For almost 20 years the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) has provided communities with vital information to monitor and reduce industry and other facilities’ release of toxic chemicals into the environment. Such information has been essential in efforts to protect our and other species’ health, safety, and ecosystems. The U.S. EPA is now proposing to dramatically reduce such information.
More specifically, the EPA is proposing that companies (1) be required to report only every other year rather than annually, (2) be allowed to increase tenfold the amount of many toxics that can be released with only minimal reporting (i.e., listing only the chemical’s name), and (3) be permitted to report reduced information on low-level releases of Persistent Bioaccumulative Toxins (PBTs) such as mercury and lead.
If the EPA’s proposals are implemented, 18% (3,849) of the nation’s TRI plants will no longer be required to file detailed quantitative reports about releases (Los Angeles Times, Dec. 2). Under the new rules, such plants will be required to list only the names of the TRI chemicals released. In addition, as noted by Mark Clayton in the Christian Science Monitor (Dec. 6), if the proposed changes are enacted “at least 922 communities nationwide – more than 10% of the nation’s ZIP codes – [will] lose all numerical TRI data on local polluters.”
The EPA acknowledges that its motivation for proposing the changes is to reduce the financial “burden” of TRI reporting to industry. Industry supports such changes. The American Chemical Council, for example, has supported reduced and less frequent TRI reporting for some time (Toledo Blade, Nov. 14).
The EPA is focusing on the wrong “burden.” Rather than focusing on decreasing the financial “burden” to industry, it should be focusing on decreasing the “body burden” of toxics in humans. Our human “body burden” is steadily increasing, and will likely increase even more if TRI reporting is decreased (because industry will have less incentive and pressure to reduce toxic releases).
Studies conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (cdc.gov/exposurereport/3rd/), the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org), the Commonweal Biomonitoring Center (commonweal.org), and others show increasing levels of a large number of toxins in the bodies of infants, children, and adults. A recently published (July 14) joint study conducted by the Environmental Working Group and Commonweal found, for example, “an average of 200 industrial chemicals and pollutants in umbilical cord blood from 10 babies born in August and September of 2004 in U.S. hospitals.” Of the 287 total chemicals detected in the 10 infants, “180 cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests.”
“Nearly three quarters of U.S. adults say protecting the environment is important and standards cannot be too high” according to a Harris Interactive poll reported in the Wall St. Journal on October 13 of this year. Despite such citizen sentiments, our federal and state laws regulating chemical safety remain dangerously incomplete, poorly coordinated, and riddled with loopholes, inconsistencies, constraints, and inadequacies. In July of this year, for instance, the Government Accountability Office of the U.S. Congress issued a report lambasting both the EPA and the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 as being dangerously hamstrung in their ability to assess and guarantee the safety to humans of tens of thousands of industrial chemicals (Los Angeles Times, July 13).
All, fortunately, is not despair. In communities across the country sophisticated initiatives are increasingly emerging to create safe and sustainable approaches to the use of chemicals. Leading this movement are coalitions such as the Louisville Charter for Safer Chemicals (louisvillecharter.org) and the Science & Environmental Health Network (sehn.org) and their coalition partners. The wisdom and achievements of such initiatives are amplified in books such as Myers and Raffensperger’s Precautionary Tools for Reshaping Environmental Policy, and Lappe’s Democracy’s Edge, and on websites such as rachel.org, commondreams.org, alternet.org, truthout.org, and yesmagazine.org. In addition, compelling information on related initiatives -- for example, initiatives addressing threats posed by endocrine disrupting chemicals, and threats posed by chemicalized agriculture -- is presented on sites such as ourstolenfuture.org, organicconsumer.org, and panna.org.
As articulated in the Louisville Charter, initiatives devoted to achieving the safe and sustainable use of chemicals cannot succeed unless the public has access to comprehensive, accurate, and usable information on chemicals. This is exactly why the EPA’s proposed reductions of TRI reporting rules are so senseless and anti-democratic. We need more and better reporting, not less and poorer reporting.
Citizens need to act. For additional information on the proposed changes and to file a comment with the EPA, see the websites of the National Environmental Trust (net.org), OMB Watch (ombwatch.org), and Union of Concerned Scientists (ucsusa.org). Comments must be received by January 13, 2006.
Joseph Miller is Chair of the Department of Psychology at Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, IN. He can be reached at jmiller@saintmarys.edu. A shorter form of this article appeared in the South Bend Tribune, The New Carlisle News, and the Elkhart Truth.
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