Fran Drescher Squawks Policy on Capitol Hill
If it weren't for her trademark nasally voice, you'd forget that actress Fran Drescher even represents a "celebrity" when she visits Capitol Hill.
Drescher, a longtime fixture in Washington, returned Thursday to talk about a new initiative that her organization, Cancer Schmancer, is launching called "Detox Your Home."
"We want to make 'Detox Your Home' the 'Don't Drink and Drive' of the 21st century," said the uterine cancer survivor to a Capitol Hill crowd, noting that a snappy saying was just the way to do it. "As a successful television writer, I know how to reach the American everyman and woman with a very simple call to action or a single line," Drescher said. "Think of the 'Sound of Music' only instead of Julie Andrews, I come to the door -- boom -- 'The Nanny.' My last series, 'Happily Divorced,' -- me and my relationship with my gay ex-husband -- sold."
The gist of the initiative is to get folks to rid their homes of carcinogens, which ties in nicely with legislation -- the Carcinogen-Free Label Act -- proposed by Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla. Early on, Deutch called Drescher to get her feedback on the idea. "What makes this a nice bill is it's non-regulatory and it's revenue-earning, which makes it very compatible for both sides of the party line," Drescher said.
The bill would allow companies to get their products tested, using an approved third-party lab, and then, for a fee, receive a government-issued gold star saying the products are carcinogen-free. Manufacturers could opt in to the program,the labs would produce jobs and the government would gain money from the companies for granting the seal for a limited time, Drescher explained.
"It becomes a revolving door of revenue-earning and job-making in the private sector and it invites more and more manufacturers to join the team," Drescher said. "At the end of the day, manufacturers don't want to kill us, they simply want to sell us and they will sell us anything we're prepared to buy."
