It took five years and lots of bipartisan wrangling, but Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana can finally claim victory in his battle to pass landmark legislation reforming the country’s chemical safety law.
“It wasn’t easy,” Vitter said on the Senate floor recently. “This is long overdue.”
The USA Today Network reports that the U.S. Senate approved the bill last week and sent it to President Barack Obama, who is expected to sign it into law in upcoming weeks.
Vitter basked in the spotlight after Congress approved the chemical safety bill he crafted with Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M. The legislation—the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act—is named for the late senator from New Jersey. It overhauls the 40-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act, which authorizes the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate chemicals in consumer products.
“It’s been a big accomplishment,” Vitter says. “This is an area of federal law that everybody, every stakeholder, every group, whether it’s some far-left environmental group or industry, said needed to be updated. The trick was getting agreement on doing that.”
Even Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin, who has clashed frequently with Vitter on a host of issues, praised his work on the chemical safety bill.
“We’ve had our differences. We’ve had our fights,” Durbin, a Democratic leader, said Tuesday before the Senate vote. “I have to say if (the bill) ends up being approved, it’s quite an accomplishment for him and for Congress to pass historic legislation.”
The chemical bill will almost certainly be Vitter’s last major accomplishment, says Joshua Stockley, a political scientist at the University of Louisiana at Monroe.
“I think he sees this as his legislative swan song, his last opportunity to both leave the office and his state with something to talk about or something to kind of cement his legacy,” Stockley says.
The USA Today Network says the full story.
