House Passes Bill on Meth Lab Cleanup

The House of Representatives on Feb. 7 passed a bill (H.R. 365) to help detect and clean up illicit laboratories that make the street drug methamphetamine. The legislation would authorize a research program at the National Institute of Standards & Technology for developing equipment that can detect methamphetamine in the field. It would require EPA to develop voluntary health-based cleanup guidelines for states and local governments to use when remediating the sites of former methamphetamine laboratories. Also, the legislation would direct the National Academy of Sciences to study the long-term health impacts of methamphetamine exposure on children rescued from illegal lab sites and on law enforcement and other emergency personnel responding to these sites. The bill is popular among lawmakers-it passed both the Senate and the House in the 109th Congress-and could wind up on the President's desk later this year.