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Brad Springer, 10, has fought and defeated neuroblastoma cancer — twice. Today, according to his dad, the now healthy Idaho boy is wielding his powers in another battle.

Brad was among four children dressed up as “Toxin Freedom Fighters,” complete with green shorts, capes and masks, in the halls of Congress on Wednesday. They hand-delivered a petition that urges legislators to strengthen the nation’s regulation of toxic chemicals.

“As a parent you wonder, ‘Was it something I gave him?’ You really have no idea,” said Zach Springer, Brad’s father. “You can’t directly link toxins to his cancer, but it certainly doesn’t help to have them out there.”

“Brad is anxious to help prevent others from experiencing what he has gone through,” he said.

The children’s visit to Congress came on the heels of Tuesday’s House hearing on the Chemicals in Commerce Act, introduced in February to amend the outdated Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976. A similar bipartisan bill was unveiled before the Senate last year.

While all sides agree TSCA reform is long overdue, a consensus remains elusive on just what that should look like.

The Toxin Freedom Fighters’ petition, organized by eco-friendly product manufacturer Seventh Generation and signed by more than 120,000 Americans, argues that the drafted laws, which are widely supported by industry, fall short.

“The proposals before Congress to ‘reform’ our toxic chemical laws are more about protecting the chemical industry than they are about protecting public health,” the petition reads.

House Democrats and witnesses during Tuesday’s hearing went as far as to say the proposed law may even weaken chemical regulations, citing the law’s ability to preempt more stringent state standards and its inability to force companies to disclose the names of toxic chemicals in products.

“The net effect is to go backward,” Andy Ingrejas, national campaign director for the nonprofit Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, told the House Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy.