Environmental Right-To-Know
EPA's Recent Rule Could Reduce Availability of Toxic Chemical Information Used to Assess Environmental Justice
Gao ID: GAO-08-115T October 4, 2007
A 1994 Executive Order sought to ensure that minority and low-income populations are not subjected to disproportionately high and adverse health or environ-mental effects from agency activities. In a July 2005 report, GAO made several recommendations to improve the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) adherence to these environmental justice principles. The Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 (EPCRA) requires certain facilities that use toxic chemicals to report their releases to EPA, which makes the information available in the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). Since 1995, facilities may submit a brief statement (Form A) in lieu of the more detailed Form R if releases of a chemical do not exceed 500 pounds a year. In January 2007, EPA finalized the TRI Burden Reduction Rule, quadrupling to 2,000 pounds what facilities can release before having to disclose details using Form R. Congress is considering codifying the Executive Order and requiring EPA to implement GAO's environ-mental justice recommendations. Other legislation would amend EPCRA to, among other things, revert the Form A threshold to 500 pounds or less. In this testimony, GAO discusses (1) EPA's response to GAO's environmental justice recommendations, (2) the extent to which EPA followed internal guidelines when developing the TRI rule and (3) the impact of the rule on communities and facilities.
EPA initially disagreed with GAO's July 2005 environmental justice recommendations, saying it was already paying appropriate attention to the issue. GAO called on EPA to improve the way it addresses environmental justice in its economic reviews and to better explain its rationale by providing data to support the agency's decisions. A year later, EPA responded more positively to the recommendations and committed to a number of actions. However, based on information that EPA has subsequently provided, GAO concluded in a July 2007 testimony that EPA's actions to date were incomplete and that measurable benchmarks were needed to hold agency officials accountable for achieving environmental justice goals. In developing the TRI rule, EPA did not follow key aspects of its internal guidelines, including some related to environmental justice. EPA did not follow guidelines to ensure that scientific, economic, and policy issues are addressed at appropriate stages of rule development. For example, EPA asserted that the rule would not have environmental justice impacts; however, it did not support this assertion with adequate analysis. The omission is significant because many TRI facilities that no longer have to submit Form R reports are located in minority and low-income communities; and the reduction in toxic chemical information could disproportionately affect them. EPA's TRI rule will reduce the amount of information about toxic chemical releases without providing significant savings to facilities. A total of nearly 22,200 Form R reports from some 3,500 facilities are eligible to convert to Form A under the rule. While EPA says the aggregate impact of these conversions will be minimal, the effect on individual states and communities may be significant, as illustrated below. Although making significantly less information available to communities, GAO estimated that the rule would save companies little--an average of less than $900 per facility.
GAO-08-115T, Environmental Right-To-Know: EPA's Recent Rule Could Reduce Availability of Toxic Chemical Information Used to Assess Environmental Justice
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Testimony:
Before the Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials,
Committee on Energy and Commerce, House of Representatives:
United States Government Accountability Office:
GAO:
For Release on Delivery Expected at 10:00 a.m. EDT:
Thursday, October 4, 2007:
Environmental Right-To-Know:
EPA's Recent Rule Could Reduce Availability of Toxic Chemical
Information Used to Assess Environmental Justice:
Statement of John B. Stephenson, Director Natural Resources and
Environment:
GAO-08-115T:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-08-115T, a testimony before the Subcommittee on
Environment and Hazardous Materials, Committee on Energy and Commerce,
House of Representatives.
Why GAO Did This Study:
A 1994 Executive Order sought to ensure that minority and low-income
populations are not subjected to disproportionately high and adverse
health or environ-mental effects from agency activities. In a July 2005
report, GAO made several recommendations to improve the Environmental
Protection Agency‘s (EPA) adherence to these environmental justice
principles.
The Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 (EPCRA)
requires certain facilities that use toxic chemicals to report their
releases to EPA, which makes the information available in the Toxics
Release Inventory (TRI). Since 1995, facilities may submit a brief
statement (Form A) in lieu of the more detailed Form R if releases of a
chemical do not exceed 500 pounds a year. In January 2007, EPA
finalized the TRI Burden Reduction Rule, quadrupling to 2,000 pounds
what facilities can release before having to disclose details using
Form R.
Congress is considering codifying the Executive Order and requiring EPA
to implement GAO‘s environ-mental justice recommendations. Other
legislation would amend EPCRA to, among other things, revert the Form A
threshold to 500 pounds or less. In this testimony, GAO discusses (1)
EPA‘s response to GAO‘s environmental justice recommendations, (2) the
extent to which EPA followed internal guidelines when developing the
TRI rule and (3) the impact of the rule on communities and facilities.
What GAO Found:
EPA initially disagreed with GAO‘s July 2005 environmental justice
recommendations, saying it was already paying appropriate attention to
the issue. GAO called on EPA to improve the way it addresses
environmental justice in its economic reviews and to better explain its
rationale by providing data to support the agency‘s decisions. A year
later, EPA responded more positively to the recommendations and
committed to a number of actions. However, based on information that
EPA has subsequently provided, GAO concluded in a July 2007 testimony
that EPA‘s actions to date were incomplete and that measurable
benchmarks were needed to hold agency officials accountable for
achieving environmental justice goals.
In developing the TRI rule, EPA did not follow key aspects of its
internal guidelines, including some related to environmental justice.
EPA did not follow guidelines to ensure that scientific, economic, and
policy issues are addressed at appropriate stages of rule development.
For example, EPA asserted that the rule would not have environmental
justice impacts; however, it did not support this assertion with
adequate analysis. The omission is significant because many TRI
facilities that no longer have to submit Form R reports are located in
minority and low-income communities; and the reduction in toxic
chemical information could disproportionately affect them.
EPA‘s TRI rule will reduce the amount of information about toxic
chemical releases without providing significant savings to facilities.
A total of nearly 22,200 Form R reports from some 3,500 facilities are
eligible to convert to Form A under the rule. While EPA says the
aggregate impact of these conversions will be minimal, the effect on
individual states and communities may be significant, as illustrated
below. Although making significantly less information available to
communities, GAO estimated that the rule would save companies little”an
average of less than $900 per facility.
Figure: Impact of EPA's TRI Rule of Form Rs THat Could Convert to Form
A, by State:
[See PDF for image]
Sources: GAO based on 2005 EPA TRI data and Map Info (map).
[End of figure]
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
GAO-08-115T.
For more information, contact John Stephenson at (202) 512-3841 or
stephensonj@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
I am pleased to be here today to discuss our work on two related
issues. The first issue is the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA)
consideration of environmental justice in the development of new rules.
Environmental justice generally refers to efforts to identify and
address the disproportionately high and adverse human health and
environmental impacts that air pollution and other environmental risks
pose to specific populations--usually minority and low-income
communities. The second issue is EPA's Toxic Release Inventory (TRI)
Burden Reduction rule, which recently changed how much information some
facilities are required to report to the public about their use and
release of certain toxic chemicals. A key use of the TRI is for
environmental justice purposes, and EPA used that rule as an example of
how the agency has improved consideration of environmental justice
issues in its rule development process. Specifically, information about
toxic chemical use, transport, storage, and release captured in the TRI
has been useful for determining whether minority and low-income
populations bear disproportionately high and adverse human health or
environmental effects of EPA programs, policies, and activities. Hence,
while a change to TRI reporting requirements may not affect how much
toxic waste is released to the environment, it could affect how much
information communities will know about those toxic releases.
In 1994, President Clinton issued Executive Order 12898, which stated
that EPA and other federal agencies, to the greatest extent practicable
and permitted by law, shall make achieving environmental justice part
of their missions by identifying and addressing, as appropriate, the
disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental
effects of their programs, policies, and activities on minority
populations and low-income populations in the United States. To
implement the order, EPA developed guidance for incorporating
environmental justice into its programs, such as the enforcement of the
Clean Air Act, which is intended in part, to control emissions that
harm human health. A key to ensuring that environmental justice is
sufficiently accounted for in agency decisions and operations is that
it be considered at each point in the rule development process--
including the point when agency workgroups typically consider
regulatory options, perform economic analyses of proposed rules' costs,
make proposed rules available for public comment, and finalize them
before implementation.
Congress passed the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act
of 1986 (EPCRA) to help inform citizens about releases of toxic
chemicals to the environment; to help governmental agencies,
researchers, and others conduct research and gather data; and to aid in
the development of appropriate regulations, guidelines, and standards.
Section 313 of EPCRA generally requires certain facilities that
manufacture, process, or otherwise handle specified amounts of any of
581 individual chemicals and 30 additional chemical categories to
annually report the amount of those chemicals that they released to the
environment, including whether those chemicals were released to the
air, soil, or water. Facilities comply with TRI reporting requirements
by submitting to EPA and their respective state information for each
TRI-listed chemical that they use in excess of certain thresholds using
a Form R report. Since 1995, EPA has allowed certain facilities to
submit information on a brief Form A certification statement (Form A)
in lieu of the detailed Form R report if they release or manage no more
than 500 pounds of a chemical that is not persistent, bioaccumulative,
and toxic (non-PBT) during the year. While both Form R and Form A
capture information about a facility's identity, such as mailing
address and parent company, and information about a chemical's
identity, such as its generic name, only Form R captures detailed
information about the chemical, such as quantity disposed or released
onsite to air, water, and land or injected underground, or transferred
for disposal or release off-site. Form R also provides information
about the facility's efforts to reduce pollution at its source,
including the quantities of waste it manages both on-and off-site, and
how it manages waste, such as amounts recycled, burned for energy
recovery, or treated. We provide a detailed comparison of the TRI data
on Form R and Form A in Appendix I.
On December 22, 2006, EPA issued the TRI Burden Reduction rule, which
sought to reduce industry's reporting burden by: (1) quadrupling the
Form A threshold from 500 to 2,000 pounds of releases for a non-PBT
chemical, and (2) allowing certain facilities to use Form A for non-
dioxin, persistent bioaccumulative toxic (PBT) chemicals, such as lead
and mercury, provided that they release none of the PBT chemical to the
environment. The rule went into effect for reporting calendar year 2006
releases, which were due by July 1, 2007. Because EPA typically
releases TRI data to the public in the spring following the due date,
the most currently available data are for calendar year 2005; the 2006
data are expected in spring of 2008.
The Congress is considering legislation to codify Executive Order
12898, relating to environmental justice, to require the Administrator
of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to fully implement the
recommendations that GAO made in 2005.[Footnote 1] Additional
legislation has been introduced that would, among other things, to
effectively repeal EPA's TRI Burden Reduction Rule.[Footnote 2]
Specifically, the bills would amend EPCRA to (1) require the
Administrator of EPA to establish the eligibility threshold for use of
Form A at not greater than 500 pounds for non-PBT chemicals, (2)
prohibit use of Form A for PBT chemicals,[Footnote 3] and (3) repeal a
provision of EPCRA allowing the Administrator of EPA to modify the
frequency of toxic chemical release reporting.
My testimony this morning is based, in part, on a July 2007 update to
our 2005 report on environmental justice, which recommended that EPA
devote more attention to environmental justice when developing clean
air rules.[Footnote 4] Our 2005 report examined how EPA considered
environmental justice during the drafting of three air rules and
concluded that the manner in which EPA had incorporated environmental
justice into its air rulemaking process fell short of the goals set
forth in Executive Order 12898. In that report, we recommended four
actions to help EPA resolve the problems we identified. Specifically,
we called on:
1. EPA's rulemaking workgroups to devote attention to environmental
justice while drafting and finalizing clean air rules;
2. the EPA Administrator to enhance workgroups' ability to identify
potential environmental justice issues by (1) providing workgroup
members with guidance and training to help them identify potential
environmental justice problems and (2) involving environmental justice
coordinators in the workgroups when appropriate;
3. the EPA Administrator improve assessments of potential environmental
justice impacts in economic reviews by identifying the data and
developing the modeling techniques needed to assess such impacts; and:
4. the EPA Administrator to direct cognizant officials to respond more
fully to public comments on environmental justice by, for example,
better explaining the rationale for EPA's beliefs and by providing
supporting data.
My testimony also draws on our February 2007 testimony, in which we
discussed our then-ongoing work on EPA's TRI program.[Footnote 5] We
expect to publish the final results of our evaluation later this month.
My statement today provides: (1) EPA's responses to the recommendations
we made to EPA to address the environmental justice problems we
identified in 2005, (2) our assessment of the extent to which EPA
followed internal rule development guidelines when developing its TRI
Burden Reduction Rule, including its implications for environmental
justice, and (3) estimates of the impact of the TRI Burden Reduction
Rule on communities and facilities.
In summary:
* In commenting on the draft of our July 2005 environmental justice
report, EPA initially disagreed with our recommendations, saying it was
already paying appropriate attention to environmental justice. A year
later, in a letter to the Comptroller General, EPA responded more
positively to our recommendations and committed to taking a number of
actions to address them. However, based on information that EPA has
subsequently provided regarding the recommendations we made in that
report, we concluded in our July 2007 testimony that EPA's actions to
date suggest the need for measurable benchmarks to achieve
environmental justice goals and to hold agency officials accountable
for making meaningful progress.[Footnote 6]
* As I discussed in our February 2007 testimony, we found that EPA did
not follow key aspects of its internal guidelines--including some
related to environmental justice--in developing the TRI Burden
Reduction Rule. We found that EPA's deviations from its guidelines were
due, in part, to pressure from the Office of Management and Budget to
significantly reduce industry's TRI reporting burden by the end of
December 2006. Throughout this process, senior EPA management has the
authority to depart from the guidelines. Nevertheless, we have
identified several significant differences between the guidelines and
the process EPA followed for this case, which was widely criticized by
the public, including attorneys general from 12 states. Specifically,
EPA did not follow key steps in its guidelines intended to ensure that
scientific, economic, and policy issues were adequately addressed at
the appropriate stages of development and to ensure cross-agency
participation until the final action is completed. For example, the
draft rule and supporting analyses are to be circulated for final
agency review, a key step when EPA's internal and regional offices
should have discussed with senior management whether they concurred
with the rule. However, their input was limited at this stage because
the review package addressed the "no significant change" option rather
than the increased Form A threshold option that was subsequently
included in the proposed rule and ultimately finalized. With regard to
environmental justice, EPA asserted that the TRI rule would not have
environmental justice impacts; however, the agency did not explain a
key assumption it used in arriving at this conclusion. This is
particularly significant because, according to EPA data that we
examined, facilities that report to the TRI are more likely to be
located near minority and low-income communities. Therefore any
reduction in the availability of TRI data seems likely to
disproportionately affect them.
* EPA's TRI Burden Reduction Rule will reduce the amount of information
about toxic chemical releases previously available to the public. EPA
asserted that the final rule would not result in the loss of critical
information and would significantly reduce industry's reporting burden.
With regard to EPA's assertion that critical information would not be
lost, the agency estimated that less than 1 percent of the total pounds
of chemical releases would no longer be reported to the TRI. However,
we found the impact on data available to many communities could be more
significant than EPA's national totals indicate, particularly at the
local level. We estimated that a total of nearly 22,200 Form R reports
are eligible to convert to Form A under the revised TRI reporting
thresholds, ranging from 25 in Vermont to 2,196 in Texas. The number of
chemicals for which only Form A information may be reported under the
TRI rule ranges from 3 chemicals in South Dakota to 60 chemicals in
Georgia. Taken by facility, some 3,500 facilities would no longer have
to report any quantitative information about their chemical use and
releases to the TRI, ranging from 5 in Alaska to 302 in California.
With regard to EPA's assertion that the final rule will result in
significant reduction in industry's reporting burden, EPA estimated
that the rule would save $5.9 million at most, which we calculated
would amount to savings of less than $900 per facility.
EPA's Response to Our Environmental Justice Recommendations Suggests a
Need for Clear Benchmarks to Measure Progress:
As we testified in July 2007, EPA's actions in response to our previous
recommendations suggest the need for measurable benchmarks--both to
serve as goals to strive for in achieving environmental justice in its
rulemaking process, and to hold cognizant officials accountable for
making meaningful progress. In commenting on our draft 2005 report, EPA
disagreed with the four recommendations we made, saying it was already
paying appropriate attention to environmental justice. A year later, in
its August 24, 2006 letter to the Comptroller General, EPA responded
more positively to our recommendations and committed to taking a number
of actions to address these issues.[Footnote 7] Specifically, EPA's
letter stated:
* In response to our first recommendation, calling upon EPA's
rulemaking workgroups to devote attention to environmental justice
while drafting and finalizing clean air rules, EPA responded that, to
ensure consideration of environmental justice in the development of
regulations, its Office of Environmental Justice was made an ex officio
member of the agency's Regulatory Steering Committee, the body that
oversees regulatory policy for EPA and the development of its rules.
EPA also said that (1) the agency's Office of Policy, Economics and
Innovation (responsible in part for providing support and guidance to
EPA's program offices and regions as they develop their regulations)
had convened an agency-wide workgroup to consider where environmental
justice might be considered in rulemakings and (2) it was developing
"template language" to help rule writers communicate findings regarding
environmental justice in the preamble of rules. In addition, EPA
officials emphasized that its Tiering Form--a key form completed by
workgroup chairs to alert senior managers to the potential issues
related to compliance with statutes, executive orders, and other
matters--would be revised to include a question on environmental
justice.
* In response to our second recommendation, calling on EPA to provide
workgroup members with guidance and training to help them identify
potential environmental justice problems and involve environmental
justice coordinators in the workgroups when appropriate, EPA said it
was creating a comprehensive curriculum to meet the needs of agency
rule writers. Specifically, EPA explained that its Office of Policy,
Economics, and Innovation was focusing on how best to train agency
staff to consider environmental justice during the regulation
development process and that its Office of Air and Radiation had
already developed environmental justice training tailored to the
specific needs of that office. Among other training opportunities
highlighted in the letter was a new on-line course offered by its
Office of Environmental Justice to address a broad range of
environmental justice issues. EPA also cited an initiative by the
Office of Air and Radiation's Office of Air Quality Planning and
Standards to use a regulatory development checklist to ensure that
potential environmental justice issues and concerns are considered and
addressed at each stage of the rulemaking process. In response to our
call for greater involvement of Environmental Justice coordinators in
workgroup activities, EPA said that as an ex officio member of the
Regulatory Steering Committee, the Office of Environmental Justice
would keep the program office environmental justice coordinators
informed about new and ongoing rulemakings with potential environmental
justice implications via monthly conference calls with the
environmental justice coordinators.
* In response to our third recommendation, calling on the EPA
Administrator to identify the data and develop the modeling techniques
needed to assess potential environmental justice impacts in economic
reviews, EPA responded that its Office of Air and Radiation was
reviewing information in its air models to assess which demographic
data could be analyzed to predict possible environmental justice
effects. EPA also stated it was considering additional guidance to
address methodological issues typically encountered when examining a
proposed rule's impacts on subpopulations highlighted in the executive
order. Specifically, EPA discussed creating a handbook that would
discuss important methodological issues and suggest ways to properly
screen and conduct more thorough environmental justice analyses.
Finally, it noted that the Office of Air and Radiation was assessing
models and tools to (1) determine the data required to identify
communities of concern, (2) quantify environmental health, social and
economic impacts on these communities, and (3) determine whether these
impacts are disproportionately high and adverse.
* In response to our fourth recommendation, calling on the EPA
Administrator to direct cognizant officials to respond more fully to
public comments on environmental justice by, for example, better
explaining the rationale for EPA's beliefs and by providing supporting
data, EPA said that as a matter of policy, the agency includes a
response to comments in the preamble of a final rule or in a separate
"Response to Comments" document in the public docket for its
rulemakings. The agency noted, however, that it will re-emphasize the
need to respond to comments fully, to include the rationale for its
regulatory approach, and to better describe its supporting data.
However, more recent information from agency officials indicates that
EPA's handling of environmental justice issues continues to fall short
of our recommendations and the goals set forth in Executive Order
12898. In July 2007, we met with EPA officials to obtain current
information on EPA's environmental justice activities, focusing in
particular on those most relevant to our report's recommendations.
Specifically:
* Regarding our first recommendation that workgroups consider
environmental justice while drafting and finalizing regulations, the
Office of Environmental Justice has not participated directly in any of
the 103 air rules that have been proposed or finalized since EPA's
August 2006 letter. According to EPA officials, the Office of
Environmental Justice did participate in one workgroup of the Office of
Solid Waste and Emergency Response, and provided comments on the final
agency review for the Toxic Release Inventory Reporting Burden
Reduction Rule. In addition, EPA explained that the inclusion of
environmental justice on its Tiering Form has been delayed because it
is only one of several issues being considered for inclusion in the
tiering process.
* Regarding our second recommendation to improve training and include
Environmental Justice coordinators in workgroups when appropriate, our
latest information on EPA's progress shows mixed results. On the one
hand, EPA continues to provide an environmental justice training course
that began in 2002, and has included environmental justice in recent
courses to help rule writers understand how environmental justice ties
into the rulemaking process. On the other hand, some training courses
that were planned have not yet been developed. Specifically, the Office
of Policy, Economics, and Innovation has not completed the planned
development of training on ways to consider environmental justice
during the regulation development process. In addition, officials from
EPA's Office of Air and Radiation told us in July that they were unable
to develop environmental justice training--training EPA told us in 2006
that it had already developed--due to staff turnover and other reasons.
Regarding our recommendation to involve the Environmental Justice
coordinators in rulemaking workgroups when appropriate, EPA officials
told us that active, hands-on participation by Environmental Justice
coordinators in rulemakings has yet to occur.
* Regarding our third recommendation that EPA identify the data and
develop modeling techniques to assess potential environmental justice
impacts in economic reviews, EPA officials said that their data and
models have improved since our 2005 report, but that their level of
sophistication has not reached their goal for purposes of environmental
justice considerations. EPA officials said that to understand how
development of a rule might affect environmental justice for specific
communities, further improvements are needed in modeling, and more
specific data are needed about the socio-economic, health, and
environmental composition of communities. Only when they have achieved
such modeling and data improvements can they develop guidance on
conducting an economic analysis of environmental justice issues.
According to EPA, among other things, economists within the Office of
Air and Radiation are continuing to evaluate and enhance their models
in a way that will further improve consideration of environmental
justice during rulemaking. For example, EPA officials told us that a
contractor would begin to analyze the environmental justice
implications of a yet-to-be-determined regulation to control a specific
air pollutant in July 2007. EPA expects that the study, due in June
2008, will give the agency information about what socio-economic groups
experience the benefits of a particular air regulation, and which ones
bear the costs. EPA expects that the analysis will serve as a prototype
for analyses of other pollutants.
* Regarding our fourth recommendation that the Administrator direct
cognizant officials to respond more fully to public comments on
environmental justice, EPA officials cited one example of an air rule
in which the Office of Air and Radiation received comments from tribes
and other commenters who believed that the a proposed air quality
standard raised environmental justice concerns. According to the
officials, the agency discussed the comments in the preamble to the
final rule and in the associated response-to-comments document.
Nonetheless, the officials with whom we met said they were unaware of
any memoranda or revised guidance that would encourage more global, EPA-
wide progress on this important issue.
As we testified in July 2007, EPA's actions to date were sufficiently
incomplete that measurable benchmarks are needed to achieve
environmental justice goals and hold agency officials accountable for
making meaningful progress on environmental justice issues.
EPA's TRI Rulemaking Deviated From Key Internal Guidelines, Including
Some Related to Environmental Justice:
As I discussed in our February 2007 testimony, EPA deviated from key
internal guidelines in developing the TRI Burden Reduction Rule. EPA's
Action Development Process provides a sequence of steps designed to
ensure that scientific, economic, and policy issues are adequately
addressed at the appropriate stages of rule development and to ensure
cross-agency participation until the final rule is completed. Some of
those steps relate to environmental justice issues. We found that EPA's
deviations were caused, in part, by pressure from the Office of
Management and Budget to reduce industry's TRI reporting burden by the
end of December 2006. Throughout this process, senior EPA management
has the authority to depart from the guidelines. Nevertheless, we
identified several significant differences between the guidelines and
the process that EPA followed in developing the TRI rule. Specifically:
* EPA did not follow a key element of its guidelines that is intended
to identify and selection the options that best achieve the goal of the
rulemaking. Specifically, an internal workgroup was charged with
identifying and assessing options to reduce TRI reporting burden on
industry and providing EPA management with a set of options from which
management makes the final selection. However, in this case EPA
management selected an altogether different option than the ones
identified and assessed by the TRI workgroup. The TRI workgroup
identified three options from a larger list of possible options that
had been identified through a public stakeholder process, and the
workgroup had scoped out these options' costs, benefits, and
feasibility. The first two options allowed facilities to use Form A in
lieu of Form R for PBT chemicals, provided the facility had no releases
to the environment.[Footnote 8] The third option would have created a
new form, in lieu of Form R, for facilities to report "no significant
change" if their releases changed little from the previous year. Under
this element of EPA's guidelines, senior management then selects the
option(s) that best achieve the rule's goals. However, based on our
review of documents from the June 2005 options selection briefing for
the Administrator and subsequent interviews with senior EPA officials,
EPA deviated from this process. Specifically, it appears that the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) suggested an alternate option--
increasing the Form A eligibility for non-PBT chemicals from 500 to
5,000 pounds--as a way of providing what OMB considered significant
burden reduction. Yet the TRI workgroup had previously dropped this
option from further consideration because of its impact on the TRI. In
addition to reviving this burden reduction option, the Administrator
directed EPA staff to expedite the rule development process after the
briefing in order to meet a commitment to OMB to reduce the TRI
reporting burden by the end of December 2006.
* Second, we found problems with the extent to which the agency sought
input from internal stakeholders. EPA's rule development guidelines are
designed to ensure cross-agency participation until the rule is
completed. For example, a key step in the guidelines provides for the
draft rule and supporting analyses to be circulated for final agency
review, when EPA's internal and regional offices should have discussed
with senior management whether they concurred with the rule. As
provided for in its guidelines, EPA conducted a final agency review for
the rule in July 2005. However, the draft rule and accompanying
economic analysis that was circulated for review did not discuss or
evaluate the impact of raising the Form A non-PBT threshold above 500
pounds because the economic analysis for this option was not yet
completed. In fact, such an analysis was not completed until after EPA
sent the proposed rule to OMB for review. Because the final agency
review package addressed to the "no significant change" option rather
than the increased Form A threshold option, the EPA Administrator and
the EPA Assistant Administrator for Environmental Information likely
received limited input from internal stakeholders about the option to
increase the Form A non-PBT threshold prior to sending the proposed
rule to OMB for official review. Indeed, a measure of how rushed the
process became is that the economic analysis for the proposed rule was
completed just days before the proposal was signed by the Administrator
on September 21, 2005 for publication in the Federal Register.[Footnote
9]
* Third, our review of EPA's rule development process found that the
agency did not conduct an environmental justice analysis to
substantiate its assertion that the TRI rule would not have
environmental justice impacts. In its proposed rule, EPA stated that it
had "no indication that either option [changing reporting requirements
for non-PBT and PBT chemicals] will disproportionately impact minority
or low-income communities."[Footnote 10] EPA concluded that it
"believes that the data provided under this proposed rule will continue
to provide valuable information that fulfills the purposes of the TRI
program—" and that "the principal consequence of finalizing today's
action would be to reduce the level of detail available [to the public]
on some toxic chemical releases or management." However, the reason EPA
said it had no indication about environmental justice impacts is
because the agency did not complete an environmental justice assessment
before it published the rule for comment in the Federal Register.
Furthermore, we found that the statement concerning disproportionate
impacts in the proposed rule was not written by EPA; rather, it was
added by the Office of Management and Budget during its official review
of the rule.[Footnote 11]
After publication of the TRI rule in the Federal Register, EPA received
over 100,000 comments during the rule's public comment period. Most
commenters opposed EPA's rule because of its impact on the TRI, and
some commenters, including the attorneys general of California,
Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Vermont, and Wisconsin, questioned
whether EPA had evaluated environmental justice issues. In addition,
three members of the House Committee on Government Reform wrote to EPA
Administrator Stephen Johnson in December 2005 asking that he
substantiate EPA's conclusion that the TRI rule would not
disproportionately impact minority and low-income communities.
In March 2006, EPA provided Congress with an environmental justice
analysis showing that it had evaluated affected areas by zip codes and
by proximity to facilities reporting to TRI. Table 1 summarizes the
results of that analysis, which found that communities within 1 mile of
facilities that reported to the TRI were about 42 percent minority, on
average, compared to about 32 percent for the country as a whole. In
addition those same communities are about 17 percent below the poverty
level, compared to about 13 percent for the country as a whole.
(Compare table 1, columns A and B.)
Table 1: Minority and Poverty Demographics of the U.S. Population
Compared to Communities within 1-mile of a Facility that Filed at Least
One TRI Form R Report for 2003:
(Percent).
Minority; Column A: U.S. population: 31.8;
Column B: Within 1-mile of all facilities that filed a Form R: 41.8;
Column C: Within 1-mile of facilities that filed a Form R for but could
have used Form A under proposed rule: 43.5;
Column D: Within 1-mile of facilities that filed a Form R but could
have used Form A under final rule: 43.8.
Below U.S. poverty level;
Column A: U.S. population: 12.9;
Column B: Within 1-mile of all facilities that filed a Form R: 16.5;
Column C: Within 1-mile of facilities that filed a Form R for but could
have used Form A under proposed rule: 17.0;
Column D: Within 1-mile of facilities that filed a Form R but could
have used Form A under final rule: 17.0.
Source: GAO summary of EPA analysis.
[End of table]
EPA concluded that the results showed little variance in minority or
poverty concentration near facilities currently reporting to the TRI
compared to facilities that would be affected by the rule. (Compare
table 1, columns B and C.) EPA argued that "while there is a higher
proportion of minority and low-income communities in close proximity to
some TRI facilities than in the population generally, the rule does not
appear to have a disproportionate impact on these communities, since
facilities in these communities are no more likely than elsewhere to
become eligible to use Form A as a result of the rule." However, EPA's
analysis indicates that TRI facilities are in communities that are one-
third more minority and one-quarter more low-income, on average, than
the U.S. population as a whole. Therefore, in comparison to the country
at large, those populations would likely be disproportionately affected
by an across-the-board reduction in TRI information. (Compare table 1,
columns A and C.)[Footnote 12] Thus, EPA assumed that although minority
and low-income communities disproportionately benefit from TRI
information, this fact was irrelevant to its environmental justice
analysis. However, the agency did not explain or provide support for
this assumption.
I would like to illustrate the impact of EPA's rule on the TRI using a
new tool that can help the public better understand environmental
issues in their communities. Google Earth is a free geographic mapping
tool that overlays various content, including TRI data from EPA, onto
satellite photos and maps. Using this tool, the public can combine
EPA's TRI and various demographic data to view the environmental
justice impacts of EPA's TRI rule. As an example, Figure 1 shows a
satellite image of southern California, including Los Angeles County
and part of Orange County. The small dots indicate TRI facilities
eligible for burden reduction under the TRI rule (i.e., eligible for
reduced reporting on Form A). On top of every facility is a cylinder
that indicates the demographic details of the people living within 1
mile of the facilities. Specifically, the cylinders' color shows the
percent of that population that is minority (e.g., red cylinders
indicate a community that is 80% or more minority). The cylinders'
height shows the percent of that population living below the poverty
level (e.g., taller cylinders indicate poorer communities). As the
height and color of the cylinders shows, the communities in southern
California near TRI-reporting facilities that are eligible for reduced
reporting under EPA's rule, are disproportionately minority and low-
income.
Figure 1: Minority-and Poverty-levels of Communities Within One Mile of
Facilities in Southern California That Are Eligible for Burden
Reduction:
[See PDF for image]
Source: Google Earth based on EPA and Census Bureau data.
[End of figure]
As I mentioned earlier in my testimony, EPA's latest response to our
environmental justice recommendations used TRI as an example of how the
agency has improved its handling of environmental justice in the rule
development process. However, our analysis shows that EPA did not
complete an environmental justice assessment before concluding that the
proposed TRI rule did not disproportionately affect minority and low-
income populations. Even after EPA completed its analysis--in response
to pressure from Members of Congress and the public--the agency
concluded that the rule had no environmental justice implications
despite the fact that TRI facilities are, on average, more likely to be
minority and low-income than the U.S. as a whole;
therefore, in comparison to the population at large, those populations
would likely be disproportionately affected by an across-the-board
reduction in TRI information.
EPA Actions Reduce the Amount of Information About Toxic Chemical
Releases Previously Available to the Public:
EPA asserted that its TRI Burden Reduction Rule will result in
significant burden reduction without losing critical information, but
our analyses show otherwise. We found that the rule, which went into
effect for the reports that were due by July 1st of this year, reduces
the quantity and detail of information currently available to many
communities about toxic chemicals used, transported, or released in
their environment.[Footnote 13] For each facility that chooses to file
a Form A instead of Form R, the public will no longer have available
quantitative information about a facility's releases and waste
management practices for a specific chemical that the facility
manufactured, processed, or otherwise used. Appendix I shows the data
that is contained on Form R compared to Form A. It is not possible to
precisely quantify how much information will no longer be reported to
the TRI on the detailed Form R because not all eligible facilities will
take advantage of rule allowing them to submit the brief Form A. But
using the most recent available data for calendar year 2005, it is
possible to estimate what currently-reported information no longer has
to be reported under EPA's revised TRI reporting requirements.
Our analysis shows that EPA's TRI rule could, by increasing the number
of facilities that may use Form A, significantly reduce the amount of
information currently available to many communities about toxic
chemicals used, transported, or released into their environment. EPA
estimated that the impact of its change to TRI would be minimal;
amounting to less than 1 percent of total pounds of chemicals released
nationally that no longer would have to be reported to the TRI.
However, we found that the impact on individual communities is likely
to be more significant than these national aggregate totals indicate.
Specifically, EPA estimated that the Form R reports that could convert
to Form A account for 5.7 million pounds of releases not being reported
to the TRI (only 0.14% of all TRI release pounds) and an additional
10.5 million pounds of waste management activities (0.06% of total
waste management pounds). However, to understand the potential impact
of EPA's changes to TRI reporting requirements more locally, we used
2005 TRI data to estimate the number of detailed Form R reports that
would no longer have to be submitted in each state and found that
nearly 22,200 Form R reports (28 percent) could convert to Form A under
EPA's new Form A thresholds.[Footnote 14] The number of possible
conversions ranges by state from 25 in Vermont (27.2 percent of all
Form Rs formerly filed in the state) to 2,196 Form Rs in Texas (30.6
percent of Form Rs formerly filed in the state). As figure 2 shows,
Alaska, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland,
Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and
Texas could lose at least 30 percent of Form R reports.
Figure 2: Estimate of Impact Allowed by EPA's Changes on Number of Form
Rs, by State:
[See PDF for image]
Source: GAO based on 2005 EPA TRI data and Map Info (map).
[End of figure]
Another way to characterize the impact of the TRI burden reduction rule
is to examine what currently-available public data may no longer be
reported about specific chemicals at the state level. The number of
chemicals for which only Form A information may be reported under the
TRI rule ranges from 3 chemicals in South Dakota to 60 chemicals in
Georgia. That means that the specific quantitative information
currently reported about those chemicals may no longer appear in the
TRI database. Figure 3 shows that thirteen states--Delaware, Georgia,
Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, North Carolina,
Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin--could no
longer have quantitative information about at least 20 percent of TRI-
reported chemicals in the state.
Figure 3: Estimate of Percent of Chemicals For Which Facilities Could
Report on Form A, by State:
[See PDF for image]
Source: GAO based on 2005 EPA TRI data and Map Info (map).
[End of figure]
The impact of the loss of information from these Form R reports can
also be understood in terms of the number of facilities that could be
affected. We estimated that 6,620 facilities nationwide could chose to
convert at least one Form R to a Form A, and about 54 percent of those
would be eligible to convert all their Form Rs to Form A. That means
that approximately 3,565 facilities would not have to report any
quantitative information about their chemical releases and other waste
management practices to the TRI, according to our estimates. The number
of facilities ranges from 5 in Alaska to 302 in California. For
example, in 2005, the ATSC Marine Terminal, bulk petroleum storage
facility in Los Angeles County, California, reported releases of 13
different chemicals--including highly toxic benzene, toluene, and
xylene--to the air. Although the facility's releases totaled about
5,000 pounds, it released less than 2,000 pounds of each chemical, and
therefore would no longer have to file Form Rs for them. As figure 4
shows, more than 10 percent of facilities in each state except Idaho
would no longer have to report any quantitative information to the TRI.
The most affected states are Colorado, Connecticut, the District of
Columbia, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, where more than 20
percent of facilities could choose to not disclose the details of their
chemical releases and other waste management practices by submitting a
Form A in lieu of a Form R. Furthermore, our analysis found that
citizens living in 75 counties in the United States--including 11 in
Texas, 10 in Virginia, and 6 in Georgia--could have no quantitative TRI
information about local toxic pollution.
Figure 4: Estimate of Percent of Facilities That Could Convert All Form
Rs to Form A, by State:
[See PDF for image]
Source: GAO based on 2005 EPA TRI data and Map Info (map).
[End of figure]
With regard to EPA's assertion that the TRI rule will result in
significant reduction in industry's reporting burden--the primary
rationale for the rule--the agency estimated that the rule would save,
at most, $5.9 million. (See table 2.) According to our calculations,
these costs savings amount to only 4 percent of the $147.8 million
total annual cost to industry of TRI reporting. Also, as we testified
in February 2007, EPA's estimate likely overestimates the total cost
savings (i.e., burden reduction) that will be realized by reporting
facilities because not all eligible facilities will choose to file a
Form A in lieu of Form R.
Table 2: EPA Estimates of Annual Savings from Changes to TRI Reporting
Requirements:
Option: New PBT chemical eligibility;
Newly eligible Form Rs: 2,360;
Eligible facilities: 1,796;
Burden (hours per form): 15.5;
Annual burden savings (hours): 36,480;
Cost savings per form: $748;
Annual cost savings: $1,764,969.
Option: Increased eligibility for non-PBT chemicals;
Newly eligible Form Rs: 9,501;
Eligible facilities: 5,317;
Burden (hours per form): 9.1;
Annual burden savings (hours): 86,924;
Cost savings per form: 438;
Annual cost savings: 4,160,239.
Total;
Newly eligible Form Rs: 11,861;
Eligible facilities: 6,670;
Burden (hours per form): [Empty];
Annual burden savings (hours): 123,404;
Cost savings per form: [Empty];
Annual cost savings: $5,925,208.
Source: EPA based on reporting year 2004 TRI data.
[End of table]
Concluding Observations:
Environmental justice and the TRI are related and mutually dependent.
Our assessment shows that EPA did not fully consider important impacts
of its TRI rule, including environmental justice impacts on
communities, when evaluating the rule's costs and benefits. That is,
EPA's recent changes to TRI reporting requirements will reduce the
amount and specificity of toxic chemical information that facilities
have to report to the TRI and that will, in turn, impact communities'
ability to assess environmental justice and other issues. It is
unlikely that the TRI rule provides, as EPA asserts, significant
reduction in industry's reporting burden without losing critical
environmental information.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be happy to
respond to any questions that you or members of the Subcommittee may
have at this time.
Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public
Affairs may be found on the last page of this statement. For further
information about this testimony, please contact John Stephenson at
(202) 512-3841 or stephensonj@gao.gov. Key contributors to this
testimony were Steven Elstein, Terrance Horner, Richard Johnson, and
Daniel Semick. Other contributors included Mark Braza, Karen Febey,
Kate Cardamone, Alison O'Neill, and Jennifer Popovic.
[End of section]
Appendix I: Comparison of Information Collected on the TRI Form R and
Form A Certification Statement:
Facilities must submit a detailed Form R report for each designated
chemical that they use in excess of certain thresholds, or certify that
they are not subject to the reporting requirement by submitting a brief
Form A certification statement. Form A captures general information
about the facility, such as address, parent company, industry type, and
basic information about the chemical or chemicals it released. Form R
includes the same information, but also requires facilities to provide
details about the quantity of the chemical they disposed or released
onsite to the air, water, land, and injected underground, or
transferred for disposal or release off-site. Table 3 provides details
about the specific information the facilities provide on the Form R and
Form A.
Table 3: Information Collected on the TRI Form R and Form A
Certification Statement:
Form R: Facility Identification Information:
* TRI Facility ID Number;
* Reporting year;
* Trade secret information (if claiming that toxic chemical is trade
secret);
* Certification by facility owner/operator or senior management
official;
* Facility name, mailing address;
* Whether form is for entire facility, part of facility, federal
facility, or contractor at federal facility;
* Technical contact name, telephone number, Email address;
* Public contact name, telephone number;
* North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes;
* Dun & Bradstreet number;
* Parent company information (name, Dun & Bradstreet number);
Form A: Facility Identification Information:
* TRI Facility ID Number;
* Reporting year;
* Trade secret information (if claiming that toxic chemical is trade
secret);
* Certification by facility owner/operator or senior management
official;
* Facility name, mailing address;
* Whether form is for entire facility, part of facility, federal
facility, or contractor at federal facility;
* Technical contact name, telephone number, Email address;
* North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes;
* Dun & Bradstreet number;
* Parent company information (name, Dun & Bradstreet number).
Form R: Chemical Specific Information:
* Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) registry number;
* EPCRA Section 313 chemical or chemical category name;
* Generic name;
* Distribution of each member of the dioxin or dioxin-like compound
category;
* Generic name provided by supplier if chemical is component of a
mixture;
* Activities and uses of the chemical at facility, whether chemical is:
- produced or imported for on-site use/processing, for
sale/distribution, as a byproduct, or as an impurity;
- processed as a reactant, a formation component, article component,
repackaging, or as an impurity;
- otherwise used as a chemical processing aid, manufacturing aid, or as
an ancillary or other use;
* Maximum amount onsite at any time during the year;
Form A: Chemical Specific Information:
* Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) registry number;
* EPCRA Section 313 chemical or chemical category name;
* Generic name.
Form R: On-site Chemical Release Data:
* Quantities released on-site to:
- air as fugitive or non-point emissions;
- air as stack or point emissions;
- surface water as discharges to receiving streams or water bodies
(including names of streams or water bodies);
- underground injection;
- land, including RCRA Subtitle C landfills, other landfills, land
treatment/application farming, RCRA Subtitle C surface impoundments,
other surface impoundments, other land disposal;
* Basis for estimates of releases (i.e., monitoring data or
measurements, mass balance calculations, emissions factors, other
approaches);
* Quantity released as a result of remedial actions, catastrophic
events, or one- time events not associated with production processes;
Form A: On- site Chemical Release Data:
Not reported on Form A.
Form R: On-site Chemical Waste Management Data:
* Quantities managed on-site through:
- recycling;
- energy recovery;
- treatment;
* Recycling processes (e.g., metal recovery by smelting, solvent
recovery by distillation);
* Energy recovery methods (e.g., kiln, furnace, boiler);
* Waste treatment methods (e.g., scrubber, electrostatic precipitator)
for each waste stream (e.g., gaseous, aqueous, liquid non-aqueous,
solids);
* On-site waste treatment efficiency;
Form Am A: On-site Chemical Waste Management Data:
Not reported on Form A.
Form R: Off-site Transfers for Release or Other Waste Management:
* Quantities transferred to any Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTW);
- POTW name(s), address(es);
* Quantities transferred to other location for disposal or other
release;
- underground injection;
- other land release;
* Quantities transferred to other location for waste management;
- treatment;
- recycling;
- energy recovery;
* Quantity transferred off-site for release, treatment, recycling, or
energy recovery that resulted from remedial actions, catastrophic
events, or one-time events not associated with production processes;
* Off-site location(s) name and address;
* Basis for estimates for amounts transferred;
* Whether receiving location(s) is/are under control of reporting
facility/parent company;
Form A: Off-site Transfers for Release or Other Waste Management;
Not reported on Form A.
Form R: Source Reduction and Recycling Activities:
Source Reduction and Recycling Activities • Total quantities, for (1)
the prior and (2) current reporting years and estimated totals for (3)
the following and (4) second following years for:
* on-site disposal to underground injection wells, RCRA Subtitle C
landfills, and other landfills;
* other on-site disposal or other releases;
* off-site transfer to underground injection wells, RCRA Subtitle C
landfills, and other landfills;
* other off-site disposal or other releases;
* on-site treatment;
* on-site recycling;
* on-site energy recovery;
* off-site treatment;
* off-site recycling;
* off-site energy recovery;
* Production ratio or activity index;
* Source reduction activities the facility engaged in during the
reporting year (e.g., inventory control, spill/leak prevention, product
modifications);
* Option to submit additional information on source reduction,
recycling, or pollution control activities;
Form A: Source Reduction and Recycling Activities;
Not reported on Form A.
Source: EPA TRI Form R and Form A.
[End of table]
[End of section]
Appendix II: GAO Estimates of the Possible Impact of Reporting Changes
on TRI Data:
We analyzed 2005 TRI data provided by EPA to estimate the number of
Form Rs that could convert to Form A in each state and determined the
possible impacts that this could have on data about specific chemicals
and facilities. EPA released the 2005 data in March 2007; 2006 data is
expected in spring of 2008. Table 4 provides our estimates of the total
number of Form Rs eligible to convert to Form A, including the percent
of total Form Rs submitted by facilities in each state. The table also
provides our estimates of the number of unique chemicals for which no
quantitative information would have to be reported in each state,
including the percent of total chemicals reported in each state. The
last two columns provide our estimates for the number of facilities
that would longer have to provide quantitative information about their
chemical releases and waste management practices, including the percent
of total facilities reporting in each state.
Table 4: Estimated Impact of TRI Reporting Changes on Number of Form
Rs, Chemicals, and Facilities, by State:
State: AK;
Form Rs: Number: 59;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 36.6;
Chemicals: Number: 8;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 17.0;
Facilities: Number: 5;
Facilities: Percent of total: 15.6.
State: AL;
Form Rs: Number: 456;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 22.0;
Chemicals: Number: 34;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 17.1;
Facilities: Number: 69;
Facilities: Percent of total: 12.9.
State: AR;
Form Rs: Number: 247;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 17.7;
Chemicals: Number: 18;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 5.8;
Facilities: Number: 39;
Facilities: Percent of total: 11.0.
State: AZ;
Form Rs: Number: 221;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 27.7;
Chemicals: Number: 12;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 10.8;
Facilities: Number: 50;
Facilities: Percent of total: 15.0.
State: CA;
Form Rs: Number: 1,533;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 37.5;
Chemicals: Number: 36;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 18.2;
Facilities: Number: 302;
Facilities: Percent of total: 19.9.
State: CO;
Form Rs: Number: 162;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 25.8;
Chemicals: Number: 11;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 11.1;
Facilities: Number: 51;
Facilities: Percent of total: 21.8.
State: CT;
Form Rs: Number: 299;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 33.5;
Chemicals: Number: 16;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 15.4;
Facilities: Number: 73;
Facilities: Percent of total: 20.6.
State: DC;
Form Rs: Number: 4;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 28.6;
Chemicals: Number: 2;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 18.2;
Facilities: Number: 2;
Facilities: Percent of total: 28.6.
State: DE;
Form Rs: Number: 80;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 27.7;
Chemicals: Number: 24;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 23.3;
Facilities: Number: 10;
Facilities: Percent of total: 14.1.
State: FL;
Form Rs: Number: 479;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 27.4;
Chemicals: Number: 19;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 13.2;
Facilities: Number: 119;
Facilities: Percent of total: 17.2.
State: GA;
Form Rs: Number: 678;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 30.9;
Chemicals: Number: 60;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 29.1;
Facilities: Number: 132;
Facilities: Percent of total: 16.7.
State: HI;
Form Rs: Number: 67;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 37.9;
Chemicals: Number: 12;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 26.1;
Facilities: Number: 9;
Facilities: Percent of total: 23.1.
State: IA;
Form Rs: Number: 371;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 27.7;
Chemicals: Number: 34;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 22.2;
Facilities: Number: 46;
Facilities: Percent of total: 10.6.
State: ID;
Form Rs: Number: 41;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 14.4;
Chemicals: Number: 8;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 10.4;
Facilities: Number: 8;
Facilities: Percent of total: 7.3.
State: IL;
Form Rs: Number: 1,155;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 30.0;
Chemicals: Number: 37;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 16.4;
Facilities: Number: 171;
Facilities: Percent of total: 14.3.
State: IN;
Form Rs: Number: 900;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 25.6;
Chemicals: Number: 29;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 14.6;
Facilities: Number: 143;
Facilities: Percent of total: 14.4.
State: KS;
Form Rs: Number: 291;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 28.3;
Chemicals: Number: 23;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 16.0;
Facilities: Number: 41;
Facilities: Percent of total: 14.0.
State: KY;
Form Rs: Number: 490;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 25.7;
Chemicals: Number: 28;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 15.3;
Facilities: Number: 63;
Facilities: Percent of total: 13.4.
State: LA;
Form Rs: Number: 665;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 25.6;
Chemicals: Number: 34;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 13.1;
Facilities: Number: 46;
Facilities: Percent of total: 12.4.
State: MA;
Form Rs: Number: 574;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 38.0;
Chemicals: Number: 23;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 20.4;
Facilities: Number: 119;
Facilities: Percent of total: 20.1.
State: MD;
Form Rs: Number: 221;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 32.6;
Chemicals: Number: 24;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 22.6;
Facilities: Number: 34;
Facilities: Percent of total: 16.6.
State: ME;
Form Rs: Number: 105;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 26.1;
Chemicals: Number: 8;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 11.3;
Facilities: Number: 14;
Facilities: Percent of total: 13.7.
State: MI;
Form Rs: Number: 965;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 29.7;
Chemicals: Number: 36;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 19.0;
Facilities: Number: 145;
Facilities: Percent of total: 16.1.
State: MN;
Form Rs: Number: 263;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 21.0;
Chemicals: Number: 20;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 15.4;
Facilities: Number: 55;
Facilities: Percent of total: 11.5.
State: MO;
Form Rs: Number: 498;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 27.3;
Chemicals: Number: 43;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 21.7;
Facilities: Number: 80;
Facilities: Percent of total: 14.2.
State: MS;
Form Rs: Number: 265;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 25.0;
Chemicals: Number: 29;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 18.7;
Facilities: Number: 37;
Facilities: Percent of total: 11.8.
State: MT;
Form Rs: Number: 61;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 21.8;
Chemicals: Number: 10;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 13.5;
Facilities: Number: 7;
Facilities: Percent of total: 15.2.
State: NC;
Form Rs: Number: 705;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 30.1;
Chemicals: Number: 43;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 24.9;
Facilities: Number: 148;
Facilities: Percent of total: 17.8.
State: ND;
Form Rs: Number: 29;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 13.8;
Chemicals: Number: 7;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 11.5;
Facilities: Number: 6;
Facilities: Percent of total: 12.5.
State: NE;
Form Rs: Number: 116;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 20.3;
Chemicals: Number: 11;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 7.9;
Facilities: Number: 24;
Facilities: Percent of total: 12.9.
State: NH;
Form Rs: Number: 98;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 29.1;
Chemicals: Number: 13;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 17.3;
Facilities: Number: 23;
Facilities: Percent of total: 16.1.
State: NJ;
Form Rs: Number: 582;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 35.1;
Chemicals: Number: 34;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 16.0;
Facilities: Number: 101;
Facilities: Percent of total: 19.3.
State: NM;
Form Rs: Number: 96;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 29.2;
Chemicals: Number: 11;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 15.3;
Facilities: Number: 15;
Facilities: Percent of total: 19.2.
State: NV;
Form Rs: Number: 96;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 21.2;
Chemicals: Number: 14;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 18.9;
Facilities: Number: 19;
Facilities: Percent of total: 14.3.
State: NY;
Form Rs: Number: 663;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 31.8;
Chemicals: Number: 33;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 19.1;
Facilities: Number: 122;
Facilities: Percent of total: 17.2.
State: OH;
Form Rs: Number: 1,557;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 28.5;
Chemicals: Number: 38;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 12.6;
Facilities: Number: 218;
Facilities: Percent of total: 13.8.
State: OK;
Form Rs: Number: 273;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 26.1;
Chemicals: Number: 30;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 23.3;
Facilities: Number: 50;
Facilities: Percent of total: 15.2.
State: OR;
Form Rs: Number: 236;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 28.6;
Chemicals: Number: 16;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 15.5;
Facilities: Number: 47;
Facilities: Percent of total: 15.5.
State: PA;
Form Rs: Number: 1,253;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 29.9;
Chemicals: Number: 30;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 15.2;
Facilities: Number: 192;
Facilities: Percent of total: 14.9.
State: RI;
Form Rs: Number: 112;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 39.3;
Chemicals: Number: 12;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 17.4;
Facilities: Number: 30;
Facilities: Percent of total: 23.4.
State: SC;
Form Rs: Number: 596;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 29.0;
Chemicals: Number: 36;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 17.6;
Facilities: Number: 78;
Facilities: Percent of total: 15.0.
State: SD;
Form Rs: Number: 44;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 19.6;
Chemicals: Number: 3;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 5.8;
Facilities: Number: 10;
Facilities: Percent of total: 10.5.
State: TN;
Form Rs: Number: 569;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 27.6;
Chemicals: Number: 40;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 20.9;
Facilities: Number: 105;
Facilities: Percent of total: 16.2.
State: TX;
Form Rs: Number: 2,196;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 30.6;
Chemicals: Number: 29;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 9.3;
Facilities: Number: 210;
Facilities: Percent of total: 14.1.
State: UT;
Form Rs: Number: 146;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 19.9;
Chemicals: Number: 11;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 9.9;
Facilities: Number: 25;
Facilities: Percent of total: 12.6.
State: VA;
Form Rs: Number: 401;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 25.2;
Chemicals: Number: 23;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 14.8;
Facilities: Number: 70;
Facilities: Percent of total: 14.3.
State: VT;
Form Rs: Number: 25;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 27.2;
Chemicals: Number: 9;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 23.7;
Facilities: Number: 6;
Facilities: Percent of total: 14.6.
State: WA;
Form Rs: Number: 276;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 26.4;
Chemicals: Number: 22;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 19.8;
Facilities: Number: 43;
Facilities: Percent of total: 12.5.
State: WI;
Form Rs: Number: 692;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 25.4;
Chemicals: Number: 31;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 21.2;
Facilities: Number: 113;
Facilities: Percent of total: 12.5.
State: WV;
Form Rs: Number: 222;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 22.8;
Chemicals: Number: 40;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 24.1;
Facilities: Number: 35;
Facilities: Percent of total: 17.4.
State: WY;
Form Rs: Number: 60;
Form Rs: Percent of total: 23.6;
Chemicals: Number: 9;
Chemicals: Percent of total: 14.5;
Facilities: Number: 5;
Facilities: Percent of total: 10.9.
Total;
Form Rs: Number: 22,193;
Form Rs: Percent of total: [Empty];
Chemicals: Number: [Empty];
Chemicals: Percent of total: [Empty];
Facilities: Number: 3,565;
Facilities: Percent of total: [Empty].
Source: GAO analysis of EPA TRI data.
[End of table]
[End of section]
Footnotes:
[1] S. 642, H.R. 1103. The bills would also codify recommendations that
EPA's Inspector General made in a report on EPA's environmental justice
activities. EPA Office of Inspector General, EPA Needs To Conduct
Environmental Justice Reviews of Its Programs, Policies And Activities,
Report No. 2006-P-00034 (Washington, D.C.: September 18, 2006).
[2] S. 595, H.R. 1055.
[3] The bills specifically prohibits the use of Form A with respect to
any chemical identified by the Administrator as a chemical of special
concern under 40 C.F.R. § 372.28 (or a successor regulation).
[4] GAO, Environmental Justice: EPA Should Devote More Attention to
Environmental Justice When Developing Clean Air Rules, GAO-05-289
(Washington, D.C.: July 22, 2005).
[5] GAO, Environmental Information: EPA Actions Could Reduce the
Availability of Environmental Information to the Public, GAO-07-464T
(Washington, D.C.: February 5, 2007).
[6] GAO, Environmental Justice: Measurable Benchmarks Needed to Gauge
EPA Progress in Correcting Past Problems, GAO-07-1140T (Washington,
D.C.: July 25, 2007).
[7] 31 U.S.C. 720 requires the head of a federal agency to submit a
written statement of the actions taken on our recommendations to the
Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, the
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and the House and
Senate Committees on Appropriations within specified timeframes.
[8] Specifically, the workgroup considered and analyzed options to
facilities to (1) report PBT chemicals using Form A if they have zero
releases and zero total other waste management activities or (2) report
PBT chemicals using Form A if they have zero releases and no more than
500 pounds of other waste management activities.
[9] 70 Fed. Reg. 57822 (October 4, 2005).
[10] EPA proposed two options allowing a reporting facility to use the
brief Form A for (1) a non-PBT chemical, so long as the annual report
amount was not greater than 5,000 pounds, and (2) for PBT chemicals
when there are no releases and the annual reportable amount is no more
than 500 pounds. 70 Fed. Reg. 57822 (October 2, 2005). The annual
reportable amount is the combined total quantity released at the
facility, treated at the facility, recovered at the facility as a
result of recycle operations, combusted for the purpose of energy
recovery at the facility, and amounts transferred from the facility to
off-site locations for the purpose of recycling, energy recovery,
treatment, and/or disposal.
[11] See docket EPA-HQ-TRI-2005-0073-0027, Toxics Release Inventory
Burden Reduction Proposed Rule (Federal Register Notice Comparison
Document).
[12] EPA also argued that while the TRI program "provides important
information that may indirectly lead to improved health and
environmental conditions on the community level, it is not an emissions
release control regulation that could directly affect health and
environmental outcomes in a community." 71 Fed. Reg. 76944 (emphasis
added). This statement overlooks EPA's own repeated assertions that the
TRI program has resulted in substantial reductions in chemical
releases. E.g., 2001 Toxic Release Inventory Public Data Release Report
at 1-1 (2003); 1996 Toxic Release Inventory Public Data Release Report
at 1 (1998).
[13] GAO-07-464T.
[14] We provide our estimates of these impacts, by state, in Appendix
II.
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