Liz Hitchcock, our public health advocate in Washington, D.C., urged the Obama administration to replace the head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) with a strong proponent of product safety.

“Consumers need a product safety watchdog who puts America’s kids ahead of the toy industry,” said Hitchcock.

Caving in to pressure from manufacturers, in January the CPSC’s chair, Nancy Nord, announced a one-year delay to the enforcement of a new product safety law intended to make children’s toys and products safer.

Product safety champions on Capitol Hill and across the country joined us in urging the Obama administration to replace Nord, a Bush administration appointee who opposed the new product safety law.

The new law, which was passed in August 2008, requires manufacturers to test toys and infant products before they are sold and bans lead and chemicals called phthalates in toys. It also gives the CPSC the resources needed to implement and enforce these new regulations.

Together with other state PIRGs, NJPIRG has long supported fixing our federal campaign finance laws to encourage candidates to raise campaign funds from small donors rather than the current big-donor dominated system. A new bill called the Fair Elections Now Act, authored by Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.) with significant input from Lisa Gilbert, our democracy advocate in D.C., will do just that.

Introduced in March, the bill aims to encourage small donations by providing a candidate $4 in federal funding for every $1 in small donations received. For example, a contribution of $50 would provide $200 in federal funding for candidates.

“Our nation’s current campaign financing system makes it virtually impossible for elected officials and candidates to be viable without the support of big donors,” said Gilbert. “That skews the democratic process.”

The maximum federal Pell Grant award will increase from $4,730 to $5,550 as of July 1, thanks to a ConnPIRG-backed measure contained in President Obama’s economic recovery package.

The Pell Grant program aids almost 7 million low-income students.

ConnPIRG’s federal education associate, Rich Williams, spearheaded a coalition with the United States Student Association and other groups to ensure the aid was included in the final package. Student PIRG campus chapters worked to get more than 200 college campuses signed on to a letter calling on Congress to increase the Pell Grant Program.