Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato (D-Rockaway) today announced her appointment as Chair of the Assembly’s Child Safety Subcommittee of the New York State Assembly’s Consumer Affairs and Protection Committee, making her one of the key New York State watchdogs of safety standards for children’s toys and products. She will take up her position immediately, and has been consulting for several weeks with Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh (D-Manhattan), Chair of the Consumer Affairs Committee, to whom her subcommittee reports.

“This is a high honor, and I’m very excited for the opportunity to make a difference for children’s safety,” said Pheffer Amato. “As a mother of two, I deeply feel the stakes of getting this issue right. So many of our toys are imported. The growth of e-commerce means that knowing whether children’s products are made safely is a huge question mark. We can’t afford to learn the answer by trial and error. That error could be a child’s life or health.

“These are the kinds of challenges I came to the Assembly to tackle,” she continued. “I am humbled by Leadership’s faith in me, and I’m committed to working with parents, retailers, manufacturers, regulators, Chairman Kavanagh and the rest of the Committee, and our counterparts in the Senate and the Executive to make sure we keep all New York children safe.”