News Of The Good

After the week we had, I think I need a dose of the good. And actually, the Congress has provided some of it. Not only have Pelosi and Reid held the line on offshore drilling (for now; after Obama's hedge I expect something including some offshore elements before the year is out), they worked together to pass a consumer product safety bill that actually includes some good and stringent standards, and if we get a legitimate President, we might enforce them:

The measure, approved by the Senate in an 89 to 3 vote last night and now awaiting President Bush's signature, represents the most significant expansion of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) since it was created in 1973. It also marks a fundamental shift in the federal government's approach to protecting consumers from dangerous products: transforming a reactive stance to a preventive one by dealing with hazards before goods reach the marketplace, including products manufactured overseas [...]

Lead, the toxic metal that last year turned up in cherished playthings such as Elmo and Dora the Explorer, effectively would be banned from toys and children's products. So will some phthalates, a class of chemicals in soft plastic used in teethers, pacifiers and other items that infants and toddlers put in their mouths. The phthalate most commonly used in children's products, diisononyl phthalate (DINP) will be banned for two years, pending a study.

Toymakers would be required to have independent labs test products before they are sold -- a practice many consumers assumed was already happening until last year's wave of toy recalls. And voluntary safety standards would become mandatory, including a requirement that powerful rare earth magnets in toys not fall out or come loose. From 2003 to 2006, one child died and 19 others required surgery after swallowing magnets.

Consumers could eventually see labels certifying toys have been tested before being sold. When they buy a toy online or through a catalog, they would be able to see the same warning label that appears on packaging to warn parents of small parts or other potential hazards.

This includes a doubling of the Consumer Product Safety Commission budget (yes, a regulatory agency is being strengthened under Bush), and violators will see their penalty caps moved up to $15 million from $1.8 million. That's good.

The House got the Lily Ledbetter Equal Pay Act through the House, which would go as far as the federal government has yet to close the persistent wage gap between men and women. Every single Democrat in the House voted for the bill, and there's some momentum to get this through the Senate.

Meanwhile, the FCC struck a major blow for net neutrality and Internet freedom this week.

A divided Federal Communications Commission has ruled that Comcast Corp. violated federal policy when it blocked Internet traffic for some subscribers and has ordered the cable giant to change the way it manages its network.

In a precedent-setting move, the FCC by a 3-2 vote on Friday enforced a policy that guarantees customers open access to the Internet.

The commission did not assess a fine, but ordered the company to stop cutting off transfers of large data files among customers who use a special type of ''file-sharing'' software. Associated Press reports on Comcast's activities led to the complaints filed with the FCC.

This is a real victory. The precedent is set and it allows the Congress to move forward with its own legislation codifying the principle. Comcast and the telecoms who want to open up another revenue stream and stifle innovation online have been delivered a mortal blow.

And it was Bush's handpicked FCC Commissioner who gave the deciding vote. Believe it or not, this news of the good includes an Administration initiative on homelessness that appears to have worked quite well, based on the principle of getting the chronically homeless who eat up almost all of the resources and services off the streets first.

DG: What is Housing First? How is it different from more traditional programs to alleviate homelessness?

DM: For a long time the way that government and the social service world worked to help homeless people was through a range of services and interventions that tried to help people on the street, tried to get them into shelters, tried to provide them with substance abuse or job counseling. This whole idea became known as the "continuum of care" -- a continuum of services.

Housing First is a really different idea. The idea is that you want to get people into housing as quickly as possible, especially people who would be considered chronically homeless. You have a small population of people who are persistently homeless and may not be able to get out of homelessness without serious, ongoing help. These people use an enormous amount of resources. They take up an enormous number of shelter beds. The idea is that you find a permanent solution for these people, it immediately reduces the number of homeless people on the street, it helps the people who are most in need, and then in theory, it frees up the resources that might be wasted on them for people for whom sort of a quick bit of intervention, a little bit of counseling, a leg up, might get them back on their feet and independent.

Malcolm Gladwell did a New Yorker profile on this idea a few years ago and it made a lot of sense. Amazingly, the Bush Administration decided to actually put it into practice. To get a substantive decline in homeless during a economic downturn and foreclosure crisis is pretty incredible.

OK, I'll go back to being depressed now...

Rewarding Good Behavior In The Congress

The House and the Senate racked up a couple victories this week. The House passed the long-awaited Wellstone Mental Health And Addiction Equity Act. This would allow for parity in how insurers cover mental health and addiction treatment as compared to physical health treatment. The bipartisan vote was 268-148. Considering that our troops can't even get mental health on the battlefield, the need for mote mental health professionals is urgent. But by ensuring that this treatment must be covered, it'll create a good incentive for industry, research and potential breakthroughs. You should be covered if your damaged organ is your brain as surely as if it's your arm. Here's CA-42 House candidate Ron Shepston on the personal side of this:

My brother has been diagnosed with a mental illness but won’t tell us what it was. Before she passed away, my mom was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic so this issue is very close to home for me. Mr. Miller’s complete disregard for the consequences of marginalizing those with mental illness in an ill-conceived pursuit of economic nirvana displays a scary callousness so characteristic of Republican members of Congress. Given all the facts Americans would make the decision that the kind of society they want to live in would be one which considered those who struggle with mental illness in while contributing to society. Republicans’ only hope is to obscure the facts.

And the Senate approved by an overwhelming margin an overhaul to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, boosting the annual budget and revamping facilities, banning lead in all children's products, and raising fines for non-compliance. You'll recall that the acting head of the CPSC asked NOT to give her more money to do her job. But the drumbeat of toxic products from overseas, particularly China, made it impossible to stand by idly. The Republicans tried to water down the bill through a series of amendments that were rejected, and they should have those votes draped around their necks in their re-election campaigns.

In addition to these passages, the House is trying to overturn the horrid EPA decision denying a waiver to California for regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and three powerful chairmen in the House are calling for a halt to telecom immunity in the face of a new whistleblower revelation that communications were going directly into the NSA through a special circuit. Maybe we've turned a corner.

CA Lawsuit Watch

Let's turn D-Day into Court TV for a little while, shall we? There seems to be a spate of lawsuits going on in California. First, Debra Bowen has sued ES&S, a voting machine company, for selling systems that were not certified by the state to 5 counties. Bowen is simply fulfilling campaign promises here, though the company is screaming and crying about it.

Jerry Brown has made the strongest move to date against companies who profited from toxic toys made in China, suing Mattel, Toys "R" Us and about 20 other companies for "knowingly" selling the products with illegal amounts of lead.

The suit, filed in Alameda County Superior Court, alleges the companies knowingly exposed children to lead and failed to provide warning of the risk, which is required under the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, known as Proposition 65.

If the suit is successful, the companies could pay a $2,500 fine for each violation, according to the complaint [...]

The suit, which was joined by the Los Angeles city attorney’s office, also named as defendants Wal-Mart, Target, Sears, KB Toys, Costco Wholesale and others.

That could add up in a hurry, when you consider the millions of lead-filled toys in California that have been sold.

Meanwhile, the state isn't the only with prosecuting attorneys, as the auto industry is challenging the state's global warming law in a Fresno District Court.

Lawyers for car manufacturers, dealers and trade associations said California's 2002 law, the model for statutes in 11 other states, amounted to a requirement for higher gas mileage, a subject that only the federal government can regulate.

Although federal law allows California to take a lead role in reducing air pollution, Congress never "intended a single state to have such sweeping authority to unilaterally set national fuel economy policy ... and profoundly affect a vital national industry," said Raymond Ludwiszewski, lawyer for a trade group of international automakers.

But U.S. District Judge Anthony Ishii suggested that the industry's argument had been undercut by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in April upholding the federal government's authority to limit emissions of greenhouse gases.

The district judge will follow precedent here; this lawsuit is frivolous. But the point is to buy time. Meanwhile, the EPA is still foot-dragging on granting a waiver that would put the 2002 tailpipe emissions law into effect, and the state has sued the federal government over that.

Just a Bunch of Coinkydinks

When Hillary Clinton's top strategist Mark Penn was revealed to be the head of Burson-Marsteller, a PR firm that has union-busters as clients, I figured, "Hey, he's the head of the company, maybe a couple of the clients got by him." When it turned out that the firm did public relations work for Blackwater leading up to Erik Prince's Congressional testimony, I thought, "Look, he's distracted, he's running Hillary's campaign, he can't be on top of everything." When I saw the firm working for corrupt Pakistani pols, I said "Hmm..."

I'm beginning to think that the world's worst client list is not an accident.

Burson Marsteller, the PR/lobbying firm run by Hillary Clinton's chief strategist, Mark Penn, is handling crisis management for the owner of Aqua Dots, the bead toys with an adhesive coating that too easily turns into the date-rape drug, GHB.

A source directly familiar with the arrangement confirms that Aqua Dots' manufacturer, SpinMaster, based in Canada, has turned to Burson Marsteller for help.

An official of the company said that Penn has no role in the Aqua Dots contract.

"There are over 2000 clients," a company official said. "Mark had no contact with them in any way."

Far too many of these clients are shady or downright harmful. If the directive from the top is to "spin whatever you can get paid to spin" without thought of ethics or principle, then this is what you get. Mark Penn is absolutely culpable. And by extension, so is Hillary, honestly.

No more corporate Democrats.

A Date-Rape Drug In Toys?

What, do they just have factories over in China filled with dangerous crap and somebody puts on a blindfold and picks out the first thing he finds?

U.S. safety officials have voluntarily recalled about 4.2 million Chinese-made Aqua Dots toys contaminated with a powerful "date rape" drug that has caused some children to vomit and lose consciousness upon ingesting the contents.

Scientists have found the highly popular holiday toy contains a chemical that, once metabolized, converts into the toxic "date rape" drug GHB (gamma-hydroxy butyrate), U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) spokesman Scott Wolfson told CNN.

"Children who swallow the beads can become comatose, develop respiratory depression or have seizures," a CPSC statement warned.

"Anyone with Aqua Dots at home should throw them out," CPSC spokeswoman Julie Vallese said. The toy was named toy of the year in Australia and recently made Wal-Mart Store Inc's list of top 12 Christmas toys.

I could do a really cruel joke about Catholic priests and rosary beads, but... whoops, I think I just did.

Seriously, the product safety situation is almost a parody now. While the heads of the CPSC are off on 12-day safaris, conglomerates are literally letting their Chinese manufacturers get away with murder. A date-rape drug? Seriously? What's next, Malibu Barbie with absinthe?