If my father got on his ATV and stuck it in the mud , got off the machine to pull it out and dislocated his shoulder in the process , his injury would be listed as an ATV injury . These are the type of misconstrued figures used by the Consumer Product Safety Com mission as justification for their vengeance on ATV ' s , the users , and the industry . If small children are being killed or hurt on ATV ' s , let us recall the parents , not the machine .

This is the information used by one commissioner to damn an in dustry . This is the same commissioner who will help decide what final action should be taken by the Consumer Product Safety Com mission after their investigation is concluded . How can we possibly expect him to participate in a fair and honest manner ?

Finally , Mr . Chairman , I would like to speak briefly about today ' s hearing . We all know the ATV industry has had more than its share of bad publicity in the media . We know that action taken by certain members of the CPSC have placed the industry and its users into a position where they have not had a fair chance to re spond . I thought today ' s hearing would give them that chance . But it seems even the Commerce , Consumer , and Monetary Affairs Sub committee has been taken advantage of . After reviewing today ' s witness list , I noticed the victims of the ATV accidents will go first , so the TV cameras will run , record their side of the tragic events they were involved in , and be gone by the time the industry and the users are supposed to testify .

Victims of ESM Government Securities and Bevill , Bresler & Shulman didn ' t testify first at our last hearings . Why are we changing our format now ? It is unfair , Mr . Chairman .

I noticed we have a witness who is a college professor and chair man of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the City Col lege of New York . I assume he will give the subcommittee the very detailed and technical faults in the design of the ATV , as he did in a lawsuit , despite the fact that he never inspected , researched , has ridden or owned an ATV until just before he testified in court . And yet , Mr . Chairman , Honda Motor Corp . of America offered to bring from Japan their leading engineer , a gentleman who designed , en gineered , and received the patent on ATV ' s , to testify before this subcommittee , and yet no invitation was extended . I find that hard to believe , and I will state again that is unfair .

I also find it hard to believe that the epidemiological study on injuries associated with the use of ATV ' s , the only official study done by any government and reported in a Center for Disease Con trol weekly report , goes unnoticed by this subcommittee . The reason the study conducted by the State of Alaska ' s Department of Health and Social Services has received little attention may be due to its findings , which disputed much of what the CPSC has been claiming . Mr . Chairman , the only official record in the Nation and the people responsible for it are not with us today to share some of their insight with us . I say that is unfair , also .

It appears the card deck has been stacked even before the play ers got to the table . On its face the witness list looks one sided and there are some people missing : Jane Fonda , Sissy Spacek , Jessica Lange . And the reason is , Mr . Chairman , probably because they didn ' t make the movie on ATV ' s .