California and 11 other states sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday over a new regulation that exempts thousands of companies from disclosing to the public details about their use and emission of toxic chemicals.
The lawsuit by the 12 states, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, accuses the agency of jeopardizing public health and seeks to force it to return to more stringent requirements.
In joining the lawsuit, California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown said the EPA was "subverting a key public safety measure that helps communities protect themselves from toxic chemicals."
For nearly 20 years, the national Toxics Release Inventory has allowed people to access data about hundreds of chemicals used and released in their communities. Seeking to ease the burden on industry, the EPA last December scaled back disclosure requirements for some small-scale facilities.
Congress established the toxic database in 1986 when it enacted the Right to Know Act after a leak at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, killed thousands of people.
In about 9,000 communities, the annual reports provide details about the use of nearly 600 industrial chemicals. The reports identify which industrial plants emit the most toxic substances, whether their emissions are increasing and what compounds may be contaminating the air and water.
The electronic database, searchable by states, cities, ZIP Codes, specific companies and addresses, has been used by environmentalists, state and local emergency officials, journalists and others to monitor chemicals. Many businesses have voluntarily cut their toxic releases since the inventory was created.
EPA officials say they changed the regulation to cut companies' costs of monitoring emissions and filing complex annual reports. The agency says the changes will save industry $6 million a year and affect about 6,700 facilities.
For most toxic substances, the changes allow businesses that manage less than 5,000 pounds of a given chemical in a year, and release less than 2,000 pounds into the environment, to file a simplified, two-page form that omits details, including the handling, landfill disposal, on-site treatment and recycling of chemicals as well as discharges into the air and water. The short form provides only the names of the compounds.
