EXHIBIT 70

STATEMENT FOR THE OUTDOOR POWER EQUIPMENT INSTITUTE, INC.

The Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, Inc. (OPEI) is a national trade association of domestic manufacturers of outdoor power equipment such as lawn mowers, garden tractors, snow throwers, tillers and engine manufacturers for such products.

OPEI is very much concerned about the safety of the products manufactured by its members. This concern has been implemented through an on going safety program sponsored by the Institute since 1954. A major part of this program is the sponsorship of safety standards for power lawn mowers under the auspices of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). These standards have recently been revised by ANSI and incorporate significant improvements in safety requirements.

The Institute, and its members support the concept of federal regulation in the consumer product safety area. It is the only method by which a comprehensive and uniform scheme of regulation can be established. We feel, however, that certain revisions to S. 3419 would provide a more effective and efficient administration of such a program.

INDEPENDENT AGENCY

S. 3419 has rejected the proposal contained in S. 1797, requiring the Secretary of HEW to establish a Consumer Product Safety Program, and would instead establish a new independent Consumer Safety Agency. We favor the establishment of a Consumer Product Safety Program within HEW and believe there are tangible benefits to be gained from locating this responsibility there.

HEW, through the Bureau of Product Safety has already gained a degree of experience and expertise in the product safety area. HEW has an existing regional and field office system whose staff is engaged in product regulation, as well as medical and technical experts and scientific testing laboratories.

Contrary to assertions of proponents of an independent agency there is no evidence to indicate that an independent agency would have greater public visibility; would be better able to resist pressure from industries that would be regulated; or secure a higher level of funding than would be the case if the consumer product safety responsibility was located in HEW.

In addition, certain responsibilities created by S. 3419 are duplicated in the House passed version of the Consumer Protection Agency, HR 10835. Section 208 of that Bill is entitled "Consumer Safety" and requires the Consumer Protection Agency to "conduct studies and investigations of the scope and adequacy of measures employed to protect consumers against unreasonable risk of injury which may be caused by hazardous household products. . ." The creation of two new independent agencies bearing responsibility in the same regulatory area would be inefficient, wasteful and ineffective.

Centralizing responsibilities for consumer product safety in HEW, where responsibility for administration of related law resides, would produce a more economical and efficient administration without compromising its effectiveness.

BANNING CONSUMER PRODUCTS

One of the most serious deficiencies in S. 3419 is the type of proceeding prescribed which may lead to the banning of a consumer product from the market place. We strongly support and would recommend a provision allowing the administrator or the Attorney General on the request of the administrator, to file an action in a district court seeking to ban a product and to seek such temporary or permanent equitable relief as may be necessary to protect the public. Because the decision to ban a product is based upon the determination of factual issues, a judicial hearing is clearly more appropriate than that utilized when promulgating rules or regulations. The recommended procedure of seeking injunctive relief will provide a swift and effective method of removing hazardous products from the market place while preserving due process for the manufacturer.

REPURCHASE OF BANNED PRODUCTS

Under Section 306(f) of S. 3419 repurchase of a banned consumer product would proceed as follows:

The consumer returns the product to the retailer and the retailer refunds the purchase price to the consumer; the retailer would resell the product to the distributor and be reimbursed in the amount refunded by the retailer to the consumer; the distributor would, in turn, be reimbursed by the manufacturer in the amount refunded by the distributor to the retailer. The manufacturer would be required to absorb any price mark-ups in the distribution chain.

Although this section does not prohibit the manufacturer, distributor, and retailer from agreeing to absorb their mark-ups individually in the event of repurchase, it would seem impractical if not impossible to secure agreements from all retailers and distributors in the distribution chain to this effect.

It is strongly recommended that this section be amended to require each level of distribution to absorb its portion of the mark-up on the product when repurchase is required.

QUALITY CONTROL PROCEDURES

A new provision in S. 3419 would allow the Commissioner of product safety to establish, by regulation, quality control procedures for manufacturers who have a significant incidence of non-compliance with a particular consumer product safety standard. Failure to comply with quality control procedures promulgated by the agency would subject the manufacturer to liability for civil penalties. This liability would be in addition to any liability imposed for non-compliance with a mandatory safety standard.

These seems little justification for exposing manufacturers to the type of double liability provided for in this section.

NOTIFICATION OF FAILURE TO COMPLY; REPAIR OR REPLACEMENT OF NONCOMPLYING PRODUCTS

S. 3419 would impose a statutory duty on every manufacturer, importer, distributor, or dealer who discovers that a consumer product has a defect which relates to the safety of use of the product or is not in compliance with an applicable consumer product safety standard to immediately notify the Commissioner of such defect or failure to comply "if such products have left the place of manufacture." This requirement applies to a product regardless of whether a safety standard has been promulgated. The notification must contain a clear description of the defect or failure to comply; an evaluation of the hazard reasonably related to the defect or failure to comply; and a statement of the measures to be taken to effect repair of such defect or failure to comply. Any breach of this statutory duty would constitute a prohibited act and liability for civil penalties would follow.

In the case of a product not subject to a safety standard, the critical question is, "What constitutes a defect which relates to the safety of use of the product?" While reasonable men may differ in the evaluation of safety defects, liability under such circumstances should not be imposed where persons subject to that duty have acted in good faith.

FEDERAL PREEMPTION

The issue of federal preemption in the promulgation of mandatory safety standards for consumer products is one that vitally affects all manufacturers. Our diverse method of distribution and our highly transient society do not lend themselves to local regulation of consumer products. Goods purchased in one jurisdiction are readily transportable to another, thereby destroying effective local control. No manufacturer of consumer products should be expected to design products to meet multiple or inconsistent state or local safety standards. We recommend, therefore, that the concept of federal preemption be extended to any product, or component thereof, covered by a mandatory product standard without exception.

EXHIBIT 71

STATEMENT OF REV. ROBERT H. THOMAS, DEPUTY GUARDIAN, U.S. CHURCHES OF SCIENTOLOGY, LOS ANGELES, CALIF.

It has been the habit of U.S. citizens of the majority of religious denominations to take their religious freedom for granted. Everyone, of course, is aware, how

ever vaguely, that the Constitution somehow guarantees all its citizenry such basic rights--after all, didn't the Early Settlers come here because they had been persecuted in their homelands for practicing the very religions which are today in the majority?

Yet, incredible as it may seem, in our own time the U.S. Government, via the Food and Drug Administration has spent, over the past eleven years, a vast amount of the taxpayer's money in attempting to eradicate the Founding Church of Scientology, Washington, D.C. Employed by the Government in this effort have been all the ominous paraphernalia of tyranny, spies, electronic snooping devices, illegal examination of the mails, illegal search and seizure, and finally the most nefariously, an armed raid on the Church!

On January 4, 1963, a group of specially "deputized" Baltimore longshoremen, led by officials of the Federal Food and Drug Administration, conducted an armed raid of the tiny Founding Church of Scientology in Washington, D.C. This now notorious raid was accomplished pursuant to a spurious warrant which had no attached affidavits by any complainants against the Church, had not been sworn to, and nowhere mentioned on its face that a Church was to be the victim of the raid. U.S. Marshals and the dozen longshoremen, escorted by motorcycle policemen, drove up to the peaceful Church with two large vans, blockading the street surrounding the neighborhood. After their forcible entry these deputies proceeded to grab all religious books and documents in sight, intruding loudly and profanely into Church confessionals and classrooms. Seized with the Church literature was the Church confessional aid, a simple battery-operated galvanometer used to assist Ministers of the Church in counseling and hearing confessions of their parishioners. (These artifacts, called E-meters, are believed, as an article of faith of the Church, to divine the spiritual state and activity of the parishioner, but in no way influence, affect, or alter the structure of the mind or body.) All of the confessional aids on the Church premises were violently seized, some out of the hands of Ministers; parishioners' pocketbooks were searched, students' briefcases rummaged with arrogant and total disregard of any Sanctuary of the Church itself, let alone the Constitutional sanctity of private dwelling. Gradually, the agents removed from the Church to the waiting vans some tens of thousands of copies of over twenty Church books, texts, recorded sermons; even the Church Archives were sacked. The confiscated material was handled roughly, and when Ministers of the Church asked that their property be handled more carefully, the "deputies" from Baltimore gave only sneering illiteracies for answer. As in the custom with raids, the FDA had fully informed the press beforehand, giving a pre-arranged "trial by press" release, but again carefully avoiding any mention of the religious status of the Church. In spite of requests made by the Church administrators, no receipts were given for any of the tons of Church property illegally confiscated and throughout this whole nightmarish depredation the only courtesy observed by the government was that marshals did not actually shoot the guns they carried!

The foregoing is an entirely factual account, documented by eyewitness affidavits, of what any American citizen, sensitive to the Constitutional issues involved, would decry as a black mark indeed on the escutcheon of American liberty.

Since that bleak January day have ensued years of costly litigation during which the FDA has held Church property and literature with the avowed intention to destroy it by burning.

Unfortunately, the Church is not the first religious group oppressed by the agency (a Zoroastrian religious group had that unfortunate distinction), and even judicial reprimand and public outcry, resulting in Congressional inquiry, have altered little the FDA's bureaucratic thirst for power to protect the consumer (and parishioner) even in matters of the Spirit.

What can possibly be the motivation for a government agency to concentrate so much time and effort on relatively small religious minorities, employing its formidable investigatory and legal staffs to so relentlessly attack a Church instead of policing industry as is its rightful function?

Is the Church a revolutionary movement, seeking and fomenting civil rebellion and strife as are many in this country today? No, the Church is apolitical and patriotically supports the government. It contains no cadres, no anarchists. Is the Church condoning the use of narcotic drugs by the young of the nation as are many civic leaders and government advisors? (Including the FDA!) No! The Church is firmly against the use of any mind-changing drugs by its parish

ioners. It has sponsored a successful drug abuse rehabilitation program, Narconon, now in use in the prison systems of several states.

Why then, this attack by Government? Let's examine the issues and extract

some answers:

The FDA has defensively stated, regarding its raiding tactics, in press conferences and official interviews, that in order to "save people" from food and drug poisoning it must act quickly and wield extraordinary powers. Obviously this may involve hasty decisions which later turn out to be "mistakes". Agreed. But obviously such power calls for the utmost in judgment and restraint in its exercise. Such restraint is not apparent in the raid in Washington, D.C., where the only "poisons" involved were ideological!

The FDA piously claims it is not attacking a Church but a "device" (the E-meter). The fact that this harmless "device" is a religious artifact of the Church used as an integral part of its pastoral counseling procedures, has been cynically ignored. Ignored also is the fact that the Church makes no claims as to diagnosis or treatment of disease for the E-meter, and as the FDA well knows, any parishioner with a physical complaint is sent to a medical doctor as required by Church policy which is strictly enforced, and that the E-meter, used only by Ministers and not sold to the public, has no effect, deleterious or otherwise, on the body or mind of the parishioner.

The FDA contends that religion has "nothing to do with it", stating that being a religion does not give one the license to "break the law". They insist that claims made for the E-meter or device are false and misleading and there are no adequate directions for use. Of course, the same complaint could be made against, say, the Catholic Holy Wafer. The FDA could, arguendo, claim that the Holy Water and Wine of the Eucharist are not actually the body and blood of Christ, and that claims made for any healthgiving spiritual effects of administering the Eucharist are "false and misleading", and that since the Holy Chalice is unsanitarily administered to more than one parishioner in a Holy Service that there are dangerous health hazards involved, necessitating regulation and urgently requiring “adequate directions for use".

Since no health claims are made for the E-meter and since it is used completely within the pastoral and intercessionary rites of the Scientology Confessional it has and is entitled to the same immunity as the Catholic Communion Wafer. The Holy Wafer falls within the same broad definition of the word "device" in the federal statutes, as does the E-meter, and the same protection which applies to that Communion Wafer, Holy Annointing Oils, Baptismal Water or any of the endless number of religious artifacts which could be termed devices under the law is therefore afforded the E-meter, both Constitutionally and by all State regulations relating to spiritual counselling or healing. Of course, the Catholic Church quite rightfully continues to conduct its religious practices with confident impunity. Such free exercise is obviously much harder to come by in the case of a minority religion. Why is the FDA straining to extend the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to apply to the area of Faith Healing and Religious Practice?

It is widely known (and decried) that the FDA is exceedingly diligent in applying the punitive and regulatory powers of its office to the small fringe areas of "food and health fadism." While doing so, it consistently neglects to apply that same diligence to the more proper spheres of regulatory application, namely the Food. Drug and Cosmetic Industries.

In patent fact, it is not a device (the E-meter) that the FDA is attacking, but spiritual healing itself, since the claims contained in the condemned literature of the Church are not made for the E-meter but for the religious practice itself.

The FDA must attack the E-meter to get at the ideas behind it, just as the spider must weave its web, beginning with a single strand.

We ask again what public need is being served by this attack-the answer is always and uniformly the same . . . "The ignorant masses must be protected from their own poor judgment in even considering any unorthodox approach to their health problems."

The singlemindedness of purpose in the FDA's fixation on the E-meter would, under less trying circumstances be laughable. Similar instruments are available in any toy store, and just as chalices, bread, and oil have uses outside of their religious purpose, so does the simple galvanometer. It is only the Church of Scientology's religious use which gives it distinction. In this context, the device is no different than religious artifacts used by many other, though perhaps more

77-615-72- -53

popular, religions. The FDA is asserting, and trying to establish as precedent in the courts, that when a religion claims it can heal spiritually or in any other manner (as all religions do) any article which is used in conjunction with that healing practice is subject to FDA regulation. It matters not, says the FDA. that it is a religious artifact or that the related claims are from the Holy Scriptures or doctrine of that religion . . . Any religion!

The FDA also claims that "adequate directions for use" must accompany the religious artifact. In effect, the FDA is demanding that it determine, within the scope of its sacred duty to protect the public, the nature, scope and instruetion given to Ministers in the use of their artifacts and administering of rites... Any Minister!

What the Government is ultimately trying to establish in this case is actually of more interest to other, better established religions than to the Church of Scientology, since although it is common to all religions to engage in faith healing practices, it is only the Church of Scientology that requires any parishioner with a physical ailment to see a physician before he may receive pastoral counseling. Then why does the Government single out the Church of Scientology to attack? In 1963 it was small-it was unorthodox-it was controversial-it used a "device”—it made health claims—and it was a religion !

These are all of the ingredients, with the exception of religious status, normally present in a typical triumphant victory of the mighty FDA over some small health food entrepreneur or natural healer.

In this case, however, the FDA made a dreadful miscalculation. It never predicted that the tiny Founding Church of Scientology of Washington, D.C. would become part of the World Religion of Scientology in the 70's!

The Church does not, however, take a grandiose view of its lonely fight for religious freedom and fully recognizes the need for government regulation of food, drug and cosmetic production. It is precisely to counteract and contain the bureaucratic tendencies to overgovern in the name of the public good (which in itself is a basis for the attrition of human rights and spiritual dignity) that prompts the Church to act in this cause as much as concern for its own viability. We conclude our remarks with a quote from Justice Brandeis:

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."

EXHIBIT 72

STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MANUFACTURERS

As is now well known to committees of both Houses of the Congress, the National Association of Manufacturers has consistently supported the basic concepts of all present legislation to apply a new system of Federal safety regulation, including mandatory standards, for all consumer products which are found to present unreasonable risk of injury to their users.

This Association has testified with respect to many aspects of the bills, and submitted supplementary papers to members of committees of the Senate and House and to their administrative staffs. In general terms we have endorsed the regulatory approaches, but have repeatedly called upon the Congress to improve the legislation through more efficient procedures, a greater regard for due process in administration of the law, and a stronger focus on problems of human behavior which demonstrably account for 90 percent or more of all injuries related to the use of products. Our position is that these improvements will result in better safety standards, and a more effective safety program than a regulatory system which is arbitrary, excessive, or technically inadequate. Most of the guidelines we have previously offered have been directed toward Title III. In answer to the Committee's request, we are now pleased to register our views with respect to Titles I and II, dealing largely with the coverage of the legislation and the administrative structures proposed. We find it difficult to divorce the structure of the system from the job it is intended to do. We ask the Committee to remember that what is defined and prescribed in these Titles will surely steer the course of government either toward workable controls or