnumerable individual reports nevertheless persuaded the National Commission and persuade us, that a significant problem does exist. These include reports of children severely injured by the breakage of untempered glass patio doors, persons disabled by debris thrown up by poorly shielded rotary lawnmowers, victims of falls from ladders lacking nonslip treads: the list is endless. If the problem, underscored by these cases, is to be attacked effectively, there must be brought to bear on it the unique capacity of the national government to regulate across State boundaries. Citizens of all the States should be entitled to feel confidence in the safety of the consumer products that they buy and use. But no manufacturer can reasonably be expected to design a product to meet multiple and diverse State safety standard requirements.

Although there are significant differences between the administration bill and the Commission bill, they nevertheless both approach this

problem in essentially the same way. Each would authorize the establishment by the Federal Government of nationwide safety standards, on a product-by-product basis, to reduce or eliminate unreasonable risk of death or personal injury associated with consumer products.

Each bill would require that there be a demonstrable need for the standard; that is, that a standard be established only after the collection of data adequate to show clearly the product's threat to consumer health or safety, and only after a thorough assessment of whether the proposed standard is reasonably necessary in order to reduce or eliminate that threat. Each of the bills would create ample authority to gather the information needed for these findings.

Some 400 organizations in the United States now either develop or sponsor the development of commercial standards, many of them for products, and about 2,300 new or revised standards are published yearly. Both bills would therefore rely heavily upon this expert knowledge by drawing on the private sector to produce most of the standards to be promulgated.

Upon the Government's adoption of a standard, both bills would prohibit the manufacture or sale of consumer products that fail to comply with it.

The bills also contain procedures to permit the banning of unreasonably dangerous consumer products altogether from the marketplace, and to allow expeditious action to protect the public from the occasional product found to be an imminent hazard to health or safety.

In this last regard, the administration bill is more simply constructed than the Commission's bill. Under the administration bill, those consumer products that present an unreasonable risk of death, or of serious or frequent illness or injury, associated with their use, may be required to comply with an appropriate safety standard. If no feasible product safety standard will adequately protect the public from such risk, the product may be banned. If the use of a consumer product presents an imminent and unreasonable risk of death, serious illness, or severe personal injury, the Secretary may request the Attorney General to file a judicial action against the product, its manufacturer, or its distributors. The court would then have jurisdiction to ban the product or take appropriate remedial action.

This regulatory structure avoids one complexity of the Commission bill it omits, as unnecessary, an authority proposed by the Commission for the unilateral administrative setting of interim standards in order to control imminently hazardous products. It is our feeling that this simplification, as well as certain others, would result in procedures more readily understood and easily administered in the initial years of the new program.

Although in their broad outlines the bills are similar, their differences are nevertheless important.

Perhaps the foremost of these differences is that of the organizational location assigned to the product safety function. The administration bill would place it in our Department. The Commission bill would place it in independent regulatory organization, a Consumer Product Safety Commission consisting of five Commissioners.

The reason for the Commission recommendation is explained in its final report. The Commission feared that if product safety regulation