The effort to establish stronger chemical security measures suffered a significant setback the week of May 21 with the loss of a provision from the Iraq supplemental spending bill that would have prohibited the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from preempting state law on matters of chemical security. In order to galvanize support for comprehensive chemical security reform, a group of public interest and environmental organizations wrote to Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, and Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), Chairwoman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection. The letter encouraged the members to continue their work on ensuring strong chemical security protections.

The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals recently ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is not liable for any harm resulting from their intentional misinformation about air quality around the World Trade Center (WTC) site following the September 11 attacks. The lawsuit, Lombardi v. Whitman, was filed by five emergency responders who worked at the WTC site without adequate safeguards, in part because of the misguided assurances of safe air quality. The April 19 court decision favors protecting government liability over the public's right to know about environmental risks that could compromise their safety.

California, a leader in strong environmental policy, has introduced a bill that would restore reporting requirements for toxic chemicals to pre-U.S. EPA rollback threshold levels. As the federal government weakens toxic waste regulation, states are taking charge of the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and prioritizing the protection of their residents. The California Toxic Release Inventory Program Act of 2007 (Assembly Bill 833) maintains the previous level of reporting and prevents the federal changes from impacting the state program.

On March 29, President George W. Bush's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) released guidance to agencies that explains in greater detail how to implement the president's recent environmental order. On Jan. 24, Bush issued Executive Order (E.O.) 13423, Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy and Transportation Management. The order replaced five detailed environmental orders, issued by President Bill Clinton, with vaguer, less aggressive provisions that broaden agency exemptions and consolidate power in executive offices.