Good afternoon and welcome to this public meeting of the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission Today we will consider one agenda item the fiscal year 2016 mid-year review and proposed operating plan adjustments We have a number of well thought out and well justified staff proposed projects to consider as part of this year's proposal Before we get started I do want to take a minute to recognize our setting This is the first public meeting of the Commission that we have had in our newly renovated hearing room and As with any great endeavor It takes a team of dedicated people working together behind the scenes to bring it all together We are extremely grateful to the staff of our office of facilities our office of communications our procurement office And our office of the executive director for this beautiful and functional upgrade. I Especially want to thank my pal Douglas Brown who runs facilities Douglas is a Cowboys fan and the Cowboys playing a stadium referred to as Jerry world To be clear Douglas is nothing like Jerry Jones the owner of the Cowboys and the creator of Jerry world But just as Jerry world Reflects the tastes and styles of the Cowboys owner our new hearing room reflects Douglas Brown It is elegant and understated Graceful and professional It's not quite large enough to be called Douglas world, but I think Douglasville works quite well Thank You Douglas for this well done my friend Turning out of the matter at hand. We will start with five minutes each For commissioners to ask any questions of staff regarding the FY 2016 mid-year The CPSC staff members before us this morning are mr. J. Howell Who is our deputy executive director for safety operations and mr. J. Hoffman our T financial officer? I'm going to begin with questions for mr. Howell Mr.. Howell the number two project that's in our in those staff proposed mid-year lists has to do with all-terrain vehicles And if you could just take a minute, please since this is an ongoing issue for the commission has been going on for a long time And I believe from our daily death reports continues to be the number one killer of products within our jurisdiction if you could give us a sense as to Where this proposed project fits in and what sense of timeline you see for us to finally address this issue I'd be grateful. Thank you the proposed ATV work That you see in the in the mid-year proposal will continue to support the development of our voluntary and mandatory standard efforts In the FY 14 operating plan the commission directed staff to address Several activities pursuant to the availability of resources the commission directed staff to consult with NITSA regarding the categorization of youth ATVs They directed staff to assess the inclusion of it of the NPR Our inclusion in the NPR a standard related to preventing passengers on ATVs Both of those items were completed in 2014 They also directed staff to contract for further testing of a child resistant ATV ignition prototype device That work is targeted for completion by the end of this fiscal year And they directed staff to conduct a Review and develop a testing strategy to evaluate steering and stability issues related to ATVs This work is ongoing and is the subject of this particular mid-year request Mid-year request before you focuses on rider action impacts on vehicle and rider dynamics comparing dirt and pavement performance and Allows us to complete the attribute modification study we expect that much of this work will be done jointly with SVIA and These are part of the longer term effort that includes Analysis regarding rollover protection systems for ATVs, which is work that we're projecting to complete in 17 and beyond And work to conduct an ATV off-road exposure survey, which is a longer term effort extending out beyond 2017 Thank You mr. Howe and you've been here for almost a decade and seen a lot of different projects and a lot of different funding levels and A lot of different timelines to solve technical issues from your perspective. Do you feel that the Commission is funded sufficiently to? Really address ATVs of the way it should be or do you feel like we would need additional appropriations for that? Certainly beyond what you see in the video request there are additional funds that are going to be needed staff estimates that about Two-point an additional 2.5 million dollars would be required to complete the last two items that I noted in my discussion So including this particular mid-year request we anticipate Slightly over three million dollars would be required to complete the work that we envision at this point in time Great. Thank you. I'm gonna in my next round mr. Hoppin asked you about staffing and how we end up with a mid-year every year but for now I'm gonna finish my time and Commissioner on there. We'll go I don't really have many questions just one, but That's because I've been peppering the staff for quite some time with questions about the materials in the Mid-year review package and and the staffs done a terrific job of answering my questions very fully and I really appreciate that It is important to me at least to look at the ATV hazards we're Still working on a voluntary standard for ROVs, but if you compare the statistics, I think it's awesome There about a million ROVs on the market and about 30 plus deaths in 3,000 injuries a year from ROVs By any measure ATVs are 10 times that amount And in the past I've said and I've seen no reason to change my thinking about this I think ATVs may well be the most unreasonable risk of injury that the Commission faces right now And so I'm glad to see that the staff has come in with a very thoughtful funding request the one that does Naw at me is the three-year exposure study and mr. Howell I had asked you about that before but could you just give a brief explanation about why it's going to take three years to Do an exposure study? I think like most project work the there are three things that you have to work within a project and It's time It's it's scope and it's resources When it doesn't shorter than three years, you've got to add you've got to add You know either reduce the scope or add resources to it It is a what we believe to be an important effort You know whether it takes three years or two years is really how the money gets allocated and how the work gets scoped out But we feel like that there is a need to be able to answer important use and hazard pattern questions Such as how many ATVs are in use versus what have been sold and what's still operable What have people done with the ATVs that they have? We need to understand the farm versus recreational use piece And while we have seen Some reduction in deaths and injuries is that from a decrease in use different types of use Let's say TV is out there safer vehicles. We need to understand that piece And I think there's also another important piece is is the issue of off-road versus on-road usage And better understanding that particular dynamic That ladder is a concern. I know that Commissioner Mohorovic shares with me So you've just again reminded me of that old maxim Quick cheap good pick two So thank you No more questions Commissioner Robinson I would like to echo the Chairman's thanks to you mr. Brown I know that you give credit to everyone else and a lot of people deserve credit for this lovely room But I know your hands are in every detail of this and thank you so much from all of us I want to thank staff for the excellent job that you did in preparing and selecting The projects that have been presented us to us this year in the mid-year proposal And I particularly want to say thanks staff and management Who put such an effort into several meetings with me in preparation for today and answering my detailed questions about the proposed projects The staff that were actually involved in these proposed projects were able to provide me with a breakdown of Allocations for different aspects of each project the scope of each project Why it's important and timely how it builds on previous work and how it will inform our future work? I now Thankfully feel comfortable that I have enough knowledge to vote on this issue However, I would just like to say that to reach this level of understanding took many hours of what I think was unnecessary work by CPSC staff my staff and me to chase down what I think could have easily been put In the package that came to us the descriptions of the many Projects in the package were so general and formulae as to make it really impossible for me to determine whether I could support The recommendation and I as speaking to those who put these packages together We're not going to vote for something unless we are fully informed So if it's in the initial package It will do away with the need for the great deal of backup research and quickly Arranging numerous meetings and taking CPSC staff away from what they could much Be doing that are much more important projects and hopefully we can do better going forward And I am happy to work with with staff and with my fellow commissioners to try to help that process so that it's better I Would like to make a comment about the smoke alarm survey and the and the carbon monoxide survey which When I read the explanation in the package I was a bit Frustrated because it was not clear to me why we needed to spend two million dollars Although only five hundred thousand this year to update and admittedly out of date survey But there was little explanation as to how we would use this information to help us fulfill our mission particularly given the fact that there are so many surveys with with information about smoke and carbon monoxide alarm usage online and There's so much information on information about homes where fires occur However, I had a lengthy conversation with our Arthur Lee and Dwayne Boniface And they now have a clear understanding of the scope of this project and I fully support the five hundred thousand dollar request But this is because of the information I gained from these two gentlemen This in this money will fund the OMB approval process as well as a small pilot And I'm told that even with from this pilot in in this in-home survey that we're going to obtain important baseline Information that will help us with our job one of the most important usages, which I didn't know before of the 1992 in-home survey was that we were able to affect a change in the UL standard Which addressed the corroding of the horns and the smoke alarms causing them to malfunction Which we would not have known had we not done in-home inspections And I'm told that this in-home survey will give us more information on why fire alarms are not working Will inform us on how well the ANSI UL 217 for all smoke alarms is working and tell us if it needs to be updated or amended They will help us determine compliance with the installation code for smoke alarms as to the required number of alarms and locations in homes and Depending on room type it will inform us if UL 2034 the standard for single and multiple station CO alarms needs to be amended or updated and it will give us information about unreported Surveys I also was delighted to learn that this survey will include demographic information Which which will include region and income and hopefully will help us in our communications department in targeting Education and outreach efforts which is included in the scope of this project And I'm also told the human factors is going to have a field day with this data Because I'll be able to use it to determine reasons and incidents leading to the disabling of alarms the rate of replacement Batteries or the entire alarm and the usage rate of the carbon monoxide alarms So I am delighted to have obtained that information I'll be it It took a while, but I fully support that this is the number one project and the amount of money that we're putting into it I will address the ATVs in my next round. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you commissioner Robbins and commissioner purple Thank You mr. Chair. Thank you to staff J&J for being here. I Really don't have all that many questions. We had a lot of our questions answered during the The weeks preceding our hearing today and staff as always is generous with their time and Information, but I do want to just mention what Marty commissioner Robinson just said and that is The clarity and I think part of the disconnect is that you all know this stuff cold and you've been working on it for years and years and so You can do it kind of cryptically and understand exactly what you mean But for us to look at this and I'll get into one of my questions shortly That's it's we don't have the depth of knowledge that you all have and so it becomes difficult to try to understand and piece it together But so for instance with ATVs and this was a question I had and actually to be honest with you and I'll address it in my closing. I had tried to Offer an amendment and I couldn't get majority support. So I saved everyone the aggravation of having to go through the exercise, but I thought with ATVs. We should maybe take a step back and Just reevaluate where we're at because we have now a different commission We have a different Congress and we also have a Good experience to look back on with ROVs, and I think we learned a lot from that whole experience and I'm sure staff Can agree because they put in all the work But so to to maybe take a step back with ATVs and see where we're at and what's a prudent way forward So for instance number four Conducting a literature review and developing a testing strategy. So that number four It's about almost halfway down the the explanation of the project Then when you get down below it says this mid-year project supports item number four and we'll focus on So is the has the literature review been done or is that what we're paying for with this first this initial $500,000 as Directed by the Commission back in 2014 item four included About five different specific items. There was vehicle purchases A stability feasibility study and some vehicle dynamic testing and evaluation That has been done What remains to be done are the items that we discussed the active writing weight shift and rollover resistance work Which is really the key behind this mid-year request And then as we move forward, there's some vehicle dynamics response work that we expect to be able to to do with SVIA So part of this number four work has been done prior To this point in time what we're requesting is funds to complete one of the elements of item four Okay, and so the Getting back to the question conducting a literature review that has been done and what was it done on if it's been done It has it has not been completed that the the literature review is You know literature review is a broad term and it really is taking a look at at Existing work other studies that have been done that will inform the work that you're doing So you don't have to spend the money to redo the testing You know we we will we will conduct a review of existing studies to see how that might inform the work But the focus of our work is developing and and actually conducting some testing on vehicle stability So the literature review is a small part of informing how that how that dynamic testing is going to be done and then implemented So that will be completed first and then we'll do the dynamic testing. I guess I'm not I'm not gonna say that it's gonna be totally sequential some of that work is gonna be in parallel that the review The review of of other studies and work is an ongoing process. It's not It's not a task that tends to be isolated unto itself it informs the work as we move through the project from start to finish You know, we expect that after the testing that we propose to do concludes You know, we'll have a better understanding of the relative steering and stability characteristics between various ATVs that are out there And we expect to be able to bring to the voluntary standards body the results of our findings as as we hope to move forward on some type of standards development work with with the STO I And I guess that's probably one of the explanations We did talk about this a little bit prior to today's hearing that So it isn't necessary to have the findings of the literature review to go forward That's you're saying that's going to be in parallel to these other activities Correct, and it's it's not unlike what we saw with the recreational off-highway vehicles It's the same type of thing as as staff was able to gain information from Studies done by Nets and others on vehicle dynamics. It informed the work as we moved along the way. Thank you very much Mr. Mohorovic, thank you, Mr. Chairman I don't have any questions for staff other than to also show my appreciation for everything that went into putting together this meeting today As well as the mid-year document and my very short comment is that I'm pleased to see us back on a Normal operational schedule with regards to consideration of our operating plan I was disappointed with the late timing with which we took it up in FY 16 in the op plan But I'm glad to see us back on normal order for consideration of mid-year. Thank you, Mr. Chairman Thank You Commissioner Mohorovic. So I'll go another round of questions for anybody else who has them Mr. Hoffman Can you explain a little bit how we end up here from a financing perspective? And is this a normal place to be to have unallocated funds at this point in a fiscal year? Sure So to answer your second question first It's perfectly normal to have unexecuted balances at this point in the year In fact, the entire federal government really goes through a mid-year process from the White House on down So what we're doing is part of a larger effort that you're seeing in agencies across the government in terms of how we end up in this place the CPSC has Historically managed its personnel allotment by position as opposed to by budget or by hour and As a consequence of that we have a 4% attrition rate at any given times as people either resign retire transfer to other agencies and There's this coming and going and that average is 4% so at any given time. It's not that we have Extra positions or unused positions. It's simply normal attrition that we don't know where it's going to happen within somewhere in the agency And that 4% if you do the math on our roughly 80 million dollar salary budget Mostly equates to that money that you're seeing being reallocated here on the mid-year And you mentioned the unexecuted balances because of staffing is there a different way that you would recommend proceeding or a better way to try to Balance out both having a mid-year, but also making sure that we are hiring to where we need to be so I think that a mid-year process will always be important because We never know for sure how a particular project or set of projects is going to be executed You're never going to be exact a budget is a budget an actual cost is a cost So there'll always be a need for a mid-year with respect to Are there other ways to manage our staffing budget? I think the answer is absolutely yes one thing that the executive director's office is implementing is trying to focus more on Executing to the budget and the hours associated with that budget as opposed to the position and what that allows us to do is to Essentially anticipate the attrition rate. We can plan for that 4% attrition rate in our staffing plan moving forward Let me give you an example So let's assume that just to keep the math simple there was an office of 25 people We know that the attrition rate is 4% I'm not very good at math, but 25 times 4% is 1 So that that manager can sort of think hmm I'm probably going to have one vacancy over the course of the year by managing to The budget amount and the hours that have been allocated to me as opposed to the billets They can plan for and staff at that plus one that 26 Person so that they're always fully staffed and I think that's probably the most prudent way and quite frankly That's the way a lot of other agencies handle it to try to maintain full staffing Of course successful in implementing that. I think you'll see Much smaller un-executed balances as a result coming from the salary budget Great, thank you. Well, we hope is our CFO. You are good at math. We're sort of counting on that You know chairman. They say there's three kinds of CFOs those that can count and those that can't And in terms of our managers Is there anything more that you're doing with the managers of that the office of the executive director is doing with managers and To keep the hiring moving a pace. Yes, so it's being done to me not with me The executive director's office has implemented new performance standards for all of the senior executives of which I am one to both require us to Make sure that we have packages submitted not only in a timely way But that equal full staffing and then once we achieve full staffing To try to maintain those levels in addition the executive director's office has implemented a number of Hiring initiatives including trying to take advantage of some hiring flexibilities and I know that we're adding a lot of students This summer as well as the pathways program all of those things combined I think are really showing our will show some positive benefits as it relates to fully executing the salary budget Great and fair to say for both of you that the operating plan that the Commission approves every year is Built on an assumption of full staffing for the entire fiscal year and so in the absence of that occurring We're always gonna have to have projects in the end of the year that we might not be able to to get done Thank you Just briefly picking up on the point that the chairman was making So we do end up with these unexecuted balances at mid-year And I see a list of 16 projects that are at least eligible in a priority order for funding and Seems pretty clear. We won't get through all of those, but we'll get through some Mr. Howl, I thought I would ask you just a quick synopsis and review for me when it comes to Picking these projects and placing them in priority order. Can you describe the process that the staff employs when they're going through and setting the priorities for these projects or the What a work that you see before you staff Uses the requirements that are cited under 10 double and nine point eight, which is The criteria that the commission should use to consider Setting the priorities for their work. So, you know, of course elements such as At risk populations severity likelihood of injury Addressability is a key other elements are considered in setting these priorities At some point you'll see in the list though where they become non-safety related projects and they become more Projects that are needed to just run the business day-to-day and so you'll see towards the bottom half of the list or Items that are used at out at our testing and evaluation facility These are these are items that are necessary to move the mission forward But are not directly tied to any particular product hazard, but the same logic is used there You know, they are while not directly related related to a particular hazard They are necessary to indeed invent advance the mission and reduce the level of Death and injury from consumer products. Yeah, and I would agree with you and I would say they actually are safety related Maybe just a little bit more indirect. Thank you very much. No further questions. Mr. Robinson Thank you. Like my fellow commissioners. I'm devastated by the number of ATV deaths I think we get a new death report daily and we I think we all appreciate that these vehicles are an urgent and Serious product hazard and while the commissioners tried to keep ATVs a priority for a number of years There have been periods when it seems as though there simply wasn't a path forward for making ATVs more Stable so we could start decreasing those numbers of injuries and death I was frustrated by essentially one sentence in this long description that was relevant to what we were being asked to do this Year in approving basically a seven hundred and fifty thousand dollar project, although again only five hundred thousand of it this year And particularly frustrated since I wasn't I haven't been given any explanation or hadn't been I should say The million and a half that we had spent on ATVs in just recently in the last couple years And I wasn't sure what we got in for the money So I certainly shared Commissioner Burkle's frustration that where we just did we have a master plan? Did we have a path forward was this being driven by staff or was it because we as a commission had voted in 2014 on what the direction should be and once again I I was delighted to have a long conversation with the excellent ATV team Joel rekt hope Nestor at Tony teams Caroling Paul and Mark Kumagai and I have I am satisfied that they have an excellent plan forward and I was just delighted They believe that the path that they have forged is based on objective information that there's potential for Achieving real improvements in the voluntary standard Especially as it relates to lateral stability and handling as well as making concrete Progress towards a mandatory standard if we need to go there and we all hope we don't and I also love that this project Builds on what we have spent the million and a half on which I was informed on especially the use They were very excited about the autonomous driving system that will now help us do Testing of active driver dynamics, which we've not been able to do and rollovers the project also builds on some of the lessons We learned in the ROV process including our first-ever success of introducing lateral stability and handling requirements in a voluntary standard and our engagement with industry throughout that process The request in this year's mid-year will allow staff to test the differences between pavement versus dirt and we're going to be able to use that information hopefully in the in the Effort that I greatly applaud the commissioners Adler and mojarovic have made and fighting states and allowing ATVs For to be used on roads and we will be able to use this money to test way to modify ATVs To improve handling and continuing testing on stability now that they can test active driver Dynamics with the autonomous driving system I was told in the conversation that the allocation of the 500,000 is essentially or approximately I should say a hundred and seventy thousand that will look at the dynamics of active rider a little over 220,000 will be looking at the dirt versus pavement and a hundred thousand will be used to modify the ATVs that we bought using the 2014 funding so that we can try to improve their Handling and stability the voluntary standard has no stability or handling requirement and staff is hoping to come up with tests That can be duplicated so that those requirements may be added they assure me that this project as well as future ATV Projects outlined in the mid-year pack package is part of a critical path forward that they Fully support and has the potential to significantly reduce the distressingly high number of deaths and injuries associated with ATVs and based on the information I was able to obtain in more than one meeting more than one Conversation, I'm now able to support this project and its priority on the list of mid-year projects. Thank you Mr. Birkland. Thank you, Mr. Chair Mr. Howell you were talking about earlier an answer to the first round of questions to the chairman that Approximately 2.5 or 2.7 million additional dollars would be necessary to complete all of these steps with regard regards to ATV Can you tell us if that money is spent and we complete What you've what's been outlined here, so I'm thinking to finish up step for step five and step No, just two three point or the three point two including this 500,000 is that just for step four At this point, I'm gonna call dr. Borlaise up and let let let dr. Borlaise walk you through the Details of his ATV teams plan. Thank you So the The larger funding request of the total of the over three million dollars Reflects staffs plan for addressing What we're calling number four five and six using the same numbering from the 14-op plan So that's the full amount the 500,000 that's in that's the specific request for the FY 16 mid-year is only addressing work on number four, so it's only addressing work on the Steering and the stability the 250k request that's referenced that is not a specific FY 16 mid-year request That would be an out-year request. So working with finance on out-year Plan, etc that 250k is envisioned also as part of the steering and stability and it really is a Recognition that as we're doing this research There's going to think be things they're going to be things we learn and some things that we still yet to learn and wrap up So that 250k really is for additional work that we know based on things we'll learn From as we finish the 1.4 million and 14 and this 500k and when steps For five and six are completed Where does that put us in in are we ready to go forward with I? Guess I'm unclear as to what's the goal sure To be clear the deliverables for that how far do we get along we from staff? We fully expect based if we get all the funding do this work that will have information For example steering stability relative information on how ATVs behave compared to each other How ATVs behave on different surfaces how ATVs behave with different rider actions? all of which is important for informing the voluntary standard, but From what we're what we know now and what we expect to learn We don't believe it'll be enough for example to be able to make a specific judgment on safe versus unsafe In the terms of trying to create a mandatory standard So we're confident that we'd have enough information on these to be able to go back to the voluntary standard It's unclear based on how much we would still need to know about these weather What would be the outcome is a performance requirement the way we think of them traditionally for a mandatory rulemaking? Thank you very much and while you're still sitting there the Description of the project says some work may be done jointly with SVIA. Can you? Specify or articulate which projects or which work will be done with SVIA? Or when we wrote from staff a letter to SVIA last year We laid out three areas on the ATV voluntary standard that we felt should be addressed The third one was related to steering and stability SVIA had a voluntary standards meeting approximately month and a half ago during that meeting they brought up our letter and the contents and talked about the steering and stability Information that we had in there the request to work on this and in the meeting They signaled to staff that they were interested in working with staff on a on a research program That's as far as the conversations have gone so far so we didn't want to look like we were trying to over promise anything but We've done partnerships research efforts coordinating with other groups in the past We did it for example in electrical engineering with the cooktops worked a lot with a ham on the the cooktops And different levels of partnerships, so we're still pursuing it. We don't have anything concrete yet with SVIA Great. Thank you very much Commissioner more of nothing. Okay. Are there any further questions from the commissioners? Absolutely commissioner Berkel I was going to ask mr. Hoffman based on where we are right now with the mid-year can you predict or Look whether or not there will be any un-executed funds at year at the end of this fiscal year so Let me answer it this way So we know that as of last week we recalculated the un-executed balance It's currently setting at about 1.6 million so up slightly from what was written in the memo not a surprise We estimate the upper range of The un-executed balance to be between two point seven and three point six million so if you and that would Potentially accumulate between now and the end of the year and that'll be dependent on staffing and other things if there's a Staff up depending on hiring rates and pay levels that number may not materialize But if you think about it that way and then you look at your mid-year list the totals $4.9 million if everything were executed then we would make it through You know two-thirds or more of the list and then run out of money the issue would be in the where I think you're the question You're asking is will the will there be money without projects? I Think that the most likely scenario for that would be if there were items on either the mid-year list or in the planned acquisitions That for whatever reason Proved infeasible in those to drop off the list that could potentially result in Unexecuted balances that couldn't be executed by the list you see in front of you, but at this point I'm that's not keeping me up tonight. That's not a major risk. What if that changes? I'll certainly let the chairman know and advise the Commission Thank you very much Thank You Commissioner Berkl hearing no more questions will now turn to any possible motions or amendments are there any amendments Mr. Berkl and I have an amendment and I guess I'm doing the presentation Great if you could take three minutes or up to three minutes Commissioner Robinson to introduce it This is a youth incentive program that actually came from an idea from a student at the st. Louis University 2014 product safety management course I gave them their assignment for their final project and I asked them to give us ideas on recall effectiveness and one of the Surgeoned one of the students some suggested that we try to work with local community-based Volunteer organizations that organize activities for community youth to try to make them more aware of the CPSC Consumer product safety and what's involved in a recall Heather Bramble was with me on that trip and we thought it was a great idea She came back and really did the the bulk of the work on Getting ready to go over to Commissioner Berkl's office and what was met with a great enthusiasm by Nancy Lowry and Commissioner Berkl that we could work together on this and I know that Commissioner Berkl Like I believe that anyway any time we can work across party lines to affect consumer safety We should do so so Nancy Lowry and Heather Bramble really deserve the huge amount of credit in doing a a Really incredible amount of work in coming up with an idea of how we might be able to do this Start doing a project like this at the CPSC. They've talked to other government agencies that have done similar things They've talked to external organizations and our internal staff to figure out how we could do that The objective of this amendment is to entice youth and by extension their families through an age-appropriate incentive program and to get engage in a positive fun Educational hands-on experience with CPSC about recall effectiveness. It's a small commitment We're asking for at this time of twenty five thousand dollars But we really believe there's potential to have a real impact for generations to come After much discussion over these past few days We're delighted to submit what is now staff's proposed revision of Commissioner Berkl's and my amendment And the text of that is that we would amend the fiscal year 2016 operating plan page 26 34301 state and local programs by adding the sentence quote the agency will initiate a pilot project in fiscal year 16 to work with a community-based youth Organization to create an incentive-based program to teach members about the CPSC and to help improve Recrawl effectiveness it'll be called the youth incentive program We agree with staff that the Office of Compliance is a great place for this program to be housed and we Are very grateful to compliance for taking ownership of this once again. We're seeing compliance take a very proactive Attitude about new idea and I'm delighted that they've decided to do this and I want to thank Jay Hoffman Jay Howell Patricia Atkins Carol Cave Mary Boyle and others because there was a lot of hard work that went into this little amendment We think that this will affect consumer safety And that will build on communications That what communications did in the Ohio pilot of finding that if we can focus on Community service organizations in more micro targeted projects that we can have more of an effect than the traditional outreach methods I'm out of time Thank You Commissioner Robinson is there a second Second Having heard a second will now turn to five-minute discussion on the amendment. I don't really have many comments. I plan to support the amendment I do want to thank Commissioner Robinson and Commissioner Burkle and your offices for the flexibility that you've shown in the last few days to work with staff and to try to find a way to Make sure that it could conform to The operating plan in the mid-year in the way that the financing is done I thought that was an important step and certainly made it much easier to support Actually, I have two questions one is the $25,000 figure that Commissioner Robinson mentioned that is not in the motion before us And so I'm wondering is that is there some understanding that I'm not aware of that there will be $25,000 Committed to this project. That's a very good question Hang on one second. I think I can it's in the budget already Yes There's a separate item in the compliance budget of $25,000 for this project Commissioner Abler, let me try to address that so in Reviewing the unexecuted balances in preparation for the mid-year the budget director pointed out to me that the state and local program Line item in the budget has about $200,000 on it and based on feedback. We've received from compliance They're not going to be able to execute that full amount So they would in our normal course of ways they would return that money and we would then apply it on the mid-year by amending this project There's a sufficient balance to cover the $25,000 In layman's terms rather than take the money out of my right-hand pocket and put it back in my right-hand pocket We thought just amending the project would be the simplest way to proceed Yeah, I understand that there's enough money to cover it. I just had not understood that there was any commitment to make it $25,000. I thought that was one of the Issues that had been set aside in the sense that Will spend what is needed if it's less it's less if it's more it's more But is there in at least in the minds of compliance the notion that there's a $25,000 pot of money that will be dedicated $25,000 is the amount of money that we are targeting to spend on this pilot program in this fiscal year No more certainly if we can do it for less we will but that is the target at this point in time Okay, I guess the other question I have is the topic and that's recall effectiveness a commissioner Berkel I know that when you and Chairman K have gone up to the Hill you've been asked questions about recall effectiveness and one of the frustrations I haven't one of the frustrations I know you have is that we seem to have some very serious challenges when it comes to improving recall effectiveness And I know we've got a recall effectiveness workshop coming And I know that one of the projects here may not get funded is this Very large recall effectiveness behavior economics study coming up And I guess I'm wondering is this putting the cart before the horse to go out and teach something To folks when we're not sure what it is we should be teaching them And we're not sure what the effectiveness would be and I'd be curious of hearing either from Commissioner Robinson or Commissioner Berkel what your thought was I think that It isn't going to be so much teaching it's going to be more of raising awareness and allowing younger people to think Seriously about when you hear the word recall. What does that mean? and Especially coming from this agency and what do you do about it and having an awareness of this and so it's more along the lines of Information we already know it isn't what we don't know about recall effectiveness. Thank you very much I Just want to reiterate what Commissioner Robinson said staff our staffs were Chairman mentioned how flexible they were but all of this staff out here in the audience were We're also very flexible and trying to make this work So I want to just extend my gratitude to all of you for making it happen. Thank you Commissioner Moorowick Mr. Robinson anything else you wish to add Hearing nothing else. I'll cut now call the vote Commissioner Adler. How do you vote aye? Commissioner Robinson aye Commissioner Berkel aye Commissioner Moorowick aye and I vote aye the a's are five denies a zero the Robinson Berkel amendment is agreed to are there any other amendments? Mr. Chairman I have an amendment Commissioner Moorowick Thank You mr. Chairman Waiting for a counter to reset of three minutes to introduce Yes, you do. Thank You mr. Chairman mr. Chairman as we know every 24 minutes an injured child is sent to the emergency room by a Television and or furniture tip over and every two week tragically one child is killed by a tip over incident I want to commend the Office of Communication staff and especially its director Scott Wolfson For implementing the innovative anchor it campaign designed to leverage limited resources with the extended community of cable television and furniture tip over prevention advocates and commissioners Be clear that this is an award-winning campaign Put together by our staff and by some very talented Third-party folks who have come in and worked with us on it. It's an award-winning campaign It was named the best safety video in PR dailies 2015 video awards and it also received a bronze anvil Winner in the public relations Society of America's Editorials and op-ed columns category So we're off to a great start with the anchor it campaign and this amendment Increases the priority of this project among the recommended projects funded in the mid-year operating plan my amendment Suggest that on page two table one under recommended projects. We move priority number four Anchor it to priority number three and renumber the priorities accordingly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman Thank You Commissioner Moorovic. Is there a second for the amendment? During a second we'll now turn to discussion on the amendment five minutes each I have a question for Commissioner Moorovic. So as you were describing in terms of how the amendment would work practically speaking on The list it would in essence flip places with the project that currently sits above it, which is a national playground survey That my understanding is it would augment ongoing work that the CPC staff is doing in conjunction with CDC ATSDR EPA on studying synthetic turf and playgrounds for crumb rubber exposure and then also additional work on Fall hazards associated with playgrounds I just want to make sure that there's no intention of your amendment that the public should Read into it that that is a lesser priority for the Commission because I wouldn't want to signal that that playground safety is a lesser priority Mr. Chairman that's a great question. May I yes, please I think it's an apt question and it's one To confront head-on in terms of numbering of priorities if one were to suggest that it's a lower priority by voting for this amendment I would have to agree Furthermore, I think an honest evaluation of the project projects that are likely to be funded as well should give one confidence that Both projects three and project four will both be funded However, that would beg the question then why amend it and just leave it a project number four If I was fully confident that it would be funded There's been you know some honest estimations from our finance staff in terms of where we expect that line to be drawn And I don't think anybody can say With with complete assurance what that where that line will be drawn But if it happens to be a cutoff between project number four and project number three I'm recommending that the Commission up the priority for for the anchor a campaign. Great. Thank you I do appreciate the candor Commissioner Adler And you just pointed out why are my discomfort from the Mohorovic amendment comes I'm prepared to vote for it, but a bit reluctantly in part because It is sending a signal that one has greater priority than the other and the truth is these are all worthy projects I've always likened it to choosing between your spouse and your child How on earth do you do that and yet that's what they pay us the big bucks to do and What also makes me uncomfortable is the fact that we have this I think very thoughtful priority process that mr. Howell described very very thoughtfully So in a vacuum, I'm not sure which of these I would choose But I do think this is sending a signal and I have to admit I'm uncomfortable sending it my comfort At least for this one vote comes from the fact that it seems Very very likely that both will be funded and this is a symbolic vote And there is something to be said for symbolism. I fully understand that The ones that are the tougher ones and the ones I'm more likely to pay attention to us where it's one that there really is a Difference between whether we funded and whether will not be funded in this case Partly because I have such great admiration and respect for my esteemed colleague. I'm prepared to Accept this amendment, but I must say in the future. I I'm not sure I would be as comfortable But I do thank you for your very careful explanation and for your great candor It's it I expect no less Richard Robinson I'm gonna support this amendment although obviously all of us share a concern about the playground survey project That having been said we do have such alarming statistics when it comes to unstable furniture that I think that It is that I I support moving it up and also I'm much comforted by Mr. Hoffman's assurance that we will have more money So hopefully we're going to be to be funding both of those The this this anchor campaign is something that Commissioner Mohorovic and I have been intimately involved in From the beginning and we're delighted with the I'm delighted with the campaign materials and the engagement of outside groups that our Communications department has achieved and I am I'm delighted that this new funding will help us with a metric other than just Impressions which I think is going to be important to all of us, and I'm also assured that This money may also be used to actually try to make furniture more stable and not just Putting the onus on the consumer to anchor it so I will support this. Thank you Wish no, Berkel. Thank you. I Intend and plan on also supporting this amendment, but Commissioner Robinson just mentioned something that gave me a little bit of pause and I In terms of so this will assist us in measuring outcomes rather than just How will that do how will this be different from the previous campaign? Commissioner, I'm not aware of how that will how that's incorporated in this funding to be completely honest and looking at the funding for this project And if I'm wrong, I know we do have Our communications director mr. Wolfson is in is in the audience should he want to be able to perhaps if you don't mind Mr. Chairman if commissioner will if I Are director Wolfson could answer that I don't mr. Wolfson, and if I I'll just direct my question to you so Because we hear debates within the agency whether or not I any campaigns are effective, so How are we measuring have we measured or do we intend to measure the outcomes of this I any campaign? Sure, so today we are looking at impressions And we want to be able to do is look at awareness has awareness been increased through the efforts of the campaign So we seek to use some of the funds to be able to do a study and then we take OMB review may take some time But it would bring great value to see if we can measure the success of the campaign So there is a study included in this additional in this amendment. It's part of the vision that we have absolutely And to date with impressions how many impressions on the Campaign to date sure we're at 1.3 billion and that's just for the PSA alone. So tremendous success We certainly can do even better with more funding. So that's important Thank you very much. Thank you Mission Mohorovic. Well, thank you. Mr. Chairman and thank you commissioners for your questions and For some who have indicated support for the amendment. Thank you. Mr. Wolfson for your support in identifying some of the details here I think we all want to have great confidence that the funding will Will reach Will reach those who need to anchor their their products or tell somebody else about anchoring But in terms of reassurances that it's money well spent I would ask that you consider closely the fact that this is an award-winning campaign It was funded in f y 14 to the tune of $400,000 in f y 15 another $110,000 was spent on the effort We have no money Allocated towards this effort and we all have a shared Concerned responsibility and And a difficulty in grappling with the product that exists on the market today We can do much we can do many productive things and looking at future standards and having better confidence And what kind of performance attributes that future product might have it's much more I think in our grasp of what we can affect But while while they do have their limitations Commissioner adler and others INE campaigns seem to be One of the more effective ways that or the most among Effective ways that we can reach consumers to address a hazard that exists in the marketplace today So I hope you give it your strongest consideration. Thank you. Thank you commissioner moho rovick The only other thoughts I want to add on the amendment. I want to echo both what commissioner adler said About playgrounds and that this would be a far harder decision if we felt like That we had to choose between the two of them. I don't know what I would do at that point I do think that the commission owes it to the public To be part of a robust effort not only to continue to improve playground safety for acute injuries But also to be part of answering the question as to whether parents should be concerned about chronic exposures of crumb rubber And I also think that commissioner robinson deserves credit for highlighting the fact that we're trying to move beyond impressions And how we measure our INE campaigns. Mr. Wolfson was kind not to call me out But part of the reason that this is in here is I have asked him at a general level to work toward building these types of valuations Into his campaigns on a going forward basis and this happens to be a campaign that he has started with and I appreciate that I think it's important That we can move beyond just getting a sense as to who might have heard a message And be better at judging whether not only do they actually hear it But as my as dr. Midget from my staff will say do they heed it? And I think that with the limited resources that we do have We need to make sure that we really are Doing the best we can that people will heed it And part of that also is what commissioner robinson mentioned earlier about micro targeting Another issue that you and I have discussed on numerous occasions. So I do plan to support the amendment That's a roundabout way of getting there But I think that this would be a harder choice as anybody any other further comment on the amendment Mr. Adler just very quick As I am one of the skeptics about education campaigns generally I'm not about this one. I think that in terms of the available resources and the various Ways of addressing it. I can't think of yet of any better way of doing it I certainly hope we can improve the voluntary standard. So this is one I've supported From the start and it's one. I'm delighted to continue to support. I will also point out though that Is dr. Midget Mentioned it isn't really enough to measure awareness Measuring awareness is better than just measuring Impressions, but you actually have to measure changes in behavior and that gets to be an almost impossible task I think if it were an easy one it would have been incorporated, but I do admire Scott for addressing the evaluation As carefully and as thoughtfully and comprehensively as he can I want to commend you again Commissioner Robinson I only want to say that I I also Share commissioner adlers some skepticism about a lot of educational campaigns But this is one where this hazard is such a hidden hazard people just don't know it exists And that is well over half the game of giving people to know about it. And this has just been incredibly well done campaign Thank you, mr. Wilson Commissioner burkle No comments. Thank you last word commissioner mohawk hearing no more Comments on the amendment. I now call the vote commissioner andler. How do you vote? I? commissioner robinson I Commissioner burkle I Commissioner mohawk I and I vote aye the a's are five the nays are zero the mohawk amendment has been agreed to Are there any additional motions or amendments? Hearing none I now move that the commission do consider the underlying mid-year package as amended by the Robinson burkle amendment and the moho amendment. Is there a second? second Having heard a second will now turn to consideration I have no further comments on the amendment at this point as a reminder Of course, there will be closing statements for those who wish to use them Commissioner are there any further discussion on the motion? No further discussion Commissioner robinson nothing further commissioner burkle nothing further commissioner moho over nothing further hearing no further discussion will now turn to consideration and a vote on the underlying Staff proposed mid-year package as amended by the two amendments commissioner andler. How do you vote? I? commissioner robinson I commissioner burkle I commissioner mohawk I And I vote aye the a's are five the nays are zero The mid-year adjustment package as amended by the two amendments has been approved by the commission We will now turn to closing statements. Each commissioner will have 10 minutes for closing Thank you to our staff for preparing this thoughtful and thorough mid-year adjustment package The mid-year gives us the opportunity to augment the safety programs laid out in the commission's operating plan Ideally, however, we would be funded robustly enough and early enough each fiscal year So our staff could have the resources in the time to plan even more methodically To address the real and ongoing safety challenges that continue to take lives and cause injuries The failure for funding bills to clear congress each year in a timely manner is definitively disruptive to our work And while our funding level is not as dire as it was before the consumer product safety improvement act was passed in 2008 Our funding is still woefully lacking from my perspective When the breadth and reach of our jurisdiction is considered When the pain and anguish of injury is considered And when the lives of children in particular and other vulnerable populations are considered We have a special mission here at the CPSC There's no doubt about that and that goes well beyond the paper that's in front of us that describes these projects We're reminded of our work every day We're reminded when we read news clips as we have recently About one girl dying in an accident in a portable amusement park And in another incident at a portable music park amusement park a girl having her scalp turned off in front of torn off in front of her parents We're reminded in death reports that are frankly haunting And that underscores the urgency of the work funded in this mid-year and in the operating plan that we approved earlier this year Despite our efforts. We could not save an 83 year old woman from minnesota from carbon monoxide poisoning stemming from a leak in a gas furnace Despite our efforts. We could not save a couple in massachusetts who died in a house fire when there seemed to be no working fire alarms Despite our efforts in the last week alone almost 20 people were reported Die who died while using atvs five of those people were children We could not save a four-year-old killed when the atv. She was riding with her grandmother on rolled over Everyone at this agency is impacted by the in-depth investigations. We analyze the press reports we read And the stories we hear from victims and parents That is why staff has put forward these projects. They are timely. They are relevant and they address port and safety issues In no way do I think we can save everyone We are not seeking a risk-free society In some of these projects the technical issues are daunting and the hazards may not be well understood This is especially true when we add in the confounding issue of human behavior But we know we have to keep pushing we have to do everything in our power to save lives and prevent injuries That is why I support strongly these mid-year initiatives In many cases it is the work of cpsc staff that finally ends years of deaths and injuries from a product And we see that across the board That it's the creative thinking And the desire to problem solve that leads to a staffer coming up with an idea That works its way through the management chain Gets funded and approved by the commission That ends up changing the dynamic and solving a problem and saving lives I'm extremely grateful to the cpsc staff for their great ideas For their enthusiasm and for the mission for their enthusiasm for the mission And for always driving us toward a safer world for all of our loved ones. Thank you commissioner anthill very briefly I can remember back when president kennedy announced four consumer rights Back in 1962 and the fourth right and to me probably the most important was the right to safety And that is something that has been enshrined in the loss since 1972 when At least with respect to consumer products when the consumer product safety commission was set up And i'm still struck by the fact that we do so much with so little Uh, I can't get out of my mind the fact that for fiscal year 2016 Fda's budget request to the congress Was uh, the increase in their budget request was larger than the entire size of the consumer product safety commission And I think most people don't understand that that we are such a dedicated agency that we pack so much punch With every dollar we spend and a lot of that has to be Placed on the shoulders of the staff just an extraordinarily talented Hardworking dedicated staff. I'm so proud to be associated with Folks here and if you look at over the years that the projects the commission has actually worked on It's been extraordinary what we have done look at the over 90 reduction in deaths from Children getting into Description drugs and poisons because of the poison prevention packaging act look at the dramatic reduction in fires flammability Even the dramatic reduction in fatalities associated with the postured furniture not enough But some dramatic improvements. I think this commission is About as good in terms of bang for the buck as any other institution in the federal government And i'm so proud to be associated with it and again I want to thank staff for the exceptional work that you've done on this mid year review. Thank you commission Robinson I just want to thank mr. Hoffman and mr. Howell You too Put in such an enormous effort on this and I know there are a lot of other folks as well But you too just think so creatively and bring so much wisdom and experience and just plain caring To this process and I really really appreciate it this This getting to know the teams a little bit more with the smoke alarm and the atvs at it just i'm always whenever I Drill down with one of our teams. I'm just so impressed. I'm coming up on my third anniversary as a commissioner here And every time I work with somebody in an intense way here so that you find out Exactly what they're thinking and the analysis that goes in I just wish that we had a way of advertising to the world what an incredible team we have here I would like to thank my fellow commissioners and certainly particularly commissioner berkel They're sponsoring the youth incentive program with me and my fellow commissioners for voting for it And I really would like to thank my personal staff heather bramble bow as green And doddy yarr have just been working their little tails off the last Um a couple weeks to make sure that I got to a position where I had enough information that I could vote intelligently on this package and I thank them. Thank you Mr. Berkel, thank you mr. Chairman first. I want to thank my colleagues for agreeing with me to have a decisional although the amount this year mid-year was A little bit less than last year I think it's important because we're spending the american people's dollars that we're transparent and we have this discussion publicly So I thank them for that and I just want to echo what's already been said Thank you to the staff for the package for putting it together For answering all of our questions along the way and for being here today We do appreciate what good work you do and how available you are to us Uh, I briefly I'll touch upon recall effectiveness. We've had bits and pieces of it today We've talked about it. It's a challenge that is recognized not only by us But by consumer groups by advocacy groups and the regulated community and trying to become more Effective at it is certainly something on our radar. We know the chairman called for a workshop and we're looking forward to that In the near future regarding this issue And so um what commissioner robinson When she came to our office with regards to this youth incentive program We were very pleased to to become a part of it and I do want to thank has already been said Heather and nancy did the yeoman's work here as staff usually does So I want to express my appreciation for them for being so flexible and for Crossing the finish line of this project. I also want to thank dwayne and jay and carol um For their efforts to successfully complete my request for the electronic monthly progress reports We talked about that and I understand the commissioners the other commissioners have been briefed on it And I am really Extremely pleased that that will happen and I think along with the topic of recall effectiveness That is going to aid and assist in that Effort to have all that information come in electronically be able to download it and put it into sheets and be able to Look at it. So I'm very pleased and I appreciate all the efforts that went towards that I did support this year's mid-year budget And I just want to say as I said in my opening comment with regards to atvs. I still have some concerns The rulemaking began in 2006 in 2008 that congress directed the agency to promulgate a final rule And in 2011 they directed the agency that a final rule should be completed within a year It's now 2016 and we've not promulgated that rule and in fact atvs have been pushed back to the research stage once again Millions of dollars have been spent on the issue and I want to make sure that There is an expectation That we we have a goal that we know what finish line we're trying to cross I think it would have been more appropriate to discuss this in the in an ops plan rather than a mid-year But since that wasn't the majority opinion, I couldn't get my colleagues to join with me. I didn't offer the amendment and But I do think that this this is a this is a major topic as I mentioned earlier We have a different commission. We have a different congress. We have a different relationship between As has been evidenced by the experience with the rov with the industry with the organizations So I think that using that model would be a very prudent way to go forward I want to be real clear in my comments that i'm not supporting a mandatory standard And i'm not advocating that that's I can hear the chairman snickering to my left I just want to make that clear. Um, I think this entire issue should be reconsidered We need to consider whether the path we're on is an appropriate one given the recent experiences that we've had to the good And I think we're seeing that play out in the standards process With atvs right now, and I want to commend staff And I know commissioner ravinson mentioned the team For their efforts to get a voluntary standard I understand it is being validated as we speak for the first round of atvs And I do look forward to staff continuing this really collaborative effort with the industry To reach and to get to the safest atv vehicle that we can Given the nature of the of the vehicle My other concern and we already talked about this Regarding mid-year was the same issue with the 16 ops plan just clarity and information And I think and the only reason we want the information is just because informed votes are always best I remember oftentimes on the hill people would get you and they'd say well, what'd you vote on, you know And it's important, you know what you voted on and why so that's our quest for information here at the agency Again, I do want to thank and he's gone now But douglas this hearing room is is really wonderful the acoustics sitting here I don't see anyone wrapped in shawls that we used to see and It does reflect it does reflect both douglas's and patricia's style It's it's just an elegant lovely room And I want to thank them for all their efforts and just in closing in 1999 congress designated the month of may as military appreciation month and To ensure that our nation was given the opportunity to publicly demonstrate their appreciation for the sacrifices and successes Of our service and our military Both past and present each year the president makes a proclamation reminding americans of the important role U.s. Armed forces have played in the history development and safety of our country And so to the members here at the agency most of you are past members of the military But I know we all do appreciate your service and sacrifice and as I Said as a member of the veteran affairs committee. I think we are a grateful nation and we thank you for your service. Thank you Thank you commissioner berkel commissioner rogerovic Thank you, mr. Chairman. First of all, I would like to thank all the staff for their work in putting together this package and the work They do every day I think commissioner adler said it best and I'll echo his sentiment when he mentioned how proud he is To be associated with the professional work of the cpsc to be associated with the cpsc and its successes As well as as it's very critical mission I think it was very wonderfully put and I'll just echo those I'll echo those sentiments. I'd like to also congratulate my commissioners commissioner berkel commissioner robinson for the success of their amendment and for Involving me in the consideration of it in the in the days prior to this hearing I'd like to also thank my fellow commissioners for their consideration and their their vote for it on on my amendment With regards to the priorities I don't think we'll look back and regret on that on that vote and again I would like to recognize and show my appreciation for commissioner robinson's leadership with regards to the general hazard concern of Furniture tip over commissioner robinson. You're about to have I think your third year anniversary. It's about to be my second Uh, so i'm a full year behind you on this, but I appreciate the collaboration on this one particular area as well as many others I'd like to also thank the special assistants, which um, you know Don't often get recognized for the amount of work that goes into consideration of amendments and Finding middle ground, which is so often found at the commission level So I want to show my appreciation to every commissioner special assistants But of course in particular to my staff this time around for always keeping me very well informed Bryce dustman Mike gentine ryan radford. Thank you very much for all you do for me Um, and finally, I'd like to compliment the chairman on what I thought was a particularly eloquent closing I say that with uh, complete honesty. So, um, I was very moved by it. Thank you Thank you commissioner marovic. Unfortunately, it wasn't as eloquent as commissioner burkels Stance in favor of a mandatory standard for atvs Thank you for everyone in attendance and for watching online. This concludes this public meeting of the united states consumer product safety commission


OK, cool. Right. Hi, folks. Hi, Jacking. This is very much a boff. I'll reiterate what I've said in other sessions. This is not something where I'm gonna tell everybody what I think should happen. This is a session I think we should be having for the sake of having a discussion.  Arall yw ydych chi'n gaeth eu cyfnod o'r cyffredin llwyddoedd ar ôl y cyfnod, a'r cyffredin llwyddoedd yn fawr i'r cyffredin llwyddoedd. Dysgu chi'n gweithio'r cyffredin llwyddoedd. Ac mae'n ddweud o'n cael ei bod yn cyffredin llwyddoedd. Mae'n gweithio'r cyffredin llwyddoedd. Mae'n gweithio'n cael ei wneud i'r digwydd ac yn ymddangos rhai yn maen, ac mae'n fawr i'r llwyddoedd. So, As I'm guessing a number of people have noticed we've had several heated discussions on Debbie and Devel and elsewhere in the last few months about the topic of hijacking. Wether you describe it as hijacking or aggressive enemy-ing or offening and taking over packages, there's a whole continuum of describing basically taking over maintenance of a package from an existing maintainer. Is that ever right? Is it ever something we should do? I've seen some people suggest not at all ever, no way 100%. I've seen other people saying, yeah fine, go for it. So what do we mean by hijacking? Is it acceptable to take a package if a maintainer is basically missing in action if they haven't been around for five years and may also never get responses? Is it okay if you think that a package is unmaintained? Has it not been uploaded for three years or so? Is it okay if a package is badly maintained and it's arcy buggy as hell and the maintainer isn't doing anything? Is it okay to take over a package if the maintainer isn't doing something that matches what you want? Is it okay if the technical committee say it's okay? What do we think? Anyone? Ian? I think sometimes we will use the word hijack to include situations where the maintainer seems to be absent or anyway isn't resisting. I'm not sure that that's quite the best way to define the problem. The problem comes surely when the existing maintainer or maintainers are clearly unwilling rather than just not cooperating or failing to exist entirely. Exactly what to do about that situation is something that we have struggled with for a long time. I don't have any good answers. Salvage, he's suggesting for a situation where the maintainer is just not apparently there. There are some situations in which the maintainer himself is not necessarily MIA but is effectively MIA for some packages. I personally think that waiting for a maintainer to be fully MIA on 100% of his packages might be too late when some packages need help before that. It's perfectly reasonable for one to have lost interest in parts of the archive or his packages somewhere and we currently lack a clear way to just take away packages from a maintainer. I don't think we entirely lack a clear way to take away maintainers from a package. There is the QA offening process which I have done to a few packages where you file a bug saying this package appears not to be maintained. I propose offening it and it's three months later offened it. That's a really long wait. If no one replies to the bug I don't see what possible harm it could have. That's almost what I was getting on with if the maintainer is absent. In that sense it's certainly not controversial and you can see that it's not controversial because by definition there's nobody who's opposing it. The question is under what circumstances should we grasp the package and force it out of the existing maintainer's death grip? Historically Debian has had a very strong maintainer culture but we seem to be moving away from that. There's also the difficulty that our nominal system for taking packages away from maintainers is the technical committee who have never done that. Frankly I don't think they are very likely to in the future. It can't possibly be right that no package in Debian has ever been wrestled away from an unwilling maintainer. There must have been cases where that was the right thing to do. We obviously lack a way to do it and an idea of when that should happen and who should decide. It's clearly an emototopic. One of the strengths of Debian is that we allow maintainers control over their packages. It's one of the ways that Debian scales well that we don't have to have group discussions over everything that we do. But it's also one of our weaknesses that there are a number of maintainers that I've seen who are very territorial about their packages and don't want to accept help. There are people out there who will respond very aggressively if you ever deign to NMU their package for Nazi bug for example, which is unfortunate. We're trying to work together as a team to produce the best operating system we can. I pointed out that the technical committee have never handed over maintenance of a package. Do we think that's correct? Should we explicitly ask the tech committee to step in in these situations? Should we have another mechanism? When I said we don't have a proper procedure, I think it's right that we have some guidelines or it's somehow widely known that we should go to Debian Devil with some delay, something like that. Maybe having multiple steps written down in developers reference saying if you think a package is outdated too much or that it should change maintainer, this is the procedure you should follow. Step one, send that type of mail, wait that amount of days and step two, go to Debian Devil with that type of mail, wait that amount of days etc. Then everybody is aware of what the procedure is, in which step we are for which package and then it's also more clear. I don't know, just throwing out the idea. What people have said so far about going through the QA process and checking on things and offening a package if the maintainer doesn't seem to be around, the weird thing about that is it's not like there is a defined QA team, every developer is a member of QA when they feel like. If we go for that way as a method then you could just say as a member of QA I'm saying this package is orphaned and then potentially 10 minutes later say I'm going to take this package which clearly is not within the spirit but technically is correct from what some people have suggested. I think that document the process, if you are willing to hijack the package or if you are noticing something you can go directly to the missing in action database and document the process by yourself. I mean it's public and you just need to read it and put a tag for it and that way the maintainer will be also keep on the missing in action team rather. So we seem to have focused on packages that are effectively orphaned. I think Steve you were also talking about packages that are maintained but maintained possibly in a bad way. Yes. Well I'm looking to stimulate discussion about all of these places. I mean there was a particular example that we've had recently and I don't wish to pick on individual people but I'm going to pick an example of the wine packages where we've had a maintainer who doesn't have the time to do the maintenance yet still wants the maintenance to happen in the way that they want. While I understand obviously, let's be honest, Debian is full of people with strong technical opinions who are always going to want things their own way. Also in my opinion there should always be a time when if you're not doing the work you don't get to dictate how it's done. Again it works that way of course that when you are doing the work you get to dictate it.  So I'd like to agree with what you just said there and suggest to Steve that we should try to narrow the scope of this both to situations where there is an existing maintainer and they are actively resisting the package to transfer to a new user. Even if that only means that they are answering emails saying no. In the other situation it's not controversial, we already have processes that deal with that, they may or may not be too fast or too slow but that's not the really difficult question. I think the bad problem we have is that we don't have a good answer, the difficult question of when is somebody not being a good enough maintainer. Does anybody have any ideas about firstly how badly maintained a package has to be before you want to depose an unwilling maintainer and secondly who should be making that decision. Leo. It has to have some kind of context of the package itself and its role within Debian. If you're talking about a leaf package that only a small number of people use then so if you're talking about changing the maintainer of one of the base packages or something involved in the tool chain you've got to have a much wider approval for that. How do we bring the type of package into the equation as well. It's not just about how actively the existing maintainer fights, it's also about how important is that package and proper maintenance of that package to a wide project. Can we come up with a reasonable set of guidelines to give us help, to give us a process. Should we have to wait for five other Debian developers to complain that this package is clearly not being maintained well enough? Should it be ten? Is that a valid thing to count? Should we say that this package is ex-releases behind upstream as well? Should we say does it have this many RC bugs? In some cases there may not be RC bugs but a package is clearly not being maintained adequately. It's a difficult one to call. What do we think? I'm seeing half of the room not saying anything at all. Is email important? Neil, to the Neil. One of the things that we've been considering for a number of releases is essentially blocking and removing from testing at freeze time any orphaned packages. Because if there isn't a maintainer then that's just going to create a problem. Sure, I've seen that, essentially being orphaned as an RC bug. It would be interesting to get a view on if people would like the release team to take other factors into account on what we should do around releases, including maintainership. I'm quite keen not to have the release team essentially deciding who should be maintainers of packages or directing maintainers to do stuff in that way. You don't have enough people hating you already. But it would be useful to get some feedback if there's something they want to say the release team to do specifically for release time. That doesn't help unstable, which we try not to touch as much as possible, but that might be another thing which we might be able to look at as well. The thing that Neil just said there about the release team not wanting to decide who's the maintainer of a package. I think that's sort of hitting the nail on the head there really because nobody wants to be making these decisions apart from the person who wants to take over the package. Everybody else is just going, oh my God, please no! The effect of that is that really very bad situations of the maintainership of a package can go on for a very long time and everybody gets really embittered and nobody is willing to make a decision. The result is eventually maybe somebody gets beaten down and walks away from the package or maybe they don't. That's kind of war by attrition and not the best way to do things. Or maybe they bounce it to the tech committee who then only get it once it's already a flame war. If it gets to that point then generally the maintainer who loses out will often resign from debbing entirely. If it gets to that level of animosity. As I said earlier it's an emotive decision people really do feel strongly about this. I mean actually we have the low threshold NMU page already to show for those people who are happy to accept help on their packages. How many people here maintain Debian packages? Right, leave your hands up if you're not in the low threshold NMU page. Next question is obvious, why not? Adam just said he's not there because he's never been bothered to go and do it yet. Ian. I prefer, there are certain mistakes that people can make with my packages and I would prefer them to ask me in advance. Every time anybody has emailed me saying I propose to this NMU I have replied very promptly in general yes sometimes yes but watch out. Okay cool, Neil. Hang on a second, just a quick point perhaps we should give people one hijack that they're allowed to do. At the moment everybody's allowed to hijack as much as everybody else. So you get to do one hijack if you're really under all the same circumstances but you're only allowed to do it once. And then whether it was a success gets reviewed at some point and you're never allowed to do it again. If you did it wrong. So people have this sort of token that they value and they're not going to waste it on just mucking about. They take even more responsibility about and then it gets reviewed and afterwards yeah fair enough you can have your token back. Okay, cute idea who reviews it. I think the court of public opinion will have decided at some point later whether it was a good idea or not. Phil also what happens with that if you've actually got a hijack that involves a chain of packages you've got to take over two or three. It becomes a number of packages that will form one hijack then or sometimes you actually need to take over friends. Oh it's clearly doomed to failure then. Well that wouldn't mean an instant team packaging thing which would probably be better than the previous situation. That's one of the reasons why I'm not on the low threshold enemy. It's actually I've got the vast majority of the packages are already team maintained. And if one of the team doesn't get back to them then that's a problem with the team and we need to sort that out. I'm on the low threshold enemy page but also with comments I mean that if its team maintained go there first and I mean it's also protected by the fact that normally enemies mean that you fix a bug and this bug has not been answered. So I mean it's mostly for the case where I'm away for some reason or just out of internet for some time and that it's better to have maintained packages than just me maintaining my packages but I mean that's personal. I agree it's related it's not key to the problem that we're trying to solve here. And I see yes we're talking about Aussie buggy packages where a bug is closed without comment on the bug for example. I'm not going to go looking at the bug number. I mean let's not I've already done it myself let's not pick on particular maintainers particular packages here. You know there are lots of examples out there I'm sure we're all aware of that. Quick show of hands is a metric should it just be done with the least critical bugs. Yes no hands up for yes. Okay should we just describe that say that a package should be hijacked solely if it has released critical bugs that are not fixed. I see two hands out of a room of 20 odd. Should it depend on yes sorry that package question was really ambiguous. Yes thank you Phil should should we define whether or not a package should is available for hijacking. Depending on whether or not you know it's it's behind upstream releases. No should you know. Yeah and we're not frozen yes. Right Vince.  Do we want to look at perhaps say using a metric to go. If you are 20 releases behind or pick a number of releases behind. Mainline then that bug becomes RC and therefore you can just do any music. Yeah maybe or rather than say 20 releases say is it a year behind or or that kind of thing. Yeah it might be reminded that enemies can be done for wish list wish list bugs. I mean the developer reference explicitly doesn't does not say that you cannot do it. So you can do it given reasonable explanation and time. Of course who defines what's reasonable Neil. So a quick comment about the RC nurse of new upstream version bugs. If there's something that's efficiently behind then that it's like really really out of date. Then just talk to the release team and if I think it's reasonable I'll just make it RC. That's probably the easiest way of doing that. In general I think each one of these are our indications of a package being un-maintained rather than a stock entry of things we should do for each of them. So certainly a combination again it's a fuzzy logic human potentially thing that has to be done. You can write things that might find candidates for this. But in the end I think it's something that the project of people as a whole have to say that one there in my judgment is un-maintained that one isn't. And trying to get some criteria for that fuzziness is NP hard. Well quite I know someone in this room came up with not that long ago his own equation for describing how badly maintained a package is. Didn't you Neil? Would it be helpful to actually have an even semi-official check on every package? So the QA team I think Luke has implemented this. There's a package called bypass not a package a page called bypass and it's basically about packages that are poorly maintained using various metrics. It's very tempting isn't it to think we can only come up with some kind of formula, some kind of objective criterion then none of us would have to make these difficult decisions. Yeah absolutely. That's really what's going on here. But it's a difficult decision and if we have these kind of criteria you can guarantee that people will game them. And there will be arguments over whether something is really critical, the things that we put on the list for you might be hijacked, if you don't do them we'll get it done and everything else will be left alone. All of these things will go wrong. We will end up with rules lawyming. What we need is a way to use the existing social mechanisms that we have and somehow get enough weight of opinion behind a decision without getting the whole thing into a nightmarish flame wall on the way there. And how do we do that? Well it's almost like we need a low hijack page where you say that I'm okay to be hijacked? And it almost feels like I want to file an email to whatever PTS such that on my package page it gets that little nice box saying low NMU if you want to just do one thing or low hijack if you want to continue maintaining it. Sure. Good luck. The RFA tag is already some part of the way though isn't it? No, I don't want to orphan it or request for adoption because I'm still maintaining it but if I fall out of the earth go ahead and hijack it. Yeah, that's fair. If you have better agenda or whatever. I suppose of course the only people who are ever going to sign up for that are the well-behaved maintainers. Well for me if I put that up I wonder if anyone will ever hijack my package because I don't think so because I'm like leaf and unimportant. Sure. I think that the idea of having this kind of formula is quite interesting. Maybe adding some kind of more subjective data and not making it authoritative but maybe an indication would be useful because maybe you don't know that your package is so bad but all the people think so and maybe as a repository for packages that need help and maybe something less drastic than just saying hijack but maybe offer help or whatever it could be a nice way to help to get the social fix done. I mean a technical aid for a social problem. Yeah. Passapata Hector. A lot of questions. Who maintains a package. I think teams should take preference over individuals. I like the idea of teams maintaining packages. Of course the teams have to organize themselves on who leads that team and who has to make the important decisions. That was one thing. I have hijacked a few packages and I have filed wishlist bugs to update the packages to newer releases, upstream releases. The maintainer haven't replied. I've been working with upstream trying to fix bugs in these packages and after a year waiting for a reply from the maintainer I just changed the maintainer upload and there was no complaint at all. I mean those guys were lost. Sure. So you've hijacked and you've got away with it. Is how I describe it. The existing maintainer hasn't complained. Salvaged. I mean it's in the bug report and I really explicit that I was intent to hijack the package. I mean I give it like a year at a time. I mean again but you talk about teams too. Teams are typically better but not always. I've seen some packages maintained. The maintenance has been twitched to a team and the team has been essentially one person. Or even worse you end up with a team maintaining a package and actually if you look at the team there's only one person really active. Or the other problem there's three people potentially active but when they get a really hard bug they all sit back and hope that somebody else is going to deal with it. We've all been there surely. Maybe you could put some light or so. I have also been hijacking or salvaging packages and the way I did it is I sent a mail to Depp in Devils saying and explicitly CCing the maintainer saying I intend to hijack this package and I intend to do this in one month's time. Please anyone including the existing maintainer rise ahead and I got zero answer. So I just went away. If we codify something like that in some sort of procedure to hijack I mean that's quite sane because we rise the red flag publicly before doing it with a reasonable time frame. I mean one month is reasonable for almost anyone and then it's also on a public place where anyone can comment and if no one comments then we just go ahead. Sure that sounds very reasonable. I mean so intent to hijack a month. Salvage definitely. At what point does it switch over from a former hijack to a salvage? This is a very important. I think we need to concentrate on this distinction between salvaging and hijacking. Salvaging occurs when the original maintainer is not resisting. Hijacking occurs when the original maintainer is resisting even if that resistance consists only of sending e-mail saying no. And this is a perfectly clear distinction and this means that you can basically always get away with salvaging because nobody is going to object. And that's the basic way this has been going on and I don't think that's even... The idea of doing that as a rule isn't controversial either. A difficult question is hijacking. I think that's a good point Ian but doesn't policy currently forbid hijacking? Some people seem to think so. I've been told that repeatedly. Perhaps it would be an action from this meeting to actually put in the premise of salvage into policy as an actual actionable thing. So it's clear in the policy document. So when this kind of thing comes along... Well volunteered. I didn't just volunteer. You just did yes. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Right. So maybe we can just do a difference between salvaging and hijacking with salvaging being like between common sense humans and with no resistance and then if there's resistance refer that to whatever probably technical committee because there's a disagreement on some technical question I was very interested in Steve had this crazy suggestion of the sort of magic hijack token. I thought that was really interesting. Something like that might actually work on the grounds that it doesn't depend so much on having to persuade some other bunch of people who haven't been involved in the previous history of the package that there's a problem and making a huge public flame war over it. Another possibility is that the technical committee might be somehow encouraged to take a more active role in this. Now at the moment the technical committee is, that would be, Phil suggests yes maybe the technical committee should give out the tokens, that would be a possibility or it could decide to restore the tokens afterwards. Interesting idea. Now all of these things are possibilities. Now interestingly the technical committee is currently in the process of, we're going to start a number of GRs, mostly kind of constitutional bug fixes, but one of them is a thing that I invented which is a piece of advice from the developers to the TC saying, we would like you to be more or less aggressive and that kind of thing will be very influential with the technical committee and if I would encourage everybody to participate in that discussion and if you think the technical committee should be more willing to hand over packages away from existing maintainers then that's something that we need to know about. Do we have any questions from IRC at all? Is anyone following? No, okay. No actually going through with that it sounds like a reasonable place, maybe the technical committee would be the right body to give people back their tokens after they've been used. That sounds like a good way to go. The only comment from IRC is that people think that WNPP is easy to miss. So it's listed on the PTS, it's listed in various other places, you've got to remind emails now. So it's interesting to see why people think that and maybe we need to publish that more again and say when we're going through this. Of course, the downside of the WNPP of course is that the bugs don't actually appear on the packages own bug listing page that I'm aware of and it would be much much nicer if they did maybe, I guess. We have a solution for that Steve, we have the effects control message that you can use to make that happen. Sure, I mean would it be useful actually just to add an extra extra piece of code on it, you know, the BTS is clearly easy to hack on, you know, to add specifically any RFAs, orphans, whatever request for helps into the bug listing for the package itself and not just in the WNPP bug listing. Maybe, just a thought. So we have what sounds like a reasonable solution for salvaging. How long should we leave a package before we consider it that it's in need of salvage? So Steve, I wanted to say something about the WNPP bugs. Maybe it's a good idea to start moving all the requests for help, requests for adoption, whatever bugs into the package itself instead of WNPP and use user tags to find them and stuff like that instead of collecting everything in WNPP. Okay, maybe. Please, I hope people are taking notes on all this. So salvaging, how long should we leave something? Just a question about salvaging, if a package is removed from testing or a package is removed from SID and you've introduced that salvaging and you fix all the bugs and make it transition and that's fine. Without any wait periods before we start discussing wait periods? Again, it's really quite easy to get something removed. Believe me, I've done it a lot. If you then immediately upload, there's nothing stopping you basically hijacking any package that way. And again, that isn't salvaging. Should we wait for the bit to be a nasty bug out for a month? Should we wait for it clearly to be not maintained? But how do we sell it clearly not maintained? What I would put in an eventual reference would be whatever discussed us with people and if you or anyone else think it's reasonable to salvage this package, then just go ahead with the rest of the procedures that might be one month's delay announced on WNPP. And I mean not codify what leads to this situation might be just insane enough if we have the rest of the procedure reasonably written down, I think. Sure. Right, absolutely. And it's important that if we don't have to say why somebody wants to salvage the package, all we have to say is the existing maintainer is not resisting. And that will avoid us getting to the situation where people claim to be salvaging something, but actually they want to hijack it. Correct. So, okay, we have a salvaging process. When the maintainer does argue, because of some who will always, and then it becomes a hijack, what do we do then? Do we let an existing maintainer essentially poison the well and make sure that the package is never going to be effectively maintained? Or at what point do we overrule them? Do we just at that point bounce it straight to the tech committee before we have the flame war? I have been trying to persuade my colleagues on the technical committee that this is something that we should be doing. They're, I think, not all entirely convinced that they, A, want to do it, or B, could do it. One of the GRs that we are proposing is to make it clearer that the technical committee should be allowed to have private conversations with people who are raising an issue. And that will make it hopefully a lot easier. You will be able to go to the tech committee and say, well, I sent a salvage request to this package, but the maintainer objected. And actually, look, it's not really maintained at all. You know, what do you advise? Can you help? And then the technical committee might look at the bugs and might email the maintainer and have a conversation with the maintainer. And hopefully either the problem will be sorted out or the technical committee will become convinced that the hijack was actually necessary in some kind of marvellous ideal world. Okay, cool. I think we have answers. Do we have any more opinions? Any more questions? I'll see. I guess not. I would like to say thank you, Ian, for coming up with salvaging, which is something I have not. So it was you. Phil, we're very, very sorry. We've stolen all your ideas.  Apologies. Yes. Ian corrected me unless you knew what it was his. Phil. So, yes. Thank you to Phil for coming up with salvaging. It's a very descriptive, useful term. And so, yes, I think we have reasonable guidelines. If you think something needs salvaging, say so. And describe it as salvaging in your mail to Debbie and Devel and CCing. Ideally, the team maintainers, the maintainers individually, any uploaders and let them respond. If there is a real argument and people really don't want to either fix the bugs that they've been neglecting or that you take it over, that's the point to take it straight to the tech committee and we'll keep them busy. Now that they're having monthly IOC meetings, hopefully a lot of this should happen more rapidly because, again, a month is a reasonable time period, I think. Okay, thank you everybody for coming.