In 1999, President Clinton signed the Chemical Safety Information, Site Security and Fuels Regulatory Relief Act (P.L. 106-40), and also directed the Justice Department (DOJ) to conduct a study of site security at chemical plants. An interim report on the study was due August 5, 2000, and the final report was to be completed by August of 2002. DOJ missed the first deadline, offering a lack of funding as the excuse for not getting the interim report out on time. However, press reports indicated that the interim report was released to select members of Congress on May 30, 2002. The report was not made publicly available and House members and staffers who viewed the report had to sign a waiver of confidentiality. Initial reports from the Hill indicate that the report only covered a handful of plants. Congressional staff say that the report has little resemblance to what is required by the statute and that parts of the report merely describe methodologies and other information that has already been released to the public -- some of it by the Justice Department itself. Chemical plant security is an issue that received renewed attention after the September 11th terrorists attacks, yet one that the administration has failed to adequately address. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has done little more than announce that it will release voluntary guidelines for plants to follow in order to address site security. Now, more than a month after receiving this interim report there has been little reaction in Congress. There is no reported schedule for the final DOJ report. And the only bill proactively addressing chemical plant security remains largely un-discussed. In March, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Attorney General, John Ashcroft, for failing to meet a statutory deadline for assessing the vulnerability of facilities storing acutely toxic materials to terrorist attacks. It was a simple deadline lawsuit. After the abbreviated and secret interim report was delivered to congress and DOJ declared its mandate satisfied, NRDC continued to press for a sealed examination of the document. The Judge responded by directing NRDC's attention to a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54650-2002Jun14.html"> scathing Washington Post article by a State Department employee accusing the U.S. media of treason. At the discovery hearing the judge stated that the case seemed to him to be about spreading the nation's vulnerabilities over the Internet. Unsurprisingly, NRDC withdrew its lawsuit the following day. Sen. Jon Corzine’s (D-NJ) Chemical Security Act (S. 1602), would address the chemical hazards on site by requiring safer processes and allowing less on-site storage of hazardous chemicals.