The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will begin immediately implementing the restored rules for companies to report toxic pollution through the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). According to an announcement on the EPA website, "These changes affect TRI reports due July 1, 2009," thus covering toxic release data from 2008.
After the president signed the omnibus spending bill, which contained a provision restoring the TRI program’s reporting thresholds, we were concerned that the agency might delay implementation and allow facilities to report 2008 data using the old thresholds. However, EPA's announcement puts an immediate end to the Bush administration's harmful attack on TRI.
I find one objectionable item in the EPA announcement. According to the text, "[EPA] understand[s] that due to the timing of the legislation, facility owners and operators, including many small businesses, will not have as much time as usual to prepare TRI estimates, and, they may not have acquired or retained the relevant data from 2008." The agency then instructs facilities to use "reasonable estimates" of releases if no other data are available.
All facilities should maintain all the necessary data to complete the more detailed reports if necessary. Regardless of a threshold change, facilities cannot be certain of which form they will need to fill out until the year is complete and the final numbers are known. Therefore all facilities should be monitoring their toxic chemicals throughout the year. The EPA should promote the expectation that companies track the toxics passing through their facilities rather than sympathize with companies who neglect their obligation to track their toxic chemicals.
Although we and thousands of individuals and organizations would have preferred that EPA never started this controversy, we are relieved that EPA is moving quickly to put it behind us.
