Fed change in toxin reporting helps polluters, not communities

January 16, 2006
By Michael Gormley Associated Press

Vermont has joined the attorneys general of 11 other states saying the Bush administration's plan to change the annual Toxic Release Inventory would help polluters and hurt the public's right to know about health risks from the legal release of toxic waste in their neighborhoods."This EPA move appears to be yet another poorly considered notion to appease a few polluting constituents at the expense of a valuable program," New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the lead state official in the effort, said Friday.Attorneys general in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico and Wisconsin joined Spitzer."The public has a fundamental right to know what hazardous materials their children and families are being exposed to in their communities," said Wisconsin Attorney General Peggy Lautenschlager. "No one has the right to hide their pollution and the federal government has no business helping to cover up this vital information."The Bush administration in September announced it wanted to reduce the regulatory burden on companies by allowing some to use a short form when they report their pollution to the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory.Those changes would exempt companies from disclosing their toxic pollution if they claim to release fewer than 5,000 pounds of a specific chemical — the current limit is 500 pounds — or if they store it onsite but claim to release "zero" amounts of the worst pollutants. Those include mercury, DDT, PCBs and other chemicals that persist in the environment and work up the food chain. However, companies must report any storage of dioxin or dioxin-like compounds, even if none are released.