Progress Illinois

After months of debate, congressional negotiators reached a deal yesterday to implement the most far-reaching set of product-safety reforms in decades, setting the stage for the bill's quick passage through the House and Senate. The Tribune outlines some of the specifics:

The deal would require manufacturers and importers to subject toys and other nursery products to strict safety tests before they hit store shelves. Some companies with sophisticated labs could conduct the tests themselves, a provision consumer groups opposed.

The legislation would phase in a near-ban on lead in products designed for children 12 and younger and create an easily searchable database of consumer complaints about a product's safety. The law would set an allowable lead standard of 600 parts per million within 180 days, 300 ppm after one year, and 100 ppm after three years. The precise amount of lead that can cause harm in a child remains a matter of debate. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission would review the limit and could lower it still further.

Sen. Dick Durbin and Reps. Jan Schakowsky and Bobby Rush all played crucial roles in crafting the legislation and all three of their names appear on the bill's final version. Schakowsky called it "a really strong, strong bill." That's saying a lot coming from a legislator whose made consumer rights her signature issue while in Washington. Before she entered the halls of Congress, Schakowsky led the 1969 fight to put freshness dates on products sold at supermarkets and she's since issued bills to protect Americans from identity theft and predatory lending.