Courtesy of Delegates Brian Moran and Shannon Valentine, This sounds like a good idea to me:
The new "Toy Safety Act" provides new protections from dangerous toys by directing the Office of the Attorney General and the Department of Health to remove recalled toys from the shelves in Virginia and to consider the development of standards for toys here in the Commonwealth, mandates new regulations for our Child Daycare Council to keep dangerous toys away from kids, and creates a new civil penalty for stores that knowingly sell recalled toys in Virginia.
To sign up as a "citizen co-sponsor" of this legislation, please click here. By next Christmastime, let's make sure that it's high time for "no dangerous toys" in Virginia.
I'm glad Delegates Moran and Valentine want to address this issue because I know it's important to a lot of families in Virginia. It's unfortunate that this bill is about all they can do on the matter, however. Since the power to regulate imports rests with the Federal Gov't, the State can't regulate unsafe imported toys until they hit the shelves on stores in Virginia--and I haven't yet heard of a Virginian retailer knowingly and purposefully stocking unsafe toys after a recall. Retail toy sellers have a great record of voluntarily doing what this bill seeks to accomplish anyway.
Kudos to Virginia Democrats in the GA for having their hearts in the right place; I hope Congress and the President will follow suit by passing some meaningful legislation that will address the root of this problem.
It turns out that the House just passed legislation strengthening the Consumer Product Safety Commission (which has had a weak set of powers, and now has a pro-business chairperson).
From the AP: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap...
Less than a week before Christmas, the House of Representatives approved legislation Wednesday that seeks to boost consumer confidence in U.S. product safety regulation and strengthen toy testing.The bill would increase funding for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, give it a new testing lab, reduce the levels of lead allowed in children's products to trace amounts and mandate additional testing of toys.
The bill, sponsored by Reps. John Dingell, D-Mich., Bobby Rush, D-Ill. and Joe Barton, R-Texas, would also boost the maximum fines the agency can impose to $10 million from $1.25 million.
***The legislation would overhaul the CPSC for the first time in 15 years. Consumer groups and Democrats in Congress haven't let up on their calls for agency reform since the fall, when Mattel Inc. *** and other companies were forced to recall millions of toys due to excessive levels of lead and other hazards.
Similar legislation was approved by a Senate committee in October and is awaiting action on the Senate floor. That bill has several provisions opposed by business groups. Reconciling the two versions of the legislation could prove difficult.
So let's keep an eye out on the federal level, too. Maybe a few messages to our representatives would help.
I have three children so this is an important issue to me.
(For some cutting edge humor, here's the old Saturday Night Live skit with Dan Ackyrod and Candace Bergen)
Public Citizen has a blog on trade, and in it PC comments that the House CPSC bill is not strong enough; the Senate bill (still too weak for them) is preferred.