Steny Hoyer: “Helping the consumer does not seem to be the objective of the amendments that are made to this bill. My colleagues have…”

“Helping the consumer does not seem to be the objective of the amendments that are made to this bill. My colleagues have heard numerous statements by Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz and others about how the consumer is confronted with extraordinarily complicated and big agencies, and relying on the fact that what is being sold to them or given to them--sold to them, for the most part--is safe to use. They don't have labs to analyze whether that is the case. They don't have researchers able to understand that. It is not that they are dumb. Somebody said that I thought that they were rubes. That is baloney. I think they are smart, bright people. {time} 1130 They don't have the capacity to really know what is in that product. They can't analyze it. They don't know what toxins may or may not be in it. That is what this agency is about. This would reduce the Consumer Product Safety Commission's funding below the fiscal year 2019 levels. Well, that was now 5 years ago. We are doing the fiscal year 2024 budget now. It clearly would harm individual consumers who rely on their work, period. It would harm the Commission's ability to halt dangerous imports from China, investigate deaths associated with consumer products, and research emerging hazards. This cut of $13 million would bring the CPSC's funding level down from its fiscal year 2023 funding level of $153 million to its fiscal year 2019 level of $127 million, a 20 percent reduction.…”