Mattel's chief executive apologized to the US Congress on Wednesday for failing to stop toys coated in lead paint from reaching consumers and vowed to take immediate steps to prevent it from happening again.
"I can't change the past, but I am changing how we do things," Mattel chief executive Robert Eckert said in testimony before a Senate subcommittee.
But senators at the hearing said the safety measures promised by Eckert and others in the toy industry are inadequate. They proposed a long list of legislative changes that go much further -- including increased fines for selling or failing to report dangerous goods and a prohibition, backed by possible criminal prosecution, against retailers selling recalled products.
PHOTO: AFP
"This is getting serious," Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar said. "It is time for us to take action."
Senators also called for a revamping of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, including giving it the power to ban lead in all children's toys, funds to increase the number of inspectors at ports and compliance officers in the field, and a better-equipped and better-staffed testing laboratory.
Mattel, the US' largest toy company, and other members of the Toy Industry Association, whose members are collectively responsible for 85 percent of toys sold in the US, support a federal mandate that toys be tested by independent laboratories before they are sold.
Failure by all parties to properly do such testing has "left our companies, the industry and most importantly our children exposed," Toy Industry Association president Carter Keithley testified.
Toys "R" Us chairman Gerald Storch said the government and toy manufacturers should find a way to hasten the recall of products after flaws are discovered.
"We are troubled by the possibility that we could be continuing to sell toys that someone knows may have a problem, while we remain unaware until we receive word that a recall is coming," Storch said.
The hearing took place in a crowded chamber framed by two illustrations propped up behind the senators: one with a photograph of the Consumer Product Safety Commission's sole full-time toy tester in a cramped, poorly equipped laboratory, and a second with a chart showing that most of the consumer products recalled in the US since December came from China.
Consumer Product Safety Commission acting chairwoman Nancy Nord said she agreed with many of the proposals to confront these two problems, acknowledging, for example, that the agency's laboratory in Gaithersburg, Maryland, was woefully inadequate.
"It is an incredibly inefficient facility," she said of the lab, which is in a 1950s-era former missile defense site outside Washington.
But Democrats and the one Republican senator at the hearing -- held by a Senate appropriations subcommittee -- expressed frustration with progress enforcing safety rules, particularly concerning flawed goods from China.
"We need to start pulling the club out," said Republican Senator Sam Brownback, who is a presidential candidate.
Nord said it would help if Customs and Border Protection, which has a much larger force of inspectors at US ports, could do more to help enforce consumer safety laws.
Eckert was questioned about allegations that his company intentionally delayed notifying US authorities about initial reports that some of its toys contained lead.
He acknowledged that one initial report about a lead contamination of a toy destined for a retailer in France may not have been reported, as the company believed it had intercepted the product before it reached the market, and that this item was not being sold in the US.
Mattel, he said, will now test every batch of its contractors' toys for lead, and require them to buy paint only from approved vendors.
Democratic Senator Richard Durbin praised the toy industry for acknowledging hazardous toys are a real problem.
"There is no corporate denial here," he said. "There is no defensive crouch."
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)