Editor:

The Child Protection Safety Improvement Act declares that youth ATVs are illegal to sell, not because they pose a risk of collision or impact or anything of the sort. They’re banned because they have lead in their engines, costing the industry over a billion dollars since February.

Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan gets it: “At a time when our economy is in crisis, we cannot afford unnecessary regulations that do nothing to protect our children but harm small businesses and motorized recreation.”

You’d think that Jim Matheson, D-Utah, representing one of the nation’s premier ATV destinations, would get it. But he, along with the Democrat-controlled Commerce Committee, refuses to hold hearings on modifying this well-intended but clearly overreaching legislation so he can wear the badge of “child protector.”

Nathan Bennett,
Salt Lake City