Since then, many advocates for human health have demanded overhaul of the patently “toothless” law. The Toxic Substances Control Act has simply proven ineffective at banning elements linked to health problems, and many believe its premarket safety testing standards are also inadequate. (Not to mention that the law requires no safety testing for the roughly 60,000 “grandfathered” substances that were already in use as of its passage in 1972.)

So it is of great historical significance that after 40 years, in a Congress so divided, the U.S. House of Representative voted overwhelmingly (403 to 12) this week to pass the first ever update to the law. Even Republicans who have repeatedly voted to downsize the EPA, have in this case supported the measure to expand its power. The Senate is expected to pass the bill in coming weeks, after which President Obama is expected to sign.

The product of years of negotiation, the bill was introduced in 2013 by Senators Frank Lautenberg and David Vitter. It had momentum in the moment, but several days later, Lautenberg died. The bill is named in his honor, the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act.

“This is an issue that many people assumed was never going to see progress because it had been so politicized, and industry and environmentalists were so diametrically opposed on how it should be handled,” said Anne Kolton, vice president of communications for the American Chemistry Council (ACC), a trade group that advocates for industrial chemical manufacturers and suppliers. “It's something that, through the art of compromise, we've settled on with the environmental community and the public health community.”

But those communities seem less than settled.

Philip Landrigan, dean for global health in the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, has for years been concerned about the cumulative effects of environmental exposures that, he believes, have “subtle but far-reaching impacts on brain development that show up as lifelong impairments in cognition, ability to focus, and ability to exert executive control over impulsive, risk-taking behaviors.”

Among his chief concerns are brominated flame retardants used in furniture, organophosphate pesticides, phthalates used in some toys, perfluorinated compounds, which he'd like to see restricted to “essential uses” (where there is no substitute). Nanotechnology, too, is a concern. “Investment has exploded, but the amount of information on hazards is minute,” said Landrigan. “It may turn out that there isn’t much hazard, but I wouldn't be so sanguine.”

He’s unsure if the new bill will give enough power to remove substances once they prove harmful. “This could very well fix the problem, but we won't know until the first legal judgment,” said Scott Faber, vice president of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group, a self-described non-partisan organization "dedicated to protecting human health and the environment."