States Sue EPA Over Public Access to Toxics Info

The EPA will allow thousands of companies to avoid disclosing information to the public about the toxic chemicals they use, store, and release into the environment by rolling back chemical reporting requirements.

Filed Wednesday in federal court in New York, the states' lawsuit seeks to overturn the weakened reporting requirements and provide the public with the access they had in the past.

"The EPA's new regulations rob New Yorkers - and people across the country - of their right to know about toxic dangers in their own backyards," said Attorney General Cuomo. "Along with 11 other states throughout the nation, we will restore the public's right to information about chemical hazards, despite the Bush administration's best attempts to hide it."

Wastes containing the toxic chemical arsenic (Photo courtesy U.S. EPA)

The other states or state agencies joining New York in the suit are - Arizona, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Vermont.

The changes to reporting requirements affect the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory, TRI, program, the only comprehensive, publicly-available database of toxic chemical use, storage, and release in the United States.

Under the TRI, companies are required to provide the EPA and the states in which the company's facilities are located with information critical to public health and safety, and the environment. This information includes the types and amounts of toxic chemicals stored at the company's facilities and the quantities they release into the environment.

The new regulations, which took effect in January 2007, weakened the TRI by reducing the amount of information companies must report for most of the toxic chemicals covered by the program.

For many chemicals, the new regulations increased by 10-fold the quantity of chemical waste a facility can generate without providing detailed TRI reports.

The EPA also weakened TRI reporting requirements for the majority of the most dangerous toxic chemicals - those that are persistent and bioaccumulative - including chemicals such as lead and mercury.

As a result, thousands of companies can now avoid filing a complete report on harmful chemicals.

California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. said, "The EPA is subverting a key public safety measure that helps communities protect themselves from toxic chemicals. The federal government should require more, not less, disclosure of the toxic substances that the threaten public health and safety."

Under the new rules, approximately 5,300 facilities nationally could be permitted to conceal vital safety information from the EPA about toxic chemical levels and management of toxic waste. The new regulations increase by 10-fold the quantity of chemical waste that a facility can generate without providing detailed reports.

Brown says that the EPA's adoption of the new rule violates the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, a law which requires the federal agency to collect information on toxic chemicals. The law was passed under President Ronald Reagan after a cloud of methyl isocyanate killed thousands of people in Bhopal, India and then a similar chemical release occurred at a sister plant in West Virginia.

Facilities covered by the Right-to-Know Act must disclose their releases of 650 toxic chemicals as well as the quantities of chemicals they recycle, treat, burn, or otherwise dispose of on-site and off-site. The information in the database has been used by citizen groups, state and local governments and labor organizations to protect workers and monitor toxic chemicals.

"For two decades, the Toxics Release Inventory has been a vital and powerful tool to help workers and citizens identify and push for reductions in toxic chemical releases in workplaces and communities," said Peg Seminario, safety and health director of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, AFL-CIO. "But instead of strengthening protections, the Bush administration put the interests of big chemical companies before worker and public health, and allowed companies to withhold important information about the extent of their toxic pollution."

Tom Natan, research director for the National Environmental Trust, said, "EPA's rollback means that more than 10 percent of communities will lose all data on releases of toxic chemicals to the environment. EPA claims this is insignificant. But by filing this suit, New York and other states are standing up for those communities and helping preserve useful public health data for everyone."

"These new regulations put our communities at risk," said Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard. "In Arizona, we've seen fires involving toxic chemicals, and knowing what chemicals are involved help firefighters and public safety personnel take the necessary precautions to protect themselves as well as the surrounding neighborhoods. Without this information, our public safety personnel and our neighborhoods are at much greater risk of being exposed to unknown hazards during a fire or chemical spill."

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and will be heard by District Judge Barbara Jones and Magistrate Judge Debra Freeman.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2007. All rights reserved.