Environmental Right-To-Know: EPA's Recent Rule Could Reduce	 
Availability of Toxic Chemical Information Used to Assess	 
Environmental Justice (04-OCT-07, GAO-08-115T). 		 
                                                                 
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.				 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-08-115T					        
    ACCNO:   A77049						        
  TITLE:     Environmental Right-To-Know: EPA's Recent Rule Could     
Reduce Availability of Toxic Chemical Information Used to Assess 
Environmental Justice						 
     DATE:   10/04/2007 
  SUBJECT:   Accountability					 
	     Environmental impact statements			 
	     Environmental law					 
	     Environmental legislation				 
	     Environmental policies				 
	     Facility management				 
	     Government information dissemination		 
	     Internal controls					 
	     Policy evaluation					 
	     Regulatory agencies				 
	     Reporting requirements				 
	     Toxic substances					 
	     Waste management					 
	     Policies and procedures				 
	     EPA Toxic Release Inventory			 

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GAO-08-115T

   

     * [1]EPA's Response to Our Environmental Justice Recommendations
     * [2]EPA's TRI Rulemaking Deviated From Key Internal Guidelines,
     * [3]EPA Actions Reduce the Amount of Information About Toxic Che
     * [4]Concluding Observations
     * [5]Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
     * [6]GAO's Mission
     * [7]Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony

          * [8]Order by Mail or Phone

     * [9]To Report Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Federal Programs
     * [10]Congressional Relations
     * [11]Public Affairs

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

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.^1 Additional legislation has been
introduced that would, among other things, effectively repeal EPA's TRI
Burden Reduction Rule.^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,^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.^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.

^1S. 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).

^2S. 595, H.R. 1055.

^3The 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. S 372.28 (or a successor regulation).

^4GAO, Environmental Justice: EPA Should Devote More Attention to
Environmental Justice When Developing Clean Air Rules, [12]GAO-05-289
(Washington, D.C.: July 22, 2005).

My testimony also draws on our February 2007 testimony, in which we
discussed our then-ongoing work on EPA's TRI program.^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:

           o 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.^6

           o 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.
			  
^5GAO, Environmental Information: EPA Actions Could Reduce the
Availability of Environmental Information to the Public, [13]GAO-07-464T
(Washington, D.C.: February 6, 2007).

^6GAO, Environmental Justice: Measurable Benchmarks Needed to Gauge EPA
Progress in Correcting Past Problems, [14]GAO-07-1140T (Washington, D.C.:
July 25, 2007).
	  
           o 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.^7 Specifically, EPA's letter
           stated:

           o 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.

^731 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.

           o 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.
           o 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.
           o 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:

           o 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.
           o 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.
           o 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.
           o 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:

           o 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.^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.
           o 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.^9 
			  
^8Specifically, 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.

^970 Fed. Reg. 57822 (October 4, 2005).
			  
           o 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."^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.^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.)
			  
^10EPA 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.

^11See docket EPA-HQ-TRI-2005-0073-0027, Toxics Release Inventory Burden
Reduction Proposed Rule (Federal Register Notice Comparison Document).

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)                                                                  
                Column A      Column B               Column C        Column D 
                                                                Within 1-mile 
                                                                of facilities 
                         Within 1-mile       Within 1-mile of    that filed a 
                                of all  facilities that filed      Form R but 
                            facilities a Form R for but could could have used 
                    U.S.  that filed a have used Form A under    Form A under 
              population        Form R          proposed rule      final rule 
Minority         31.8          41.8                   43.5            43.8 
Below U.S.       12.9          16.5                   17.0            17.0 
poverty                                                                    
level                                                                      

Source: GAO summary of EPA analysis.

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.).^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.

^12EPA 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).

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

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.^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.^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.

^13 [15]GAO-07-464T .

^14We provide our estimates of these impacts, by state, in Appendix II.

Figure 2: Estimate of Impact Allowed by EPA's Changes on Number of Form
Rs, by State

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

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

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

                                          Burden  Annual                      
                         Newly            (hours  burden     Cost             
                      eligible   Eligible    per savings  savings Annual cost 
Option              Form Rs facilities  form) (hours) per form     savings 
New PBT chemical                                                           
eligibility           2,360      1,796   15.5  36,480     $748  $1,764,969 
Increased                                                                  
eligibility for                                                            
non-PBT chemicals     9,501      5,317    9.1  86,924      438   4,160,239 
Total                11,861      6,670        123,404           $5,925,208 

Source: EPA based on reporting year 2004 TRI data.

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 [16][email protected] . 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.

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 RR                                         Form Am A                  
Facility Identification Information             Facility Identification    
                                                   Information                
      o TRI Facility ID Number                                                
      o Reporting year                                o TRI Facility ID       
      o Trade secret information (if claiming that    Number                  
      toxic chemical is trade secret)                 o Reporting year        
      o Certification by facility owner/operator      o Trade secret          
      or senior management official                   information (if         
      o Facility name, mailing address                claiming that toxic     
      o Whether form is for entire facility, part     chemical is trade       
      of facility, federal facility, or contractor    secret)                 
      at federal facility                             o Certification by      
      o Technical contact name, telephone number,     facility owner/operator 
      Email address                                   or senior management    
      o Public contact name, telephone number         official                
      o North American Industry Classification        o Facility name,        
      System (NAICS) codes                            mailing address         
      o Dun & Bradstreet number                       o Whether form is for   
      o Parent company information (name, Dun &       entire facility, part   
      Bradstreet number)                              of facility, federal    
                                                      facility, or contractor 
                                                      at federal facility     
                                                      o Technical contact     
                                                      name, telephone number, 
                                                      Email address           
                                                      o North American        
                                                      Industry Classification 
                                                      System (NAICS) codes    
                                                      o Dun & Bradstreet      
                                                      number                  
                                                      o Parent company        
                                                      information (name, Dun  
                                                      & Bradstreet number)    
Chemical Specific Information                   Chemical Specific          
                                                   Information                
      o Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) registry                             
      number                                          o Chemical Abstracts    
      o EPCRA Section 313 chemical or chemical        Service (CAS) registry  
      category name                                   number                  
      o Generic name                                  o EPCRA Section 313     
      o Distribution of each member of the dioxin     chemical or chemical    
      or dioxin-like compound category                category name           
      o Generic name provided by supplier if          o Generic name          
      chemical is component of a mixture                                      
      o Activities and uses of the chemical at                                
      facility, whether chemical is:                                          
                                                                              
              o produced or imported for on-site                              
              use/processing, for                                             
              sale/distribution, as a byproduct,                              
              or as an impurity                                               
              o processed as a reactant, a                                    
              formation component, article                                    
              component, repackaging, or as an                                
              impurity                                                        
              o otherwise used as a chemical                                  
              processing aid, manufacturing aid,                              
              or as an ancillary or other use                                 
                                                                              
      o Maximum amount onsite at any time during                              
      the year                                                                
On-site Chemical Release Data                   On-site Chemical Release   
                                                   Data                       
      o Quantities released on-site to:                                       
                                                   Not reported on Form A     
              o air as fugitive or non-point                                  
              emissions                                                       
              o air as stack or point emissions                               
              o surface water as discharges to                                
              receiving streams or water bodies                               
              (including names of streams or water                            
              bodies)                                                         
              o underground injection                                         
              o land, including RCRA Subtitle C                               
              landfills, other landfills, land                                
              treatment/application farming, RCRA                             
              Subtitle C surface impoundments,                                
              other surface impoundments, other                               
              land disposal                                                   
                                                                              
      o Basis for estimates of releases (i.e.,                                
      monitoring data or measurements, mass                                   
      balance calculations, emissions factors,                                
      other approaches)                                                       
      o Quantity released as a result of remedial                             
      actions, catastrophic events, or one-time                               
      events not associated with production                                   
      processes                                                               
On-site Chemical Waste Management Data          On-site Chemical Waste     
                                                   Management Data            
      o Quantities managed on-site through:                                   
                                                   Not reported on Form A     
              o recycling                                                     
              o energy recovery                                               
              o treatment                                                     
                                                                              
      o Recycling processes (e.g., metal recovery                             
      by smelting, solvent recovery by                                        
      distillation)                                                           
      o Energy recovery methods (e.g., kiln,                                  
      furnace, boiler)                                                        
      o Waste treatment methods (e.g., scrubber,                              
      electrostatic precipitator) for each waste                              
      stream (e.g., gaseous, aqueous, liquid                                  
      non-aqueous, solids)                                                    
      o On-site waste treatment efficiency                                    
Off-site Transfers for Release or Other Waste   Off-site Transfers for     
Management                                      Release or Other Waste     
                                                   Management                 
      o Quantities transferred to any Publicly                                
      Owned Treatment Works (POTW)                 Not reported on Form A     
                                                                              
              o POTW name(s), address(es)                                     
                                                                              
      o Quantities transferred to other location                              
      for disposal or other release                                           
                                                                              
              o underground injection                                         
              o other land release                                            
                                                                              
      o Quantities transferred to other location                              
      for waste management                                                    
                                                                              
              o treatment                                                     
              o recycling                                                     
              o energy recovery                                               
                                                                              
      o 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                                    
      o Off-site location(s) name and address                                 
      o Basis for estimates for amounts                                       
      transferred                                                             
      o Whether receiving location(s) is/are under                            
      control of reporting facility/parent company                            
Source Reduction and Recycling Activities       Source Reduction and       
                                                   Recycling Activities       
      o Total quantities, for (1) the prior and    Not reported on Form A     
      (2) current reporting years and estimated                               
      totals for (3) the following and (4) second                             
      following years for:                                                    
                                                                              
              o on-site disposal to underground                               
              injection wells, RCRA Subtitle C                                
              landfills, and other landfills                                  
              o other on-site disposal or other                               
              releases                                                        
              o off-site transfer to underground                              
              injection wells, RCRA Subtitle C                                
              landfills, and other landfills                                  
              o other off-site disposal or other                              
              releases                                                        
              o on-site treatment                                             
              o on-site recycling                                             
              o on-site energy recovery                                       
              o off-site treatment                                            
              o off-site recycling                                            
              o off-site energy recovery                                      
                                                                              
      o Production ratio or activity index                                    
      o Source reduction activities the facility                              
      engaged in during the reporting year (e.g.,                             
      inventory control, spill/leak prevention,                               
      product modifications)                                                  
      o Option to submit additional information on                            
      source reduction, recycling, or pollution                               
      control activities                                                      

Sources: EPA TRI Form R and Form A.

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

               Form Rs              Chemicals                  Facilities
                   Percent of            Percent of           Percent of      
State Number         total  Number         total Number         total      
AK        59          36.6       8          17.0      5          15.6      
AL       456          22.0      34          17.1     69          12.9      
AR       247          17.7      18           5.8     39          11.0      
AZ       221          27.7      12          10.8     50          15.0      
CA     1,533          37.5      36          18.2    302          19.9      
CO       162          25.8      11          11.1     51          21.8      
CT       299          33.5      16          15.4     73          20.6      
DC         4          28.6       2          18.2      2          28.6      
DE        80          27.7      24          23.3     10          14.1      
FL       479          27.4      19          13.2    119          17.2      
GA       678          30.9      60          29.1    132          16.7      
HI        67          37.9      12          26.1      9          23.1      
IA       371          27.7      34          22.2     46          10.6      
ID        41          14.4       8          10.4      8           7.3      
IL     1,155          30.0      37          16.4    171          14.3      
IN       900          25.6      29          14.6    143          14.4      
KS       291          28.3      23          16.0     41          14.0      
KY       490          25.7      28          15.3     63          13.4      
LA       665          25.6      34          13.1     46          12.4      
MA       574          38.0      23          20.4    119          20.1      
MD       221          32.6      24          22.6     34          16.6      
ME       105          26.1       8          11.3                   14 13.7 
MI       965          29.7      36          19.0                  145 16.1 
MN       263          21.0      20          15.4                   55 11.5 
MO       498          27.3      43          21.7                   80 14.2 
MS       265          25.0      29          18.7                   37 11.8 
MT        61          21.8      10          13.5                    7 15.2 
NC       705          30.1      43          24.9                  148 17.8 
ND        29          13.8       7          11.5                    6 12.5 
NE       116          20.3      11           7.9                   24 12.9 
NH        98          29.1      13          17.3                   23 16.1 
NJ       582          35.1      34          16.0                  101 19.3 
NM        96          29.2      11          15.3                   15 19.2 
NV        96          21.2      14          18.9                   19 14.3 
NY       663          31.8      33          19.1                  122 17.2 
OH     1,557          28.5      38          12.6                  218 13.8 
OK       273          26.1      30          23.3                   50 15.2 
OR       236          28.6      16          15.5                   47 15.5 
PA     1,253          29.9      30          15.2                  192 14.9 
RI       112          39.3      12          17.4                   30 23.4 
SC       596          29.0      36          17.6                   78 15.0 
SD        44          19.6       3           5.8                   10 10.5 
TN       569          27.6      40          20.9                  105 16.2 
TX     2,196          30.6      29           9.3                  210 14.1 
UT       146          19.9      11           9.9                   25 12.6 
VA       401          25.2      23          14.8                   70 14.3 
VT        25          27.2       9          23.7                    6 14.6 
WA       276          26.4      22          19.8                   43 12.5 
WI       692          25.4      31          21.2                  113 12.5 
WV       222          22.8      40          24.1                   35 17.4 
WY        60          23.6       9          14.5                    5 10.9 
Total 22,193                                                    3,565      

Source: GAO analysis of EPA TRI data.

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Highlights of [24]GAO-08-115T , a testimony before the Subcommittee on
Environment and Hazardous Materials, Committee on Energy and Commerce,
House of Representatives

October 4, 2007

ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHT-TO-KNOW

EPA's Recent Rule Could Reduce Availability of Toxic Chemical Information
Used to Assess Environmental Justice

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.

Impact of EPA's TRI Rule on Percent of Form Rs That Could Convert to Form
A, by State

References

Visible links
  12. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-289
  13. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-464T
  14. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-1140T
  15. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-464T
  16. mailto:[email protected]
  17. http://www.gao.gov/
  18. http://www.gao.gov/
  19. http://www.gao.gov/fraudnet/fraudnet.htm
  20. mailto:[email protected]
  21. mailto:[email protected]
  22. mailto:[email protected]
  23. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-115T
  24. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-115T
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