Breaking News! Congress agrees on toy safety bill

Members of the US House of Representatives and the US Senate have come to agreement on a bill that would severely limit the amount of lead and phthalates that can be in children's toys. The bill now goes on to vote on the floor of the House, then the Senate, then to the President. What's not clear (to me at least) is how this would affect the existing laws on the books for individual states. It seems that this law should supersede any state laws including the laws passed in Michigan and Washington state. Regardless, we need a uniform law to make it feasible for manufacturers to be able to sell their products throughout the United States. Me? I'm all for new laws on lead and phthalates, I just want them to be uniform. I'm familiar with the argument that all this talk about lead and phthalates in toys is much ado about nothing, but I don't buy it. Regardless of how much lead or phthalates are in a toy, there's plenty of proof that these things are very bad things to ingest, so why on earth would we want our kids playing with toys with these in them if we could prevent it?

Check out this article in the New York Times (registration required)