Tom Udall, D-N.M., and David Vitter of Louisiana, the top Republican on the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee, provided a revised draft of their chemical regulation bill to committee chairwoman Barbara Boxer, who told The Associated Press this week that the draft still falls short. The original bill had been panned by some environmental groups, such as Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, who assailed it as "phony reform," although the Environmental Defense Fund supported its introduction as a chance for an eventual breakthrough. At stake is a rewrite of the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, known as TSCA, which is widely seen as an ineffective law to protect Americans from harmful chemicals. While the new Senate draft hasn't been released publicly, Udall told the AP that it makes "big progress" in the safety standard; protections for vulnerable populations, such as pregnant women, infants, children and workers; and strong deadlines for the EPA to work through chemicals. The attempt to come up with new chemical regulation legislation has shifted from a Democratic bill, the Safe Chemicals Act in the previous session of Congress, to the industry-backed bipartisan Chemical Safety Improvement Act.