Frank Pallone: “I listened to my colleague from North Dakota, who I respect a great deal, but he specifically said, and I wrote it down…”

“I listened to my colleague from North Dakota, who I respect a great deal, but he specifically said, and I wrote it down, that this legislation would prohibit the Consumer Product Safety Commission from regulating gas stoves as a hazardous product. Now, you listened to my colleague from Illinois, Ms. Schakowsky, who said that from a practical point of view, how does that make sense? This is the agency that is charged with basically looking at these products to see if they are hazardous, if they are unsafe for kids, if they are going to cause serious injury or death. Now, one person, one commissioner has made some statements suggesting that he might be interested in banning gas stoves. I don't know all the details, but I understand that there is one commissioner that keeps being quoted. First of all, this Commission has five members. There is one vacancy. Because one commissioner says that and doesn't have the power to effectuate it because he is only one person, you are then going to tell me that we should now take this sort of hatchet approach or severe approach of saying, well, then, because one commissioner thinks that, therefore, we should say that this commission cannot regulate gas stoves as a hazardous product? Frankly, that is like cutting off your leg because you decide that there is some threat or something. It makes no sense to me.…”