As the former 9/11 Commission issued failing grades on the government's preparedness for another terrorist attack, a new draft of chemical security legislation is being circulated by Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). The bill establishes authority for the Department of Homeland Security to regulate the security plans of U.S. chemical plants. Unfortunately, if its current language remains, the bill will fail to make communities safer from either terrorist attacks or chemical accidents.

OMB Watch released a report entitled: "Dismantling the Public's Right to Know: EPA's Systematic Weakening of the Toxic Release Inventory." The report details how under the Bush administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is slowly dismantling its flagship environmental information tool: the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI).

In response to a petition from public interest groups, the EPA has extended the deadline for public comments on its proposed cutbacks to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) to Jan 13. In an unrelated change, the agency also moved the electronic docket of public comments from its own website to the federal government's www.regulations.gov. The transition was far from seamless, and the possible effects of the location change in the midst of the rulemaking process are uncertain.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) implied that the public had already received most of the benefits the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) could offer when the agency recently proposed significantly cutting the amount of information companies report under the program. This is not, however, reflected in the facts, which show the TRI continues to be an important public health tool widely used by community groups, labor unions, local officials and citizens.