Good afternoon to all of you and now welcome to this public meeting of the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission We have one item on our agenda today Our CPSC staff will brief the Commission on the proposed rule Safety standard addressing blade contact injuries on table saws The CPS staff members briefing us today are Ms. Caroline Paul Mechanical engineer from the Office of Hazard Identification and Reduction Dr. Joel rec assistant deputy director for engineering sciences and Ms. Hyund Kim from the Office of General Counsel. I want to sincerely thank all of you for being here today and These three people and staff represent a whole team of people who have worked on this issue And so we want to thank all of them for being here as well at the conclusion of today's briefing Our staff will turn excuse me We will turn over the hearing to the commissioners to ask the questions. We have agreed to do three rounds of ten minute questions per commissioner and Then at that point we'll assess because if the commissioners have additional questions, then we will consider extending the briefing So with that we're now going to start the staff briefing. Thank you again for being here and please go ahead Good afternoon, my name is Hyund Kim. I'm in the office of the general counsel I'm here today with Caroline Paul and Joel Wrecked from engineering sciences We'll be discussing the notice of proposed for making to address blade contact injuries on table saws I'll be giving a brief overview of our statutory framework for issuing a standard under the CPS a Joel will discuss the staff briefing package and basis for the preliminary findings in the proposal proposed rule Section 7 and section 9 of the CPS a establish the requirements for the commission to issue a consumer product safety standard Section 7 authorizes the commission to issue consumer product safety requirements For a consumer product or to set forth requirements that a product be marked or accompanied by clear or adequate warnings or instructions Any requirements must be reasonably necessary to prevent or reduce an unreasonable risk of injury associated with the product Section 9 of the CPS a Specifies the procedure that the Commission must follow and findings that the Commission must make to issue a consumer product safety standard under section 7 The Commission has the option of beginning a rulemaking with a notice of proposed rule or an advanced notice of proposed rule For table saws the Commission began with an advanced notice of proposed rule Which was published on October 11th, 2011 the Commission received more than 1,600 comments Several hundred commenters supported the rule Other commenters who opposed the rule raised a number of issues The primary issues included whether proposed standard would mandate a monopoly Whether the standard would limit consumer choice and selecting table saws Whether the government should require individuals to use safer table saws and Questions were also raised about the efficacy of the voluntary standard and the use of the modular blade guard Joel will adjust these issues further in this presentation under section 9 of the CPS a Before the Commission can issue a consumer product safety standard The Commission must publish in the federal register the text of the proposed rule The proposed rule must identify the product and risk of injury it must describe Regulatory alternatives that the Commission considered It must conduct a preliminary regulatory analysis. It should invite and review comments The Commission must also provide an opportunity for the oral presentation of data views or arguments in addition to written comments When the Commission develops a consumer product safety standard Prior to issuing a standard the Commission has to consider and make appropriate findings to be included in the rule These findings include the degree in nature of risk intended to be addressed by the rule The approximate number of products subject to the rule The need for the public and the effect of the rule and the utility cost and availability of the product and Any other means of achieving the objective of the rule while minimizing adverse effects on competition There are additional findings These include whether rule is reasonably necessary to reduce an unreasonable risk of injury Whether the rule is in the public interest Whether the expected benefits of the rule bear a reasonable relationship to the costs and whether the rule imposes the least burdensome requirement that prevents or adequately reduces the injury In addition if a voluntary standard addressing the risk of injury has been adopted and implemented The Commission must find either that the voluntary standard is not likely to eliminate or adequately reduce the risk of injury Or that substantial compliance with the voluntary standard is unlikely Joel will now give you an overview of the briefing package and the basis for the preliminary findings in the proposed rule Thank you. Hi on Good afternoon Chairman Birkeland commissioners Caroline Paul is our staff expert and the project manager for table saws. However Caroline has just returned from an extended trip overseas And is still adjusting to our time zone. So I will be presenting this on her behalf I'm going to discuss the product description the incident data and hazard patterns recommendations to mitigate the hazards regulatory analysis adequacy of the voluntary standards findings and the staff recommendation So what is a table saw? We have a few of them in front of you Show but a table saw is a common power tool Used in many wood shops its purpose is to make straight accurate cuts in wood and other materials There are three major types of bent of table saws and these include bench saws All of the ones in front of your bench saws contractor saws and cabinet saws Bench saws retail for about a hundred and thirty to fifteen hundred dollars each They can be placed on a bench or a wheeled cart And they're portable including these heavier job site saws to the commission's left Contractor saws are heavier and more accurate and less easily transportable and retail from about five hundred dollars to two thousand dollars And cabinet saws are the heaviest most accurate highest end Table saws that consumers generally use and they retail from about twelve hundred to five thousand dollars some of the important parts of a table saw include a miter gauge and rip fence that are used to help guide the workpiece Also, there are important safety devices including the blade guard Splitter or spreader and anti kickback device. I'll talk about these more Woodworkers rely on table saws to make straight accurate cuts Which can either be through the wood dividing it into two pieces or into the wood, but not all the way through Through cuts both rip and cross cuts can be done with the blade guard attached However, non through cuts which go into the piece But do not go all the way through like the dado cut and rabbit cut shown on this slide require removal of the blade guard in in 1971 table saws listed by UL were protected by this type of device It consists of a single piece blade guard this part together with a splitter and anti-kickback Paul's The splitter prevents the cut wood from closing on the blade and These anti-kickback Paul's are barbs that allow the workpiece to pass in the correct direction But which dig in if the piece reverses direction This whole system is removed from the from the table saw as a unit So when the blade guard is removed for instance for a non through cut the whole Safety device with all of those parts of the safety device are removed the UL standard was updated in 2007 with an effective date of January 2010 and now current saws like the ones in front of you use a modular blade guard and a Riving knife the modular blade guard Was designed to provide a better view of the workpiece and to be easy to remove and reinstall Importantly the Riving knife and you can see this in the picture Moves up and down with the blade and can remain in place When the modular blade guard is removed and that provides some protection against kickback as well as some blade contact protection from the rear UL 987 has been the voluntary standard and is currently transitioning to UL 62 841-3-1 and this is being done for international harmonization Both UL 987 and 62 841-3-1 require the Riving knife and modular blade guard Neither of them require aim technology, which I will discuss shortly Currently manufacturers can list to either of these standards until August of 2019 when 62 841-3-1 becomes effective We analyzed emergency department treated injury incidents from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System or NICE in 2015 there were an estimated 33,400 table saw related emergency department treated injuries of those 92 percent or 30,800 injuries were related to table saw blade contact as You can see that includes 18,100 lacerations 5,900 fractures 4,700 amputations and 2,000 avulsions Compared to all other consumer products in the NICE Table saw blade contact accounts for 18.6 percent of all amputations And compared to other workshop products, which includes circular saws and band saws grills manual tools etc Table saw blade contact counts for 52.4 percent of all Amputations related to workshop products Also older consumers are injured by blade contact and the estimated mean age Of table saw blade contact victims is 55.6 years old Which is about 13 years older than the estimated mean age for victims involved in all other workshop product injuries Which is 42.7 years our epidemiology staff analyzed incidents from 2004 to 2015 and found no discernible change in either the number of table saw blade contact injuries or the risk of table saw blade contact injuries from 2004 to 2015 this includes the years before and after the modular blade guard was required in the voluntary standard in addition to our national estimates staff analyzed incident reports in our consumer product safety risk management system or CPS RMS These 53 reports are anecdotal and cannot be used to make national estimates However, they do provide more detailed information In 45 of the incidents we know what type of blade guard was manufactured with the saw and 11 of those were modular blade guards And with both modular and traditional blade guards We saw the same types of accident scenarios operator behavior and severe life-changing injuries We considered the human factors associated with blade contact Blade guards are removed for non-through cuts and also for preference to see the cut better Blade contact can also occur with the guard in place sudden stock movement can be unexpected and can cause a loss of control and the hand can contact the blade Hands can also be close to the blade for small cuts, especially if a push stick is not used Fatigue and inattention can also cause blade contact Also older adults with age-related deficits may be more susceptible However, we cannot quantify how much these injuries can be reduced through various types of active injury mitigation Active injury mitigation or aim supplements the blade guard and riving knife and consists of two parts First there must be some system to detect The contact between the human body and the blade And this detection could be based on electrical, thermal, optical or other properties Secondly once the system has detected the blade contact It needs to have some mechanism to react and mitigate the injury One example of a detection system is to use an electrical signal and monitoring of that to detect There are two aims Equipped saws in front of you and each of them uses an electrical detection signal also Switching back and forth, but on the on the slide in the rather complicated Diagram there. It's meant to illustrate that The there's a characteristic electrical signal coupled to the saw blade And that's monitored by the saw's computer Contact to the blade by the human body Changes the signal in a way which can be detected and differentiated from wood and That can be used to trigger a response One example of a reaction mechanism is to retract the saw blade beneath the surface of the table Again, both of the aim systems in front of you retract the blade saws After triggering although they do so in different ways with different mechanisms the one on Let's see the right Your left my right sorry is Accomplishes this by applying a spring-loaded aluminum block into the saw blade to rapidly stop the blade and use the angular momentum from that to drive the blade under the table The one on your right my left from another manufacturer Accomplishes this by activating a cartridge which combusts a pyrotechnic material much like an airbag activation and With that fires a piston which causes the blade to retract below the table Staff recommends a performance standard for active injury mitigate mitigation which requires that the maximum depth of cut to a test probe Representing the human body or finger be three and a half millimeters when that probe is introduced Radially to the rotating saw blade at a rate of one meter per second Staff believes that three and a half millimeters depth of cut is sufficient to avoid Microsurgery on nerves and arteries based on the anatomy of human fingers and staff believes that a one meter per second Approach velocity is appropriate for a performance test for the radial component of the hands approach velocity and It's also Notable that this is twice as fast as the calculated rate in more than a thousand activations which were recorded by saw stop Importantly staff found that this performance standard is feasible Testing of the two aim technologies currently available showed that they could limit the depth of cut To the test probe to less than three millimeters when approached at one meter per second Staff conducted a preliminary regulatory analysis and considered the societal costs associated with table saw blade contact Based on estimates from nice and the CPSC's injury cost model. There were an estimated 54,800 medically treated blade contact injuries in 2015 including 30,800 initially treated in hospital emergency departments and another 24,000 which were treated elsewhere such as physician's offices clinics and ambulatory surgery centers Society societal costs of these injuries amounted to about four billion dollars in 2015 about 30% of those societal costs were economic losses medical costs and work loss and about 70% represented the intangible costs associated with pain and suffering Amputations accounted for about 13.7 percent of all medically treated injuries, but almost two-thirds of the injury costs Staff analyzed the expected benefits of the draft proposed rule It would reduce blade contact injuries by an estimated 70 percent to 90 percent annually This would result in an expected gross benefit range of about $2,300 to $4,300 per table saw over its expected product life or an aggregate of about 970 million dollars to two point four five billion dollars over the product life of one year of sales That also looked at the expected costs of the draft proposed rule These would range from about two hundred and thirty dollars to five hundred and forty dollars per bench saw three hundred and seventy five to nine hundred and twenty five dollars per contractor saw and $400 to nine hundred and fifty dollars per cabinet saw The aggregate annual costs could range from about one hundred and sixty eight million dollars to three hundred and forty five million dollars per year Staff believes that the higher retail prices associated with meeting the draft proposed rule Would reduce market sales by as much as fourteen to thirty eight percent Which is ninety thousand to two hundred and fifty thousand saws per year This would result in a lost consumer surplus for consumers who choose not to purchase a new saw because of the higher prices Which could amount to ten million dollars to seventy million dollars per year Staff also considered royalty and licensing issues Manufacturers will likely license the existing patented aimed technology The royalty rates or other terms of potential licensing agreements are uncertain Assuming a royalty fee of eight percent of the wholesale price royalties could average about 37 to 57 dollars per table saw 99 dollars to one hundred and thirty five dollars per contractor saw and 187 dollars to two hundred and twenty three dollars for cabinet saw In total given the expected table saw sales and an eight percent royalty fee Aggregate royalty fees could amount to about thirty million dollars to thirty five million dollars per year Based on staffs benefit and cost estimates the net benefits, which are the benefits minus the costs for the market as a whole Was estimated to be about fifteen hundred dollars to four thousand dollars per saw And these aggregate net benefits would amount to about Six hundred and twenty five million to two point three billion dollars over the product life of one year of table saw sales A break-even analysis suggested that the benefits would exceed the cost for each major type of table saw bench contractor and cabinet for most plausible injury patterns Staff conducted an initial regulatory flexibility analysis Small manufacturers of table saws mostly Manufacture the cap contractor and cabinet saws Table saw manufacturers would be required to license or develop aim technology to remain in the market and Some firms are likely to reduce or eliminate the table saw as they currently offer or leave the market Therefore the draft proposed rule will likely have a significant impact on small manufacturers One small manufacturer saw stop could significantly benefit from the proposed rule The preliminary regulatory analysis and the regulatory flexibility analysis identified several alternatives to the draft proposed rule including Pursue table saw voluntary standards activities extend the effective dates of a possible rule Exempt certain categories of table saws from the draft proposed rule Limit the applicability of the performance requirements to some but not all table saws Or pursue an information and education campaign to better inform the public of the hazards of blade contact and the benefits of the aim technology UL 987 and 62 841-3-1 will not adequately reduce the risk of blade contact injuries Because the riving knife and modular blade guard do not adequately reduce the risk of blade contact injury No change was seen in injury or risk of injury before and after the introduction of the modular blade guard There were at least 11 reported blade contact incidents on table saws equipped with modular blade guards We saw similar injuries occur on table saws that were sold with modular and traditional blade guards The blade guards are not always used and blade contact can occur when the blade guards are in place Also, UL 987 and 62 841-3-1 do not require aim systems In making preliminary findings the Commission can consider frequency and severity of injuries There were an estimated 4,800 emergency department treated blade contact injuries in 2015 involving approximately 18,100 lacerations 5,900 fractures 4,700 amputations and 2,000 of Vulsions The adequacy of the voluntary standard modular blade guards and riving knives do not adequately reduce the risk of blade contact injury The amenability of the hazard to injury reduction Aim can reduce severity of blade contact injury from amputation to simple laceration Cost and benefit of CPSC action the estimated net benefits average $1,500 to $4,000 per table saw or 625 million to 2.3 million dollars per year and alternatives Less burdensome alternatives would not adequately reduce blade contact injuries on table saws therefore staff recommends This that the Commission publish an NPR as drafted by the also general counsel to address blade contact injuries on table saws The staff recommends an effective date of 36 months after publication of the final rule for manufacturers to comply with the requirements Thank you Thank you very much and thank you all again for being here today So I will begin that the that ends our briefing and I will begin the round of questioning as I mentioned each commissioner will have 10 minutes per round So I want to talk a little bit about The saw stop and the complaint that they filed against Bosch there was an ITC decision Can you brief us on the status of that matter? sure so on January 27th of 2017 the ITC determined that There was an infringement of saw stops patents by Bosch. There were two patents that were involved The ITC determined that the appropriate remedy is a limited exclusion order prohibiting the entry of table saws That incorporate the aim system and in order that the Bosch Company to cease and desist from importing selling aim and components that infringe on such patents the last day for The president through his US TR representative to review the ITC determination is 60 days from January 27th So in this case that period ends on March 28th 2017 The order will go into effect on March 29th 2017 We note that the Commission orders can be appealed at The US Court of Appeals for the federal circuit But that is the current status of ITC proceeding. Thank you Dr. Reck when you were showing us the two aim technologies the two types of technology You talked about the spring-loaded. So one is a mitigation and one is a detection technology So the aim Systems include two parts one part of any aim system is detection to Notice that it's a finger not a piece of wood and the second part of any aim system is some reaction to it Then there can be different types of detection systems there could be different types of reactions, right? Thank you, and and of the two the two parts that you talked to us about who owns the technology Is there any out anyone else besides sawstop who is that capability based on this ITG ITC decision? Well, so we we're not aware of other technologies besides these on the marketplace as far as the portions of that that were So you're asking if there's any other Manufacturer who has the same technology that sawstop is using for detection in the ITC proceeding the commission found that Bosch was in violation of two of the sawstop patents and those two patents Related to the retraction method rather than the electrical detection method. So I Don't think that that case definitively shows that there aren't other methods of even electrical detection signals that a Manufacturer could develop in the future. Thank you How will the ID ITC decision affect our rulemaking if at all? Currently we are waiting to see what happens without proceeding, but for the purposes of the proposed rule and moving forward We're I think that it would not have Significant impact on us and in terms of changing the scope of the current rule Thank you the NPR talks and it actually states that sawstop has filed more than a hundred patents And it mentions that some will Expire over a period of time. Do we have knowledge or information of all of those patents and when they will expire? so The whole web of patents that have been filed by sawstop is extremely extensive I Can't say that we've looked at More than the current ones that were before the ITC Commission but we know that this In order to determine the termination of dates of any patents is an extremely laborious and Extensive process that a late person would not be able to accomplish It's so it's so burdensome that the ITC asked sawstop To tell it's it when their patents would expire so we do not know when the majority of the sawstop patents will expire and To evaluate Any one of those expiration dates would take a huge amount of time and expertise that we currently in our Commission don't have Have we asked sawstop to provide that information to us that they're providing to ITC? They provided that information to ITC so we know that there are the two infringed upon patents they expire on 2020 and 2022 and Is sawstop going to provide that same information to us? We haven't asked We have knowledge of the expiration through the ITC Commission ALJ order. Thank you The NPR distinguishes and talks quite a bit about simple assurations those involving Damage only from the skin surface to a depth of about two millimeters to four millimeters I'm not sure which one of you is going to answer the medical questions And then just distinguishes between the complex and the simple lacerations the complex being cuts that are deeper than four millimeters In 2015 dr. Reck you mentioned that there were an estimated 18,000 100 lacerations from table sauce Do we know how many of these were simple and complex was that a distinction made in the course of? collecting that data We're gonna have that be come up to answer that question. Thank you Hey, so the So for the the 1800 18,000 100 is that was based off of the information from the nice so we just have the diagnosis code of laceration and That although occasionally a nice narrative might that the comments in the nice might give further details They have limited space, so it's very rare that we would know any details about the type of laceration Would we know that there were stitches involved that there was? Yeah, we don't have so within the nice. We don't have what treatments We don't have any kind of treatment codes for what how they put how the how any of the injuries were treated Just the one just the diagnosis code. Okay. Thank you very much Dr. Reck you mentioned this as well as the NPR that in some cases it was The blade guard was removed and you mentioned the non through cuts the dado and the rabbit cuts are We confident that that those numbers are correct in Terms of when they occasion the NPR says some sauce users users occasionally or even always remove the blade Now you mentioned two specific situations The two non through cuts right so we we know that it's Necessary to remove the blade for non through cuts at the blade guard pardon me for non through cuts the we did a modular blade guard survey Which was a us a Survey of 200 table saw users Who either owned a table saw Manufactured after 2009 or later or were very familiar with them That indicated that there were Blade guards are removed it It looked at different ways. So some people there was questions about for do you ever remove them? There were questions about do you remove them for non through cuts? And so it it shows that there are Cases where where they are removed as far as providing a definitive answer of how often They are removed. It's not a generalizable study It was not a statistical Survey in that way So do we have that information from any I mean we glean that information anywhere else? And it could be statistically valid that we could say in this many cases We know that the the saw guard was removed because I think that that's important information If we're looking at the scope of injuries with a table saw if they took off the table guard then how I'll leave it that I'll let you answer We have in so again not in the modular blade guard survey one of the questions was about how after after you remove the blade guard for a non through cut I believe was the question that when do you put it back on and The answer to that Was a range also and I guess some people put it on right after they finished the Non through cut and other people the next time they use the saw and other people it was later At a convenient time. Thank you very much. My time is expired. Commissioner Edler Thank you very much madam chair, and I just wanted to make a very quick short comment before I begin begin First of all, thank you to the staff for all the years You've spent to giving me advice and feedback and information about this particularly Caroline and thank you all for doing a very exhaustive and I think excellent package I note that dr. Gass and his colleagues petitioned us in April 2003 to adopt a performance standard for saws That would incorporate what we now call aim technology. That's 14 years ago in that time You can do a rough estimate, but somewhere on the order of 700 plus thousand injuries in 50,000 plus amputations have occurred Even as we're sitting here today during this day Across the land on average 11 consumers are going to suffer an amputation Another 11 will suffer a fracture and another another eight will suffer serious lacerations And that's just to put it in the context that we're talking about real human beings and real injuries So now to my mundane questions. The first one is I noticed in making the injuries Injury estimates you used non nice data as well as nice data Where did you get the non nice data from and is that what you would consider to be equally reliable? Data as the injury information we get from nice Are you referring to the CPS RMS? I am no not no no I'm referring to the injury cost model Off the hook The non nice or medically treated injuries are our calculated based on relationships gleaned from to HHS nationally sponsored data sources for the Less severe injuries that ones treated in doctors offices and clinics These are based on analysis of data from the medic medical expenditure panel survey From the agency of health care research and quality and for the Admitted injuries that bypass the emergency room. It's estimated from the National This is a mouthful. You'll have to excuse me the health care cost and utilization Project and a national inpatient sample so in both these cases a classification tree or Decision treats Technique is used to analyze the injuries which which creates these will or gets these relationships and in the first case we have to Maybe I can cut to the chase sure on metaphor but How reliable are these data are these data in your mind as reliable as the data we get from nice We haven't I think they're reliable that we don't have the covariance. We don't have the The same confidence info and interval information that we have for the nice but Yes, I think they're and it this is said the injury cost model is something we've been using for years And we use it and with the risk with respect to the development of other standards is that accurate For many years now, okay? We did two special studies both of which turned out to be unsuccessful special studies to try to ascertain the type of model of saw that was associated with injuries and I understand that the field and Epidemiology are conducting a new study designed to fix the problems of the previous Special studies Can you explain what we're doing with the new study and what we're doing to try to avoid the problems that arose with the previous special studies? Because the two studies had inconsistencies on the saw classification and they were conducted by the telephone and We determined that again, it wasn't reliable on the self-declared type regardless of the definitions we supplied So to counter that aspect The study that's ongoing now the field staff are actually Trying to go to the injured individuals home and take a picture of The saw which was associated with the injury so we don't have to rely on the respondent discriminating between one type or the other and and we Have started that again. They're based on the nice cases Starting in January 17 and There will also be the field in essences conducting an IDI we did again have a field protocol developed and Epi did train the field inspectors As a group as to what types of saws what to look for the questions to ask and So we think that those aspects are indeed by design Going to counter the issues that we had over the telephone non-visual type of Discussion so when this new study is completed. Do you think it's fair to say that we will be able to make a Proper determination of the types of saws involved in injuries. That's the objective of this new approach I wanted to ask Carolina question is it okay even though you're suffering from jet lag I Keep hearing hints and snippets about the injuries on bench saws versus cabinet saws that There's a suggestion that cabinet saws might Account for more injuries per saw than bench saws Now if there's anybody who's looked at the bench saw design and the cabinet saw design It is caroline paul. So I guess my question is Just with respect to the engineering design the design only not the use patterns just with respect to the engineering design Is there anything in the basic design of a bench saw that is safer than the Engineering design of a cabinet saw well, it's part engineering design and and Who you are as a woodworker so that there are Intric prime so in terms of engineering design Something can be perfectly parallel to something else or perpendicular and in that instance in terms of a cabinet saw You have a product that is highly engineered to have a flat surface a rip fence That's parallel and all of these are things that a woodworker would tell you that prevent kickback a bench saw My design has a smaller tabletop and we'll have a rip fence that is of less quality So here's the hypothetical if all cabinet saw users switch to bench saws Do you have any reason to believe they would then suffer fewer injuries because they're using bench saws and not using cabinet saws That's a hypothetical. That's a hypothetical. Yeah I can only based on your knowledge of engineers and engineering. I mean of engineering design of table saws based on Physics and engineering design if you have something that is more true And you have a piece of wood that is going through a blade that's less likely to come out of true It will be less likely to have kickback on which one Which ever one is more true and I see and which one is based on your knowledge of bench saws and cabinet saws which one I Guess most woodworkers will tell you the cabinet saw. All right, we got it. Okay Then I'm not gonna be able to have time to ask this next question I guess just a general question There are a variety of injury scenarios that occur when somebody's using a table saw this not necessary question for Ms. Paul as I review the scenarios. I've trouble seeing how any of them really result from significant consumer misuse but we do have this whole issue of blade guards and the removal of blade guards and Joel when I looked at the briefing package that study which you say is not statistically representative said that The something something out of 60% of people surveyed do remove the blade garden that said sometimes 28% often 17% and always 14% and yet you explain and I'm just gonna ask you quickly to explain again No, I'm not. I've just run out of time, but I'll come back to you. Thank you Thank you Commissioner Robinson, thank you And I really want to thank a staff and I see so many back there who were involved in putting this package together and thank you very much for the meeting with me and for your Your attempts to give me very honest answers And I really want to thank you also for the candor in both the package and in your responses in our meeting with respect to the deficiencies we know we have in our data and The effects on the analyses that you were asked to perform and I think that's very helpful in terms of us making a decision Of how we should proceed One quick question There was there were alternative actions contemplated in the NPR that excluded cabinet and contrary Contractor saws from the mandatory standards Standard, but I didn't see anything that considered the alternative excluded of excluding bench saws Can somebody tell me why I? Knew you were back there. I just couldn't see you The reason bench saws weren't included in that category was because most bent saws are probably used by consumers Contractor saws and cabinet saws are more likely to be used by professional users consequently if the Commission wanted to limit the standard to You know some specific types of saws If you were going to exclude some of probably be most reasonable to exclude the the saws that are more likely to be used by professionals that makes sense. Thank you and There is an estimate in the package and Dr. Wrecked you you mentioned it as well that the effectiveness of the AIM technology Specifically saw stop and the Bosch reacts of 70 to 90 percent. Can you tell it and tell me what data you base that on? Yeah We tried to Well, it's difficult to know precisely how many injuries are going to be prevented But in this case we tried to think of the ways in which injuries would not be prevented and we came up with a list For example in some cases the hand may be for some reason may be flying at the saw so quickly that That the saw will cause a lot of damage even though it has the AIM technology on it That's a possibility in some cases Sometimes the AIM is deactivated if you're cutting wet wood or or wood that may be or if you're cutting something That's conductive like aluminum. So sometimes people are going to be Turning the AIM system off The use of the AIM system may in fact result in other changes in safety behavior In the form of reducing safety efforts for other of their prop potential problems For example, if you think that the saw is going to protect you from blade contact for some reason You might not think it's so important to have a ribing knife Which can you know affect kickback or you might not wear goggles and things might fly into your eyes So there's a possibility that people could reduce their safety efforts. We don't really have any evidence of that at this point but that's a possibility and Actually, there were some comments that we got for the AIM PR that suggested that that might be the case and Then there's also a risk Associated with substitute products if for example, you stopped if you didn't buy a Table saw with AIM technology because it was so expensive You might use something else like a hand saw and that might have that might lead to more risky behavior in some circumstances and and then of course as the engineers Indicate over and over again. This doesn't actually prevent injuries. It just mitigates them mitigates them substantially But there will be some some injury. So the 90% we assume that the remainder That might be not prevented for about 10% okay, that's very helpful. Thank you I know that the big huge hole that we have in our Data right now is the type of table saw that is actually involved in in causing injuries And I know we've tried in oh seven or no eight and from data and 14 and 15 Surveys to find this out and I know that they've both been deemed Unreliable and all of the information from them was disregarded. So in the absence of information Identifying which saw has caused injuries. I know that you pursued the break-even analysis and again Thank you for your candor on on what the problems are with this You set up four Hypotheticals one was injuries are proportional to saws in use and every table saw has an equal likelihood of injury You have the second one of risks of all are equal over their lives The third one is risk is proportional to their retail sales price The fourth one is blade contact injuries by table saw type are proportional to the median retail Prices and I appreciate you did the best you could but without information on saw type We know we know that it very well Maybe that none of those are assumptions are right is that right correct? Okay? So in order to be caught to to complete a more fulsome cost-benefit analysis it's my understanding from our discussion the other day that what you need to know to do a more fulsome cost-benefit analysis is first of all if there was blade contact and I'll just comment that I'm satisfied from from the package and from his garland's comments that are nice people But our epi people rather have been very careful and and conservative in selecting Nice data that in where there has been blade contact the second thing is severity of injuries And we know we could get that from the nice data And so the third thing that you're missing is the type of saw and you need that in order to correlate it with one and two Is that why I say the first one you said exactly correctly We'd have a more definitive. I only get one out of three. Well 90% let's But but the second item is we don't really know what the distribution of injuries is in other words What what percentage of injuries occur on table bench saw is what proportion happen on? Cadmet saws and so forth right third is it is the severity issue right if we had the nice Injury estimates by table saw type right we'd be able to figure out what types of injuries were occurring on each table saw And that gets at the severity the break-even Analysis kind of deals with item number two the and I think that the break-even analysis shows that that regardless of what the injury distribution it is it looks like Probably the benefits would be greater than the costs for for all of the different saw types I understand that and and but with the and I understand the premises that that you use because you did a great job of explaining that And I appreciate it. Let me say that we know that exempting contractor and cabinet saws would lessen the impact on small manufacturers and that it would reduce possible OSHA jurisdiction overlap But we have no information on how many contractor and cabinet saws are involved in consumer injuries We know that page two and three pages two and three of tab C sums up our problems with not having this survey data and The cost outweigh benefits in some saw types. So to do our analysis You told us that with no data on this you made assumptions on the number of injuries that could be Prevented the hypothetical distribution of injuries across saw types and the expected post regulatory sales, right? right, okay, as you know My office just found out that there was this flaw that has been known to at least a couple of commissioners for many months But we just found out about it and since then have been spending an enormous amount of energy Circling how we might be able to correct what seems like Really basic data element and that is the kind of saw that's used now I guess I have a couple questions with respect to these previous surveys And let me focus first and this may be something for probably something for for epi but the in 2007-2008 the flaws as they were described in the package were because the interviewers were asking Confusing questions so that people's responses were such that you you could end up with a conflict with respect to the saw types But I just learned yesterday that a number of the the reports the 821 sample Injuries from the 0708 have the manufacturer name and I just I I guess I knew that but what I didn't know Is it a number of these manufacturers? Only made one type of saw so I guess my question is I understand that we need to exclude the Subjective information because of the questions asked and the answers given but has anyone gone through these 821 Reports that we have to see if we have any objective Information with respect to saw type whether it's manufacturer whether it's a photo Whatever it is. I just wonder if anybody's tried to do that We have looked at that and and we're in the process of Getting that answer In a way that we can get it to you probably Tomorrow or the next day terrific And then I guess I have Really the same questions Well, if we were able to have I guess I have to ask the follow-up to that if we accept that I have three more seconds, so I'll wait until the next round. Thank you. Thank you Commissioner Robinson commissioner Kay Thanks, madam chair. I don't have any questions. I just wanted to thank the staff for a phenomenal job I thought it was a very strong package certainly as commissioner Adler mentioned time continues to tick and Consumers deserve some type of response to the this ongoing injury Pattern whether it's this particular rulemaking or some other one, but I have no questions at this time. Thank you Thank you commissioner over. Thank you madam chairman and thank you staff also For the amount of time that you've spent addressing some very specific questions that I've offered over the course of a couple of weeks and those answers have been shared with my colleagues on the commission and It's a it's an area of interest for me in doing a deeper dive looking at From a compare contrast point of view the ANPR and the NPR and I think some of those elements would be worth going into in a little bit greater detail here as I think I'm not the Only one looking at how different the the net benefits and the benefits As they were identified between the ANPR and the NPR so in terms of looking at some of the leading indicators to Drive the benefits part of our cost-benefit analysis. I first wanted to look at the table saw blade contact injury trend analysis and that really gets to a look I think at what was intended to be a study of the effectiveness of the modular blade guard that that went in in a voluntary standard and And I apologize if you mentioned this in the briefing But do you know what year that went into effect or when we would imagine probably the better number when products in the marketplace We're likely to have the modular blade card so the the the Voluntary standard with the modular blade guard became effective January 2010 around and in 2009 They started appearing in the in the market In advance, of course, right? Yeah, so I can and then obviously it takes some time for them to penetrate the market But we went all the way through to 2015 And by which time there there were many There's some overlap so but by 2010 Everyone was providing we would have expected to be penetration for new product sales to include the modular Modular blade guard. Great. Great. Thank you, miss Paul. Yeah, and we yielded we looked at the at the blade contact injury trend per 10,000 saws in the marketplace and Maybe to our disappointment the quote that I want to reference and that was in the presentation from earlier today No discernible change in the risk of injury associated with the table saw blade contact So that leads us to believe that the that the changes made in that in that latest version of the UL Standard didn't have the impact that we were hoping in terms of addressing The risk is that correct? Okay, so the rates of injuries have been the same if there was a discernible trend I know the package mentions that we don't see a discernible trend if there were one What would be the kind of reduction that we might be able to look to and say well, you know Perhaps the modular guard is and other in other efforts education or anything else is having an impact Is there a percentage that we might suggest that? That that leads us to believe that it is having a beneficial safety impact But I would have sir speak to trend analysis because it's If that's too difficult to answer to I would accept that's too hard to come down with a number I don't necessarily have an exact number right, but as the time progresses away from when the voluntary standard went into effect We should expect us to have a larger percentage in each year of soles in use to be there and That I want to quote an econ number, but I don't know if they'll By 2015 they estimate about a third of the of the soles in use should have been Should be compliant. Oh, thank you. Okay. Well, that that's a helpful transition Because I did want to talk about the number of saws in the in population. So I Discovered we have a CPSC product population model Can you want to briefly describe for us what that what that is? Or maybe how long that's been? How long we've had the benefit of that model the acronym is PPM PPM That's all I can say Since the 80s, we've had the model since the 80s. Yeah, and basically it uses estimates of expected life and There's certain things that go into the parameters For the for the distributions or several distributions that are available. We tend to use a gamma But not to get down in the weeds. Anyway Simplify what it does it projects out the life of the product according to As I said shipments Shipments, which we've done product life, etc. And then failure rate exactly failure rates so that We can make a Projection of the population of saws in use for each year So And then that yields okay terrific, and I noticed that from the a NPR The PPM yielded a result of 10 million products in use table saws in scope to the rule and then in 2015 that number was reduced 18 percent to eight eight point two million saws according to the to the PPM And that's on page 15 of tab C So the third element of a leading indicator I want to address is the blade contact injuries now from the staff briefing package both from our nice data from Addressable blade contact injuries We've got thirty thousand eight hundred from nice plus another twenty four thousand as Commissioner Adler got to from our non nice data for a total of fifty four thousand eight hundred in the a NPR we had a total of I think sixty seven thousand Three hundred that is thirty three thousand and a half from nice Thirty three point eight from non nice so between the a NPR and the NPR the addressable blade contact injuries went down 20% Between the a NPR and the NPR so I don't think I can ask this question without some help from a visual aid and Dr. Rect I think there's some slides that'll help get to the big question that I want you to answer here that first with the total population of saws in use down Almost 20% So those are the saws from the PPM Gone down 19% excuse me and then next slide if you will Dr. Rect the blade contact injuries were down 20% between the a NPR and the NPR and finally Next slide please the rate of table saw injury remaining the same and then the third saw third slide yet after all these decreases and a stable rate of injury we're finding the achievable benefits have Surprisingly gone up 72% from the a NPR to the NPR and I know you've given me a 10 page document to describe that but for a lot of other Interesting players playing along at home given those other leading indicators all going down by significant numbers or staying flat One would expect that the achievable benefits would have commensurately gone down or remain flat yet They went up 72% Can you provide? for I guess the record how that? How those benefits increase 72% Well, there are several there are several things going on with the injury cost model since the a NPR first of all The a NPR used 2008 is the price level the current estimate uses $2014 It turns out that about 45% of the increase from the A NPR to the NPR is related to price level adjustments plus Updates to the injury cost model that we've incorporated over the last several years. I think we've incorporated about Four updates over the time period and it's kind of like a you take a car to get it worked on and they They fix the wheels one time and the generator the next time well we kind of Add things to the injury cost model as as as we can get better information So about 45% was related to the increase in price level from 2008 to 2014 and updates in the Injury cost model about 55% was related to the increase in hospitalizations Relative the the in the a NPR about 4.2 percent of the hot there about 14.2 percent of the injuries were hospitalizations That went up to 19.2 percent Yeah, 9.2 percent in the NPR so a little bit more than doubled Plus there was an increase in amputations for some reason that we're not clear on I'm short on time and I appreciate that But that's why I want to get this out the quotes that we just saw before is there is no discernible change in the number of injuries or the type of injuries related to table saw blade contact from 2004 to 2015 that you just said the type of injury amputations have gone up significantly as well as Hospitalization so how do we? How do we align that quote with what you just mentioned? Well, you know, I don't know the full answer to that question part of it is Epidemiology just looks at the numbers of injuries where we're looking at you know the cost of those injuries and there was a substantial increase in the number of hospitalizations over that time period and There was an increase in amputations though Significant it was about a 2% increase in amputations, but since amputations account for well since they only amount to about 13.7% of injuries and almost two-thirds of the injury costs a small increase in amputations can increase the injury costs quite a bit in This case four hundred and thirty million dollars. We consider that non discernible Now what? Not discernible no discernible change. I'm sorry well It's a discernible to us, but we're not looking at it in the statistical approach. I'm sorry. I'm out of time Thank you very much. I want to go back to what we I was talking about a little bit I'll go in terms of the lacerations because I'm concerned That were we're really not getting to the root of the severity of the injury and I did hear from mr. Rogers or dr. Rogers that We Weak the type of saw will get us the severity information and I wanted to kind of explore that a little bit the questions from commissioner Robinson You mentioned that that the type of saw will get us the severity information But when we talked earlier with dr. Wrecked it was a question of if in the nice code We just talked about lacerations. We couldn't discern which was a Severe or less severe laceration, so I'd like you to just comment and explain that type well When I say severity kind of what I was really talking about was the cost of the injury And I'm using cost as kind of a proxy for severity so If you have more amputations that would make it a more severe injury and I'm thinking of it because the injury costs go Way up. We don't have you know, technically a severity measure but Looking at you know the proportion of hospitalizations and the proportion of amputations both of those going up to some extent That would indicate an increase in severity to me But what we don't know is if the different saws are affected differently by that by that change I mean it could be and this is just hypothetical It could be that amputations tend to be treated. I mean tend to occur with bent saws Primarily because people the people that use them may be novices. They don't use it very often Whereas the cabinet and contractor saws tend to be used by more proficient users But we don't know. I mean it could I mean that's one possibility another possibility is that Cabinet saws are used so much that they may account for for the great majority of injuries or More injuries on a proportional basis if we had if we had the information from nice as to what You know what type what what the injury pattern was for each of these saws it might turn out that and again This is purely hypothetical. I don't know have any idea whether it would would happen or not But it could be that the costs for the average cost we came up with is about $74,000 per injury. It could be that the injury cost might have averaged a hundred thousand per bent saw But 90 you know 60,000 per cabinet saw, but we don't have that information But that kind of information would affect our cost-benefit analysis potentially. Thank you. Thank you very much I wanted just go back to Commissioner Morović's Because his line of question he had the no discernible change In the number of blade contact injuries from 2004 to 2015 Even if the number of lacerations Hasn't changed. Is there any way to know and this goes back to my my question the hazard? Is it possible there could have been a reduction in the in the more complex lacerations? rather than So we say there was no discernible change but could it have been that there was a Decrease in the complex lacerations and an increase in the more simple lacerations is that possible? It's possible, but we have no way to to quantify any of that We don't have a way to know how what it was before after even any current state that we we don't have a way to measure The complexity of what the laceration was okay, and even if those two nice special studies had not We haven't it didn't have difficulties with the subjectivity in the asking questions We still wouldn't know that answer is that fair to say from from those two special studies Yes, the current special studies attempting the current study being conducted by our field investigator is requesting pictures and and other Medical information from the respondents to attempt to collect that type of information. Okay. Thank you. I wanted to just talk a little bit about If a table saw user uses a glove, how does that impact the Ames technology? On the the current Ames systems that are available Don't Begin to react until the conductive Part of the human body touches it it would depend somewhat on the glove, but typically Gloves are not conductive, and they're not going to react until Finger contact occurs using that current system And the standard that's what it says so after blade contact It must stop before three and a half millimeters of cutting into the finger Or the test probe actually, but specify cutting fingers Thank you In you alluded to this or someone dead I'm not sure about the in the MPR talks about it as well There's situations when the aim technology is going to be going to be disabled voluntarily because you're cutting through a conductive Material or wet wood or something and so Can you how common is that going to happen? Is that something that you should factor into this? and Greg mentioned that We did factor that into the effectiveness we know that some You know metal is cut on table saws So that that is You know, we don't know exactly how much One thing that these systems do have though As opposed to when one removes a modular blade guard it remains removed until they replace it, but when they saw the power is cycled it goes back into the Activating the aim system automatically so that there's It doesn't require a user input on the next use of the saw to return it to Ames So you could disable it and then it would be ready to go the next time next time you use it Is that if I'm understanding you turn off the saw and turn it back on it? Automatically goes back to having the aim system activated. Okay. You have to keep disabling it Yes, okay, but if you left it on it would be disabled until you turned it off or you Okay The mention of OSHA was made by Commissioner Robinson, I believe And I'm just wondering it does OSHA have the jurisdiction and the authority to regulate table saws OSHA has some regulations currently That ensures safer work environment for table saw users Some of these regulations involve the use of guards or push sticks so Those regulations are primarily though to promote safe practices in the workplace rather than in the home environment and they Allow for training and outreach which the homeowner would not have access to so I think the Standards that OSHA requires Would not really meet the safeguards available for consumers in the home environment Thank you, but I think what we're considering here today is an overlap on some level because we're talking about commercial saws. We're talking about So is there an overlap of the standard or excuse me of the rule developing? Yeah, there could be an overlap between OSHA and CPSC regulations, but we have under the CPSA CPSA under section 31 the statute says if a Risk of injury can't be sufficiently addressed by OSHA then the CPSC has also authority to regulate such a risk of injury Thank you Very high proportion and I think this is for mr. Dr. Rogers and if you want to stay up at the table It seems like we keep calling you up there. I know you probably don't want to but We'd love to have you at the table The very high proportion of the cost benefit and the benefit estimates relate to pain and suffering And I'm wondering if going back to my original question Do those does that pain and suffering and suffering and that estimation does is that related to? Obviously the lacerations, but it does it distinguish again between that simple versus the complex laceration to the the pain and suffering estimates are based on a regression analysis of jury awards and One of the important one of the factors that goes into the is into the estimates is the type of injury that was involved So I can't remember precisely how lacerations fit into the model, but but there might be a variable that picks up laceration injuries We wouldn't distinguish between severe and unsevere Lacerations except to the extent that the model also includes an estimate of economic losses I mean that's one of the important factors of pain and suffering and so presumably if you had a More severe laceration that's going to increase medical costs and lost wages So that would implicitly so it would implicitly impact on the pain and suffering estimate that way if that answers your question Thank you.  Thank you I just wanted to pick up on a point that chairman Berkel is raising that when we're talking about lacerations at a minimum These are lacerations that result in medically Attended care either you're going to an emergency department or you're going to some kind of medical facility So we're not really talking about things like paper cuts here. Am I correct in stating that?  That's something I think Commissioner Robinson Knows well and knows what the calculations are from jury verdict Service, but I did want to go back to the breakeven analysis because in the breakeven analysis you you listed four hypotheticals And my understanding is you listed a scenario in which bench saws produce more injuries because they're more of them To scenarios in which cabinet saws have a higher rate of injury because people use them more But you did state in the briefing package on tab C page 58 that you tried to pick the most plausible Injury distributions, and so I guess my question is Are you satisfied that you picked? The most plausible and are there other plausible? Hypotheticals that you didn't Analyze well, I mean you could continue thinking about plausible We well that's what I'm saying. I'm limiting it to the term you use plausible You can think of some bizarre what we tried to do was come up with an array of Distributions that kind of cut cover the gamut of possibilities I mean we tried to come up with some in which the risk on a bent saw was greatest and Some were the risk on a cabinet saw was greatest Because given that we don't know what type of saw is used and we don't know what the injury distribution is We wanted to see how robust our findings were with respect to these alternative injury scenarios and So we tried to come up with we came up with for that We thought were plausible and they kind of have a wide range of different risks for different saws So I felt we were kind of comfortable that this covered Yeah, and actually it looks to me like you covered the field of what again what I'm called plausible injury scenarios You did want and by the way and almost all of those the net benefits exceeded costs usually by A large amount the one instance where the net benefits slightly Exceeded excuse me net cost slightly exceeded benefits. This was one. I think it was hypothetical for Where you had to make an assumption that cabinet saws presented roughly 40 times the risk of a bench saw Even if cabinet saws Present greater risks. It seems to me 40 times the risk of a bench saw Is is a pretty extreme one? So to me that feels like you've covered the field and I just thought I'd make that observation, but my question is Assuming that the special study that's underway that we've heard described Provides the missing information. Is there any additional data you would need in order to do your cost-benefit analysis? No, okay, and in fact, you've sort of done the cost-benefit analysis You're just waiting to see which one of those the special study Confirms plus also The costs on the specific type of sauce, okay and now I want to go back to The removal of blade guards and again the staff said that removal of blade guards is necessary and proper on occasion and Again, can you explain when and why this is justified and the reason I ask that is you said Necessary and proper meaning sometimes you just have to do that am I correct? Correct if you take a woodworking class and learn how to make a non-through cut they go through the process of How to do so and you use the top portion of the blade to cut partially into the wood And you have to push the weight all the way across and therefore you can't have the obstruction That's presented by the blade guard there Even when you don't have to remove the blade guard my understanding as a complete novice is Blade guards can interfere with a consumer's ability to make very precise cuts. Am I misstating that or is that accurate? That can be somewhat subjective and if you're making very narrow cuts they can get in the way and for some people It's a visibility issue And I heard the same thing about safety goggles that they can interfere with the consumers ability to make a precise cut And that probably varies from eyesight to eyesight and I did notice that you said elderly seem to have more Accidents that obviously resonates with these old bones up here I did also want to ask just in the question of any information you have with respect to consumer misuse Do you see a significant number of instances in which consumers are operating? table saws under the influence of alcohol or drugs No, we did not and did you see any significant number of instances in which you saw thrill-seeking behavior or reckless behavior on the part of table saw users There are other products where we've seen that as our colleague Commissioner mojorovic is reminded us but on these Probably multiple definitions of reckless, but in general most of most of these incidents I Are we don't have many details on them from the nice of course, but it That's my overall impression of them as I've read through Thousands and thousands of cases is that almost all of them are typical what you would expect of a typical use of the table saw and Again with respect to the obviousness of a hazard the staff does say that you got a rotating blade So it's pretty obvious that it can cut you But that doesn't really answer the question about the obviousness of the hazard and one that consumers actually Can recognize and I want to quote from the briefing package Even consumers who are fully aware of the hazards and how to avoid them may suffer from slips or lapses that could lead to blade contact and injury despite the consumers best intentions to use a product safely And you say human error is inevitable even among expert woodworkers, so do we see that Even expert woodworkers are suffering injuries The experience level the woodworkers not in the nice data, so that would be something from our reported data And I don't believe we have that level detail Back to the adequacy of the voluntary standard and you've pointed out that you health has tried Oh, how they've tried to get aim technology incorporated into a voluntary standard and All times the industry has strongly rejected this technology Do you see any likelihood of aim technology being adopted on a voluntary standard in the near or frankly the far future? Not based on the past two votes, but we can always hope Just out of this is a side question You said there are alternatives to detecting human contact with a saw such as electrical thermal visual Electromagnetic and ultrasound boy that sounds very Technical and perhaps geeky Is anybody to your knowledge looking at these technologies just out of curiosity? Look those technologies are used for sensing in other product types But we're not aware of product using those for table saws And I was curious because aim technology is being talked about on Table saws, but could this be used on other products that cut and slice radio saws band saws chain saws hedge trimmers But we're not aware of any that are Okay The staff estimates that estimates that the number of table saws sold annually could decrease by about 90,000 to 250,000 units annually Could you again explain how you came up with those estimates? I mean basically we figured figured out what the increase in the price of the saws would be We used a con the concept of elasticity which is a technical term that means the percentage change in quantity given a percentage change in price and from a source we used a an elasticity estimate of for home Products of some sort that included power saws among other things and so we I mean so simply we've multiplied the Percentage change in price times the elasticity that gives us That gives us then the percentage change in quantity that would be demanded And that's I mean I think that answers your question. Maybe that isn't no it does answer my question And I've got a longer question, which I'll have to withhold on. Thank you very much Thank You Commissioner Adler Commissioner Robinson Ms. Garland I have a couple quick questions for you Am I correct that when you in my understanding from your answer you gave me yesterday because I asked you how we Excluded work related injuries. Why don't you just tell us so for from the nicer CPS RMS? from the nice So from so nice For the part that CPSC staff uses it's by definition non occupational injuries There's if an occupational injury came came through and was coded in nice It would in turn receive a weight of zero and be excluded that so we have so there they are What's representative is supposed to be only? Non-occupational injuries. There is a small proportion of unknowns there and for table saws Everything in life, but that but what we exclude them as a general rule. Yes, okay The other question I just want to make sure I understand of the two surveys the 821 number in the 275 those universes You pulled the nice reports enough to have information about some information at a minimum about Severity of the injuries right whether it's amputation, right? We have diagnosis and body part excellent, okay So it's back to you. Dr. Rack because you answered the question. I was asking about the 2007 2008 Survey and you said that you were going back and looking at it. Can you just tell me what what you're doing? Well staff analyzed that previously in 2014. I published a note about not using it And why and in that it included an evaluation of what we could and couldn't glean from that in terms of looking at a different way is looking at the what the consumers said about the drive what the consumers said about the Saw type what they said about the make and model right and and you know, so we're we're looking at that again to see You know it it seems to indicate that it's not usable Really to get at any of that We're you know, we we just talked to you yesterday about it where we're right back at that right so what I hadn't thought of yesterday is the Because that when I spoke with you it because I didn't realize that and in an awful lot of cases if you just know the Manufacturer, you know the saw type. I didn't know that until yesterday So I guess my question is specifically I understand the report we put out in 2014 And I understand why we said we couldn't rely on it and understand that it's because of subjectivity that that became part of that Survey, but again, I'm going back to my question if we can find objective evidence of a saw type in any of these cases Or is that something that we're looking at? There's Garland's coming up. So maybe she's the one doing it so the 2014 So that the report that's being referenced here. So that was part of the analysis When we did the staff reclassification the subject matter experts look through each one considered anyone that had manufacturer Model information horsepower all of that and yes, it would so when we were doing that we also accounted for Whether a manufacturer only made a certain type of saw so that's reflected in that 2014 report so it's so what I what I don't know is What percentage of those were able to tell the saw type from that objective information do you know? So I apologize I don't know on page seven sorry that on page seven and the staff reclassification that so basically after always said and done after look considering the manufacturer and everything that We said that 81.1 percent was unknown type of saw Okay, and did you do the same thing with respect to the 2014-2015 data? Objective evidence that no so for the for the 2014-15 study we ran into a different type of problem Right It wasn't you know, we did not look at it We didn't because of the the overarching issue with that study. We did not do the same type of analysis Okay, but do we have information? I understand the interviewer effect and I understand the problem with that But again, that's that's an interviewer asking questions and coming to up to coming with the judgment of what type of saw it was Do we have objective evidence of what saw type? That that we asked what not we did we did have questions in there that in that included Manufacturing model and I don't have the results in front of me So I do not know but is that something we could take a look at to see if we have objective evidence from that survey and I think that Okay, I'm trying to come up with any answer in the world so that we can get type of saw because it's just such a critically important information 2014-15 study that staff's recommendation is still stands that we just don't rely on that data. I understand that That's not my question. My question is whether we have objective evidence of model number or manufacturer that we could use to make any sort of conclusion that is has a foundation from Objective evidence not from the interview about type of saw From the nice record No, that would be the only so for from from my perspective. Sorry that I understand you're excluding that I'm asking you just for a moment to put on another hat of problem-solver because I'm trying to figure out if there's any way to resolve this in the 2014-2015 275 cases do we know have we looked at whether we have any objective evidence of Saw type in any of those cases. It's going to be the same as 2007 studies They're going to be some that have the manufacturing information some that don't so we'd have to go back to look at that to answer your question Okay, obviously for 2007 2008. We've already done that But I but I'm just asking if we can do that about the 1415 it was a question was asked was not always answered Sorry, there's a question that was asked. I understand that but that's not my question My question is we've obviously gone back and looked for objective evidence in the 2007-2008 data. I'm asking if we could go and do that same thing with respect to the 1415 We'll have to get back to you on whether or not that's possible. We'll take what we're looking at at the data And we'll okay, but the possible I'm asking I'm obviously not asking my question very well part of the part of the question is whether or not we can rely on even what the answer was so is it objective information or not that we have and how much of that do we have and is it enough of it to Count so I can't answer. Let me ask it a different way Could we go back and look at those? 275 cases and see have if we have manufacturer or model number for the size or pictures Yes, we can physically go back and look at this um With the 2017 in-depth investigation that you're doing Miss Strelka you have explained about what you're doing with respect to saw type Are there is there are there other data that we're trying to get from that? 2017 more thorough analysis with the field investigators coming out other than then definitive proof of saw type For purposes of this package Yes, we're trying to collect also through the IDI Information about the hazard scenario About the injury and About what safety? Mechanisms were in use at the time Okay, so we're getting information with respect whether it meets the voluntary standard in other words whether it has a Modular blade guard and whether it was being used that's our objective Yes, okay, and is that information that I guess I'll ask the group because somebody can answer Is that information that we think is important in terms of our analysis of how well the voluntary standards working? Because we've essentially as I understand it we only have one person who's told us that they had the guard in place And still suffered an injury Well, we think it's useful information and that it will help inform If the Commission directs us to go forward to a final rule that it'll help us inform us with that information That it's important information Okay Can can you tell me a sorry miss Strelka? I'm not dead yet Can you tell me why it is and maybe it was not you who chose this but why it is you chose a 12-month period and What I'm getting at with this So you can answer whichever of these questions you want is whether we could get enough information That econ would be comfortable relying on For purposes of looking at types of saws involved Involved in injuries and the severity of those injuries in order to do a better cost-benefit analysis than then the break even I'm just wondering if we could use a smaller Sample size in terms of are we looking at 12 months because of numbers we need or Because it's neat or I'm sure there's an epidemiological. Yes, there is indeed to have enough responses Basically IDIs that Can project nationally? We know the distribution of table saw types differ Some of them are less obviously and so in order to be able to pick up enough incidents to project that nationally we think yes a year is Designed in to hopefully project. Okay. I'm out of time. Thank you Thank you commissioner cake. Thank you madam chair I have no more questions at this time, but I understand commissioner Mojarova could use some extra time So I'm going to yield to him Thank You commissioner K. I appreciate that very much and Dr. Rogers if you wouldn't mind joining us because I know he's back Because I spent my first round of questioning getting into that difference in the ANPR and the NPR specifically the increase in benefits of 1.7 Billion dollars and you did a fantastic job of Providing that to me and I wanted to take a little bit of time here to summarize that You started with the with the first Explanation for that difference between the ANPR and NPR as an increase in health costs, which amounted to 790 million of that 1.7 billion Right the price the price level increase plus changes in the injury cost model And I went back and looked at that period and determined a compound aggregate growth rate and with health care in the news every day about a five percent Compounded Growth rate for cost seemed to make sense and and for me at least back of the napkin Certainly legitimized that amount and then you also mentioned that that 1.7 is made up a 480 million increase in the increase in amputations that you saw from a NPR to NPR now I'll still leave it out there as a criticism I don't know how we lead on page one with there's no discernible change in the type of injuries related to table saw I would think that would be clearly Amputations, but you don't have to comment on that the last part We didn't time didn't allow for you to have the opportunity to describe is the final Contributor to that 1.7 billion dollar increase was the increase in the Hospitalization rate and how that's such a big driver I wanted to give you the opportunity in a minute or so to describe that and why we're seeing such an increase between the Formulation of the a NPR and the NPR in hospitalization rates I think we would understand how that's a big driver of cost, but maybe if you can get to why we're seeing increased hospitalization, okay To what we were talking about earlier today. Yes, sir There are two reasons why well as I mentioned earlier the proportion of hospitalizations increased from about 4.1% in the a NPR to about 9.2% In the NPR and I'm talking about the injury cost estimate the injury at cost model estimates not necessarily nice But that's made up of two components one there was an increase in the nice estimates of amputate hospitalizations and on top of that since the a NPR one of our contract task orders was used to better estimate the proportion of Direct hospitalizations as opposed to going through nice first I mean we have most of most of the hospitalizations you go into the emergency room and you get then you go into The hospital at that point when the doctors send you there But in in in some cases and it's not as many but in some cases You might be directly admitted say you'd see a physician and they say you'd need to go into the hospital immediately That in so Not only did the nice estimate of hospitalizations go go up but our contract work showed us that in the 2011 analysis we were probably using too small of of a direct proportion of hospitalizations So it was a combination of those two factors excellent. Thank you I just wanted to give you the opportunity to wrap that up because I found it We we've spent a lot of time together on it as soon as just a couple hours ago And I wanted to give you the opportunity to mention that third important factor and thank you very much For explaining that for those playing along at home. I wanted to get to a different subject I want to talk about the comments so the comments were identified In the the overview briefing. I recognize that we had 1,600 comments on this rule The also the briefing package was very was forthright and into indicating that 1,466 of those comments were against the rule while only 134 were in support of the rule so to me I'll use the word overwhelming that to me is an overwhelming amount of 32% of the public being against this rule and this to me is a point about self-governance. It's a point about Political legitimacy. It's a point about the Constitution beginning with the words We the people of which we're sworn to uphold and also the fact that for those of us all of us serving The public should listen closely to those who are privileged to serve at what point in time with the sample size of 1,600 comments Would staff ever relinquish and just say look we're in the end We're serving the people and the people just don't want this as much as we think it's helpful as much as we wish there was Aim technology on everything is there is there a percentage? Is that ever crossed the mind of the team and that's a question for you miss Paul at what point in time? Do you would you ever step back and say? This is so overwhelmingly Rejected by the American public. We ought to rethink this and pause before Going forward with rulemaking And I ask you as the project leader and and as one who might be able to Capture some of the thoughts of the team and was this something that was ever considered by the team too that maybe we ought to at least pump the brakes if not Recommend terminating based on the overwhelming will of the people and I don't mean nine out of ten comments 92% of 1,600 comments coming in well as a project manager. That's I Can't say that's one of the thought processes I go through when I'm putting together a package and in terms of comments to you know a federal register notice I'm looking for substantial comments, and so I look past the opinions and all the Comments that are being made that aren't necessarily substantial and I'm specifically looking for what do we need to respond? so Are the comments just looked at barriers and obstacles to overcome as opposed to informing our government on what our government should be Should be I see them as really valuable sources of information to inform us. I don't see them as barriers So is there any indication of at what percent of of a large sample that staff might consider? Withdrawing from a rule if it's not 92% We'll go through another round of comments and some and the public might want to hit a certain number if there is if there's one out there I don't believe that's I think Dr. Rack wants to jump in I just wanted to say I mean like we did address You know all of the comments and not individually, but in groups within the package, so you know we Certainly were informed by the comments and we're seeking additional comments with this package if the commission moves forward But it's the substance of the comments that we're interested in not the quantity and we certainly welcome them all Okay, I just say that as one who has also put forward and worked with my colleagues to support a In interpretive regulation and had having overwhelming Feedback from the public Negative to that I went scurrying back to the corner with my tail between my legs and figured It's time to reset as opposed to pushing forward Relating of course to fire walk fireworks. I want to talk about unintended consequences I mean I noticed that we had a recall associated with the table saw Recently with a metal foldable foldable stand was collapsing. There was nine injuries including fractures lacerations and amputations and I think these are the kind of hazards and performance measures that are addressed in the voluntary standard Also in the epidemiology memo and appendix B the staff acknowledges the use of quote homemade table saws and quote and That staff expressly removed the incidents where there was an indication that the product was a homemade table saw none Unlike what was described when we knew definitively definitively that an incident was a result of an occupational injury If in fact we double the price point for a benchtop table saw at retail How many consumers do we expect to push into the DIY homemade table saw option? We don't know the answer to that, but that was as Greg mentioned part of the reasoning behind less than a hundred percent effectiveness No, and I appreciate that it's difficult to ascertain but as much as we did an excellent job in understanding the loss of consumer surplus perhaps by the elasticity and a Decision points for consumers to no longer is that kind of a risk-risk analysis something that we can come up with to understand then commensurately if we push the Opening price point of a saw to a certain point that folks will and I've googled it myself. I won't do it with the phone convert my Circular saw to a table saw and you'll leave immediately see an eight-point list that comes up into one two three four five six seven eight How you can make your own table saw table saw out of a circular saw and I'm concerned if we push that pipe price point up And I think that's the kind of risk-risk analysis That should be considered. Is that something that? And I do recognize also we're soliciting comments on that Is that something that we're considering here? Well, I mentioned earlier the part of the reason we think that The effectiveness would be less than a hundred percent is because people might use substitutes and those substitutes might have the risks have additional risks But okay, we can't really quantify What you're talking about? I mean it's likely to happen I suspect but we don't know how frequently what happened. I mean if I Mean it with our highest cost estimates. We reduced Bench saw sales by a substantial amount I don't remember exactly what it was, but I would imagine some of those people would would use substitutes Or actually one thing they might a common response would be to keep an older table saw longer They wouldn't get rid of it But if they didn't have a table saw and they couldn't afford a new one They might use some substitute like a hand saw as opposed to a table saw Thank you, madam chairman. I notice I've gone over the spend time that I believe the chairman chairman Excuse me the commissioner K yielded his 10 minutes to you. Did you take 20 minutes? I don't think you did not yet But I promise to respect that extra minute and a half I've gone over in my 10 minutes if that's okay with with you madam chairman Okay resetting the clock Thank you very much, mr I didn't realize that that was part of what the consideration is in the 90% effectiveness the alternatives which might include homemade table saw So thank you for that answer. I didn't pick that up in the package the last Question that I have had to do with the small business impact that was projected and I'm and I'm curious why there wasn't an analysis of The impact that this proposed rule might have specifically on the construction industry And I realized that we've taken out the work place related incidents, but I think we all know that contractors buy these saws I mean after all one of the defined categories are contractor saws are they not so in the original in the initial regflex analysis from page one Defining the the general purpose of the regflex analysis as quoted description of and where feasible an estimate of the number of small entities to which the proposed rule will apply and There's no estimate or indication of the impact to the construction industry specifically the small construction industry, I appreciate the work that was done to Evaluate the impact on small manufacturers of table saws But why not consider the impact? I would think the relative impact on the construction industry for Significantly raising the increase in the price of these saws Would Dwarf the impact on small manufacturers of the saws themselves Susan Yeah, the direct impact of the rule will be on the manufacturers and not the also in the construction industry is an indirect impact However, if you look at the cost of the saw even if they have to buy You know a solid year that is going to be a fairly small percent of their total revenue There it's raising the price of the saw they buy But chances are that saw itself is going to be They're gonna have a lot more revenue. We generally consider something a significant impact or potentially significant if it's more than 1% so if a table saw goes in the price by To use a higher estimates, you know a thousand dollars to be 1% the Construction companies revenue would have to be More than a hundred less than a hundred thousand a year and that's assuming they're buying a news table saw each year Okay, I understood that's that is But let me ask you this if we were considering what is a significant rule That's a rule with an impact of how much a hundred million that's greater than a hundred million a hundred million and our costs Identify here are how much over a billion there? I'm more than a hundred so if a significant rule is one that has a cost impact of a hundred million dollars or more And we're identifying costs here of over a billion dollars Do we not expect that there at least be a hundred million dollars in costs that are born in the born to the construction industry? Which would trigger a whole level of reporting requirements in the federal government so that everybody is well aware of the small business Impact of what would in and of itself? It was so if it was only applying to the construction industry would be a Significant or a major rule is defined and I think you know 12, 866 I was looking at the regulatory flexibility act, which is right to Likely be significant substantial number of small businesses. I think this other thing you're talking about is like the Congressional Review Act where you're looking at the Major rule being more than true But I'm just wondering why we didn't look at the impact of the to the construction industry if the total costs of the rule are And is it what is it over one billion? It's a I'll talk to you. Thanks. Talk to right. I honestly don't know Okay All right, that's it. Okay, so that's not the billion dollar number. I was just citing so a hundred a hundred and seventy Okay Well, I hope that's taken into consideration To me it seems that the the small businesses and especially in the construction industry would be Disproportionately impacted by the rule and I hope we might be able to do some analysis Just to know for sure what that impact would be on them. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. That concludes my questions madam chairman Thank you I want to give the staff the opportunity we will have one more round of questions But if a staff would like to take a break for ten minutes, we can do that and then just reset a real recess for ten minutes And then or if you just want to slog through this Keep going okay All right. Thank you. So I Want to just piggyback briefly on one of Commissioner Mohorovic's Congress questions of you There are saws out in the marketplace right now with the Ames technology. Is that correct? Yes, and so Consumers can choose to buy them or to not buy them correct Correct, and so some may not buy one because they're expensive because they don't think that additional expense is worth it And so they don't buy it So my concern is is similar to Commissioner Mohorovic's in that are we imposing our will Rather than letting the market work The technology is available the saws are available And if the chooser if the consumer chooses to buy a saw or not that really is something that we You know we probably shouldn't interfere with and I that's really more of a statement than a question I do want to get back to some of the data issues that we've all raised here today because I'm thinking primarily of a recent court decision that called into question the reliability of our data So I think that that's a lesson learned that we all need to be cognizant of it as we go forward as an agency I don't think we want to find yourself in that situation. So I went through The package and I want to make sure I understand the the studies and our sources of data because and I and I hope you'll add to this and help me understand that in In addition to this what we're doing in the 17 with the 17 data is going to provide us the robust data We need so the first thing I have was we reviewed all the incident data estimates from nice for table bench saws in 2015, right? But we've we've agreed that nice is pretty broad information It's it can't tell us the degree of the severity of the last duration So we we know that there was contact with the blade, but we don't know much more beyond that is that an accurate We also know Some of the severity and phrase and we know if there was a fracture or an amputation You know, so there's different levels of We have those different Diagnoses my concern is it is Your table that the lacerations do account for the majority of the injuries, but so so beyond that then we did a We compared the distribution of table saw injury characteristics against all of their workshop products for related injuries for 2015 is that information Incorporated and used in this in the NPR You mean in terms of costs or in terms of the data Making giving us confidence that the data that we're proceeding with in justifying this room making is it's in the NPR Yes, I mean that that information is is in the briefing package and it's it provides some context to the Injury patterns, okay, and then we talked about the CPS RM information, but that's anecdotal that isn't I think that in during the briefing the reports that were submitted through that that was anecdotal. That's really non-statistical Correct, and then we talked about the two nice special studies that we had difficulties with and so they're not They're not we can't use those the questions and all that followed from that or two subjective Now we're going to take this different path. We talked about the modular blade guard survey. That's not statistical So my concern is an agency is the data that we're relying on I mean, I think we all agree that there are some gaps here and some voids How are we going to? If it's possible between now and an NPR and a final rule remedy that situation so that our data is Robust and there is the package could provide justification for rulemaking We think the package provides justification for an NPR Currently as it stands That's why I recommended it We are seeking the additional information in the 2017 study that we've discussed and we think that will help inform us moving forward Okay, I Well, I'll just leave it at that because I am concerned And that's not a secret to anyone. I am concerned about the integrity of the data I want to talk a little bit I had meetings and I think many of my colleagues did with PTI the power tool and industry and they shared some injury statistics with us on the new modular guard versus the older traditional guards and The the increasing trend in safety with regards to the most recent UL the 7th edition of the UL standard has as our staff considered the data that PTI has provided and Have we considered that in this and in our analysis of this rulemaking? So I don't have the the actual data. I have the summary that was provided by PTI and So the I had Several questions concerning The the methodology and what's actually being compared here and the fact that it's on anecdotal reporting Something similar to our CPS RMS, which as a statistician I would Would say that the same thing I said in the in the package that's for the CPS RMS that conducting trend analysis on the anecdotal data Isn't valid it for Fair Is it valid due to the being anecdotal and to rely on the nice for any trend analysis and statistical changes? Have we met with the industry the PTI have we met with them? Have we had a tech-to-tech meeting have we kind of followed the ROV model where we actually engaged and shared data and information So that we're Understanding each other's approach to this We have through working groups with through you. Well PTI has participated in those working groups But we haven't done it with a tech-to-tech meeting such as we did early on with well We'll both window coverings as well as ROVs We have met with PTI in the past, but we have not Recently Believe they asked for a meeting, but we haven't finalized that meeting Okay, I would be interested in and we can talk further about this the the How we reconcile the data they provided to us and Our data and to just make sure we're like you say I'm as garland that we're looking at the same information That it's not anecdotal and to see where they're coming from with that information. I Want to talk just briefly and my time is running out here with regards to the technology that's being used in What we've been talking about so the briefing package suggests and we've talked about in direct you did a fine job of going through The technology that's being used here and that's the electro magnetic But there's alternative technologies have we looked at do we understand what's out there have we checked to see if There's patents of this is being Right now if there's you know patents out there and if this This is being looked at is potential Well, I so we're not aware of any products on the market using these other technologies for Table saws. I mean, there's certainly the sensing technologies of a variety are used in other products My car does all kinds of sensing and other things do too But how it would apply to a table saw so we talked earlier about saw stop and their patents and It's very possible that there some of their patents cover some of these detection methods Just in a review of the patents they submitted to the IC ITC One of their patents did Talk about variations and modifications to various sensing systems including motion detector Electromagnetic field sensor and optical sensors However, as I mentioned before That was not one of the patents that the ITC found had been infringed upon so It is very possible that There are patented technologies not just by saw stop but but by other manufacturers out there and existing patents We just don't know how they would be viewed if there was a patent medication in a review in court or by the ITC so It is possible Thank you. I Want I wanted you just to ask Ms. Garland to come back up just for a second I have one other question and my time is running out with regards to the The data and you mentioned PTI's data may be too anecdotal to use We've acknowledged some of ours is anecdotal. How about saw stops? Data to the agency have we've used that in this package and if we relied on that in any way I Have not reviewed that data myself Okay, has anyone in the agency has that been incorporated into into the briefing into the NPR It was submitted as comments, but we didn't use it in our economic analysis or epidemiologists. Good. Thank you very much commissioner Adler Thank you very much madam chairman And it's always a delight to be up on the same table with that commissioner Mohorovic because he raises incredibly important and interesting Policy questions, so I guess one question I would have going back to the number of comments that were filed that were negative with respect to the A&P are when we Published that did we say this is a plebiscite? Will you please tell us how you want the commission to act? You don't have to answer that And I Guess that I do have a more serious question and that is typically when we publish an NPR do we not tend to get responses from the people in the business community the Manufacturing community who be directly affected by that and do we not typically have more of them saying we don't like this Then those saying we like it. I take that head shake is an affirmative I thought I didn't have to answer that no leader well And I just make another observation that there are a number of things that that we as a society have mandated that people don't necessarily Like I think if we were to do a plebiscite on whether kids should be able to drive under the age of 16 We might get an interesting array of responses or the ability of teenagers to drink under the age of 21 I think we might get to some skewed numbers But that doesn't mean that we as a society necessarily Support that simply as a plebiscite and the one that also I think is One of those that I think society's had the most trouble, but it's also produced one of the greatest benefits is mandatory seatbelt laws But setting that aside I did want to Ask Just a couple of questions one is with respect to Higher prices resulting from the safety standard you make what I think is the valid point that Safety standards tend to be mitigated in the longer run And that's an important point to me because to the best of my knowledge In those of you have sort of historical perspective. I'd like to be Corrected if I'm wrong Virtually every safety standard that the CPSC has promulgated in other agencies like NHTSA They've had prices drop once the industry begins producing Compliant products for two reasons economies of scale and increased expertise in production our is anybody aware of any standard that we Mandated where of course prices go up in the short run But where the prices have increased over the long run as opposed to dropping over the long run Okay Thank You dr. Right, you know just just to address your question in the regulatory analysis We did point out that it was possible the prices would drop in the future Although we didn't know how much that would occur, but we pointed out that Over ten years if we assume that the prices that we Used in the analysis were correct for the first five years, but then after five years Prices went down that if after five years they went down by about a third Then the ten-year Average cost would be about a hundred and forty to two hundred and ninety million Relative to the 170 to three hundred and forty million and if prices dropped by two-thirds That the ten-year Annualized average would be about a hundred and twenty to two hundred and forty million a year, so yeah So we can't quantify what's going to happen, but but yeah It's not completely unexpected the prices might drop in the future well the the closest analogy I can think of would be lawnmowers because Any this these are rough numbers because I don't remember them well, but something on the order of 30% price increase on some models of lawnmowers after the Commission mandated lawnmower standard today You can buy a lawnmower from pretty much the same price that they were selling even with inflation that for the Cost that they they required when we did the mandatory standard, but the difference is they're for 50% fewer injuries So there is that that's why I say it's useful even with cost benefit to look to the long run not just to the short run and so now back to my one of my major concerns and that is Seniors you said seniors suffer injuries at a greater rate than younger ones and The estimated mean age for table saw blade contact injury victims is 55.6 years Whereas all other workshop product related injury victims have an estimated mean age of 42 percent 42 0.7 any idea why there's such a discrepancy with respect to table saws as compared to other home products No, we don't know the reason for that if it's usage patterns or other factors. We don't we don't know Okay, just to add we didn't say rate. It's just those were the numbers we had for 25 No, those yeah that I did I say rate I didn't mean to say rate And I guess the other question I would have with respect to Special study that's underway now the 2017 study unless I'm mistaken. We are hoping to get a statistical Statistically representative picture from that Study as it is it is tied to the nice Data, so if we get if think it's intended to provide something that can be extended to national estimates And I guess just a final comment. I appreciate chairman Berkels Raising the issue of tech to tech meetings with the industry Where I find there is a huge difference between this situation and the ROV is in this situation We've just had this technology voted down decisively twice in recent years by the industry. I think there's Precious little hope that the industry is going to show much interest in aim technology So at least to me that's a significant difference. Thank you. I have no further questions Commissioner Robinson Yeah That correct you said that what we have in this package in your opinion is enough for an NPR. I think Chairman Berkel has raised what is really the elephant the room for everyone In terms of the recent court decision, which makes all of us very very careful More careful than ever although I think in my four years and they've On the Commission we've been we've been very careful But more than ever that we make sure that our bases for a mandatory rule Are really strong and throughout this package? I think each of the directorates has made Comments about the paucity of the data and the problems with the the speculation That has had to be used because of not knowing and the most essential piece as we all know is we don't know What types of saws are involved in blade? Related injuries and while I understand from the 2017 data We hope to get some more information about the use of a lot the modular guards on on saws that meet the standard I think you saying that would be useful is about as strong as certainly in my opinion at this point That information would be but I think the type of saws involved in these injuries is absolutely essential so I I guess One of the things I would like someone on the team to address is with respect to this I think At the moment and let me make sure this is true that the only plan for Enhancing our data to make it stronger between now and when we might consider a final rule is this 2017 survey is that right? We also invite comments on a variety of matters But in terms of what we're going to do internally so that we have Statistical data that we can rely upon to do cost-benefit analysis. We don't get that in comments typically We get that internally right? Well, I think we do ask some questions that relate to that and then depending on what comments we receive we may Seek to do additional work. I mean that happens with other rule makings that we do Okay, so in terms of what we're going to do internally. It's that 2017 survey. Is that right at this point? Is that our plan? At this point, yes, okay, and what can you tell me what aspects you as a team think we're going to Be addressing in the final rule that you expect to get from this 2017 Survey that would be essential I think it will help to Address the cost-benefit analysis We're looking to get information on usage patterns on Blade guard use right some of the things that help inform your decisions The most essential information I take it as the type of saw that's involved in blade related injuries, is that right? Yes, okay, I Know we've tried this This has now been been about a 10-year effort in trying to do this We've had two surveys. We both know that both of them had to be the results had to be discarded So can somebody tell me what we're going to be doing in terms of checking? I'd be interested in how we came up with the methodology to make sure this time we get it right and Also, what we're going to be doing in the process of the next now nine months To make sure that at the end of this time. We actually have data that we can rely upon We found in both of these special studies That it was difficult for the Participants to distinguish their saw if it was a table saw from a contractor saw and Contractors saw saying oh well I'm a contractor. That's my saw and We found it difficult to do through the telephone So to remove that uncertainty We collaborated with compliance and its field staff to be able to go out and get pictures to actually have Evidence that the subject matter experts here can look at and we also built into that our Protocol for the field To tell them and train them as to what type of table saw was there, okay? I Know we only talked about this a couple days ago And I didn't have the sense that anyone had really thought about it But we do have a 12 months of data from 20 2016 of nice data that we talked about we could plug in oh eight four one and we could get we could start the process of Getting that data so that we could contact people and if the essential piece of information that we're missing Which I for everything in the package This is certainly the conclusion I come to is the essential pieces were missing the type of saw involved in The the blade related injuries if we took that one year and we Contacted people and I'm sure and these great brains in this room We can come up with some creative really simple ways in which the we could be absolutely Certain of what kind of saw was used whether it's and we don't need a field investigator to go out and take a picture It's 2017 probably everyone in this room has texted a picture in the last week I mean we could have them text them to us I mean what there are so many creative ways That we could get a picture of the saw that's involved in the incidents for 2016 And I only say that because of this question Is somebody considering this as a way that we could more quickly get this absolutely essential data The statisticians have indeed considered that option. Okay, and are they considering it or have they considered and rejected it? We have considered it and based on sample sizes Selection bias that it's requiring somebody to take the picture and send it in and other aspects We strongly recommend that We cannot statistically Defend that approach so if we were able to come up with contact information for every blade related saw injury for the year of 2016 and we contacted those people and we had what I think I think you told me there were a thousand in the 18 months And we got 275 of those to respond to us and if we had roughly the same sample size It may be it's 12 months instead of 18 months But if we got two or three hundred of those people to respond and say that they and I'm not saying text-to-picture is the only answer It just is a one creative approach of if we could get a picture of the saw Involved in each of those injuries. That's not information. You think we could rely on I Can't answer that question. I don't have the information Historically from us ever doing that and There is bias induced in The way a particular Survey is administered and what is the bias that you think would be introduced by us contacting people and Asking and I'm as I say I'm not saying that's the only means But asking people if we could get a picture of the saw that was involved in their injury What's the bias that's introduced? We cannot quantify that bias It's a self-selecting bias that the individuals don't have the means to do that plus it's also Involved in can we even do that in our paperwork reduction act? It's a different type of Response that we're soliciting What if we sent our field engineers to the house and took a picture and do it the old-fashioned way and Mail it back by mail of the saw is involved in the 2016 I think that's that's a different approach, but the thing is that would just give you 16 and 17 as to saw type and just 17 with the particular Specific I wasn't suggesting including 17 and I wasn't suggesting stopping your work on the 17 survey I'm talking about 2016 getting the saw type matched up with the type of injury so that we could do a cost-benefit and as we discussed on Tuesday that is Basically going to be available One to two months before the 17 is complete so to get pictures of the saw is involved in the 2016 Incidents you're telling me would take as much time as it's going to take us to do all of these thorough in-person surveys for the next year and and Use the information to do the analysis. I'm telling you that there are other issues that Need to be addressed in order to implement what you're suggesting and that will take time I'm out of time. I do have further questions Thank You Commissioner K No question. I'll go back Commissioner Horovic questions I Do yeah, just a few I? Have one or two additional questions and Commissioner Robinson does and we'll see if anyone else does and then we'll Wrap up, so if you'll bear with us I wanted to go back to something that Commissioner Adler raised with Dr. Rogers and that is Generally when we promulgate a ruler in the case of lawnmowers and some others the price goes down But I'd like your comment. This is a unique situation. We don't have the market at work here We only have one technology available and so We're not sure The situation my understanding is I thought was it was alluded to in our briefing That there may be some agreement that he will license the technology and that you know He would only get an 8% royalty But if one person is controlling the market wouldn't that affect the cost of Products and whether or not how quickly they would come down Whether they would come down at all. I'm talking about the price of the product Yeah, well, I mean in our analysis we assumed a royalty of about 8% because that's what dr. Gas has said has said he would want To license his technology and of course That's what he says and we don't know exactly what will happen at that point because there's no legal He's not bound to that but if Royal T. Fee of 8% were Required In the analysis we indicated that we thought for example that the that would add about I think 37 to $57 to the price of a bent saw and that's based on based on the 8% of Royal T would be based on the Wholesale value of a saw and so what we did was we calculated Basically the average current average price of the saw What the additional cost would be to use the aim technology? and then we figured out what the wholesale price would be from that number and That's what turned out to be about thirty seven dollars to fifty seven dollars Prevent saw and it was higher for the more expensive saws But yeah, that would that would factor into the prices that people have to pay and and if you Yesterday dr. Gas talked about his four hundred dollar saw. I mean actually I'm not sure. Should I be mentioning this? Never I Have went down a bad path out of the barns But but even for the lower lower Priced saws once they have to pay the royalty then that will be that will be a factor that'll be That they'll have to take into account when they price their product It's a peculiar situation We find ourselves in because we have a situation where we don't have an agreement or anything in writing from dr Gas as to whether or not he would license his product We don't and his technology we whether or not it would be eight percent We've got a situation where ITC has said to Bosch. You cannot use the technology. That's a patent infringement We have no clue as to how many patents are out there by whomever in Specifically by with dr. Gas how that would affect the market. So there just seems to be a lot of probability a lot of speculation When it comes to rulemaking I just say that concerns me greatly. That's all I have and I will ask Richard Adler I imagine now he has a question No, actually just a quick comment because I think the concern you raised is a very serious one I'll simply point out that when he filed his petition 14 years ago. He said he would charge an eight percent licensing fee Wholesale and he's never changed that and he has He has stayed with that number through the years and so even if he were to raise it a little bit from what dr Rogers was saying it wouldn't really necessarily drive the cost of table saws up that dramatically and I would also point out that The cost of a table saw and the price of a table saw isn't just dependent on the licensing fee you pay for a patent It's also dependent on your ability to make products cheaper and your ability to achieve economies of scale and those would kick in Irrespective of the patent and the last point I would make is patents don't last forever Even dr. Gases and so at some point his patents will expire So that was just a comment. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Robinson. Thank you Another area that we have a problem in this package in my opinion is with respect to the information We have about how effective the voluntary standard is we know that you L9 87 became effective in 2010 And my understanding is that we believe the addition of the modular safe blade guard and riving knife Made table saws much safer at least according to the package. That's what was said Nor did issue a final rule in this case We really need to know how effective you L9 87 is and as I looked at the package What we're basing our comment or our opinion that it is not effective on Is our trend analysis the 53 anecdotal cases that came in through CPS RMS Although only 11 of those involved saws with modular blades and only one of those cases Do we know of that the blade guard was in place when the injury was suffered and the 2015 Eureka fact survey? That basically says that sometimes people remove their guards is if I sort of summarize the basis for our opinion on the voluntary standard Well We've we've also you know, we what we said was that there were 38 30,800 emergency department treated blade contact injuries in 2015 and that Approximately a third of the market in 2015 Would have been meeting the the new standard, right? But we don't know how many of those were involved in the injuries that were incurred right, right Just to add to what I was trying to convey in the package was that in the a and pr We did have analysis of the Montreal blade guard and our Our conclusion was it was an improvement over a current technology, but it had the same weaknesses and so our What we predicted came true that Even with the Montreal blade guard there are still incidents occurring and the same weaknesses in terms of removing the blade guard and needing to to make For proper use of the table saw to make known through cuts Okay, the package notes that a more complete trend analysis would include analysis of injuries by population of table saw users Number of table saws in use or the number of hours table saws are in use in a non occupational setting Obviously, we only include we only had access to the estimated number of table saws in use each year Would there be any plan to get any additional information that you say would be a more complete trend analysis before a final rule? Can I just Respond a little bit sure to get that kind of information. I think we'd have to do an exposure survey I think we talked about an exposure survey for this project a year or two ago, although I could be wrong But that's the kind of place that we get information on You know if we did an exposure survey, we could find out how how frequently people actually use these devices You know when they take them off That sort of information that that would really be useful in an overall analysis But I don't think we're gonna have any of that sort of information Without an exposure survey is when I looked at the trend analysis I mean given the life of saws and I you know I only have my own anecdotal that my I had a chainsaw for 25 years and I'd still have it if I hadn't sold the place where I used it But but people just came to see seem to keep these saws forever And I know that we have an analysis of what the life is But when we look at the life of saws and the fact that we're basically looking at the five years after The voluntary standard went into effect and our CPS RMS data says that 38 of the 53 cases Involved had the old guards I'm just wondering first of all is there is there any plan for Enhancing our data on the effectiveness of the voluntary standard and if not Do you think that we have enough data to determine whether the current voluntary standard? Is effective in reducing the risk of injury and do you have any ideas on what additional information? We might need to make this a more a solid Basis for saying that the voluntary standard doesn't work That would be the additional information from the 2017 study, but again to emphasize that the CPR at those 11 or anecdotal, but it's it speaks to the fact that It's the same usage pattern and everything that we predicted in terms of the weaknesses of relying on any type of guard Is there because as I understand it basically people take them off. That's Correct, and you can also still get cut You know with the guard on All right, and you can also have blade contact injury with it with the right, but we've only got one reported on that I'm just thinking about making sure our data saw as solid as we can make it Okay, that's it. Thank you. Mr. K Mr. Robert There are no more questions and because there are no more questions. I will now adjourn this meeting I want to be just thanks staff again all of you for being here and those online For taking the time and being as patient as you were answering all of our questions Thank you all very much this meeting of consumer product safety commission is now adjourned