While most Congress watchers have been focusing on the work of the Super Committee, anti-regulatory activists in both the House and the Senate have been working hard to undercut some of the most important safeguards that protect Americans.

On Nov. 10, families across the country will march with strollers to ask their senators to support chemical safety legislation to protect children from chemicals linked to cancer, birth defects, asthma, and other serious illnesses.

Nowhere is safety more important than in children's toys and products. A number of regulatory agencies share responsibility for ensuring that children are not exposed to harmful toxins or dangerous products, but legislative gaps and procedural hoops have delayed needed protections. A new report by Clean and Healthy New York concludes that while some crib mattress manufacturers have made products less toxic, a "significant portion of the crib mattresses in the U.S. market contain one or more chemicals of concern" and may still pose risks to babies.

The so-called “Super Committee,” charged with creating a $1.2 trillion deficit reduction plan by Thanksgiving, seems to be stalling. If the committee cannot agree to a deal, or if Congress doesn't approve of the plan that the committee produces, the debt ceiling package that passed in August will trigger almost a trillion dollars in automatic spending cuts to both defense and non-defense spending. Congress as a whole appears to be waffling between voting for a deficit reduction plan that many constituents will find unpalatable or allowing the automatic cuts to proceed, which will also make voters unhappy. However, this problem presents a false choice because there is another option: Congress could vote to select "none of the above."