In 2001, a draft report of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) laid the groundwork for tough new standards to limit public exposure to trichloroethylene. The assessment set off a fight between the EPA and the Department of Defense (DoD), the Department of Energy, and NASA, who appealed directly to the White House. They argued that the EPA had produced junk science, its assumptions were badly flawed, and that evidence exonerating the chemical was ignored.
The DoD has about 1,400 military properties nationwide that are contaminated with trichloroethylene. Many of these sites are detailed and updated by www.cpeo.org and include a former ammunition plant in the Twin Cities area.[56] Twenty three sites in the Energy Department's nuclear weapons complex — including Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the San Francisco Bay area, and NASA centers, including the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge are reported to have TCE contamination.
Political appointees in the EPA sided with the Pentagon and agreed to pull back the risk assessment. In 2004, the National Academy of Sciences was given a $680,000 contract to study the matter, releasing its report in the summer of 2006. The report has raised more concerns about the health effects of TCE.
In response to the heightened awareness of environmental toxins such as TCE and the role they may be playing in childhood disease, in 2007, Senator Barack Obama proposed S1068, co-sponsored by Hillary Clinton and John Kerry.[57] This legislation aimed to inform and protect communities that are threatened with environmental contamination. Senator Clinton's own bill, S1911, is known as the TCE Reduction Act.