As mentioned previously, two bills have been introduced to reform the forty year old 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act in Washington D.C. One was the bill introduced by U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., and co-sponsored a bill with Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M. The Udall-Vitter Bill is basically an inheritance of U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg, D-NJ. For more than a decade, until his death in June 2013 at the age of 89, Mr. Lautenberg of New Jersey (a state home to numerous chemical plants), labored on reform bills to give the EPA additional authority to control toxic chemicals such as asbestos. Republican and industry opposition doomed his efforts. Upon his death, Senators Tom Udall, D-N.M., and David Vitter, R-La., went to work on improvements that might pass. Their efforts have been renamed the Frank Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act.
Development of the “Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act”
Over the years as industry opposition to regulations of toxic chemicals softened, California and other states sought to regulate toxins at the state level to ‘fill in the blanks’ where federal law left a loophole. As a result, Republicans embraced developing industry desires for uniform federal laws, which would subsequently preempt the state regulations (thereby weakening state environmental regulations if they were stricter than federal standards). Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, an industry advocate thus worked out a series of compromises with Sen. Udall, leading to the introduction of the bill on March 10, 2015, honoring Lautenberg’s legacy.
Political Division
Not only has Udall’s bill created a sharp division amongst environmental groups (it is backed by the Environmental Defense Fund but not others), but the notion of ‘compromising’ between environmental and industry interests has also divided the senate. Currently, a bipartisan consensus favoring the measure is forming in the Senate. To complicate matters more, a second bill sponsored on March 12th 2015 by Barbara Boxer, D-CA and Ed Markey, D-Mass has also made its rounds throughout the senate which if passed, would not preempt stricter state standards and is being supported by the majority of environmentalists.
So far, the Udall-Vitter reform package has 20 cosponsors, divided evenly between Democrats and Republicans. This early backing effectively ensures that the measure will make it out of committee and to the Republican-controlled Senate floor.
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