Video: Rep. Rush on Protecting Children

Ok, let's see what fun tonight's CPSIA videos bring us!

This video could actually serve as an introduction to someone who had missed much of what got us to this point with Congress.

Representative Rush applauds the 4 members of Congress that brought us H.R.4040: Dingell, Barton, Stearns, and Rush. He proudly points out that this bill dramatically rewrites the Consumer Product Safety Act (a gross understatement to say the least) and the Hazardous Substance Act (considering what has suddenly become declared as hazardous substances, I would say so.)

He mentions that the bill "finally restores the CPSC to its rightful place of prominence and gives it the necessary tools to grapple with the global marketplace and to protect American consumers, particularly our children." But everything we've seen and heard from the CPSC since at least January of 2009 seems to say otherwise. The CPSIA has not restored CPSC to that place, and given it the necessary tools. CPSIA has put Congress in the place of the CPSC, and taken away tools from it.

Mr. Rush then goes on to mention the 8 months of work that had gotten them to this point (I think the House as a whole was about to vote on it for the 1st time). We might all wish that they would put as much energy into fixing the mess they've made as they did into making the mess in the first place!

He then brags that the CPSIA gives us the "strictest lead standards in the world...requiring certification and testing". If the lack of those standards, and those certification and testing requirements had made our children unsafe, that would be something to brag about indeed. But almost 4 months into a major portion of this law's requirements, and it safe to say that children are less safe as a result of it, not more safe. And Congress' rhetoric aside, children were not getting killed or seriously injured because of all the toxic toys that it would take Congress to protect them from!

Mr. Rush ends by saying he "cannot emphasize enough the bipartisan nature of this bill". There we would have to agree with him, to a point. Getting the bill passed was indeed bi-partisan, since almost no one from either party understood the problems this bill would cause when they voted on it last year. But now, almost a year later, the problems have surfaced, Congress has been notified (100s of 1000s of times in fact), and the problem is no longer truly bi-partisan. Almost without exception, the only Congressmen and Senators writing and supporting amendments to this law are Republican. The Democrats, almost without fail, are refusing to fix this toxic law!