The House and Senate are expected to approve a roughly $124 billion fiscal year 2007 supplemental war funding bill (H.R. 1591) this week that also contains $500 million for wildland firefighting in the west.  However, as previously reported on RotorNews, the bill is expected to be vetoed by President Bush and the measure will come right back into Congress’ lap.

The expectation is the majority in Congress will not have the votes to override a Presidential veto.  In fact, a second supplemental bill is already being drafted.  The second supplemental bill, however, is not expected to have the minimum wage increase/tax relief provisions in it.

Also contained in the legislation is a provision barring the federal government from pre-empting stronger state and local chemical plant security regulations.  The provision would build upon chemical plant security language in the fiscal 2007 homeland security appropriations bill (Public Law 109-295), which is silent on federal pre-emption.

Leading lawmakers in both chambers strongly support the pre-emption blocking provision, which would affect the nation’s more than 15,000 chemical plants.  The president opposes the language because it would undermine a single national security standard for chemical plants.  The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued final chemical plant security regulations earlier this month that DHS Secretary Michal Chertoff indicated would not block existing state regulations.  However, lawmakers have expressed concern that the federal regulations could pre-empt future regulations in states such as New Jersey, which is set to expand its already tough standards.