EPA Changes Require Industy Submit Less Information Than Ever On Releases

[hatrack]

Every year, companies across the U.S. calculate their annual releases of hundreds of toxic chemicals to air, water, and land, sending these data to the Environmental Protection Agency. As required by the Emergency Planning & Community Right-to-Know Act, EPA amasses this Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) information and makes it public.

In September, EPA announced plans to lighten industry's load for reporting TRI data. One of the two planned changes-the one that has perhaps sparked the most controversy-is to shift annual TRI reporting to an every-other-year cycle. The other proposed modification has to do with how much information must be provided to EPA and the public by facilities that handle or release relatively small amounts of toxics. The modifications EPA seeks are the result of a two-year investigation into reducing the amount of effort that companies have to expend on TRI reports. The agency calls its plans “burden reduction,” a bureaucratic term for achieving fewer or less complicated regulations by trimming paperwork requirements.

Since 1989, chemical manufacturers and other businesses each year have reported to EPA information about their releases of hundreds of chemicals that are deemed toxic. Through the years, EPA has expanded TRI data collection to cover more industries and more chemicals. The most recent addition took effect with submissions for 2000, when the agency began requiring reports for chemicals, including mercury compounds and dioxins, that are persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT).

Environmental groups are decrying EPA's new plans for altering TRI reporting. “It boggles my mind that they would want people to be less informed,” says Thomas E. Natan, research director for the National Environmental Trust, an activist group. “TRI has been a bedrock of public safety information,” says Sean Moulton, senior policy analyst with OMB Watch, a watchdog group that keeps tabs on federal regulatory policy and information access. “EPA is essentially willing to get rid of information, extremely useful information, just to reduce burden,” Moulton says. TRI, he says, “hasn't put any companies out of business.”

EDIT

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/government/83/8344gov1.html

[rodeodance]

1. bowing to industry once again at the expence of our health!!

[Angry Girl]

2. This T-shirt says it all for me!

(from http://www.northernsun.com)

And remember this article?

Unborn Babies Soaked in Chemicals, Survey Finds

Unborn U.S. babies are soaking in a stew of chemicals, including mercury, gasoline byproducts and pesticides, according to a report to be released Thursday.
<snip>
Although the effects on the babies are not clear, the survey prompted several members of Congress to press for legislation that would strengthen controls on chemicals in the environment.
<snip>
"If ever we had proof that our nation's pollution laws aren't working, it's reading the list of industrial chemicals in the bodies of babies who have not yet lived outside the womb," Slaughter, a Democrat, said.
<snip>
"Of the 287 chemicals we detected in umbilical cord blood, we know that 180 cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests," the report said.

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=8239

--
URGENT! Timing is critical to save earthquake victims before winter!