Our Right-to-Know About Toxic Pollution is Under Attack
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has significantly reduced the amount of local pollution information industries must make available to the public. In December of 2006, EPA finalized a rule to:

• Allow 22,000 facilities to withhold details about pollution releases, volumes and treatment; and
• Reduce information collected on persistent bio-accumulative toxins (PBTs) -- some of the most toxic industrial byproducts, like lead and mercury, that persist in the environment, and build up in the body.

TRI is a Valuable Public Health Tool
TRI is widely recognized as a valuable source of environmental information for the public, workers, legislators, the press, regulators, investors, and industry. Access to information is helping communities lead a nationwide movement to prevent toxic pollution.

Previous Reporting Requirements
The majority of facilities in the TRI program must report extensive details, like how much chemical they released, and whether they released it directly into the air, land, or water, recycled, or transferred the chemicals off-site. However, a small number of facilities with 'relatively' lower amounts of pollution are eligible to fill out a no-details certification form that does not provide any details on whether or how much of a chemical is released to air, land, or water.

Proposed Changes Reduce Details and Frequency of Reporting
As a result of EPA's changes:

1. PBTs become eligible for no-details Form A reporting if their waste is less than 500 lbs, and if they have zero releases to the environment; and
2. Facilities with less than 5,000 pounds (a ten-fold increase from 500 pounds) of waste become eligible for no-details certification form.

Information on Local Pollution will Disappear
National Impacts

• An estimated 22,000 detailed reports (out of 80,170) would become no-detail certifications;
• 3,500 facilities (out of 21,489) would discontinue all detailed reporting;
• 2,300 communities would lose critical information on half of the TRI chemicals in their area;

State Impacts
Fifteen states will loose critical pollution data on more than 100 facilities, if EPA expands no-detail Form A reporting.

House of Representatives Opposed EPA Changes
On May 18, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to stop EPA from rolling back TRI reporting by voting YES on the Pallone-Solis Amendment to the Interior Appropriations Bill. The amendment prohibits EPA from spending any money to finalize its proposals. The amendment passed by a wide margin of 231 to 187.

122,368 Official Public Comments Opposed EPA, while only 38 Supported
122,368 citizens, federal, state, and local government officials, investors, doctors and moms and dads all weighed into EPA opposing its proposed changes to TRI, while only 38 companies and industry associations supported EPA's proposals.

VISIT OMB WATCH'S TRI ADVOCACY CENTER to find fact sheets, official public comments, reports, action alerts, new stories and success stories that support the TRI program and our right-to-know.

The Toxics Release Inventory: Approximately 26,000 industrial facilities in neighborhoods across our country that use any of some 650 chemicals in large amounts must annually disclose: Toxic releases to air, land, and water (under the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act of 1986); and toxic waste treated, burned, recycled, or disposed (under the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990). The EPA assembles this information into the first publicly accessible, on-line environmental database mandated by Federal law -- the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI).