Late last month, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the 2002 data for the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), an annual survey of hazardous material releases by private and federal facilities nationwide (BushGreenwatch, June 24). However, for the first time since the program's inception 17 years ago, EPA failed to provide a full Public Data Release--hundreds of pages comprising detailed analysis, overviews, maps, tables and explanations of the complex TRI data. [1]
EPA instead made the 2002 data available only via a complicated online database, along with a highly truncated six-page summary. While similar to press materials provided in past years, the summary is no replacement for the complete Public Data Release (PDR).
"TRI is universally acknowledged to be the EPA's flagship right-to-know information program," says Sean Moulton, a senior policy analyst with the nonprofit government accountability group OMB Watch. "The TRI is used by industry as well as the public. It's promoted significant changes in operations at facilities, often leading to cost savings and other benefits," Moulton told BushGreenwatch. "To see EPA systematically downgrading the program is troubling."
The Toxics Release Inventory has been required under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) since 1987. [2]
In past years, the two-volume PDR was distributed nationally to libraries and other facilities It served as the government's official figures and methodology on toxic chemical releases. While EPA claims the public will be able to get to the same information via its online "TRI Explorer," this method is much more complex for non-specialists, and assumes access to the Internet. It also fails to provide the expert EPA data analysis that made the PDR so useful. [3]
"The EPA is cutting off access to a particular group of people," says OMB Watch's Cheryl Gregory. "Students, journalists, citizens and others used to be able to just read a couple charts and graphs to get at essential information."
"In the past," adds Gregory, "EPA staff explained methodology, what was going on underneath the data." She also notes that without a full Public Data Release for the 2002 data, it will be difficult to compare the 2002 analysis and trend reports to those from past years.
Moulton tells BushGreenwatch that EPA is also considering changes to reduce industry's TRI reporting requirements. These "burden reduction" proposals include removing certain industries from the TRI, conducting the inventory every two years instead of annually, allowing facilities to report toxic releases in very broad ranges instead of exact amounts, and allowing them to resubmit the past year's data as accurate for the current year.
"My biggest concern," says Moulton, "is that without the official government analysis of what the data means, industry can selectively use data to make themselves look good."
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TAKE ACTION
Tell the EPA that you would like the agency to resume publication of the Public Data Release reports for the Toxic Release Inventory.
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SOURCES:
[1] "Preserve the Full TRI Public Data Release," OMB Watch Alert.
[2] "EPA Releases 2002 Toxic Release Inventory: Right-to-Know Compromised," OMB Watch.
[3] OMB Watch Alert, op cit.
