EPA Proposes Rollback on Toxic Pollution Reporting

EPA recently announced plans that would essentially dismantle its Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), the nation's premier tool for notifying the public about toxic pollution. The TRI annually provides communities with details about the amount of toxic chemicals released into the surrounding air, land, and water. The information enables concerned groups and individuals to press companies to reduce their pollution, resulting in safer, healthier communities. Despite the program's widely hailed success, however, EPA is proposing to significantly rolling back the program's reporting requirements.
The EPA has proposed three changes, each of which would dramatically cut information available to the public on toxic pollution. The agency is proposing to:

* Move from the current annual reporting requirement to every other year reporting for all facilities, eliminating half of all TRI data;
* Allow companies to release ten times as much pollution before being required to report the details of how much toxic pollution was produced and where it went;
* Permit facilities to withhold information on low-level production of persistent bioacculuative toxins (PBTs), including lead and mercury, which are dangerous even in very small quantities because they are toxic, persist in the environment, and build up in people's bodies.