Pool And Spa Safety Act

POOL AND SPA SAFETY ACT -- (House of Representatives - December 08, 2006)

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Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Texas's support and want to describe the legislation and tell Members that drowning is the second leading cause of accidental childhood deaths by injury in the United States. It is the number one killer of children under 5 years of age in America, and the number two killer of children under 14 years of age.

Mr. Speaker, 335 children across the Nation drowned in swimming pools or spas in 2002. That is 335 lives that were cut very short because we did not act quickly enough to address this problem.

This legislation is named in memory of Secretary of State James A. Baker's granddaughter, 7-year-old Graeme, who drowned in a spa entrapment accident a number of years ago.

Graeme and the roughly 300 children that died that year due to drain entrapment would be with us today if this commonsense legislation had been law.

The pool and spa safety legislation we are considering will encourage States to pass laws that prevent the tragic and preventable loss of children to accidental drowning.

This legislation provides Federal incentives, not mandates, as the gentleman from Texas indicated, for States, and provides layers of protection and puts obstacles in the path of a child when supervision lapses.

We all know when it comes to making sure that children don't drown in swimming pools that supervision is paramount. But as any parent can tell you, and I am a parent of three, we all know that supervision does lapse. Every year each of us across the country, each of us in our own districts, hear news reports and read the newspaper about tragic incidents that occur in swimming pools year after year.

Mr. Speaker, 65 percent of the drownings that occur in swimming pools occur when a child wanders out the back door of home they are in and drowns in the pool in the backyard; 35 percent of the drownings take place when a child from a neighbor's yard comes into the yard a couple of doors down and drowns in the pool. This is a tragedy that can happen in an instant.

When it comes to suction drain entrapment accidents, what happens is young children are actually pulled under because the suction from a single drain in a spa is so strong that the strength of several men cannot even pull the child off the drain. Children have been disemboweled. There are children that because we don't have dual drains or spa drain covers, which this bill would incentivize, there are children drowning needlessly.

We have to make sure that we put obstacles in the path of children when, through no fault of their own, supervision lapses. I urge Members to vote to protect children from drowning and pass the Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act.

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