The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted 10-9 to approve the Toxic Right-to-Know Protection Act (S. 595) on July 31. The act would reverse a December 2006 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rule change to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) that significantly reduced toxic release reporting requirements for polluting facilities.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released a cost-benefit analysis for a proposed rule aiming to tighten the federal standard for human exposure to ground-level ozone, also known as smog. Before its release, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) edited scientific language in the analysis in order to downplay the economic benefits of the proposed rule.

Three documents released since July 26, and a recent public hearing, highlighted the difficulties of promoting promising new nanotechnologies, protecting public health and safety, and safely disposing of waste products from their use and manufacturing. Nanotechnology involves manipulating matter the size of one-billionth of a meter or 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. In 2005, more than $30 billion in nanotechnology products were sold globally, according to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.