Mattel's CEO faces skeptical lawmakers

By Diane Bartz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Mattel CEO Robert Eckert defended his company's toy safety record on Wednesday as two skeptical Democratic lawmakers accused him of stonewalling a congressional probe into production practices in China linked to millions of recalled toys.

Eckert told a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee that his company was aggressively testing toys to make sure they were safe, and said employees will make more surprise inspections of factories.

"I can assure this committee that we'll share with other toy companies what we've learned to help improve industry practices overall," Eckert said in testimony.

Mattel, the world's largest toy maker, has come under scrutiny following the recall of about 21 million of its Chinese-made toys in a span of five weeks, many because of excessive levels of lead paint.

On Tuesday, the subcommittee released a letter from Mattel disclosing that the recent recalls included one toy that had nearly 200 times the amount of lead in paint allowed under U.S. law.

Some lawmakers on the panel asked whether Eckert himself was responsive enough to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, or CPSC, and why the panel's staffers were blocked from fully investigating Mattel facilities in China.

"That's a poor kind of cooperation to be afforded this committee and it will hardly be helpful in our relationship with the company," said Rep. John Dingell, chairman of the full committee and a Michigan Democrat.

Rep. Janice Schakowsky, the second ranking Democrat on the subcommittee on consumer protection which held the hearing, agreed.

"Our staff has not been able to discover what happened because Mattel has decided to obstruct our inquiry. They failed to arrange a visit to the contracting plants in China despite our repeated requests. They refused to make their investigators available for staff interviews in Hong Kong, another of our requests," said Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat.

"I believe that Mr. Eckert, Mattel's chairman, hopes to be able to -- be able to stonewall us the way he has stonewalled the CPSC over the years, refusing to obey the law that requires the reporting of consumer complaints about defects in Mattel toys," she said.

Eckert said future investigations by congressional staff would be treated differently by Mattel staff and employees.

"I am aware of situations where the staff didn't feel like they had adequate access. We tried very hard to provide them access to our facilities, to our testing labs," Eckert added.

LAWMAKER BUYS NOTHING MADE IN CHINA

Amid reports of growing consumer wariness about Chinese-made goods, Rep. Michael Burgess, a Texas Republican, said that he had joined the ranks of Americans who did not buy products made in China.

"What most of us are concerned about is the safety of imported goods, especially those imported from the People's Republic of China," he said. "I will just tell you, in my household, if it's made in China, it does not come home."