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Report to Congressional Requesters:

United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO:

November 2007:

Toxic Chemical Releases:

EPA Actions Could Reduce Environmental Information Available to Many 
Communities:

GAO-08-128:

GAO Highlights:

Highlights of GAO-08-128, a report to congressional requesters. 

Why GAO Did This Study:

Federal law requires certain facilities that manufacture, process, or 
use any of 581 toxic chemicals to report annually to EPA and their 
state on the amount of those chemicals released into the air, water, or 
soil. It also requires EPA to make this information publicly available 
through the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) database. 

Facilities must either (1) submit a detailed TRI Form R for each 
designated chemical used in excess of certain thresholds or (2) file a 
simpler Form A certifying that they need not do so. To reduce 
companies’ burden, EPA issued a December 2006 rule to expand Form A 
eligibility for certain facilities and chemicals. GAO analyzed (1) how 
EPA and others use TRI data, (2) whether EPA followed internal 
guidelines in developing its rule, (3) the rule’s impact on information 
available to the public, and (4) the burden reduction from EPA’s 
changes. 

What GAO Found:

TRI data are used widely by nearly all Environmental Protection Agency 
(EPA) program offices in carrying out their missions, and by other 
federal agencies, the states, and the public at large. The Internal 
Revenue Service, for example, uses the data to identify companies that 
release chlorofluorocarbons (chemicals that deplete the earth’s ozone 
layer) to enforce a tax to help phase out their use. States use TRI 
data, among other things, to design pollution prevention initiatives, 
to calculate fees on emitting facilities, and to assist in emergency 
planning. Key users among the public include researchers, who use TRI 
data to assess environmental policies and strategies for pollution 
reduction, and individual citizens and local advocacy groups, who use 
it to learn about the type and quantity of toxic chemicals released in 
their communities.

EPA did not follow key steps in agency guidelines designed to ensure 
that it conducts appropriate scientific, economic, and policy analyses 
and receives adequate input from relevant program offices before 
finalizing a major rule. This occurred, in part, because EPA expedited 
the rule-making process in an effort to meet a commitment to the Office 
of Management & Budget (OMB) to provide burden reduction by the end of 
2006. The schedule did not allow it to meet the guideline’s provisions 
to complete economic analyses; evaluate the costs and benefits of the 
changes; or seek adequate input from EPA program offices that rely 
heavily on TRI data. For example, although EPA held a Final Agency 
Review for program offices to state their position on the proposed 
rule, the review package did not include the burden reduction option, 
and supporting analysis, that was proposed and adopted.

GAO concluded that, while EPA estimated that its rule would affect 
reporting on less than 1 percent of the total release pounds 
nationwide, this aggregate national estimate masked the 
disproportionately large impact the rule would have on individual 
communities across the country. GAO’s analysis indicated that EPA’s 
rule would allow more than 3,500 facilities to no longer report 
detailed information about their toxic chemical releases and waste 
management practices. As a result, more than 22,000 of the nearly 
90,000 TRI reports could no longer be available to hundreds of 
communities in states throughout the country. In addition, many 
commenters including the attorneys general of 12 states and EPA’s 
Science Advisory Board stated that the changes will significantly 
reduce the amount of useful TRI information.

EPA’s estimated savings from the reduced reporting burden associated 
with the TRI rule—3 percent of total annual burden hours, worth about 
$6 million annually—are likely overstated. EPA’s projected savings are 
based on OMB-approved estimates of burden hours associated with 
completing Form R and Form A, but these estimates are based on outdated 
data. EPA’s more recent engineering estimates—developed from a 
systematic examination of the amount of time needed to collect and 
report the data on Form R and Form A—suggest a lower overall burden 
associated with current TRI reporting and, consequently, 25 percent 
lower burden savings from the new rule. 

What GAO Recommends:

GAO provided the draft report to EPA and excerpts to the Office of 
Management and Budget (OMB), for comment. EPA rejected a recommendation 
in the draft report that it more fully and adequately evaluate the 
costs and benefits from increased Form A use, and so GAO now states 
that Congress should consider legislation to reverse EPA’s expansion of 
Form A eligibility. OMB questioned GAO’s characterization of its role 
in approving TRI data collections and in reviewing EPA’s TRI rule. 

To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on 
[hyperlink, http://www.GAO-08-128]. To view the survey results, click 
on GAO-08-129SP. For more information, contact John Stephenson at (202) 
512-3841 or stephensonj@gao.gov. 

[End of section] 

Contents:

Letter:

Results in Brief:

Background:

The TRI Is Widely Used by Federal Agencies, States, and the Public:

EPA Did Not Follow Key Steps for Developing the TRI Burden Reduction 
Rule:

EPA Changes Could Significantly Limit the TRI Data Available to Many 
Communities:

Changes to the TRI Will Likely Do Little to Reduce Industry's Reporting 
Burden:

Congressional Interest and Actions to Reverse EPA's Changes:

Conclusions:

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:

Matter for Congressional Consideration:

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:

Appendix II: GAO Estimates of the Impact of Reporting Changes on the 
TRI:

Appendix III: Comparison of Information Collected on the Form R and the 
Form A Certification Statement:

Appendix IV: Comments from the Environmental Protection Agency:

GAO Comments:

Appendix V: Comments from the Office of Management and Budget:

GAO Comments:

Appendix VI: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:

Tables:

Table 1: Key Characteristics of State TRI Programs:

Table 2: Comparison of Average Annual TRI Burden Estimates by Activity: 
OMB-approved Versus Engineering Analysis:

Table 3: Estimated Impact of TRI Reporting Changes on Number of Form 
Rs, Chemicals, and Facilities, by State:

Table 4: Information Collected on the TRI Form R and Form A 
Certification Statement:

Figures:

Figure 1: Summary of Information Reported on TRI Form R:

Figure 2: TRI Activities Reported by States:

Figure 3: Estimate of Impact Allowed by EPA's Changes on Number of Form 
Rs, by State:

Figure 4: Estimate of Percentage of Chemicals for Which Facilities 
Could Report on Form A, by State:

Figure 5: Estimate of Percentage of Chemicals for Which Facilities 
Could Report on Form A, by County:

Figure 6: Estimate of Percentage of Facilities That Could Convert All 
Form Rs to Form A, by State:

Figure 7: Result of GAO Survey of State TRI Coordinators' Views about 
Impact of EPA's Changes on Various State Activities:

Figure 8: Burden Savings for Each PBT Chemical and Non-PBT Chemical 
Report:

Abbreviations:

ADP: Action Development Process: 

CAS: Chemical Abstracts Service:

e-FDR: Electronic Facility Data Release:

EPA: Environmental Protection Agency:

EPCRA: Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986:

Form A: Form A Certification Statement:

Form R: Form R report:

GIS: geographic information system:

ICR: Information Collection Request:

IRIS: Integrated Risk Information System:

IRS: Internal Revenue Service:

NAICS: North American Industry Classification System:

NGO: non-governmental organization:

NSC: No Significant Change:

OEI: Office of Environmental Information:

OMB: Office of Management and Budget:

OPEI: Office of Policy, Economics, and Innovation:

PBT: Persistent Bioaccumulative Toxic:

POTW: Publicly Owned Treatment Works:

PPA: Pollution Prevention Act of 1990:

PRA: Paperwork Reduction Act:

RCRA: Resource Conservation and Recovery Act:

RSEI: Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators:

RTK Net: Right-to-Know Network:

SAB: Science Advisory Board:

TRI: Toxics Release Inventory:

TRI-ME: Toxics Release Inventory-Made Easy: 

[End of section] 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
Washington, DC 20548:

November 30, 2007:

The Honorable Barbara Boxer: 
Chairman: 
Committee on Environment and Public Works: 
United States Senate:

The Honorable Frank R. Lautenberg: 
nited States Senate:

The Honorable Olympia J. Snowe: 
United States Senate:

Each year, U.S. industry uses billions of pounds of toxic chemicals to 
produce the nation's goods and services. The release of these chemicals 
during transport, storage, use, or disposal as waste, can potentially 
harm human health and the environment. In 1984, a catastrophic accident 
caused the release of methyl isocyanate--a toxic chemical used to make 
pesticides--at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, killing 
thousands of people, injuring many others, and displacing many more 
from their homes and businesses. One month later, it was disclosed that 
the same chemical had leaked at least 28 times from a similar Union 
Carbide facility in Institute, West Virginia. Eight months later, 3,800 
pounds of chemicals again leaked from the West Virginia facility, 
sending dozens of injured people to local hospitals. In the wake of 
these events, the Congress passed the Emergency Planning and Community 
Right-to-Know Act of 1986 (EPCRA) to inform citizens about releases of 
toxic chemicals to the environment in their communities.

Certain facilities that manufacture, process, or otherwise use any of 
581 individual chemicals and 30 chemical categories must report 
annually to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and their 
respective state, the amount of those chemicals that they released to 
air, soil, or water. EPCRA further requires EPA to make this 
information available to the public, which the agency does 
electronically through the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) database. The 
Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 requires facilities that report to the 
TRI to also provide certain information about their waste management 
practices, including amounts of chemicals recycled or treated. The 
purpose of making this information available is to inform citizens 
about releases of toxic chemicals to the environment; to assist 
governmental agencies, researchers, and other persons in the conduct of 
research and data gathering; and to aid in the development of 
appropriate regulations, guidelines, and standards. Using EPA's Web 
site, the public and others can search the TRI for information by 
state, county, zip code, chemical, and type of facility, among other 
options.

Facilities must submit a detailed Form R report (Form R) for each 
designated chemical that they manufactured, processed, and/or otherwise 
used 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). 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 on-
site to the air, water, land, and injected underground, or transferred 
for disposal or release off-site. Since 1995, EPA has allowed certain 
facilities to submit a Form A in lieu of Form R if they release or 
manage no more than 500 pounds of any chemical that is not considered 
to be a persistent bioaccumulative toxic (PBT) chemical. PBTs are toxic 
chemicals such as lead, mercury, and dioxins that remain in the 
environment for long periods of time, are not readily destroyed, and 
accumulate in body tissue.

During the past several years, the Office of Management and Budget 
(OMB) has encouraged EPA to engage in a multiphased effort to reduce 
the reporting burden on industry, particularly small business, by 
revising TRI reporting regulations to eliminate redundant items on Form 
A and Form R and to expand Form A eligibility. On December 22, 2006, 
EPA issued the TRI Burden Reduction Final Rule, an action that expanded 
Form A eligibility for certain facilities by raising the release 
threshold from 500 pounds to 2,000 pounds for any non-PBT 
chemical.[Footnote 1] The rule also allows, for the first time, certain 
facilities to use Form A to report nondioxin PBT chemicals, provided 
that the facilities do not release the chemicals into the 
environment.[Footnote 2] The burden reduction rule goes into effect for 
reporting 2006 releases.

EPA's Action Development Process is internal guidance that outlines a 
series of steps that the agency is to follow when it develops actions 
such as policy statements, risk assessments, and regulations--including 
the TRI Burden Reduction Rule. The purpose of the process is to ensure 
that scientific, economic, and policy issues are adequately addressed 
at the appropriate stages of action development and to ensure adequate 
stakeholder participation across EPA's offices (e.g., Office of Air, 
Office of Water) until the final action is completed. Steps in the 
process include, among others, (1) chartering a workgroup comprised of 
representatives from various EPA headquarters and regional offices to 
develop the action; (2) preparing and executing an analytic blueprint, 
which identified the analyses needed to support the action; and (3) 
conducting final agency review by senior EPA management.

In February 2007, we testified on our preliminary assessment of the 
process EPA followed in developing the TRI Burden Reduction Rule and 
its impact on TRI data.[Footnote 3] As you requested, this report 
provides the final results of our work on (1) how EPA and other federal 
agencies, the states, and the public use the TRI; (2) the extent to 
which EPA followed its action development guidelines in developing the 
burden reduction rule; (3) the impact of the changed reporting 
requirements on the amount of environmental information available to 
the public; and (4) the burden reduction that is likely to result from 
EPA's changes.

To address these four objectives, we analyzed documents pertaining to 
the development of the TRI Burden Reduction Rule (including stakeholder 
comments in the public docket for the proposed rule), EPA's report on 
uses of TRI data, annual TRI public data release reports, and EPA 
guidance for facilities reporting to TRI. For the first objective, we 
reviewed documentation from EPA, other federal agencies, the states, 
nongovernmental organizations, and businesses about their uses of TRI 
data. We obtained further information from states through a Web-based 
survey of state TRI coordinators that achieved 100 percent response 
from the 50 states and the District of Columbia. This report does not 
contain all the results from the survey. The survey and a more complete 
tabulation of the results can be viewed at GAO-08-129SP. For the second 
objective, we interviewed EPA officials who served on the TRI workgroup 
that developed the TRI rule and reviewed internal EPA documents that 
detailed the workgroup's process and EPA's decisions. For the third 
objective, we used 2005 TRI data to estimate the impact of changes to 
the TRI reporting requirements on the information provided by 
facilities about their chemical releases. We performed a reliability 
assessment of the data we analyzed and determined that the data were 
sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report. For the fourth 
objective, we reviewed EPA's economic analysis of the costs and impacts 
of expanding eligibility for Form A and other relevant documents, and 
we interviewed EPA officials about their burden reduction analyses. A 
more detailed discussion of our scope and methodology is included in 
appendix I. We conducted our work from August 2006 to September 2007 in 
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

Results in Brief:

The TRI is used widely by EPA and other federal agencies, the states, 
and the public for a variety of purposes. Nearly all of EPA's program 
offices depend on TRI data to inform their decision making about toxic 
releases. For example, EPA's Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic 
Substances used TRI data to develop its Risk-Screening Environmental 
Indicators (RSEI) model, which incorporates detailed facility data from 
the TRI, toxicity information from EPA's Integrated Risk Information 
System (also known as IRIS), population data from the U.S. Census, and 
other EPA data to develop human health hazard and risk-related 
perspectives on long-term (chronic) exposures to TRI chemicals. Many 
other federal agencies also use the TRI. For example, the Internal 
Revenue Service (IRS) uses TRI data to identify companies that release 
chlorofluorocarbons (chemicals that deplete the earth's ozone layer) to 
enforce a tax to help phase out their use. In addition, state TRI 
coordinators reported that their states use the TRI to carry out a 
variety of pollution prevention initiatives, assess fees on facilities, 
and assist with emergency preparedness functions, among other uses. The 
public also uses the TRI for a variety of activities. For example, 
researchers use TRI data to assess environmental policies and 
strategies for pollution reduction, and investment companies use the 
data to determine socially-responsible investment options. Individual 
citizens and local advocacy organizations also use TRI data to learn 
about the type and quantity of toxic chemicals used and released in 
their communities.

When developing the TRI Burden Reduction Rule, EPA did not follow 
several important steps from its Action Development Process--guidelines 
designed to ensure that the agency conducts appropriate analyses and 
receives adequate input before the rule is finalized. According to EPA 
documents that we reviewed and program officials who we interviewed, in 
mid-2006, senior EPA management directed inclusion of a burden 
reduction option--a 10-fold increase in eligibility for reporting non- 
PBT chemicals on Form A--in response to direction from OMB. The TRI 
workgroup that was charged with developing the rule had previously 
dropped the non-PBT option from consideration because of its impact on 
the TRI and, consequently, had not conducted an economic analysis to 
assess its costs and benefits. Those documents also showed that the EPA 
Administrator expedited the process in order to meet a commitment to 
OMB to provide burden reduction by the end of December 2006. The 
expedited schedule did not provide time for EPA to complete the 
economic analyses necessary to evaluate the costs and benefits of the 
option or request input from the EPA program offices that rely on the 
TRI data for decision making. Specifically, although EPA held a Final 
Agency Review for program offices to state their position on the 
proposed rule, the review package that we viewed did not include the 
non-PBT option for their review and comment. These deviations from 
EPA's rule-development process resulted in inadequate justification for 
the proposed rule. As a result, a substantial majority of public 
comments expressed opposition to EPA's rule, whereas few commenters 
supported the rule. EPA finalized the rule in December 2006 with a 
fourfold increase in Form A eligibility threshold--allowing facilities 
to use it for releases up to 2,000 pounds of a non-PBT toxic chemical.

Our analysis of the latest TRI data shows that, by increasing the 
number of facilities that may use Form A, the TRI Burden Reduction Rule 
could significantly reduce environmental information available to the 
public on dozens of toxic chemicals released from thousands of 
facilities across the country. EPA estimated that expanding Form A 
eligibility would eliminate detailed reports for less than 1 percent of 
the total release pounds reported annually to the TRI. Therefore, the 
agency concluded that the changes will not compromise the usefulness of 
the TRI to the public. However, EPA's estimate of the impact in terms 
of national-level aggregate pounds masks the impact on important toxic 
chemical information available to many individual communities and 
states. We analyzed the impact of EPA's new Form A thresholds at the 
local level and found they would allow more than 3,500 facilities 
currently submitting Form R to submit Form A instead. As a result, 
detailed information about toxic chemical releases and waste management 
practices from more than 22,000 of the nearly 79,000 Form Rs could no 
longer be available to communities throughout the country. We found 
that Alaska, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New 
Jersey, and Rhode Island could receive up to one-third fewer detailed 
reports if eligible facilities opt to begin using Form A instead of 
Form R. As a result, those states and others may no longer receive 
detailed information for a number of chemicals, ranging from 3 
chemicals in South Dakota to 60 in Georgia. Finally, we estimated that 
as many as 3,565 facilities would no longer have to report any specific 
quantitative information about their chemical releases and other waste 
management practices to the TRI.

EPA's estimated savings from the reduced reporting burden associated 
with the TRI rule--3 percent of total annual burden hours, worth about 
$6 million annually--are likely overstated. EPA's estimated savings 
from the new rule are based on OMB-approved estimates of total burden 
hours associated with completing Form R and Form A that are based on 
outdated and unreliable data. EPA's more recent engineering estimates-
-developed from a systematic examination of the amount of time needed 
to collect and report each data element on Form R and Form A--suggest a 
significantly lower overall burden associated with current TRI 
reporting and, consequently, about 25 percent lower burden savings from 
the new rule. In addition, the OMB-approved burden estimates do not 
give EPA credit for burden reduction efforts already completed or under 
way--efforts that, taken together, go further to reduce reporting 
burden than the TRI Burden Reduction Rule, and which do not reduce 
toxic release information to the public. For example, EPA estimated 
that its Toxics Release Inventory-Made Easy (TRI-ME) software, which 
helps facilities determine TRI requirements and submit forms 
electronically, has reduced the burden associated with reporting by 15 
percent without reducing the amount of information available to the 
public. Similarly, EPA's Central Data Exchange, a computer system that 
receives electronic submissions from facilities and disseminates them 
to participating states automatically, virtually eliminates time- 
consuming handling, coding, and reconciling of TRI forms at the federal 
and state levels, and thereby reduces the number of errors that 
facilities later have to correct.

In a draft of this report, we recommended that EPA thoroughly evaluate 
the costs and benefits anticipated to communities and reporting 
industries from increased use of TRI Form A and report the agency's 
findings to relevant congressional committees within 30 days, along 
with its determination as to whether it will reconsider the TRI 
rulemaking. In commenting on the draft, EPA's Assistant Administrator 
for Environmental Information and Chief Information Officer disagreed 
with our recommendation regarding the need for such an analysis and 
determination, noting that EPA believes that all appropriate and 
necessary analyses were conducted in the rulemaking process. Because 
EPA did not agree to implement the recommendation, and in light of the 
significant problems with the TRI rule that we identified in this 
report, we believe the Congress should consider legislation 
specifically addressing EPA's expansion of Form A eligibility. EPA's 
letter and our detailed response to it are contained in appendix IV. 
EPA also provided technical comments, which we have incorporated into 
this report, as appropriate.

We also provided excerpts of the draft report that discuss OMB's role 
in EPA's development of the TRI Burden Reduction Rule. In commenting on 
the excerpts, OMB's Deputy Administrator of Information and Regulatory 
Affairs raised concerns related to our characterization of OMB's role 
in reviewing EPA's burden estimates for the TRI information collections 
and OMB's role in EPA's decision to include a burden reduction option 
to raise the Form A eligibility threshold in the rule. We acknowledge 
OMB's concerns, and have made minor clarifications in the report as 
appropriate. However, no new information was provided by OMB that 
changes the findings, conclusions, or recommendations. OMB's letter and 
our detailed response to it are contained in appendix V.

Background:

In 1984, a catastrophic accident caused the release of methyl 
isocyanate--a toxic chemical used to make pesticides--at a Union 
Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, killing approximately 4,000 people, 
injuring thousands of others, and displacing many more from their homes 
and businesses. One month later, it was disclosed that the same 
chemical had leaked at least 28 times from a similar Union Carbide 
facility in Institute, West Virginia. Eight months later, 3,800 pounds 
of chemicals again leaked from the West Virginia facility, sending 
dozens of injured people to local hospitals. In the wake of these 
events, the Congress passed EPCRA.

Among other things, EPCRA provides individuals and communities with 
access to information regarding chemical releases in their communities. 
Specifically, Section 313 generally requires certain facilities that 
manufacture, process, or otherwise use any of 581 individual chemicals, 
and 30 additional chemical categories, to report annually the amount of 
those chemicals that they released to the environment and whether they 
were released into the air, water, or soil.

Owners of facilities that are subject to EPCRA comply with its 
reporting requirements by submitting an annual Form R to EPA and the 
state in which they are located for each TRI-listed chemical that they 
manufactured, processed, and/or otherwise used in excess of certain 
thresholds during the previous calendar year. These reports must be 
submitted on or before July 1 of the following year. Form R captures 
information about facility identity, such as address, parent company, 
industry type, and detailed information about the toxic chemical, such 
as quantity of the chemical disposed or released on-site to air, water, 
and land or injected underground, or transferred off-site for release 
or disposal. This information is labeled as "Disposal or Other 
Releases" on the left half of figure 1. In 2005, facilities reported a 
total of 4.5 billion pounds of disposal or other releases on Form R.

In the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 (PPA), the Congress declared 
that (1) pollution should be prevented or reduced at the source 
whenever feasible, (2) pollution that cannot be prevented should be 
recycled in an environmentally safe manner whenever feasible, (3) 
pollution that cannot be prevented or recycled should be treated in an 
environmentally safe manner whenever feasible, and (4) disposal or 
other release into the environment should be employed only as a last 
resort and should be conducted in an environmentally safe manner. 
Consequently, beginning with reports for calendar year 1991, EPA 
expanded TRI to require facilities to report about their efforts to 
reduce pollution at its source, including the quantities of TRI 
chemicals they manage through other waste management activities such as 
recycling, energy recovery, or treatment. In 2005, facilities reported 
20.1 billion pounds of "Other Waste Management," as shown on the right 
half of figure 1.

Figure 1: Summary of Information Reported on TRI Form R:

[See PDF for image] 

This illustration depicts a summary of information reported on TRI Form 
R, as follows: 

Total production related waste: 25.1 billion pounds; 
Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-know Act (EPCRA): 4.5 billion pounds; 
Pollution Prevention Act (PPA): 20.6 billion pounds. 

Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-know Act (EPCRA): 
Disposal of other releases: 
Onsite: 
* Underground injection; 
* Land; 
* Air; 
* Surface water. 

Off-site transfers: 
* Underground injection; 
* Land; 
* POTW metals. 

Pollution Prevention Act (PPA): Other waste management: 
Onsite: 
* recycling; 
* Energy recovery; 
* Treatment. 

Off-site transfers: 
* Recycling; 
* Energy Recovery; 
* Treatment; 
* POTW nonmetals. 

Source: GAO based on 2005 EPA TRI data and Art Explosion (clip art). 

[End of figure] 

Beginning in 1995, EPA allowed facilities to use a two-page Form A 
Certification Statement (Form A) to certify that they are not subject 
to Form R reporting for a given chemical provided that they (1) did not 
release more than 500 total pounds that year and (2) did not 
manufacture, process, or otherwise use more than 1 million total pounds 
of the chemical.[Footnote 4] Form A includes general information 
identifying the facility and the chemical(s) being reported but does 
not contain details about the specific quantities of chemicals released 
or otherwise managed as waste. EPA considers Form A to be a range 
report, indicating that a facility's chemical release was between 0 
pounds and the maximum allowable amount. For the purpose of 
representing range report amounts in the TRI database, EPA uses the 
midpoint of the allowable range. Therefore, until reporting year 2006, 
the midpoint of the Form A range was 250 pounds. Under EPA's TRI Burden 
Reduction Rule, the midpoint became 1,000 pounds for non-PBT chemicals.

EPCRA requires EPA to make toxic chemical release information available 
to the public, and EPA compiles the reports and stores them in a 
national database that can be accessed on the agency's Web 
site.[Footnote 5] In addition, about 3 months after facility TRI 
reports are due, EPA publishes individual facility submissions in its 
publicly available Electronic Facility Data Release (e-FDR). In spring 
of the following year, after EPA has completed its data quality checks 
and analysis, the agency issues the official Public Data Release. The 
public may access TRI data on EPA's Web site and aggregate it by zip 
code, county, state, industry, and chemical. EPA also publishes an 
annual report that summarizes national, state, and industry data. In 
2005, the latest year for which data are publicly available, 23,461 
facilities filed a total of nearly 90,000 forms, including nearly 
11,000 Form As.

In September 2002, EPA initiated a stakeholder dialog process to 
identify improvements to the TRI and to develop opportunities to reduce 
the burden on reporting facilities. As part of the process, EPA issued 
a white paper with five specific options and one general category of 
other burden reduction options. At the time, EPA stated that it was 
looking to more fully explore these broadly outlined options with the 
intention of identifying a specific burden reduction initiative that 
effectively lessens the burden on facilities but at the same time 
ensures that TRI continues to provide communities with the same high 
level of significant chemical release and other waste management 
information. Each option included in the white paper was, according to 
EPA "intended to encourage thoughtful comment to help the agency 
develop a meaningful burden reduction initiative that is technically, 
practically, and legally feasible."

At OMB's urging, EPA embarked on a three-phase regulatory effort to 
streamline TRI reporting requirements and reduce the reporting burden 
on industry. During the first phase, EPA removed some data elements 
from the Form R and Form A that could be obtained from other EPA 
information collection databases, streamlined other TRI data elements, 
and eliminated a few data elements from the Form R. As part of the 
second phase--and the focus of this report--EPA proposed a rule that 
would have allowed a reporting facility to use Form A for (1) non-PBT 
chemicals, so long as its total annual waste management (i.e., 
releases, recycling, energy recovery, and treatment for destruction) 
was not greater than 5,000 pounds, and (2) for PBT chemicals if there 
were no releases or other disposal of the chemical and the annual 
reportable amount was not greater than 500 pounds.[Footnote 6] The 
phase III changes that EPA had considered proposing would have allowed 
alternate-year reporting, rather than yearly reporting.

The phase II and III proposals generated considerable public concern 
about the negative impact the changes would have on federal and state 
governments' and the public's access to important public health 
information. EPA received well over 100,000 commenters, representing 
about 5,000 distinct comments. The vast majority expressed opposition 
to EPA's proposed changes, whereas about 30 commenters expressed 
support for the proposals. EPA decided not to pursue phase III in the 
wake of overwhelmingly negative reaction from stakeholders--including 
members of Congress, various state attorneys general, and researchers-
-but the agency continued to pursue the phase II burden reduction 
rule.[Footnote 7] On December 2006, EPA finalized the rule, extending 
Form A to PBT chemicals as it had proposed. However, in the final rule, 
the agency moderated its proposed increase in the Form A non-PBT 
threshold from 500 to 5,000 pounds, thereby allowing Form A for a non- 
PBT chemical provided the release comprises no more than 2,000 pounds 
of the overall 5,000 pound total waste management limit.

EPA's Action Development Process is a 70-page guidance document 
designed to improve how the agency develops actions such as the TRI 
Burden Reduction Rule.[Footnote 8] According to EPA, the process 
contains the following five goals:

* planning sound scientific and economic analysis to support the action;

* developing and selecting regulatory and nonregulatory options based 
on relevant scientific, economic, and policy analysis;

* involving affected headquarters and regional managers early in 
development and until the final action is completed;

* ensuring active and appropriate cross-agency participation; and:

* encouraging appropriate and meaningful consultation with stakeholders 
through substantive consultative procedures.

To accomplish these goals, the Action Development Process outlines five 
major stages, each with multiple steps that are to be followed. A 
critical step early in the process is chartering a workgroup comprised 
of representatives from interested EPA headquarters offices and regions 
to develop the action. The various steps provided in the Action 
Development Process are directed to the workgroup and their managers 
who provide policy direction and ensure the integrity of the process. 
Throughout the rule development process, senior EPA management 
generally has the discretion to depart from the guidelines, including 
by accelerating the development of the proposed regulations.

Under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), a federal agency may not 
conduct or sponsor the collection of information unless OMB has 
approved the agency's information collection request.[Footnote 9] 
Information collection requests lacking current OMB approval are 
invalid under the PRA.[Footnote 10] Accordingly, EPA submits an 
information collection request for the TRI program to OMB every 1 to 2 
years. Before approving information collections, OMB is required to 
determine that the agency's collection of information is necessary for 
the proper performance of the functions of the agency, including 
whether the information will have practical utility.[Footnote 11] As 
part of EPA's information collection requests for the TRI, OMB approves 
the agency's estimates of the burden associated with completing the 
Form R and Form A.

The TRI Is Widely Used by Federal Agencies, States, and the Public:

Numerous EPA offices, other federal agencies, the states, and the 
public use the TRI for a wide range of activities, from assessing fees 
on regulated facilities to identifying the location of toxic releases 
in local communities. One of the TRI's most notable attributes is the 
applicability of its data across air, water, solid waste, and other 
media, making it useful to a wide range of federal and state agencies 
and the public.

EPA Offices and Other Federal Agencies Use the TRI for Multiple 
Purposes:

EPA and other federal agencies use TRI data for a variety of purposes, 
including developing guidelines, standards, and programs for 
controlling pollution from regulated entities, assessing the 
effectiveness of environmental regulations, and planning office 
priorities. Some agencies may rely solely on TRI data while others, 
particularly the agency's media program offices, have used its data to 
supplement their own data for a variety of purposes.

EPA's Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances, for 
example, used TRI data to create its RSEI model that estimates the 
impacts associated with air and water releases from TRI facilities, 
taking into account the human health hazard and risk associated with 
different chemical substances. RSEI's models use TRI data on the 
location and amount of chemical releases, adjusting for key factors 
such as the toxicity of the chemicals, their destination and transport 
through the environment, the route and potential extent of human 
exposure, and the number of people potentially affected. RSEI then 
creates numerical values that can be added and compared in different 
ways to assess the human health hazards and related risks of chemicals, 
facilities, regions, industries, and other parameters.

Similarly, EPA's Office of Policy, Economics, and Innovation (OPEI) 
uses the TRI to, among other things, measure trends in the 
environmental performance of industries participating in its Sector 
Strategies program, an industry-EPA partnership administered by OPEI's 
Office of Business and Community Innovation that seeks innovative ways 
to improve environmental performance among participating industry 
sectors. That office then includes the data in its Sector Strategies 
Performance Report, which informs the public about changes in 
environmental performance of these sectors.

In addition, EPA's key media programs, including its Office of Air and 
Radiation, Office of Water, and Office of Solid Waste and Emergency 
Response, use TRI data to supplement their own data to fulfill key core 
responsibilities. Specifically:

* Office of Air and Radiation uses TRI data as a quality assurance tool 
when filling in missing data in its triennial National Emissions 
Inventory, which provides data on air emissions from about 85,000 
sources and is used to assess risks from hazardous air pollutants at 
the local, regional, and national levels. The program has also used TRI 
data to assist in the development of emission standards required by the 
Clean Air Act.

* Office of Water compares TRI facilities with those in its Permit 
Compliance System, a database that tracks facilities permitted to 
discharge releases into water. Among other things, the office also uses 
TRI data as an input in its watershed analysis software, allowing it 
and other stakeholders to analyze water quality at a select stream site 
or throughout an entire watershed.

* Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response uses TRI data in its 
National Priority Chemicals Trends Report, which analyzes and evaluates 
24 highly toxic chemicals found in industrial wastes in the United 
States. This report tracks progress toward achieving EPA's national 
goal to reduce the amount of highly toxic chemicals in waste and to 
identify these chemicals through a variety of methods.

* Other key EPA offices making wide use of the TRI include the Office 
of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, which has used TRI data to 
locate pollution sources that may be out of compliance (among other 
purposes) and the agency's regional offices, which use the data 
extensively in their interactions with both their regulated entities 
and the public at large.

Finally, other federal agencies that make use of the TRI include (1) 
the IRS, which has used TRI data to identify companies that release 
chlorofluorocarbons (known to deplete the earth's ozone layer), and to 
enforce a tax on those releases as part of a plan to phase out these 
environmentally hazardous chemicals; (2) the Census Bureau's Center for 
Economic Studies, which has included TRI data in reports that highlight 
changes in the U.S. economy; (3) the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, which 
has used TRI data on air and water releases in its local-level health 
consultations and assessments; and (4) the Small Business 
Administration, which uses TRI data for evaluating other environmental 
regulations.

Most States Have TRI Programs and Use TRI Data for a Range of 
Activities:

EPCRA requires that facilities submit their TRI forms to EPA and their 
state. We surveyed TRI coordinators in the 50 states and the District 
of Columbia to better understand how states use the TRI data they 
receive[Footnote 12]. We found that the states have TRI programs that 
carry out a range of TRI-related activities. The state programs vary on 
several key parameters, including whether they have statutory 
requirements for chemical release reporting, how they fund TRI-related 
activities, how much they spend annually on TRI-related activities, and 
whether they assess fees on facilities that report to the TRI. Table 1 
shows these key characteristics for each state. We provide a complete 
tabulation of the results of our survey in an electronic 
supplement.[Footnote 13]:

Table 1: Key Characteristics of State TRI Programs:

State: Alabama; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: $50,001-$150,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Alaska; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: dedicated; 
Annual expenditures[A]: Less than $25,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Arizona; 
Statute: [check]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: Less than $25,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Arkansas; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: $50,001-$150,000; 
Assess fees: [check].

State: California; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: dedicated; 
Annual expenditures[A]: Less than $25,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Colorado; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: [Empty]; 
Annual expenditures[A]: Less than $25,000; 
Assess fees: [check].

State: Connecticut; 
Statute: [check]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: n/a; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Delaware; 
Statute: [check]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: $50,001-$150,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: District of Columbia; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: Less than $25,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Florida; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: [Empty]; 
Annual expenditures[A]: $25,000-$50,000; 
Assess fees: [check].

State: Georgia; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: dedicated; 
Annual expenditures[A]: Less than $25,000; 
Assess fees: [check].

State: Hawaii; 
Statute: [check]; 
Source of funds: [Empty]; 
Annual expenditures[A]: Less than $25,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Idaho; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: [Empty]; 
Annual expenditures[A]: n/a; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Illinois; 
Statute: [check]; 
Source of funds: dedicated; 
Annual expenditures[A]: $25,000-$50,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Indiana; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: $25,000-$50,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Iowa; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: Less than $25,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Kansas; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: $25,000-$50,000; 
Assess fees: [check].

State: Kentucky; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: Less than $25,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Louisiana; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: [Empty]; 
Annual expenditures[A]: n/a; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Maine; 
Statute: [check]; 
Source of funds: [Empty]; 
Annual expenditures[A]: Less than $25,000; 
Assess fees: [check].

State: Maryland; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: Less than $25,000; 
Assess fees: [check].

State: Massachusetts; 
Statute: [check][B]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: $250,000; 
Assess fees: [check].

State: Michigan; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: dedicated; 
Annual expenditures[A]: n/a; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Minnesota; 
Statute: [check][B]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: $50,001-$150,000; 
Assess fees: [check].

State: Mississippi; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: $50,001-$150,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Missouri; 
Statute: [check]; 
Source of funds: [Empty]; 
Annual expenditures[A]: Less than $25,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Montana; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: [Empty]; 
Annual expenditures[A]: Less than $25,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Nebraska; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: $25,000-$50,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Nevada; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: Less than $25,000; 
Assess fees: [check].

State: New Hampshire; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: n/a; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: New Jersey; 
Statute: [check][B]; 
Source of funds: [Empty]; 
Annual expenditures[A]: $25,000-$50,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: New Mexico; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: [Empty]; 
Annual expenditures[A]: $25,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: New York; 
Statute: [check][B]; 
Source of funds: [Empty]; 
Annual expenditures[A]: n/a; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: North Carolina; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: [Empty]; 
Annual expenditures[A]: n/a; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: North Dakota; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: n/a; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Ohio; 
Statute: [check]; 
Source of funds: dedicated; 
Annual expenditures[A]: $150,001-$250,000; 
Assess fees: [check].

State: Oklahoma; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: [Empty]; 
Annual expenditures[A]: $50,001-$150,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Oregon; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: dedicated; 
Annual expenditures[A]: Less than $25,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Pennsylvania; 
Statute: [check]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: $50,001-$150,000; 
Assess fees: [check].

State: Rhode Island; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: [Empty]; 
Annual expenditures[A]: n/a; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: South Carolina; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: [Empty]; 
Annual expenditures[A]: Less than $25,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: South Dakota; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: [Empty]; 
Annual expenditures[A]: n/a; 
Assess fees: [check].

State: Tennessee; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: $50,001-$150,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Texas; 
Statute: [check]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: Less than $25,000; 
Assess fees: [check].

State: Utah; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: $50,001-$150,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Vermont; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: Less than $25,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Virginia; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: $25,000-$50,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Washington; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: dedicated; 
Annual expenditures[A]: $50,001-$150,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: West Virginia; 
Statute: [check]; 
Source of funds: [Empty]; 
Annual expenditures[A]: Less than $25,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Wisconsin; 
Statute: [check]; 
Source of funds: [Empty]; 
Annual expenditures[A]: Less than $25,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

State: Wyoming; 
Statute: [Empty]; 
Source of funds: general; 
Annual expenditures[A]: Less than $25,000; 
Assess fees: [Empty].

Source: GAO survey of state TRI coordinators.

[A] $=Less than $25,000; $$=$25,000-$50,000; $$$=$50,001-$150,000; 
$$$$=$150,001-$250,000; $$$$$=more than $250,000; n/a=no answer 
provided.

[B] State has statute that requires facilities to report additional 
chemicals or provide information not required by EPCRA.

[End of table] 

As table 1 also shows, officials in 17 states reported that their 
states have statutes that have similar requirements to EPCRA for toxic 
release reporting elements. Of note are four states with statutes that 
require facilities to report additional chemicals or provide 
information not required by EPCRA--Massachusetts, Minnesota, New 
Jersey, and New York. For example, Massachusetts officials stated that 
facilities must report information, such as the risk of chemicals used 
at the facility or present in products, and the number of employees at 
the facility. In addition, New Jersey officials stated that facilities 
must report on their chemical use, including information about how 
chemicals travel through the facility's processes. The states also vary 
in how they fund TRI programs, with 25 states using general funds and 8 
states using dedicated funds for TRI. With regard to total amount spent 
on TRI-related activities, most states (29) reported spending $50,000 
or less in fiscal year 2006, and 12 states spent more than $50,000. 
Fourteen states reported assessing fees on facilities that submit to 
the TRI, 11 of which dedicated those funds to their TRI programs. 
States base their fees on one or more of the following criteria: which 
TRI form is submitted (Form R or Form A); the number of employees at 
the facility; the amount of a chemical reported; the type of chemical 
reported; and when the form is submitted. As a consequence, changes to 
federal TRI reporting requirements that affect any of those criteria 
may consequently impact a source of state funding for TRI-related 
activities.

We also asked the TRI coordinators to describe how their state uses the 
information from the TRI forms that it receives. Although a few states 
reported doing little or nothing with the reports, many states make 
wide use of the data contained therein. Figure 2 provides their 
responses, which fall into one of three categories: (1) chemical 
identification or pollution prevention, (2) compliance assistance or 
program enforcement, and (3) public information or other data services.

This page intentionally left blank:

Figure 2: TRI Activities Reported by States:

[See PDF for image] 

Chemical Identification or pollution prevention: Activities: 

1. Monitor facility pollution prevention efforts: 
Alabama: [check]; 
Alaska: [empty]; 
Arizona: [check]; 
Arkansas: [empty]; 
California: [empty]; 
Colorado: [empty]; 
Connecticut: [check]; 
Delaware: [check]; 
District of Columbia: [empty]; 
Florida: [empty]; 
Georgia: [empty]; 
Hawaii: [empty]; 
Idaho: [empty]; 
Illinois: [check]; 
Indiana: [check]; 
Iowa: [empty]; 
Kansas: [empty]; 
Kentucky: [empty]; 
Louisiana: [empty]; 
Maine: [check]; 
Maryland: [check]; 
Massachusetts: [check]; 
Michigan: [empty]; 
Minnesota: [check]; 
Mississippi: [check]; 
Missouri: [empty]; 
Montana: [empty]; 
Nebraska: [check]; 
Nevada: [empty]; 
New Hampshire: [check]; 
New Jersey: [empty]; 
New Mexico: [check]; 
New York: [check]; 
North Carolina: 
North Dakota: 
Ohio: [check]; 
Oklahoma: [check]; 
Oregon: [check]; 
Pennsylvania: [check]; 
Rhode Island: [empty]; 
South Carolina: [empty]; 
South Dakota: [check]; 
Tennessee: [empty]; 
Texas: [check]; 
Utah: [check]; 
Vermont: [empty]; 
Virginia: [check]; 
Washington: [check]; 
West Virginia: [check]; 
Wisconsin: [empty]; 
Wyoming: [check]; 
TRI Activity totals: 26. 

2. Monitor facility performance in a pollution reduction program. 
Alabama: [empty]; 
Alaska: [check]; 
Arizona: [check]; 
Arkansas: [check]; 
California: [empty]; 
Colorado: [empty]; 
Connecticut: [check]; 
Delaware: [empty]; 
District of Columbia: [empty]; 
Florida: [empty]; 
Georgia: [empty]; 
Hawaii: [empty]; 
Idaho: [empty]; 
Illinois: [empty]; 
Indiana: [empty]; 
Iowa: [empty]; 
Kansas: [empty]; 
Kentucky: [empty]; 
Louisiana: [empty]; 
Maine: [check]; 
Maryland: [check]; 
Massachusetts: [check]; 
Michigan: [empty]; 
Minnesota: [check]; 
Mississippi: [check]; 
Missouri: [empty]; 
Montana: [empty]; 
Nebraska: [check]; 
Nevada: [empty]; 
New Hampshire: [check]; 
New Jersey: [check]; 
New Mexico: [check]; 
New York: [check]; 
North Carolina: [empty]; 
North Dakota: [check]; 
Ohio: [empty]; 
Oklahoma: [check]; 
Oregon: [empty]; 
Pennsylvania: [check]; 
Rhode Island: [empty]; 
South Carolina: [check]; 
South Dakota: [empty]; 
Tennessee: [check]; 
Texas: [empty]; 
Utah: [empty]; 
Vermont: [empty]; 
Virginia: [check]; 
Washington: [empty]; 
West Virginia: [check]; 
Wisconsin: [empty]; 
Wyoming: [check]; 
TRI Activity totals: 21. 

3. Identify the location of chemical hazards: 
Alabama: [check]; 
Alaska: [empty]; 
Arizona: [check]; 
Arkansas: [check]; 
California: [empty]; 
Colorado: [empty]; 
Connecticut: [check]; 
Delaware: [empty]; 
District of Columbia: [empty]; 
Florida: [empty]; 
Georgia: [empty]; 
Hawaii: [empty]; 
Idaho: [empty]; 
Illinois: [empty]; 
Indiana: [empty]; 
Iowa: [empty]; 
Kansas: [empty]; 
Kentucky: [check]; 
Louisiana: [empty]; 
Maine: [check]; 
Maryland: [empty]; 
Massachusetts: [check]; 
Michigan: [empty]; 
Minnesota: [check]; 
Mississippi: [empty]; 
Missouri: [empty]; 
Montana: [empty]; 
Nebraska: [check]; 
Nevada: [empty]; 
New Hampshire: [check]; 
New Jersey: [empty]; 
New Mexico: [check]; 
New York: [empty]; 
North Carolina: [empty]; 
North Dakota: [empty]; 
Ohio: [check]; 
Oklahoma: [check]; 
Oregon: [check]; 
Pennsylvania: [check]; 
Rhode Island: [empty]; 
South Carolina: [empty]; 
South Dakota: [empty]; 
Tennessee: [empty]; 
Texas: [check]; 
Utah: [check]; 
Vermont: [empty]; 
Virginia: [check]; 
Washington: [check]; 
West Virginia: [check]; 
Wisconsin: [empty]; 
Wyoming: [empty]; 
TRI Activity totals: 20. 

4. Identify the location of health risks: 
Alabama: [check]; 
Alaska: [empty]; 
Arizona: [empty]; 
Arkansas: [check]; 
California: [empty]; 
Colorado: [check]; 
Connecticut: [check]; 
Delaware: [empty]; 
District of Columbia: [empty]; 
Florida: [empty]; 
Georgia: [empty]; 
Hawaii: [empty]; 
Idaho: [empty]; 
Illinois: [empty]; 
Indiana: [check]; 
Iowa: [empty]; 
Kansas: [empty]; 
Kentucky: [check]; 
Louisiana: [empty]; 
Maine: [empty]; 
Maryland: [check]; 
Massachusetts: [check]; 
Michigan: [empty]; 
Minnesota: [empty]; 
Mississippi: [empty]; 
Missouri: [empty]; 
Montana: [empty]; 
Nebraska: [check]; 
Nevada: [empty]; 
New Hampshire: [check]; 
New Jersey: [check]; 
New Mexico: [check]; 
New York: [check]; 
North Carolina: 
North Dakota: 
Ohio: [empty]; 
Oklahoma: [empty]; 
Oregon: [empty]; 
Pennsylvania: [check]; 
Rhode Island: [empty]; 
South Carolina: [empty]; 
South Dakota: [empty]; 
Tennessee: [empty]; 
Texas: [empty]; 
Utah: [empty]; 
Vermont: [empty]; 
Virginia: [check]; 
Washington: [check]; 
West Virginia: [check]; 
Wisconsin: [empty]; 
Wyoming: [empty]; 
TRI Activity totals: 17. 

5. Publicly recognize facilities that reduce pollution: 
Alabama: [check]; 
Alaska: [empty]; 
Arizona: [empty]; 
Arkansas: [empty]; 
California: [empty]; 
Colorado: [empty]; 
Connecticut: [empty]; 
Delaware: [empty]; 
District of Columbia: [empty]; 
Florida: [empty]; 
Georgia: [empty]; 
Hawaii: [empty]; 
Idaho: [empty]; 
Illinois: [check]; 
Indiana: [check]; 
Iowa: [empty]; 
Kansas: [empty]; 
Kentucky: [empty]; 
Louisiana: [empty]; 
Maine: [empty]; 
Maryland: [check]; 
Massachusetts: [check]; 
Michigan: [empty]; 
Minnesota: [check]; 
Mississippi: [check]; 
Missouri: [empty]; 
Montana: [empty]; 
Nebraska: [empty]; 
Nevada: [empty]; 
New Hampshire: [check]; 
New Jersey: [empty]; 
New Mexico: [empty]; 
New York: [check]; 
North Carolina: [empty]; 
North Dakota: [empty]; 
Ohio: [empty]; 
Oklahoma: [check]; 
Oregon: [empty]; 
Pennsylvania: [empty]; 
Rhode Island: [empty]; 
South Carolina: [empty]; 
South Dakota: [empty]; 
Tennessee: [empty]; 
Texas: [empty]; 
Utah: [check]; 
Vermont: [empty]; 
Virginia: [empty]; 
Washington: [empty]; 
West Virginia: [empty]; 
Wisconsin: [empty]; 
Wyoming: [empty]; 
TRI Activity totals: 11. 

6. Establish state permit limits: 
Alabama: [empty]; 
Alaska: [empty]; 
Arizona: [empty]; 
Arkansas: [empty]; 
California: [empty]; 
Colorado: [check]; 
Connecticut: [empty]; 
Delaware: [check]; 
District of Columbia: [empty]; 
Florida: [empty]; 
Georgia: [empty]; 
Hawaii: [empty]; 
Idaho: [empty]; 
Illinois: [empty]; 
Indiana: [empty]; 
Iowa: [empty]; 
Kansas: [empty]; 
Kentucky: [empty]; 
Louisiana: [empty]; 
Maine: [empty]; 
Maryland: [empty]; 
Massachusetts: [empty]; 
Michigan: [empty]; 
Minnesota: [empty]; 
Mississippi: [empty]; 
Missouri: [empty]; 
Montana: [empty]; 
Nebraska: [empty]; 
Nevada: [empty]; 
New Hampshire: [empty]; 
New Jersey: [empty]; 
New Mexico: [empty]; 
New York: [check]; 
North Carolina: [empty]; 
North Dakota: [empty]; 
Ohio: [empty]; 
Oklahoma: [empty]; 
Oregon: [empty]; 
Pennsylvania: [empty]; 
Rhode Island: [empty]; 
South Carolina: [empty]; 
South Dakota: [empty]; 
Tennessee: [empty]; 
Texas: [empty]; 
Utah: [empty]; 
Vermont: [empty]; 
Virginia: [empty]; 
Washington: [empty]; 
West Virginia: [empty]; 
Wisconsin: [empty]; 
Wyoming: [empty]; 
TRI Activity totals: 3.

Compliance assistance or program enforcement: Activities: 

7. Compare state TRI data with other databases: 
Alabama: [check]; 
Alaska: [empty]; 
Arizona: [check]; 
Arkansas: [empty]; 
California: [empty]; 
Colorado: [check]; 
Connecticut: [check]; 
Delaware: [check]; 
District of Columbia: [check]; 
Florida: [check]; 
Georgia: [check]; 
Hawaii: [check]; 
Idaho: [empty]; 
Illinois: [empty]; 
Indiana: [check]; 
Iowa: [empty]; 
Kansas: [check]; 
Kentucky: [empty]; 
Louisiana: [empty]; 
Maine: [check]; 
Maryland: [empty]; 
Massachusetts: [check]; 
Michigan: [empty]; 
Minnesota: [empty]; 
Mississippi: [check]; 
Missouri: [check]; 
Montana: [empty]; 
Nebraska: [check]; 
Nevada: [empty]; 
New Hampshire: [empty]; 
New Jersey: [check]; 
New Mexico: [empty]; 
New York: [check]; 
North Carolina: 
North Dakota: [check]; 
Ohio: [check]; 
Oklahoma: [check]; 
Oregon: [check]; 
Pennsylvania: [check]; 
Rhode Island: [check]; 
South Carolina: [check]; 
South Dakota: [check]; 
Tennessee: [empty]; 
Texas: [check]; 
Utah: [check]; 
Vermont: [empty]; 
Virginia: [check]; 
Washington: [check]; 
West Virginia: [check]; 
Wisconsin: [empty]; 
Wyoming: [empty]; 
TRI Activity totals: 31. 

8. Evaluate facility compliance with state pollution permits: 
Alabama: [empty]; 
Alaska: [empty]; 
Arizona: [empty]; 
Arkansas: [empty]; 
California: [empty]; 
Colorado: [empty]; 
Connecticut: [check]; 
Delaware: [check]; 
District of Columbia: [empty]; 
Florida: [check]; 
Georgia: [empty]; 
Hawaii: [empty]; 
Idaho: [empty]; 
Illinois: [empty]; 
Indiana: [check]; 
Iowa: [empty]; 
Kansas: [empty]; 
Kentucky: [empty]; 
Louisiana: [empty]; 
Maine: [check]; 
Maryland: [empty]; 
Massachusetts: [check]; 
Michigan: [empty]; 
Minnesota: [empty]; 
Mississippi: [check]; 
Missouri: [empty]; 
Montana: [empty]; 
Nebraska: [empty]; 
Nevada: [empty]; 
New Hampshire: [check]; 
New Jersey: [empty]; 
New Mexico: [check]; 
New York: [check]; 
North Carolina: [empty]; 
North Dakota: [empty]; 
Ohio: [check]; 
Oklahoma: [check]; 
Oregon: [check]; 
Pennsylvania: [check]; 
Rhode Island: [empty]; 
South Carolina: [empty]; 
South Dakota: [check]; 
Tennessee: [empty]; 
Texas: [check]; 
Utah: [empty]; 
Vermont: [empty]; 
Virginia: [check]; 
Washington: [check]; 
West Virginia: [check]; 
Wisconsin: [empty]; 
Wyoming: [empty]; 
TRI Activity totals: 19. 

9. Identify facilities that must comply with state environmental 
regulations: 
Alabama: [empty]; 
Alaska: [empty]; 
Arizona: [check]; 
Arkansas: [check]; 
California: [empty]; 
Colorado: [empty]; 
Connecticut: [check]; 
Delaware: [empty]; 
District of Columbia: [empty]; 
Florida: [check]; 
Georgia: [check]; 
Hawaii: [empty]; 
Idaho: [empty]; 
Illinois: [empty]; 
Indiana: [check]; 
Iowa: [empty]; 
Kansas: [empty]; 
Kentucky: [empty]; 
Louisiana: [empty]; 
Maine: [empty]; 
Maryland: [empty]; 
Massachusetts: [check]; 
Michigan: [empty]; 
Minnesota: [check]; 
Mississippi: [check]; 
Missouri: [empty]; 
Montana: [empty]; 
Nebraska: [check]; 
Nevada: [empty]; 
New Hampshire: [check]; 
New Jersey: [check]; 
New Mexico: [check]; 
New York: [empty]; 
North Carolina: [empty]; 
North Dakota: [empty]; 
Ohio: [check]; 
Oklahoma: [empty]; 
Oregon: [empty]; 
Pennsylvania: [check]; 
Rhode Island: [empty]; 
South Carolina: [empty]; 
South Dakota: [check]; 
Tennessee: [empty]; 
Texas: [check]; 
Utah: [empty]; 
Vermont: [empty]; 
Virginia: [empty]; 
Washington: [empty]; 
West Virginia: [empty]; 
Wisconsin: [empty]; 
Wyoming: [empty]; 
TRI Activity totals: 18. 

10. Target facilities for other state environmental inspections: 
Alabama: [empty]; 
Alaska: [empty]; 
Arizona: [check]; 
Arkansas: [empty]; 
California: [empty]; 
Colorado: [empty]; 
Connecticut: [empty]; 
Delaware: [check]; 
District of Columbia: [empty]; 
Florida: [empty]; 
Georgia: [empty]; 
Hawaii: [empty]; 
Idaho: [empty]; 
Illinois: [empty]; 
Indiana: [empty]; 
Iowa: [empty]; 
Kansas: [empty]; 
Kentucky: [empty]; 
Louisiana: [empty]; 
Maine: [empty]; 
Maryland: [empty]; 
Massachusetts: [check]; 
Michigan: [empty]; 
Minnesota: [check]; 
Mississippi: [empty]; 
Missouri: [check]; 
Montana: [empty]; 
Nebraska: [empty]; 
Nevada: [empty]; 
New Hampshire: [empty]; 
New Jersey: [check]; 
New Mexico: [empty]; 
New York: [check]; 
North Carolina: [check]; 
North Dakota: [empty]; 
Ohio: [check]; 
Oklahoma: [empty]; 
Oregon: [check]; 
Pennsylvania: [empty]; 
Rhode Island: [empty]; 
South Carolina: [empty]; 
South Dakota: [check]; 
Tennessee: [empty]; 
Texas: [empty]; 
Utah: [empty]; 
Vermont: [empty]; 
Virginia: [empty]; 
Washington: [check]; 
West Virginia: [check]; 
Wisconsin: [empty]; 
Wyoming: [empty]; 
TRI Activity totals: 17. 

11. Evaluate facilities' emergency preparedness plans: 
Alabama: [empty]; 
Alaska: [empty]; 
Arizona: [check]; 
Arkansas: [empty]; 
California: [empty]; 
Colorado: [empty]; 
Connecticut: [check]; 
Delaware: [check]; 
District of Columbia: [empty]; 
Florida: [empty]; 
Georgia: [check]; 
Hawaii: [empty]; 
Idaho: [empty]; 
Illinois: [empty]; 
Indiana: [empty]; 
Iowa: [empty]; 
Kansas: [check]; 
Kentucky: [empty]; 
Louisiana: [empty]; 
Maine: [check]; 
Maryland: [empty]; 
Massachusetts: [check]; 
Michigan: [empty]; 
Minnesota: [empty]; 
Mississippi: [check]; 
Missouri: [empty]; 
Montana: [empty]; 
Nebraska: [check]; 
Nevada: [empty]; 
New Hampshire: [empty]; 
New Jersey: [empty]; 
New Mexico: [check]; 
New York: [check]; 
North Carolina: [empty]; 
North Dakota: [check]; 
Ohio: [empty]; 
Oklahoma: [empty]; 
Oregon: [empty]; 
Pennsylvania: [empty]; 
Rhode Island: [empty]; 
South Carolina: [empty]; 
South Dakota: [empty]; 
Tennessee: [empty]; 
Texas: [empty]; 
Utah: [check]; 
Vermont: [empty]; 
Virginia: [check]; 
Washington: [empty]; 
West Virginia: [empty]; 
Wisconsin: [empty]; 
Wyoming: [empty]; 
TRI Activity totals: 9.

12. Target facilities for state TRI inspections: 
Alabama: [empty]; 
Alaska: [empty]; 
Arizona: [check]; 
Arkansas: [empty]; 
California: [empty]; 
Colorado: [empty]; 
Connecticut: [check]; 
Delaware: [check]; 
District of Columbia: [empty]; 
Florida: [empty]; 
Georgia: [empty]; 
Hawaii: [empty]; 
Idaho: [empty]; 
Illinois: [empty]; 
Indiana: [empty]; 
Iowa: [empty]; 
Kansas: [empty]; 
Kentucky: [empty]; 
Louisiana: [empty]; 
Maine: [empty]; 
Maryland: [empty]; 
Massachusetts: [empty]; 
Michigan: [empty]; 
Minnesota: [empty]; 
Mississippi: [empty]; 
Missouri: [empty]; 
Montana: [empty]; 
Nebraska: [empty]; 
Nevada: [empty]; 
New Hampshire: [empty]; 
New Jersey: [empty]; 
New Mexico: [check]; 
New York: [empty]; 
North Carolina: [empty]; 
North Dakota: [empty]; 
Ohio: [check]; 
Oklahoma: [empty]; 
Oregon: [empty]; 
Pennsylvania: [check]; 
Rhode Island: [empty]; 
South Carolina: [empty]; 
South Dakota: [empty]; 
Tennessee: [empty]; 
Texas: [empty]; 
Utah: [empty]; 
Vermont: [empty]; 
Virginia: [empty]; 
Washington: [empty]; 
West Virginia: [empty]; 
Wisconsin: [empty]; 
Wyoming: [empty]; 
TRI Activity totals: 7. 

Public information or other data services: Activities: 

13. Respond to data requests from the public: 
Alabama: [check];
Alaska: [empty]; 
Arizona: [check];
Arkansas: [check];
California: [empty]; 
Colorado: [check];
Connecticut: [check];
Delaware: [check];
District of Columbia: [empty]; 
Florida: [check];
Georgia: [check];
Hawaii: [empty]; 
Idaho: [empty]; 
Illinois: [empty]; 
Indiana: [check];
Iowa: [empty]; 
Kansas: [check];
Kentucky: [check];
Louisiana: [empty]; 
Maine: [check];
Maryland: [check];
Massachusetts: [check];
Michigan: [check];
Minnesota: [check];
Mississippi: [check];
Missouri: [empty]; 
Montana: [check];
Nebraska: [check];
Nevada: [check];
New Hampshire: [check];
New Jersey: [check];
New Mexico: [check];
New York: [check];
North Carolina: [check];
North Dakota: [check];
Ohio: [check];
Oklahoma: [check];
Oregon: [check];
Pennsylvania: [check];
Rhode Island: [empty]; 
South Carolina: [check];
South Dakota: [empty]; 
Tennessee: [check];
Texas: [check];
Utah: [check];
Vermont: [empty]; 
Virginia: [check];
Washington: [check];
West Virginia: [check];
Wisconsin: [empty]; 
Wyoming: [empty]; 
TRI Activity totals: 38. 

14. Respond to data requests from other programs: 
Alabama: [check];
Alaska: [empty]; 
Arizona: [empty]; 
Arkansas: [check];
California: [empty]; 
Colorado: [check];
Connecticut: [check];
Delaware: [check];
District of Columbia: [empty]; 
Florida: [check];
Georgia: [check];
Hawaii: [empty]; 
Idaho: [empty]; 
Illinois: [empty]; 
Indiana: [check];
Iowa: [empty]; 
Kansas: [check];
Kentucky: [check];
Louisiana: [empty]; 
Maine: [check];
Maryland: [check];
Massachusetts: [check];
Michigan: [check];
Minnesota: [check];
Mississippi: [check];
Missouri: [empty]; 
Montana: [check];
Nebraska: [check];
Nevada: [check];
New Hampshire: [check];
New Jersey: [check];
New Mexico: [check];
New York: [check];
North Carolina: [check];
North Dakota: [check];
Ohio: [check];
Oklahoma: [check];
Oregon: [check];
Pennsylvania: [check];
Rhode Island: [empty]; 
South Carolina: [empty]; 
South Dakota: [empty]; 
Tennessee: [check];
Texas: [check];
Utah: [check];
Vermont: [empty]; 
Virginia: [check];
Washington: [check];
West Virginia: [check];
Wisconsin: [empty]; 
Wyoming: [empty]; 
TRI Activity totals: 35. 

15. Reconcile EPA TRI dataset with your state's TRI dataset: 
Alabama: [check];
Alaska: [empty]; 
Arizona: [empty]; 
Arkansas: [check];
California: [empty]; 
Colorado: [check];
Connecticut: [empty]; 
Delaware: [check];
District of Columbia: [empty]; 
Florida: [check];
Georgia: [check];
Hawaii: [empty]; 
Idaho: [empty]; 
Illinois: [empty]; 
Indiana: [check];
Iowa: [empty]; 
Kansas: [check];
Kentucky: [check];
Louisiana: [empty]; 
Maine: [check];
Maryland: [empty]; 
Massachusetts: [check];
Michigan: [check];
Minnesota: [empty]; 
Mississippi: [check];
Missouri: [empty]; 
Montana: [empty]; 
Nebraska: [check];
Nevada: [empty]; 
New Hampshire: [empty]; 
New Jersey: [check];
New Mexico: [empty]; 
New York: [empty]; 
North Carolina: [empty]; 
North Dakota: [empty]; 
Ohio: [check];
Oklahoma: [check];
Oregon: [check];
Pennsylvania: [check];
Rhode Island: [empty]; 
South Carolina: [check];
South Dakota: [empty]; 
Tennessee: [empty]; 
Texas: [empty]; 
Utah: [check];
Vermont: [empty]; 
Virginia: [check];
Washington: [check];
West Virginia: [check];
Wisconsin: [empty]; 
Wyoming: [empty]; 
TRI Activity totals: 24. 

16. Integrate TRI data with GIS/other mapping capabilities: 
Alabama: [check];
Alaska: [empty]; 
Arizona: [empty]; 
Arkansas: [empty]; 
California: [empty]; 
Colorado: [empty]; 
Connecticut: [empty]; 
Delaware: [empty]; 
District of Columbia: [empty]; 
Florida: [check];
Georgia: [empty]; 
Hawaii: [empty]; 
Idaho: [empty]; 
Illinois: [check];
Indiana: [check];
Iowa: [empty]; 
Kansas: [check];
Kentucky: [empty]; 
Louisiana: [empty]; 
Maine: [empty]; 
Maryland: [check];
Massachusetts: [empty]; 
Michigan: [empty]; 
Minnesota: [empty]; 
Mississippi: [empty]; 
Missouri: [empty]; 
Montana: [empty]; 
Nebraska: [check];
Nevada: [empty]; 
New Hampshire: [empty]; 
New Jersey: [check];
New Mexico: [empty]; 
New York: [check];
North Carolina: [empty]; 
North Dakota: [empty]; 
Ohio: [empty]; 
Oklahoma: [check];
Oregon: [empty]; 
Pennsylvania: [check];
Rhode Island: [empty]; 
South Carolina: [empty]; 
South Dakota: [empty]; 
Tennessee: [check];
Texas: [empty]; 
Utah: [check];
Vermont: [empty]; 
Virginia: [empty]; 
Washington: [check];
West Virginia: [empty]; 
Wisconsin: [empty]; 
Wyoming: [empty]; 
TRI Activity totals: 14. 

17. Make environmental justice assessments: 
Alabama: [check];
Alaska: [empty]; 
Arizona: [empty]; 
Arkansas: [empty]; 
California: [empty]; 
Colorado: [empty]; 
Connecticut: [empty]; 
Delaware: [empty]; 
District of Columbia: [empty]; 
Florida: [empty]; 
Georgia: [empty]; 
Hawaii: [empty]; 
Idaho: [empty]; 
Illinois: [check];
Indiana: [empty]; 
Iowa: [empty]; 
Kansas: [empty]; 
Kentucky: [empty]; 
Louisiana: [empty]; 
Maine: [empty]; 
Maryland: [empty]; 
Massachusetts: [check];
Michigan: [empty]; 
Minnesota: [empty]; 
Mississippi: [empty]; 
Missouri: [empty]; 
Montana: [empty]; 
Nebraska: [empty]; 
Nevada: [empty]; 
New Hampshire: [empty]; 
New Jersey: [check];
New Mexico: [empty]; 
New York: [check];
North Carolina: [empty]; 
North Dakota: [empty]; 
Ohio: [empty]; 
Oklahoma: [empty]; 
Oregon: [empty]; 
Pennsylvania: [check];
Rhode Island: [empty]; 
South Carolina: [empty]; 
South Dakota: [empty]; 
Tennessee: [empty]; 
Texas: [empty]; 
Utah: [empty]; 
Vermont: [empty]; 
Virginia: [empty]; 
Washington: [check];
West Virginia: [empty]; 
Wisconsin: [empty]; 
Wyoming: [empty]; 
TRI Activity totals: 7. 

18. Other: 
Alabama: [empty]; 
Alaska: [empty]; 
Arizona: [empty]; 
Arkansas: [empty]; 
California: [empty]; 
Colorado: [empty]; 
Connecticut: [empty]; 
Delaware: [empty]; 
District of Columbia: [empty]; 
Florida: [empty]; 
Georgia: [empty]; 
Hawaii: [empty]; 
Idaho: [empty]; 
Illinois: [empty]; 
Indiana: [empty]; 
Iowa: [empty]; 
Kansas: [empty]; 
Kentucky: [empty]; 
Louisiana: [empty]; 
Maine: [empty]; 
Maryland: [empty]; 
Massachusetts: [empty]; 
Michigan: [empty]; 
Minnesota: [empty]; 
Mississippi: [empty]; 
Missouri: [empty]; 
Montana: [empty]; 
Nebraska: [empty]; 
Nevada: [empty]; 
New Hampshire: [empty]; 
New Jersey: [empty]; 
New Mexico: [empty]; 
New York: [empty]; 
North Carolina: [empty]; 
North Dakota: [empty]; 
Ohio: [empty]; 
Oklahoma: [empty]; 
Oregon: [empty]; 
Pennsylvania: [empty]; 
Rhode Island: [empty]; 
South Carolina: [empty]; 
South Dakota: [empty]; 
Tennessee: [empty]; 
Texas: [empty]; 
Utah: [empty]; 
Vermont: [empty]; 
Virginia: [empty]; 
Washington: [empty]; 
West Virginia: [empty]; 
Wisconsin: [empty]; 
Wyoming: [empty]; 
TRI Activity totals: 0.

State activity totals: 
Alabama: 10; 
Alaska: 0; 
Arizona: 9;
Arkansas: 7; 
California: 0; 
Colorado: 6; 
Connecticut: 11; 
Delaware: 10; 
District of Columbia: 1; 
Florida: 7; 
Georgia: 6; 
Hawaii: 1; 
Idaho: 0; 
Illinois: 4; 
Indiana: 10; 
Iowa: 0; 
Kansas: 6; 
Kentucky: 5; 
Louisiana: 9; 
Maine: 9; 
Maryland: 8; 
Massachusetts: 13; 
Michigan: 3; 
Minnesota: 8; 
Mississippi: 10; 
Missouri: 2; 
Montana: 2; 
Nebraska: 11;
Nevada: 2; 
New Hampshire: 9; 
New Jersey: 11; 
New Mexico: 9; 
New York: 14; 
North Carolina: 3; 
North Dakota: 5; 
Ohio: 10; 
Oklahoma: 10; 
Oregon: 9; 
Pennsylvania: 12; 
Rhode Island: 1; 
South Carolina: 4; 
South Dakota: 5; 
Tennessee: 4; 
Texas: 7; 
Utah: 9; 
Vermont: 1; 
Virginia: 10; 
Washington: 11; 
West Virginia: 10; 
Wisconsin: 0; 
Wyoming: 2. 

Source: GAO. 

[End of figure]

Chemical Identification or Pollution Prevention Activities:

States reported using TRI data for chemical identification or pollution 
prevention activities such as identifying which facilities release 
large volumes of chemicals or the location of chemical releases posing 
the greatest risk to public health. States also reported using TRI data 
to monitor facility pollution prevention efforts, establish state 
permit limits, monitor facility performance in a pollution reduction 
program, and publicly recognize facilities that reduce pollution. State 
coordinators provided us with specific examples of pollution prevention 
programs that used TRI data. Following are examples:

* Oklahoma used TRI data to identify companies that used hazardous 
chemicals as inputs in their manufacturing processes and work with them 
to substitute less hazardous chemicals.

* New Jersey used TRI data to identify facilities that reported 
releasing high volumes of reproductive toxics (i.e., chemicals that can 
damage human reproductive systems) for participation in a pollution 
reduction program.

* Colorado used TRI data to identify the state's 40 largest toxic 
chemical releasers to participate in the Governor's Pollution Reduction 
Challenge. The program encourages facilities to optimize their 
production processes to reduce emissions, improve their recycling 
capabilities, and add pollution control technology, and it has resulted 
in reductions in overall emissions.

Compliance Assistance or Program Enforcement:

The second most common category of state TRI-related activities relates 
to compliance assistance and program enforcement. Most states helped 
facilities comply with TRI reporting requirements in some way, 
including answering facilities' questions via phone or e-mail (48 
states) or referring facilities to EPA for assistance (46 states). Over 
half the states informed facilities about reporting requirements (37 
states), distributed TRI forms or materials (31 states), or 
participated in EPA-sponsored information or training sessions (30 
states). About one-third of states conducted state-sponsored 
information or training sessions (16 states) or visited reporting 
facilities (14 states). In addition to compliance assistance for TRI 
reporting, states used TRI data to assist with enforcement of other 
state environmental regulations by, for example, comparing TRI data 
with other databases and identifying facilities that must comply with 
state environmental regulations. For example, Ohio has cross-checked 
facilities' TRI submissions with their Resource Conservation and 
Recovery Act (RCRA) reports, National Pollutant Discharge Elimination 
System permits, and air permits to check for possible noncompliance 
violations and to target facilities for inspection. Forty-one states 
reported using TRI data for at least one of the enforcement activities 
listed in figure 2.

Public Information or Other Data Services:

States most commonly reported using TRI data to provide information 
about toxic chemical releases to the general public and for providing 
data services to other state programs. Forty-one states reported 
providing TRI-related information or referrals to the public through 
annual TRI reports, TRI Web pages, state TRI data files, data analyses 
conducted upon request, copies of Form Rs from individual facilities, 
public reading rooms with TRI information, EPA TRI documents, referrals 
to EPA regional TRI contacts, and other means (not listed as a response 
option on the survey) such as printed fact sheets, audio for radio 
interviews, and TRI-related CDs. For example, Ohio prepares a report 
listing the facilities with the greatest releases, the most common TRI 
chemicals, and the counties with the largest releases. Indiana 
correlates TRI releases and waste management practices with its gross 
state product, a measure of the state's economic output, to provide 
better context for the public to understand TRI data. The state TRI 
coordinator for Colorado reported using the TRI as part of a state 
mercury program that sought, in part, to increase public awareness of 
mercury releases to inform the public about possible health hazards of 
mercury, a PBT. In addition, more than two-thirds of states reported 
responding to data requests from other state programs (36 states) or 
comparing state TRI data with other databases (31 states). States also 
integrated TRI data with a geographic information system (GIS) or other 
state mapping capabilities (14 states), or used TRI data to make 
environmental justice assessments (7 states).

The Public Uses the TRI for a Variety of Purposes:

Academic researchers, environmental groups, educational organizations, 
businesses, and public interest groups use the TRI for a variety of 
purposes. The public can generally access TRI data from EPA's Web site, 
as well as from nonprofit organizations' Web sites. EPA officials told 
us that the public accessed the TRI database through its Web site 
829,682 times during the 12-month period ending March 2007.

Academic researchers. According to an EPA summary of TRI users, 
universities and research institutions used TRI data as a means for 
"examining environmental policies and strategies, and clarifying risks 
associated with toxic chemicals at the state and local level." Through 
an EPA program called Science to Achieve Results that awards grants to 
scientific researchers, 25 grantees have used the TRI to study 
environmental performance. For example, one grantee used TRI data to 
study areas with cancer risks and found that high-risk areas are 
concentrated around certain aluminum and cement industries. In 
addition, a public policy researcher used TRI data to study the 
accuracy of self-reported regulatory programs. This researcher found a 
strong correlation between estimated cancer cases in a region, rates of 
voter turnout, and the likelihood that facilities in that region reduce 
emissions.

Educational organizations. According to EPA, various education 
institutions have integrated the TRI into curricula so students can use 
it in the classroom. For example, the National Science Teachers 
Association included the TRI in an instructional resource guide for 
high school teachers as an example of how science can be used in an 
everyday context. In addition, the Delaware Department of Natural 
Resources designed lessons for high school and middle school students 
to learn about the effects of emissions on air quality and how to 
locate facilities that report air emissions to the TRI.

Private business. Businesses also use the TRI to assist with decision 
making and chemical release monitoring. Businesses within the regulated 
community that report to the TRI have used their own reports to achieve 
gains in cost reduction and performance management. For example, Dupont 
lists its TRI data on its Web site and uses its progress in emissions 
reductions as a marketing tool. Boeing also tracks its progress at 
reducing TRI emissions and invests in pollution prevention technology 
that has resulted in more than 81 percent reductions in emissions since 
1991. For some managers and operators at these businesses, TRI 
reporting has increased their awareness of the quantity of chemicals 
released from their facilities, and they have used TRI to set goals for 
reducing their chemical releases, sometimes resulting in increased 
efficiency, greater profits, identification of pollution prevention 
opportunities, and evidence of a public commitment to reduce those 
releases. Labor unions that represent employees who work at TRI 
facilities have used TRI data to support demands for safer working 
conditions and have trained their members to access and interpret TRI 
data. Outside of the regulated community, investment companies have 
used TRI data to advise clients who want to invest in companies with a 
record of reducing environmental releases. An adviser at one investment 
firm told us that TRI data have been useful in measuring companies' 
overall environmental performance, which includes their compliance with 
regulations and their overall emissions.

Public interest groups. Many organizations use the TRI to educate 
citizens about toxic releases in their communities and to empower 
citizens to take actions that can reduce those releases. At the local 
and state levels, for example, the Citizen's Environmental Coalition in 
New York maintains a Web site with an interactive mapping tool for 
citizens to view areas that may be cause for environmental concern, 
including the location of TRI facilities. In Wisconsin, the Oneida 
Environmental Resources Board used TRI data to convince leaders in the 
Oneida tribe to find cleaner ways to manufacture pulp and paper. At the 
national level, Environmental Defense uses TRI data in its Web-based 
"pollution locator," which allows users to compare states and 
communities by criteria such as the presence of lead concentrations, 
chemicals known to cause birth defects, and chemicals known to cause 
cancer. OMB Watch, an organization that seeks to increase government 
transparency, maintains the Right-to-Know Network (RTK Net), a Web site 
that provides links to 11 environmental databases, including the TRI. 
The National Environmental Trust, an organization that seeks to inform 
citizens about environmental problems and the effects of those problems 
on human health, conducts TRI data analyses and tracks TRI program 
developments, information it makes publicly available on its Web site. 
Physicians for Social Responsibility, a nonprofit health and 
environmental advocacy organization, has used TRI data in reports that 
describe the threats that children face from different types of 
pollution.

EPA Did Not Follow Key Steps for Developing the TRI Burden Reduction 
Rule:

EPA did not follow key steps from its Action Development Process (ADP) 
when developing the proposed TRI Burden Reduction Rule. This process 
guides the internal development of proposed EPA regulations through a 
series of milestones to ensure that the agency uses sound information 
to support its actions, and that it adequately addresses scientific, 
economic, and policy issues. Throughout the rule development process, 
senior EPA management generally has the discretion to depart from the 
guidelines, including by accelerating the development of the proposed 
regulations. However, in reviewing the process EPA followed when 
developing the rule, we found several significant differences that 
resulted in inadequate input from internal stakeholders and 
insufficient analytical support for the proposed rule's burden 
reduction options.

Internal Stakeholders Had No Opportunity to Comment on Effects of 
Selected Rulemaking Option:

As part of the first stage in ADP, the agency assigns an action to one 
of three tiers that determine the process the agency uses when 
developing the rule. On March 30, 2004, EPA approved the TRI rule as a 
tier 2 action--targeting it for extensive cross media or cross-agency 
involvement and resting primary decision authority with the Assistant 
Administrator for Environmental Information. Next, EPA charters a 
workgroup to develop the specific action. The workgroup that was 
assembled to shepherd the TRI Burden Reduction Rule through the ADP was 
chartered in late May 2004 and led by a representative of EPA's Office 
of Environmental Information (OEI), which manages the TRI program. 
Other workgroup members included at least one representative from EPA's 
Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, 3 of the 10 Regional 
Offices, the Office of General Counsel, and several additional 
representatives from OEI.

In December 2004, pursuant to ADP, the TRI workgroup completed a 
Preliminary Analytic Blueprint, a document that outlined the five 
burden reduction options they planned to consider. These options were 
the following:

* a higher reporting threshold for small businesses;

* a higher reporting threshold for categories of facilities or classes 
of chemicals with small reportable amounts;

* expanded eligibility for Form A (by raising the maximum release 
threshold for non-PBTs from 500 to 5,000 pounds);

* a new No Significant Change (NSC) Certification Statement for 
facilities with releases that changed less than a specified amount; and:

* use of range reporting on Form R for releases and waste management 
practices (e.g., indicating that releases were between 100 and 499 
pounds).

In April 2005, pursuant to the ADP, workgroup members submitted a 
Detailed Analytic Blueprint, which narrowed the list to three options 
for which they would prepare further analyses, seek internal 
stakeholder input, and forward to senior management for final 
consideration. Importantly, none of these three options would have 
expanded Form A eligibility for non-PBT chemicals.

The first two options would have allowed facilities to use Form A in 
lieu of Form R for PBT chemicals, provided the facility had no releases 
to the environment. The only difference between the two options was 
whether the facility could have a limited quantity of other waste 
management activities (e.g., recycling). Specifically, these two 
options were to allow facilities to:

* report PBT chemicals using Form A if they have zero releases and zero 
total other waste management activities, or:

* report PBT chemicals using Form A if they have zero releases and no 
more than 500 pounds of other waste management activities.

These PBT options received general approval from the EPA offices 
involved in the workgroup because they would have little effect on the 
TRI. That is, the public would not have less information about releases 
because neither option allowed facilities to use Form A if they 
released any of the chemical. However, the PBT options did not provide 
the bulk of the anticipated burden reduction.

The third option--which provided significantly more burden reduction-- 
would have created a new NSC Certification Statement, in lieu of Form 
R, for facilities whose releases changed little from the previous year. 
Facilities eligible to file the NSC Certification Statement could do so 
during alternate years if their releases and waste management practices 
did not change by more than 10 percent or if less than 40 percent of 
their combined releases and waste management practices were releases. 
According to EPA officials on the TRI workgroup, NSC was the most 
discussed option, and the one that the workgroup had the highest 
expectations for significant burden reduction.

In accordance with the ADP, the TRI workgroup presented their three 
options to the EPA Administrator during an "Options Selection 
Briefing." However, based on internal documents that we reviewed, 
senior EPA management not involved with the workgroup or its analyses 
had begun considering a different option than the ones the workgroup 
had presented. Specifically, the briefing slides for the Administrator 
stated that OMB's preferred burden reduction option was to increase the 
Form A eligibility threshold for non-PBT chemicals from 500 to 5,000 
pounds. The TRI workgroup had dropped that option from consideration, 
at an earlier step in the ADP, because of its impact on the TRI. An 
internal memorandum that we reviewed stated that OMB preferred a 10- 
fold increase in the non-PBT threshold to show a "demonstrable 
threshold increase" as a way of achieving a "sizable reduction" in 
reporting burden beyond expansion of Form A reporting for PBT 
chemicals. Those documents also showed that, after the Options 
Selection Briefing, the Administrator directed that the process be 
expedited through Final Agency Review in order to meet EPA's commitment 
to OMB to provide burden reduction by the end of December 2006.

The next milestone in EPA's ADP is Final Agency Review, a meeting for 
internal and regional EPA offices and senior management (i.e., 
representatives of EPA's Assistant Administrators) to review the draft 
proposed rule and discuss whether they concur, concur with comment, or 
do not concur with it. To meet the EPA Administrator's deadline, the 
final agency review package--including the draft text of the proposed 
rule--was distributed to internal stakeholders to obtain their comments 
on June 17, 2005. At the June 29, 2005, Final Agency Review meeting, 
all Assistant Administrators (or their representatives) concurred with 
EPA's proposed rule. However, the proposed rule that was circulated in 
the final agency review package contained only the options that the 
workgroup had developed and advanced. Consequently, the Final Agency 
Review discussion and concurrence pertained to the PBT and NSC options 
that the TRI workgroup had developed, rather than the increased non-PBT 
threshold option that OMB favored.

By the time EPA held the Final Agency Review meeting, the TRI workgroup 
was working to create the NSC form and establish eligibility criteria 
to determine which facilities could use it. This option was based on 
the premise that the information on many facilities' Form Rs does not 
change much from year to year, especially as a percentage of reported 
releases. However, the workgroup's internal analysis also showed that 
Form Rs do change from year to year, especially for facilities with 
large releases and large quantities of managed waste. That analysis 
showed that, for facilities with large quantities of releases or other 
waste management practices, a 5 or 10 percent increase would represent 
a significant change in the absolute quantity of release or other waste 
management. Moreover, Form R captures the location of facilities' off- 
site transfers for disposal or recycling to a different location. 
Therefore, changes in waste management practices during the "no 
significant change year" would no longer be available to the public. 
The workgroup also was considering incentives to allow facilities 
participating in EPA's pollution prevention/reduction program to file 
two consecutive NSC Certification Statements before having to file a 
new Form R.

At the senior management level, discussions about increasing the Form A 
threshold from 500 to 5,000 pounds continued through July with little, 
if any, input from the TRI workgroup, according to internal documents 
we reviewed and interviews with staff from EPA's Office of 
Environmental Information. Consequently, the economic analysis that the 
workgroup finalized in late July 2005 did not examine burden reduction 
option to raise the non-PBT threshold to 5,000 pounds. In early August, 
the final package for the proposed rule was circulated to the 
workgroup, but the rule did not include the non-PBT option or an 
analysis of the option. As a result, TRI workgroup members, and other 
internal stakeholders from the program offices, did not have the 
opportunity for input because the senior EPA management had already 
decided which options would and would not be in the proposed rule that 
went to OMB for review on August 26, 2005.

EPA program staff ultimately revised the economic analysis so as to 
consider the impact of raising the Form A reporting threshold. However, 
their analysis was neither completed before EPA sent the proposed rule 
to OMB for review nor was it circulated for review. Instead, the 
analysis was completed just prior to the September 21, 2005, date when 
the EPA Administrator signed the proposed rule for increasing Form A 
reporting eligibility from 500 to 5,000 pounds. EPA published this 
proposal in the Federal Register for public comment on October 4, 2005. 
The accompanying economic analysis did not adequately support EPA's 
stated benefits or costs. Specifically, although EPA stated in the 
proposed rule that it provided significant incentives for facilities to 
reduce or eliminate releases (of PBT chemicals, especially), the 
agency's economic analysis did not attempt to estimate those incentives 
quantitatively, citing lack of data. Moreover, EPA's analysis did not 
estimate the value of the information that would no longer be reported 
to the TRI.

Public Comments on EPA's Proposed Rule Were Overwhelmingly Negative:

The agency received well over 100,000 comments in response to the 
proposed rule, most of which were overwhelmingly negative. Some 
commenters supported EPA's proposed option to extend Form A to PBT 
chemicals because it would provide burden relief, but no actual release 
data would be lost. Some commenters also stated that the proposal would 
not compromise public health or reduce the ability to plan for 
emergency responses and that most people are interested solely in 
releases to the environment. Other commenters suggested that EPA's 
proposal would encourage pollution prevention, as facilities would work 
to eliminate releases and minimize waste generation of PBT chemicals in 
order to quality for Form A. However, as EPA pointed out in its summary 
of the comments, many more commenters expressed opposition to the 
proposed option for allowing Form A for PBT chemicals because the 
proposal provided minimal burden reduction while losing important 
publicly available data. As an example, EPA highlighted a commenter 
that estimated that the average cost savings per facility would be only 
$1,035, which the commenter argued does not justify the expected loss 
of information from the rule. Another commenter estimated that 77 
percent of facilities eligible to use Form A for PBTs currently report 
zero for both releases and other waste management and, therefore, would 
not save burden by switching to Form A. Other comments disagreed and 
asked that EPA instead expand Form A for reporting small, nonzero 
releases of PBT chemicals. In the final rule, EPA responded to these 
comments by reiterating its belief that the rule would still result in 
significant burden reduction without losing crucial information.

Commenters who supported EPA's proposed expansion of Form A eligibility 
for non-PBT chemicals asserted that the proposed rule would provide 
significant burden relief from TRI reporting--especially for small 
facilities. These proponents argue that this relief would be 
significant despite the need to calculate releases and other waste 
management amounts to determine if they quality for Form A. However, 
many more commenters expressed opposition to the proposed option to 
expand Form A eligibility for non-PBT chemicals by raising the 
threshold from 500 to 5,000 pounds. These commenters, including 12 
state attorneys general, focused on the local-level impacts from the 
detailed chemical release and waste management information that would 
no longer be reported on Form R. These and other commenters recognized 
that the potential nonreporting represented less than 1 percent of 
total release and waste management quantities reported nationwide on 
Form R but argued that a 5,000-pound Form A would adversely affect the 
ability of data users to perform local trend analyses, monitor the 
performance of individual facilities and, more generally, meet the 
intended purpose of the data collection to inform the public, 
government, and other data users about releases of toxic chemicals to 
the environment.[Footnote 14] Many commenters gave specific examples of 
the local data use that could be affected by the proposed rule, such as 
identifying pollution-prevention opportunities, conducting risk 
analyses, identifying trends in toxic exposure, conducting spatial 
analyses of toxic hazards, setting environmental and public health 
policy, and evaluating trends in the performance of individual 
companies.

In response to these public commenters, EPA conducted an additional 
analysis of the impact of its changes at the local level and made 
several modifications before finalizing the TRI Burden Reduction Rule 
in December 2006. Specifically, EPA finalized the rule to raising the 
Form A eligibility threshold for non-PBT chemicals to 5,000 pounds of 
total annual waste management (i.e., releases, recycling, energy 
recovery, and treatment for destruction) provided total annual releases 
of the non-PBT chemical comprise no more than 2,000 pounds of the 5,000-
pound total waste management limit. The agency also included its 
proposed option to allow use of Form A for PBT chemicals when total 
annual releases of a PBT chemical are zero, and the total annual amount 
of the PBT chemical recycled, combusted for energy, and treated for 
destruction does not exceed 500 pounds.

EPA Changes Could Significantly Limit the TRI Data Available to Many 
Communities:

Our analysis shows that EPA's TRI Burden Reduction 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 in 
their environment. EPA estimated that the impact of its change to TRI 
reporting requirements would be minimal; amounting to 5.7 million 
pounds of releases (0.14% of total release pounds) and 10.5 million 
pounds of waste management activities (0.06% of total waste management 
pounds) not being reported to the TRI if all eligible facilities switch 
from Form R to Form A. However, our analysis shows that EPA's changes 
could have far more significant impacts on information available to 
communities than EPA's national aggregate totals would appear to 
indicate. In addition, our survey of state TRI coordinators indicates 
that EPA's changes will have, on balance, a negative impact on state 
TRI programs and other users of the TRI. We acknowledge that not all 
eligible facilities will take advantage of the ability to file Form A, 
based on historical rates of Form A filing. However, because of the 
many assumptions necessary to calculate a "likely" impact, we present 
the total possible impact on the TRI under EPA's new Form A eligibility 
rules.

Thousands of Detailed Form R Reports May No Longer Be Submitted to the 
TRI:

We estimated that 22,200 Form R reports (28 percent) could convert to 
Form A under EPA's new Form A thresholds.[Footnote 15] EPA has observed 
that facilities used Form A for only 54 percent of the Form R reports 
potentially eligible under the previous threshold. According to EPA, 
eligible facilities may choose not to submit a Form A for a number of 
reasons. First, an unknown number of facilities may exceed the 1 
million pound alternative threshold (e.g., facilities that use large 
quantities of feedstock chemicals to produce pesticides or 
pharmaceuticals) and, therefore, are ineligible for Form A.[Footnote 
16] EPA does not know how many facilities exceed the alternative 
threshold because that information is not reported on current TRI 
forms. For this reason, EPA's utilization rate is likely an 
underestimate. Second, some facilities report on Form R out of a desire 
to showcase their pollution prevention efforts. Third, a facility, 
having collected all this information, may also submit a Form R to 
demonstrate good environmental stewardship. Fourth, some facilities 
find the Form R to be an efficient mechanism for tracking their 
material balances. Last, EPA and industry officials also told us that 
facilities are less likely to submit a Form A in lieu of a Form R for a 
given chemical if they must also submit Form Rs for other chemicals. We 
understand that not all eligible facilities will take advantage of 
EPA's new thresholds for one or more of these reasons. Although the 
agency stated that the utilization rate will not likely be 
significantly higher under the new threshold, additional facilities 
that were formerly eligible to file Form A may choose to file Form R 
now that they are eligible to do so for more of the reports. Given the 
uncertainties in projecting a "likely" utilization rate, we present our 
results in terms of the total number of Form R reports that are 
currently eligible to be filed on a Form A under the thresholds 
provided for in EPA's TRI rule.

According to our analysis, the number of Form Rs that may no longer be 
submitted ranges by state from 25 forms in Vermont (27.2 percent of 
Form Rs in state) to 2,196 forms in Texas (30.6 percent of Form Rs in 
state). As figure 3 shows, Arkansas, Idaho, and Nevada, North Dakota, 
and South Dakota could have up to 20 percent fewer of the detailed 
forms, while Alaska, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, 
Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North 
Carolina, Rhode Island, and Texas could have at least 30 percent fewer 
Form Rs. We provide estimates of these impacts, by state, in appendix 
II.

Figure 3: Estimate of Impact Allowed by EPA's Changes on Number of Form 
Rs, by State:

[See PDF for image] 

The image is a map of the United States, with states shaded to indicate 
the following data: 

Percentage of Form R reports that could convert to Form A (number of 
states): 
Less than 20: 5; 
20 to 25: 7; 
25 to 30: 26; 
30 or more: 13. 

Source: GAO based on 2005 EPA TRI data and Map Info (map). 

[End of figure] 

For each facility that chooses to file a Form A instead of Form R, the 
public would no longer have available quantitative information about a 
facility's releases and waste management practices for a specific 
chemical manufactured, processed, or otherwise used at the 
facility.[Footnote 17] Form R and Form A both capture information about 
a facility's identity, such as mailing address, parent company, and 
basic information about a chemical's identity, such its generic name. 
However, only Form R provides detailed information about the chemical, 
such as quantity disposed or released on-site 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 managed in 
waste, both on-and off-site, such as amounts recycled, burned for 
energy recovery, or treated. We provide a detailed comparison of the 
data captured on Form R versus Form A in appendix III.

Data about Toxic Chemicals May Be Reduced or Eliminated for Many 
Communities:

One way to capture the impact of Form Rs converting to Form A is to 
examine what currently available public data could no longer be 
reported about specific chemicals at the state level. The number of 
chemicals for which only Form A information could be reported under the 
new 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 on Form R may no longer be 
included in the TRI. Figure 4 shows that 13 states--Delaware, Georgia, 
Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, North Carolina, 
Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont, Wisconsin, and West Virginia--may no 
longer receive specific quantitative information about at least 20 
percent of TRI-reported chemicals in the state.

Figure 4: Estimate of Percentage of Chemicals for Which Facilities 
Could Report on Form A, by State:

[See PDF for image] 

The image is a map of the United States, with states shaded to indicate 
the following data: 

Percentage of chemicals that could convert to Form A (number of 
states): 
Less than 10: 5; 
10 to 15: 12; 
15 to 20: 21; 
20 or more: 13; 

Source: GAO based on 2005 EPA TRI data and Map Info (map). 

[End of figure]

The impact of EPA's change on toxic chemical information available to 
many local communities may be more significant than indicated by 
national or state estimates. As figure 5 shows, citizens in more than 
1,700 counties may no longer receive detailed information about at 
least one toxic chemical currently reported on Form R in their county. 
We estimated that, as a result of the allowable reduction in number of 
reports, citizens in 64 counties across 28 states--Texas (10); Virginia 
(7); Colorado, Kentucky, and Mississippi (4 each); California, Georgia, 
and Missouri (3 each); Florida, Iowa, Illinois, Louisiana, North 
Carolina, New Mexico (2 each); and Alaska, Kansas, Maryland, Montana, 
Nebraska, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, 
Utah, Vermont, and West Virginia (1 each)--may no longer receive 
detailed information about any toxic chemical releases from facilities 
in their county.

Figure 5: Estimate of Percentage of Chemicals for Which Facilities 
Could Report on Form A, by County:

[See PDF for image] 

The image is a map of the United States, with counties shaded to 
indicate the following data: 

Percentage of chemicals that could convert to be reported on Form A 
(number of counties): 
0: no chemicals or no reports; 
Less than 10: 245; 
10 to 15: 277; 
15 to 20: 246; 
20 or more: 998. 

Source: GAO based on 2005 EPA TRI data and Map Info (map). 

[End of figure]

Some Facilities Will No Longer Have to Report Detailed Information to 
the TRI:

Another way to present the impact of EPA's changes to TRI reporting 
requirements is to examine how many facilities would no longer be 
required to submit a Form R. We estimated that 6,620 facilities 
nationwide could choose to convert at least one Form R to a Form A, and 
about 54 percent of those are eligible to convert all their Form Rs to 
Form A. That means 3,565 facilities would no longer have to report any 
specific 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.[Footnote 18] For example, ATSC Marine Terminal--a bulk 
petroleum storage facility in Los Angeles County, California--reported 
releasing 13 different chemicals to the air, including xylenes, 
toluene, and highly toxic benzene. Because the facility released less 
than 2,000 pounds of each chemical, it could use Form A to report each 
chemical it released. As figure 6 shows, more than 10 percent of 
facilities in every state except Idaho would no longer have to report 
any quantitative information to the TRI. The most affected states are 
Colorado, Connecticut, 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.

Figure 6: Estimate of Percentage of Facilities That Could Convert All 
Form Rs to Form A, by State:

[See PDF for image] 

The image is a map of the United States, with states shaded to indicate 
the following data: 

Percentage of facilities that could convert all reports to Form A 
(number of states): 
Less than 10: 1; 
10 to 15: 28; 
15 to 20: 16; 
20 or more: 6. 

Source: GAO based on 2005 EPA TRI data and Map Info (map). 

[End of figure]

Many Commenters Have Stated That EPA's Changes Will Significantly Limit 
TRI Data:

Many commenters, including attorneys general of 12 States, EPA's 
Science Advisory Board, and state TRI coordinators, have expressed 
concern about EPA's changes to the TRI reporting requirements will 
significantly reduce the amount of useful information reported to the 
TRI. In commenting on the rule in a jointly signed January 12, 2006, 
letter, the Attorneys General from of New York, California, 
Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, 
New Jersey, New Mexico, Vermont, and Wisconsin stated that, rather than 
repairing any problems with the TRI program, EPA's changes will harm it 
by raising the reporting thresholds for nearly all chemicals current 
subject to TRI requirements. The Attorneys General added that the 
changes would significantly reduce the amount of information about 
releases of toxic chemicals available to the public and, as a result, 
would impair efforts by federal, state, and local governments; workers; 
firefighters; and citizens to protect Americans and their environment 
from the harm caused by discharges of toxic chemicals to the air, 
water, and land. They added that "because the changes work contrary to 
the purpose of the TRI--providing comprehensive information about toxic 
releases across the United States--[they are arbitrary and capricious, 
an abuse of discretion, and otherwise contrary to law." For those, and 
other reasons, the states' Attorneys General concluded that "in 
addition to being contrary to the public interest and sound policy, the 
proposed changes would violate EPCRA,[Footnote 19] PPA,[Footnote 20] 
and the Administrative Procedure Act."[Footnote 21] However, EPA 
contends that the rule complies with all applicable laws.

EPA's Science Advisory Board's (SAB) Environmental Economics Advisory 
Committee also expressed concerns about the proposal in a July 12, 
2006, letter to the EPA Administrator. Noting that TRI data are widely 
used to evaluate changes in facility and firm environmental performance 
and for other purposes, and that TRI data often provide the only 
reliable source of longitudinal data for this type of research, the 
committee said that its primary concern was that increased eligibility 
for Form A reporting will obscure the extent of facilities' releases of 
toxic chemicals. According to the committee, the changes in reported 
toxic chemical release levels will make the data incomparable over time 
and across facilities. It further stated that they will impair 
researchers' ability to use TRI data to assess spatial health impacts 
of toxic chemical releases and may also reduce variation in the data 
that are useful in identifying epidemiological and other relationships. 
The committee suggested that these impairments on research could 
significantly limit the national picture of the effect of toxic 
chemicals in the environment.

In addition, we surveyed the TRI coordinators in the 50 states and the 
District of Columbia about their states' views on the two changes to 
Form A eligibility that EPA finalized in December 2006--(1) raising the 
non-PBT eligibility threshold from 500 pounds to 2,000 pounds and (2) 
allowing PBT chemical reporting on Form A. Most states reported that 
EPA's changes would have either a negative impact on various aspects of 
TRI. States most frequently reported that the first change would have a 
negative impact on information available to the public, efforts to 
protect the environment, efforts to inform citizens about toxic 
releases, and community right-to-know. For example, 23 of the 51 states 
responded that the non-PBT change would have a negative impact on 
information available to the public, while 15 indicated that the change 
would have no impact, as shown in figure 7. Fewer states reported a 
negative impact as a result of the PBT change, and more states reported 
no impact, most likely because the change is limited to facilities that 
do not release any of the PBT chemical. States most commonly reported 
that the PBT change would have a negative impact on efforts to 
community right-to-know. Specifically, 19 of the states said that the 
change would negatively impact community right-to-know, while 2 said 
that it would have a positive impact. Although as many as one-third of 
the states responded that they were uncertain about the impact of these 
changes, few states reported that the changes would have a positive 
impact on any aspect of TRI.

Figure 7: Result of GAO Survey of State TRI Coordinators' Views about 
Impact of EPA's Changes on Various State Activities:

[See PDF for image] 

This figure contains two horizontal bar graphs depicting the following 
data: 

Total annual releases of non-PBT chemical comprise: Information 
available to the public: 
No impact: 15 states; 
Negative impact: 22 states; 
Positive impact: [empty]; 
No answer or uncertain: 13 states. 

Efforts to protect the public: 
No impact: 11 states; 
Negative impact: 22 states; 
Positive impact: 4 states; 
No answer or uncertain: 13 states. 

Efforts to inform citizens about toxic releases: 
No impact: 15 states; 
Negative impact: 22 states; 
Positive impact: [empty]; 
No answer or uncertain: 13 states. 

Community right-to-know: 
No impact: 11 states; 
Negative impact: 23 states; 
Positive impact: 4 states; 
No answer or uncertain: 12 states. 

Total annual amount of the PBT chemical: Information available to the 
public: 
No impact: 19 states; 
Negative impact: 17 states; 
Positive impact: [empty]; 
No answer or uncertain: 14 states. 

Efforts to protect the public: 
No impact: 16 states; 
Negative impact: 17 states; 
Positive impact: 3 states; 
No answer or uncertain: 14 states. 

Efforts to inform citizens about toxic releases: 
No impact: 19 states; 
Negative impact: 15 states; 
Positive impact: 2 states; 
No answer or uncertain: 14 states. 

Community right-to-know: 
No impact: 15 states; 
Negative impact: 19 states; 
Positive impact: 3; 
No answer or uncertain: 13 states. 

Source: GAO. 

Note: We provide complete wording of the survey questions and the 
responses we received in a related electronic supplement (GAO-08- 
129SP). 

[End of figure]

Changes to the TRI Will Likely Do Little to Reduce Industry's Reporting 
Burden:

EPA's rule is intended to reduce the burden on reporting facilities by 
allowing more facilities to use Form A, but the agency's estimated 
savings are likely overstated. EPA's projected savings are based on 
calculations that use OMB-approved estimates of burden hours associated 
with completing Form R and Form A, but these estimates are based on 
outdated data. EPA's more recent "engineering estimates" suggest a 
lower overall burden associated with current TRI reporting and, 
consequently, lower burden savings from the new rule.

EPA Relied on Outdated Data and Questionable Assumptions to Calculate 
Reporting Burden and Cost Savings:

In order to estimate the reduction in burden resulting from EPA's 
changes to TRI reporting requirements, we started with the baseline 
burden associated with current TRI reporting--that is, the amount of 
time that facilities need to complete Form R and Form A. Using these 
baseline estimates, cost savings are calculated by multiplying three 
factors: (1) the difference in time needed to complete the two forms, 
(2) the number of potentially eligible forms, and (3) the cost of 
labor. However, EPA's baseline estimates rely on outdated, incomplete, 
or uncertain data concerning the amount of time facilities need to 
complete the forms. Therefore, the agency's derivative estimates of 
burden reduction and cost savings are also unreliable.

Under the Paperwork Reduction Act, EPA must submit its Form R and Form 
A to OMB for review and approval as part of an Information Collection 
Request (ICR). As part of the review process, EPA provided OMB with its 
re-estimates of the amount of time that facilities need to complete the 
two forms, including reductions in the estimated number of reports that 
would be filed and the amount of time needed to complete each report. 
Those estimates also reflected differences in the amount of time 
facilities need to report PBT chemicals versus non-PBT chemicals and 
differences in time needed for first-time filers versus subsequent-year 
filers. The agency used these baseline burden estimates from its 
current ICRs to determine cost savings from the TRI Burden Reduction 
Rule.[Footnote 22] As shown in figure 8, EPA calculated that facilities 
would save 15.5 hours for each PBT chemical submitted on Form A in lieu 
of Form R and 9.1 hours for each non-PBT chemical.

Figure 8: Burden Savings for Each PBT Chemical and Non-PBT Chemical 
Report:

[See PDF for image] 

This figure is a vertical stacked bar graph. The vertical axis of the 
graph represents hours from 0 to 60. The horizontal axis of the graph 
represents Form R and Form A for PBT chemical savings and Non-PBT 
chemical savings. The following data is depicted: 

PBT chemical savings: 
Form R, Form completion: 46.3 hours; 
Form R, Recordkeeping and mailing: 5.0 hours; 
Form A, Form completion: 32.9 hours; 
Form A, Recordkeeping and mailing: 3.0 hours; Savings: 15.5 hours. 

Non-PBT chemical savings: 
Form R, Form completion: 24.6 hours; 
Form R, Recordkeeping and mailing: 5.0 hours; 
Form A, Form completion: 17.5 hours; 
Form A, Recordkeeping and mailing: 3.0 hours; Savings: 9.1 hours. 

Source: GAO analysis of EPA data. 

Note: PBT chemical savings does not equal the difference between Form R 
and Form A burden savings because of rounding in the constituent 
estimates for recordkeeping and mailing or form completion.

[End of figure]

During OMB's review of EPA's ICR, it revised three of EPA's original 
estimates without conducting an independent analysis of reporting 
burdens. These revisions had the effect of significantly increasing 
EPA's proposed re-estimated burden associated with TRI reporting, and 
thus increasing the estimated burden reduction and cost savings from 
the new rule. OMB revisions to EPA's re-estimates were the following:

* increasing the non-PBT chemical, Form R burden from 14.5 hours to 
25.2 hours for subsequent-year filers,

* increasing the PBT chemical Form R burden from 14.5 hours to 47.1 
hours for subsequent year filers, and; 

* increasing Form A burden from 9.3 hours to 16.2 hours for subsequent- 
year filers.

Taken together, OMB's revisions resulted in the estimated burden 
savings being about 97,000 hours more than what they would have been if 
the EPA re-estimates had been used.[Footnote 23] OMB's revisions to 
these three estimates constituted approximately 78 percent of total 
burden reduction from the new rule. In an agency memorandum, EPA raised 
concerns prior to accepting the revisions and stated that EPA had only 
agreed to them to obtain ICR clearance, which is required before the 
agency can request facilities to complete their TRI forms.[Footnote 24] 
OMB's revisions appeared to favor the use of older data, and 
assumptions based on older data, despite the fact that more recent data 
were available.

For the first revision, OMB increased EPA's proposed burden re-estimate 
of the time needed to calculate and complete a Form R non-PBT chemical 
for subsequent year filing from 14.5 hours to 25.2 hours. This revision 
was based on a 1998 facility survey of 18 respondents that OMB believed 
was the most recent data. However, EPA pointed out that more recent 
data were available, including 17 observations from 2000 and 2001 and 
99 additional observations from 2001. Furthermore, EPA advised OMB that 
if the burden estimate had been based on all observations from 1998 
onward, the average per form burden would decrease to 12.5 
hours.[Footnote 25] Notwithstanding, the EPA memorandum stated, "OMB 
did not like this result. Apparently, as with other recent initiatives, 
OMB is outcome-oriented."

For the second revision, OMB increased EPA's proposed re-estimate of 
the time needed to calculate and complete a Form R PBT chemical for 
subsequent-year filing from 14.5 hours to 47.1 hours. According to 
internal memorandum, EPA had requested approval for a lower burden on 
the basis that PBT and non-PBT reporting are similar enough that the 
same burden estimate should be used for both. OMB disagreed, according 
to the memorandum, citing comments from trade associations that special 
conditions of PBT reporting, namely not having an exemption for 
reporting de minimis (very small or insignificant) amounts and not 
being able to use range reporting, created a higher burden for PBT 
reporting. EPA agreed to leave this estimate unchanged because 
available data on reporting burdens was incomplete, (i.e., the data did 
not specifically address whether reporting was for PBT or non-PBT 
chemicals). Nevertheless, EPA expressed concern that using the OMB- 
approved burden estimates would create the appearance of a rather large 
relative difference in the reporting burden of a PBT chemical versus a 
non-PBT chemical (47.1 hours vs. 25.2 hours), which the agency said was 
not supported by the data. In addition, a team of experts disagreed 
with OMB's position and stated that if overall differences do exist in 
the reporting burden for PBT and non-PBT forms, the difference would 
stem largely from compliance determination activities and not from form 
completion.[Footnote 26]

For the third revision, OMB increased EPA's proposed re-estimate of the 
time needed to complete a Form A for subsequent year filing from 9.3 
hours to 16.2 hours. The OMB revision was based on the historical 
assumption used since the form was created in 1994 that Form A 
calculations take approximately 64 percent of the time of Form R 
calculations. EPA accepted this change even though the agency stated in 
its memorandum that the change was not supported by more recent data 
from a 2002 survey of nine facilities that showed a much lower Form A 
burden.[Footnote 27]

Other Analyses Indicate Actual Savings Could Be Much Less Than EPA 
Estimated:

During the last TRI ICR renewal, EPA cited industry data indicating the 
burden of current TRI reporting was lower than previously estimated. 
Furthermore, while the total time for each major form-completion 
activity was estimated in the ICR, it was not broken down by the 
individual tasks (i.e., data elements) that comprise each activity. To 
help develop more reliable baseline estimates of TRI burden, EPA 
contracted for an engineering analysis of the time required to complete 
a Form R, and the agency requested public comments on the results of 
this analysis as part of the TRI Burden Reduction Proposed 
Rule.[Footnote 28]

To get at the burden associated with each activity, the engineering 
analysis divided the Form R into item-specific tasks. Then, the 
analysis calculated the total realistic burden for the specific 
activity under consideration by adjusting the total time for each 
activity by combining the time required to complete each task with the 
percentage of time individual tasks are typically completed.[Footnote 
29] As shown in table 2, the burden estimates from the engineering 
analyses are substantially lower than the current OMB-approved 
estimates.

Table 2: Comparison of Average Annual TRI Burden Estimates by Activity: 
OMB-approved Versus Engineering Analysis:

Category: Facility level; 
Activity: Compliance determination--all facilities; 
OMB-approved (hours): 4; 
EPA engineering analysis (hours): 2.5; 
Difference (percentage): -37.5.

Category: Facility level; 
Activity: Rule familiarization--first-time filers; 
OMB-approved (hours): 34.5; 
EPA engineering analysis (hours): 23.5; 
Difference (percentage): Category: -31.9.

Category: Facility level; 
Activity: Rule familiarization--subsequent-year filers; 
OMB-approved (hours): n/a; 
EPA engineering analysis (hours): 5.6; 
Difference (percentage): Category: n/a.

Category: Facility level; 
Activity: Supplier notification; 
OMB-approved (hours): 24; 
EPA engineering analysis (hours): 24; 
Difference (percentage): 0.

Category: Per Form R; 
Activity: Calculations and report completion--first-time filers--PBTs; 
OMB-approved (hours): 66.8; 
EPA engineering analysis (hours): 7.5; 
Difference (percentage): -88.8.

Category: Per Form R; 
Activity: Calculations and report completion--first-time filers--non-
PBTs; 
OMB-approved (hours): 67.6; 
EPA engineering analysis (hours): 9.5; 
Difference (percentage): -85.9.

Category: Per Form R; 
Activity: Calculations and report completion--subsequent year filers--
PBTs; 
OMB-approved (hours): 46.3; 
EPA engineering analysis (hours): 5.9; 
Difference (percentage): Category: -87.3.

Category: Per Form R; 
Activity: Calculations and report completion--subsequent year filers--
non-PBTs; 
OMB-approved (hours): 24.6; 
EPA engineering analysis (hours): 7.0; 
Difference (percentage): -71.5.

Category: Per Form R; 
Activity: Recordkeeping/submission--all filers; 
OMB-approved (hours): 5; 
EPA engineering analysis (hours): 5; 
Difference (percentage): 0.0.

Source: GAO analysis of EPA & Abt Associates, Inc. Burden Estimates.

Note: Both sets of estimates have been adjusted to account for burden 
savings associated with the TRI Reporting Forms Modification Rule.

[End of table]

For example, the OMB-approved Form R burden for calculations and report 
completion of subsequent year PBT and non-PBT chemicals are 46.3 and 
24.6 hours, respectively. Under the engineering estimates, Form R 
estimates for PBT chemicals are reduced to 5.9 hours (a reduction of 
about 87 percent) and for non-PBT chemicals to 7.0 hours (a reduction 
of about 72 percent). According to the proposed rule, if these 
estimates had been used, burden reduction would have been about three- 
fourths (75 percent) of what was estimated using the OMB-approved 
reporting burden estimates.

In addition to its engineering analysis, EPA also sought public 
comments on purported burden savings. Overall, EPA received thousands 
of public comments on the TRI Burden Reduction Proposed Rule, some of 
which commented on burden reduction or cost savings estimates.[Footnote 
30] In general, comments were quite diverse: some stated that the 
savings were meaningful, while others said that they were either too 
high or not needed. Some expressed concern with the accuracy of the 
savings estimate or said that it did not take into account other burden 
reduction actions while others mentioned that the new rule offered 
little or no savings. For example, eight commenters supported EPA's 
decision to extend Form A reporting for PBT chemicals because of the 
helpful burden reduction for facilities that have zero chemical 
releases, but five expressed general opposition to it because it 
provided minimum burden reduction and did not justify the loss in 
publicly available data. An official from the South Carolina Department 
of Health and Environmental Control, for example, pointed out that 
increases in the number of electronic filings are achieving real burden 
reduction and that EPA's burden reduction estimates do not take this 
into account. Four commenters stated that the burden reduction cost 
savings estimates were too high. Fifteen commented that the current 
requirements to complete a Form R in lieu of a Form A were not a 
significant burden on industry. Three commenters stated that they work 
for, or had worked for, facilities that submit Form Rs; did not find 
the current requirements burdensome; and found that reporting helped 
facilities keep track of plant operations. Others commented that the 
reporting burden is insignificant if compared with the value of the TRI 
data to a wide range of stakeholders, and the pollution reductions that 
have resulted. However, the National Mining Association,[Footnote 31] 
whose members have consistently reported the largest numbers of TRI 
releases, commented that the proposed rule affords little or no benefit 
for the metal and coal mining sectors, which tend to release chemicals 
in excess of the Form A thresholds.

In response to these comments, EPA agreed that savings may not 
represent a significant amount for all eligible facilities but 
disagreed that expanded Form A eligibility would not provide burden 
relief. The agency believes that the proposed rule might provide 
meaningful burden relief for some reporters, such as small facilities. 
EPA also agreed that increases in electronic filing are achieving 
burden reduction and that the agency's burden reduction estimates do 
not take these savings into account and thus the agency's estimates of 
the cost savings associated with the rule could be overstated.

Other EPA Efforts Have Provided More Burden Relief without Affecting 
the TRI:

While the wide range of comments submitted to EPA suggests that there 
may be some uncertainty about the precise extent of burden reduction 
offered by EPA's changes, there is considerably more certainty that the 
burden reduction benefits of the changes are relatively small compared 
with other initiatives. Throughout the history of the TRI program, EPA 
has implemented measures to reduce the regulated community's reporting 
burden and still maintain the public's access to information consistent 
with the purpose of the TRI program. Through a range of compliance 
assistance activities, such as the Toxic Chemical Release Inventory 
Reporting Forms and Instructions (which is updated every year), 
industry training workshops, chemical-specific and industry-specific 
guidance documents, and the TRI Information Center (with a telephone 
hotline), we believe the agency has shown a commitment to enhancing the 
quality and consistency of reporting and assisting those facilities 
that must comply with EPCRA section 313. In addition, EPA has made 
considerable progress in reducing the TRI reporting burden through 
technology-based processes.

Beginning with Reporting Year 2001, EPA provided TRI-ME to help 
facilities determine their TRI obligations and complete their TRI 
forms. TRI-ME leads prospective reporters interactively through a 
series of questions that eliminate a good portion of the analysis 
required to determine whether a facility must comply with the TRI 
reporting requirements, and it includes threshold calculations needed 
to determine Form A eligibility. If TRI-ME determines that a facility 
is required to report, the software provides guidance for each of the 
data elements on the reporting forms. The software also provides an 
integrated assistance library with detailed guidance for each step. 
Prior to submission, TRI-ME performs a series of validation checks 
before the facility prints the forms for mailing, transfers the data to 
CD-ROM, or submits the information electronically over the Internet. 
According to EPA, since the release of TRI-ME, there has been an 
estimated 15 percent reduction in burden-hours for facilities certain 
activities associated with completing TRI forms[Footnote 32]-- 
approximately twice the annual cost savings resulting from the new 
Burden Reduction Rule.[Footnote 33]

Moreover, TRI-ME has no adverse impact on the amount of information 
submitted to the TRI and has likely improved the overall quality and 
timeliness of the data, according to TRI program officials. Similarly, 
other technology-based processes, including (1) EPA's Central Data 
Exchange for form submission and (2) the population of data fields with 
data submitted through other EPA programs have reduced the time, cost, 
and complexity of existing environmental reporting requirements, while 
enhancing reporting effectiveness and efficiency and continuing to 
provide useful information to the public that fulfills the purposes of 
the TRI program. At the same time, these efficiencies were not 
accounted for in EPA's official estimates of TRI reporting burden as 
approved by OMB. EPA has stated that the availability of TRI-ME 
reporting software is likely to assist and streamline the reporting 
process--which could mean that the estimated burden of current Form R 
reporting that EPA used in developing the new rule were overstated. If 
this is the case, then the agency's estimated cost savings associated 
with the rule would likewise be overstated.

Congressional Interest and Actions to Reverse EPA's Changes:

Members of Congress have expressed interest in EPA's changes to the TRI 
by writing letters to the EPA Administrator, holding hearings, and 
introducing legislation. In November 2005, a bipartisan group of 
Senators wrote to the Administrator with serious concerns about EPA's 
actions and analyses and to request additional data analysis from the 
agency. In January 2006, the same day that public comments closed for 
the rule, members of the House of Representatives wrote to the 
Administrator expressing similar, serious concerns that EPA's changes 
would undermine the ability of local communities to take actions to 
protect themselves from exposure to toxic chemicals. Meanwhile, EPA 
continued to develop its final TRI Burden Reduction Rule.

Responding to these congressional concerns, on December 22, 2006, the 
Administrator announced the decision to maintain annual reporting for 
the TRI and not pursue any changes in reporting frequency. However, EPA 
also finalized the TRI Burden Reduction Rule the same day. The first 
reports using the revised reporting requirements were due on or before 
July 1, 2007, for reporting year (i.e., calendar year) 2006.

The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works subsequently held 
a hearing to consider, among other things, the impact of the TRI Burden 
Reduction Rule and other EPA decisions affecting public right-to- 
know.[Footnote 34] Soon thereafter, the Toxic Right-To-Know Protection 
Act was introduced to effectively repeal EPA's Burden Reduction Rule 
and prevent future consideration of alternate year reporting.[Footnote 
35] Specifically, the bill would amend EPCRA (1) requiring 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,[Footnote 36] and (3) release 
provisions allowing the Administrator of EPA to modify the frequency of 
toxic chemical release reporting. Similar legislation has been 
introduced in the House of Representatives,[Footnote 37] which recently 
held a hearing to consider it.[Footnote 38] At that hearing, we 
testified that based on our analysis, 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 
would, in turn, impact communities' ability to assess environmental 
justice and other issues.[Footnote 39]

Conclusions:

To improve the prospects for successful regulations, EPA's Action 
Development Process seeks to ensure that scientific, economic, and 
policy issues are adequately addressed at the appropriate stages of 
regulations development and to ensure adequate stakeholder 
participation across EPA's offices. However, EPA did not follow the 
process in key respects when developing the TRI Burden Reduction Rule, 
leading to a proposed rule whose projected costs and benefits were not 
adequately analyzed or reviewed in accordance with that process. EPA 
deviated from its process, in part, because of pressure from OMB to 
provide significant burden reduction by the end of 2006. In response to 
overwhelmingly negative public comments, EPA modified the proposed 
expansion of Form A eligibility by capping allowable releases of non- 
PBT chemicals at 2,000 pounds.

However, we believe that EPA did not adequately address the analytical 
concerns we raised with its proposed rule in the supporting analyses 
the agency completed for the final rule. In particular, despite the TRI 
rule's stated purpose--"to reduce burden while continuing to provide 
valuable information to the public"--EPA did not adequately weigh the 
benefits provided to facilities against the reduction in information 
available about toxic chemical releases to affected communities. As a 
result, the final rule has been widely criticized by TRI users for 
curtailing key information about the release of toxic chemicals, and by 
the regulated community as providing insufficient burden relief. Hence, 
the rule provides neither meaningful burden reduction nor sufficient 
information to the public. This outcome contrasts sharply with 
previous, openly conceived TRI burden reduction efforts that have 
achieved substantial burden reduction without reducing information to 
TRI users.

Accordingly, we believe reexamination of the benefits and costs to 
ensure that the changes to TRI fully reflect the considered judgment of 
EPA staff as provided for in the Action Development Process could help 
to avoid similarly problematic outcomes in the future, while ensuring 
the credibility and effectiveness of future TRI rulemakings. In 
addition, congressional committees of jurisdiction currently have 
pending bills that would effectively repeal EPA's rule by capping the 
eligibility threshold for Form A at 500 pounds for non-PBT chemicals 
and prohibiting use of Form A for PBT chemicals.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:

In commenting on a draft of this report, EPA's Assistant Administrator 
for Environmental Information and Chief Information Officer disagreed 
with our recommendation that EPA perform sufficient analyses to support 
the rule. Specifically, we had recommended that the Administrator of 
EPA thoroughly evaluate the costs and benefits anticipated to 
communities and reporting industries from increased use of TRI Form A 
and, based on this evaluation, make a determination as to whether it 
would reconsider the TRI rulemaking. We further recommended that EPA 
submit a report of its findings and determination to relevant 
congressional committees within 30 days so as to inform congressional 
deliberation on proposed legislation.

EPA's letter stated that the agency "believes fully that all 
appropriate and necessary analyses were conducted … in the context of 
the full rulemaking process." EPA also noted that the December 2006 TRI 
rule put into place important incentives to reduce chemical releases by 
permitting additional facilities to use Form A. However, we continue to 
believe that EPA did not adequately substantiate its assertion that the 
rule provides such incentives, among other assertions that the agency 
made in the proposed and final rules. Moreover, if TRI is, as EPA 
noted, the cornerstone of its environmental information programs-- 
allowing local citizens and governments to hold facilities accountable 
for how they manage toxic chemicals--then reducing the amount of 
information that those facilities must disclose would provide less 
accountability for facilities to reduce emissions resulting from 
manufacturing, processing, and using toxic chemicals. Hence, it is 
unclear how EPA's course of action would improve, rather than hinder, 
facilities' overall environmental performance. Because EPA did not 
agree with the need to implement our recommendations, and given ongoing 
congressional interest and pending actions to address EPA's TRI Burden 
Reduction Rule, we have included a matter for consideration by the 
Congress. EPA's letter and our detailed response to it are contained in 
appendix IV. EPA also provided technical comments, which we have 
incorporated into this report as appropriate.

In commenting on excerpts from a draft of this report, OMB's Deputy 
Administrator of Information and Regulatory Affairs raised three 
concerns regarding our characterization of OMB's activities under the 
Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) and Executive Order 12866. The first two, 
closely-related concerns pertained to OMB's activities in reviewing the 
burden estimates for the TRI information collection (i.e., Form R and 
Form A) under the PRA. Specifically OMB felt that the excerpts did not 
provide the necessary context, or a complete and balanced presentation, 
that would enable the reader to understand OMB's successive 
interactions with EPA on its approval of EPA's collection of 
information for the TRI. The OMB-related excerpts that we provided to 
OMB were taken from the draft report, as a whole. Given that we did not 
evaluate an OMB program or make a recommendation to OMB, we believe 
that our report provides the necessary context for the reader to 
understand EPA's actions, and OMB's related role, with regard to recent 
changes to the TRI reporting requirements. In its third concern, OMB 
states that the excerpts do not provide a complete and balanced 
presentation of the facts with regard to EPA's decision to include an 
option for raising the Form A eligibility threshold in the TRI Burden 
Reduction Rule. Specifically, OMB provided additional details about the 
development of the TRI Burden Reduction Rule not included in the OMB- 
related excerpts that we provided for its review. We acknowledge OMB's 
concerns and have made minor changes in the report as appropriate; 
however, OMB did not provide new information that changes our findings, 
conclusions, or recommendations. We believe that the report, taken in 
its entirety, provides a fair, balanced, and complete understanding of 
EPA's development of the TRI rule. OMB's letter and our detailed 
response to it are contained in appendix V.

Matter for Congressional Consideration:

Because EPA did not agree to our recommendation that it sufficiently 
analyze the costs and benefits of increased use of TRI Form A, we 
suggest that the Congress consider taking appropriate actions to 
address concerns about reduced environmental information available to 
many communities. Specifically, unless EPA provides the Congress with 
such an analysis within 30 days of the public release of this report, 
the Congress may wish to consider enacting legislation, including bills 
already introduced, that would reverse EPA's expansion of TRI Form A 
eligibility for certain facilities and chemicals.

As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents 
of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days 
from the report date. At that time, we will send copies of this report 
to the appropriate congressional committees. We are also sending this 
report to the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. We 
will also make copies available to others on request. In addition, this 
report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov].

If you or your staffs have any questions about this report, please 
contact me at (202) 512-3841 or stephensonj@gao.gov. Contact points for 
our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found 
on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions 
to this report are listed in appendix VI.

Signed by: 

John B. Stephenson: 
Director, Natural Resources and Environment:

[End of section]

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:

We assessed (1) how federal users, the states, and the public use 
Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data, (2) the extent to which the U.S. 
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considered the views of internal 
and external stakeholders in developing its burden reduction proposal, 
(3) the impact of reporting changes on information available to the 
public, and (4) the likely burden reduction that reporting facilities 
could receive from the reporting changes.

To address the four main objectives, we analyzed documents, including 
stakeholder comments in the Federal Register about the proposed rule 
change, those pertaining to the development of rule change, EPA's 
report on stakeholder uses of the TRI, annual TRI reports, and EPA 
guidance for facilities reporting to the TRI. In addition, we 
interviewed EPA officials, industry representatives, officials from 
nongovernmental organizations (NGO), and state TRI contacts. We also 
attended the annual TRI Data Users' Conference in February 2007.

To respond to the first objective, how federal users, the states, and 
the public use the TRI, we reviewed documentation from EPA, states, 
nongovernmental agencies, and industries/businesses about their uses of 
TRI data. We also interviewed EPA officials from program offices that 
use TRI data, and officials from certain NGOs, industries, and states. 
We selected officials from the NGOs and industries based on their 
previous involvement with conducting TRI data analyses, attending EPA- 
sponsored TRI stakeholder meetings, and comments they submitted to the 
Federal Register regarding the TRI. We selected state officials from 
New Jersey and Massachusetts for interviews because those states have 
laws that require facilities to submit additional data about their 
toxic chemical usage.

We obtained further information from states through our state survey 
that we administered to TRI contacts in all states and the District of 
Columbia. While developing the survey, we conducted pretests over the 
phone with state contacts from five states. Based on these pretests, we 
made revisions to the survey and found that not all individuals listed 
by EPA as TRI contacts had sufficient expertise to complete each survey 
section. We sent an introductory presurvey to all respondents so that 
they could indicate whether they were the most knowledgeable person in 
their state to answer the main survey sections. In 10 states, two or 
more individuals were identified as most knowledgeable for a given 
survey section. We administered this survey with a self-administered 
electronic questionnaire sent in e-mails on January 4, 2006.

The survey asked respondents to indicate, in the first section, the 
types of activities for which the state uses the TRI, whether 
facilities are required to pay fees when submitting TRI reports and, if 
so, factors used to calculate those fees. In the second section, the 
survey asked respondents to indicate specific actions the state took to 
help facilities comply with TRI reporting requirements and actions they 
took to enforce reporting requirements. In the third section, the 
survey asked respondents to indicate information about number of state 
employees who work on TRI-related activities, the amount of the state 
TRI program budget, and sources of funding for the budget. In the 
fourth section, the survey asked respondents to indicate whether the 
state requires facilities to submit additional data not required under 
national TRI reporting requirements, the status of the state's 
involvement with EPA's Central Data Exchange, and ways that the state 
makes TRI data available to the public. And in the fifth, and final, 
section, the survey asked respondents to indicate the likely impact of 
the proposed rule, their satisfaction with TRI-related communication, 
and actions EPA could take to improve the TRI. In some cases, we asked 
survey respondents additional questions via e-mail and telephone. For 
the 10 states that had multiple contacts, we sent a follow-up e-mail 
with a copy of their surveys to ensure that they concurred with each 
other's answers. We closed the survey on February 12, 2007, after the 
51st state responded, thus making our response rate 100 percent. This 
report does not contain all the results from the survey. The survey and 
a more complete tabulation of the results can be viewed at GAO-08- 
129SP.

To respond to the second objective, the extent to which EPA considered 
the views of internal and external stakeholders in developing its 
burden reduction proposal, we reviewed documents related to the 
stakeholder process EPA used to help identify possible burden reduction 
options. We also interviewed EPA officials who were on the TRI 
workgroup that developed the final rule and reviewed internal EPA 
documents that detailed the workgroup's processes and decisions. In 
addition, we interviewed knowledgeable Office of Management and Budget 
(OMB) officials about their office's role in the TRI rule-making 
process and Information Collection Request proposals. Finally, we 
reviewed the public comments submitted in response to EPA's proposed 
rule.

To respond to the third objective, the impact of reporting changes on 
information available to the public, we conducted our analyses using 
2005 TRI data, the most current available data. We performed a 
reliability assessment of the data we obtained from EPA and determined 
that the data were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this 
report. To understand the potential impact of EPA's changes to TRI 
reporting requirements at the local level, we used 2005 TRI data to 
estimate the number of Form Rs that would no longer have to be 
submitted in each state and the impact this would have on data about 
specific chemicals and facilities. We provide estimates of these 
impacts, by state, in appendix III.

To respond to the fourth objective, the likely burden reduction that 
reporting facilities could receive from reporting changes, we reviewed 
the proposed and final TRI Burden Reduction Rules that expanded 
eligibility for using Form A Certification Statement in lieu of the 
more detailed Form R by TRI facilities submitting required annual 
reports on releases and other waste management. We also reviewed EPA's 
economic analysis of the costs and impacts of the expanded eligibility 
for Form A, as well as other relevant documents, and interviewed EPA 
officials about the burden reduction savings analysis.

We conducted our work from August 2006 to September 2007 in accordance 
with generally accepted government auditing standards.

[End of section]

Appendix II: GAO Estimates of the Impact of Reporting Changes on the 
TRI:

We analyzed 2005 TRI data provided by EPA to estimate the number of 
Form Rs that could no longer be reported in each state and determine 
the possible impacts that this could have on data about specific 
chemicals and facilities. Table 3 provides our estimates of the total 
number of Form Rs eligible to convert to Form A, including the 
percentage of total Form Rs submitted by facilities in each 
state.[Footnote 40] 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 percentage of total chemicals 
reported in each state. The last two columns provide our estimates for 
the number of facilities that would no longer have to provide 
quantitative information about their chemical releases and waste 
management practices, including the percentage of total facilities 
reporting in each state.

Table 3: Estimated Impact of TRI Reporting Changes on Number of Form 
Rs, Chemicals, and Facilities, by State:

State: AK; 
Form Rs: Number: 59; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 36.6; 
Chemicals: Number: 8; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 17.0; 
Facilities: Number: 5; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 15.6.

State: AL; 
Form Rs: Number: 456; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 22.0; 
Chemicals: Number: 34; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 17.1; 
Facilities: Number: 69; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 12.9.

State: AR; 
Form Rs: Number: 247; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 17.7; 
Chemicals: Number: 18; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 5.8; 
Facilities: Number: 39; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 11.0.

State: AZ; 
Form Rs: Number: 221; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 27.7; 
Chemicals: Number: 12; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 10.8; 
Facilities: Number: 50; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 15.0.

State: CA; 
Form Rs: Number: 1,533; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 37.5; 
Chemicals: Number: 36; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 18.2; 
Facilities: Number: 302; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 19.9.

State: CO; 
Form Rs: Number: 162; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 25.8; 
Chemicals: Number: 11; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 11.1; 
Facilities: Number: 51; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 21.8.

State: CT; 
Form Rs: Number: 299; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 33.5; 
Chemicals: Number: 16; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 15.4; 
Facilities: Number: 73; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 20.6.

State: DC; 
Form Rs: Number: 4; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 28.6; 
Chemicals: Number: 2; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 18.2; 
Facilities: Number: 2; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 28.6.

State: DE; 
Form Rs: Number: 80; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 27.7; 
Chemicals: Number: 24; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 23.3; 
Facilities: Number: 10; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 14.1.

State: FL; 
Form Rs: Number: 479; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 27.4; 
Chemicals: Number: 19; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 13.2; 
Facilities: Number: 119; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 17.2.

State: GA; 
Form Rs: Number: 678; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 30.9; 
Chemicals: Number: 60; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 29.1; 
Facilities: Number: 132; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 16.7.

State: HI; 
Form Rs: Number: 67; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 37.9; 
Chemicals: Number: 12; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 26.1; 
Facilities: Number: 9; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 23.1.

State: IA; 
Form Rs: Number: 371; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 27.7; 
Chemicals: Number: 34; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 22.2; 
Facilities: Number: 46; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 10.6.

State: ID; 
Form Rs: Number: 41; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 14.4; 
Chemicals: Number: 8; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 10.4; 
Facilities: Number: 8; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 7.3.

State: IL; 
Form Rs: Number: 1,155; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 30.0; 
Chemicals: Number: 37; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 16.4; 
Facilities: Number: 171; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 14.3.

State: IN; 
Form Rs: Number: 900; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 25.6; 
Chemicals: Number: 29; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 14.6; 
Facilities: Number: 143; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 14.4.

State: KS; 
Form Rs: Number: 291; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 28.3; 
Chemicals: Number: 23; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 16.0; 
Facilities: Number: 41; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 14.0.

State: KY; 
Form Rs: Number: 490; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 25.7; 
Chemicals: Number: 28; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 15.3; 
Facilities: Number: 63; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 13.4.

State: LA; 
Form Rs: Number: 665; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 25.6; 
Chemicals: Number: 34; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 13.1; 
Facilities: Number: 46; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 12.4.

State: MA; 
Form Rs: Number: 574; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 38.0; 
Chemicals: Number: 23; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 20.4; 
Facilities: Number: 119; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 20.1.

State: MD; 
Form Rs: Number: 221; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 32.6; 
Chemicals: Number: 24; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 22.6; 
Facilities: Number: 34; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 16.6.

State: ME; 
Form Rs: Number: 105; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 26.1; 
Chemicals: Number: 8; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 11.3; 
Facilities: Number: 14; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 13.7.

State: MI; 
Form Rs: Number: 965; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 29.7; 
Chemicals: Number: 36; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 19.0; 
Facilities: Number: 145; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 16.1.

State: MN; 
Form Rs: Number: 263; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 21.0; 
Chemicals: Number: 20; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 15.4; 
Facilities: Number: 55; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 11.5.

State: MO; 
Form Rs: Number: 498; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 27.3; 
Chemicals: Number: 43; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 21.7; 
Facilities: Number: 80; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 14.2.

State: MS; 
Form Rs: Number: 265; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 25.0; 
Chemicals: Number: 29; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 18.7; 
Facilities: Number: 37; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 11.8.

State: MT; 
Form Rs: Number: 61; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 21.8; 
Chemicals: Number: 10; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 13.5; 
Facilities: Number: 7; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 15.2.

State: NC; 
Form Rs: Number: 705; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 30.1; 
Chemicals: Number: 43; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 24.9; 
Facilities: Number: 148; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 17.8.

State: ND; 
Form Rs: Number: 29; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 13.8; 
Chemicals: Number: 7; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 11.5; 
Facilities: Number: 6; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 12.5.

State: NE; 
Form Rs: Number: 116; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 20.3; 
Chemicals: Number: 11; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 7.9; 
Facilities: Number: 24; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 12.9.

State: NH; 
Form Rs: Number: 98; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 29.1; 
Chemicals: Number: 13; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 17.3; 
Facilities: Number: 23; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 16.1.

State: NJ; 
Form Rs: Number: 582; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 35.1; 
Chemicals: Number: 34; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 16.0; 
Facilities: Number: 101; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 19.3.

State: NM; 
Form Rs: Number: 96; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 29.2; 
Chemicals: Number: 11; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 15.3; 
Facilities: Number: 15; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 19.2.

State: NV; 
Form Rs: Number: 96; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 21.2; 
Chemicals: Number: 14; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 18.9; 
Facilities: Number: 19; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 14.3.

State: NY; 
Form Rs: Number: 663; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 31.8; 
Chemicals: Number: 33; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 19.1; 
Facilities: Number: 122; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 17.2.

State: OH; 
Form Rs: Number: 1,557; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 28.5; 
Chemicals: Number: 38; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 12.6; 
Facilities: Number: 218; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 13.8.

State: OK; 
Form Rs: Number: 273; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 26.1; 
Chemicals: Number: 30; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 23.3; 
Facilities: Number: 50; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 15.2.

State: OR; 
Form Rs: Number: 236; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 28.6; 
Chemicals: Number: 16; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 15.5; 
Facilities: Number: 47; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 15.5.

State: PA; 
Form Rs: Number: 1,253; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 29.9; 
Chemicals: Number: 30; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 15.2; 
Facilities: Number: 192; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 14.9.

State: RI; 
Form Rs: Number: 112; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 39.3; 
Chemicals: Number: 12; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 17.4; 
Facilities: Number: 30; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 23.4.

State: SC; 
Form Rs: Number: 596; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 29.0; 
Chemicals: Number: 36; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 17.6; 
Facilities: Number: 78; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 15.0.

State: SD; 
Form Rs: Number: 44; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 19.6; 
Chemicals: Number: 3; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 5.8; 
Facilities: Number: 10; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 10.5.

State: TN; 
Form Rs: Number: 569; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 27.6; 
Chemicals: Number: 40; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 20.9; 
Facilities: Number: 105; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 16.2.

State: TX; 
Form Rs: Number: 2196; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 30.6; 
Chemicals: Number: 29; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 9.3; 
Facilities: Number: 210; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 14.1.

State: UT; 
Form Rs: Number: 146; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 19.9; 
Chemicals: Number: 11; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 9.9; 
Facilities: Number: 25; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 12.6.

State: VA; 
Form Rs: Number: 401; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 25.2; 
Chemicals: Number: 23; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 14.8; 
Facilities: Number: 70; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 14.3.

State: VT; 
Form Rs: Number: 25; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 27.2; 
Chemicals: Number: 9; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 23.7; 
Facilities: Number: 6; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 14.6.

State: WA; 
Form Rs: Number: 276; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 26.4; 
Chemicals: Number: 22; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 19.8; 
Facilities: Number: 43; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 12.5.

State: WI; 
Form Rs: Number: 692; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 25.4; 
Chemicals: Number: 31; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 21.2; 
Facilities: Number: 113; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 12.5.

State: WV; 
Form Rs: Number: 222; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 22.8; 
Chemicals: Number: 40; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 24.1; 
Facilities: Number: 35; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 17.4.

State: WY; 
Form Rs: Number: 60; 
Form Rs: Percentage of total: 23.6; 
Chemicals: Number: 9; 
Chemicals: Percentage of total: 14.5; 
Facilities: Number: 5; 
Facilities: Percentage of total: 10.9.

State: Total; 
Form Rs: Number: 22,193; 
Facilities: Number: 3,565. 

Source: GAO analysis of EPA 2005 TRI data.

[End of table]

[End of section]

Appendix III: Comparison of Information Collected on the Form R and the 
Form A Certification Statement:

Facilities must submit a detailed Form R report for each designated 
chemical that they manufactured, processed, and/or otherwise used 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 on-site to the air, 
water, land, and injected underground, or transferred for disposal or 
release off-site. According to EPA, Form A can be used by the public as 
a "range report" because it indicates that the facility managed between 
0 and 500 pounds of a PBT chemical as waste and had no releases or 
other disposal quantities. For a non-PBT chemical, the Form A indicates 
that a facility managed between 0 and 5,000 pounds of a chemical as 
waste, of which no more than 2,000 pounds was released or otherwise 
disposed. Table 4 provides details about the specific information that 
facilities provide on the Form R and Form A.

Table 4: Information Collected on the TRI Form R and Form A 
Certification Statement:

Form R: Facility Identification Information; 
* TRI Facility ID Number; 
* Reporting year; 
* Trade secret information (if claiming that toxic chemical is trade 
secret); 
* Certification by facility owner/operator or senior management 
official; 
* Facility name, mailing address; 
* Whether form is for entire facility, part of facility, federal 
facility, or contractor at federal facility; 
* Technical contact name, telephone number, Email address; 
* Public contact name, telephone number; 
* North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes; 
* Dun & Bradstreet number; 
* Parent company information (name, Dun & Bradstreet number). 

Form A: Facility Identification Information; 
* TRI Facility ID Number; 
* Reporting year; 
* Trade secret information (if claiming that toxic chemical is trade 
secret); 
* Certification by facility owner/operator or senior management 
official; 
* Facility name, mailing address; 
* Whether form is for entire facility, part of facility, federal 
facility, or contractor at federal facility; 
* Technical contact name, telephone number, Email address; 
* Public contact name, telephone number; 
* North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes; 
* Dun & Bradstreet number; 
* Parent company information (name, Dun & Bradstreet number). 

Form R: Chemical Specific Information; 
* Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) registry number; 
* EPCRA Section 313 chemical or chemical category name; 
* Generic name; 
* Distribution of each member of the dioxin or dioxin-like compound 
category; 
* Generic name provided by supplier if chemical is component of a 
mixture; 
* Activities and uses of the chemical at facility, whether chemical is: 
- produced or imported for on-site use/processing, for 
sale/distribution, as a byproduct, or as an impurity; 
- processed as a reactant, a formation component, article component, 
repackaging, or as an impurity; 
- otherwise used as a chemical processing aid, manufacturing aid, or as 
an ancillary or other use; 
* Maximum amount onsite at any time during the year. 

Form A: Chemical Specific Information; 
* Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) registry number; 
* EPCRA Section 313 chemical or chemical category name; 
* Generic name.

Form R: On-site Chemical Release Data; 
* Quantities released on-site to: 
- air as fugitive or non-point emissions; 
- air as stack or point emissions; 
- surface water as discharges to receiving streams or water bodies 
(including names of streams or water bodies); 
- underground injection; 
- land, including RCRA Subtitle C landfills, other landfills, land 
treatment/application farming, RCRA Subtitle C surface impoundments, 
other surface impoundments, other land disposal; 
* Basis for estimates of releases (i.e., monitoring data or 
measurements, mass balance calculations, emissions factors, other 
approaches); 
* Quantity released as a result of remedial actions, catastrophic 
events, or one-time events not associated with production processes. 

Form A: On-site Chemical Release Data; Not reported on Form A.

Form R: On-site Chemical Waste Management Data; 
* Quantities managed on-site through: 
- recycling; 
- energy recovery; 
- treatment; 
* Recycling processes (e.g., metal recovery by smelting, solvent 
recovery by distillation); 
* Energy recovery methods (e.g., kiln, furnace, boiler); 
* Waste treatment methods (e.g., scrubber, electrostatic precipitator) 
for each waste stream (e.g., gaseous, aqueous, liquid non-aqueous, 
solids); 
* On-site waste treatment efficiency. 

Form A: On-site Chemical Waste Management Data; Not reported on Form A. 

Form R: Off-site Transfers for Release or Other Waste Management; 
* Quantities transferred to any Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTW): 
- POTW name(s), address(es); 
* Quantities transferred to other location for disposal or other release: 
- underground injection; 
- other land release; 
* Quantities transferred to other location for waste management: 
- treatment; 
- recycling; 
- energy recovery; 
* 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; 
* Off-site location(s) name and address; 
* Basis for estimates for amounts transferred; 
* Whether receiving location(s) is/are under control of reporting 
facility/parent company. 

Form A: Off-site Transfers for Release or Other Waste Management; Not 
reported on Form A.

Form R: Source Reduction and Recycling Activities; 
* Total quantities, for (1) the prior and (2) current reporting years 
and estimated totals for (3) the following and (4) second following 
years for: 
- on-site disposal to underground injection wells, RCRA Subtitle C 
landfills, and other landfills; 
- other on-site disposal or other releases; 
- off-site transfer to underground injection wells, RCRA Subtitle C 
landfills, and other landfills; 
- other off-site disposal or other releases; 
- on-site treatment; 
- on-site recycling; 
- on-site energy recovery; 
- off-site treatment; 
- off-site recycling; 
- off-site energy recovery; 
* Production ratio or activity index; 
* Source reduction activities the facility engaged in during the 
reporting year (e.g., inventory control, spill/leak prevention, product 
modifications); 
* Option to submit additional information on source reduction, 
recycling, or pollution control activities. 

Form Am A: Source Reduction and Recycling Activities. Not reported on 
Form A.

Sources: EPA TRI Form R and Form A Certification Statement.

[End of table]

[End of section]

Appendix IV: Comments from the Environmental Protection Agency:

Note: GAO comments supplementing those in the report text appear at the 
end of this appendix. 

United States Environmental Protection Agency: 
Office Of Environmental Information: 
Washington, D.C. 20460: 

Internet Address (URL): 
[hyperlink, http://www.epa.gov]: 

October 4, 2007

Mr. John B. Stephenson: 
Director: 
Natural Resources and Environment: United States Government 
Accountability Office: Washington, DC 20548: 

RE: EPA Comments on the Government Accountability Office's (GAO) draft 
report to Congress entitled Toxic Chemical Releases: EPA Actions Could 
Reduce Environmental Information Available to Many Communities (GAO-07-
880): 

Dear Mr. Stephenson:

This letter provides the United States (U.S.) Environmental Protection 
Agency's (EPA) comments on GAO's draft report entitled Toxic Chemical 
Releases: EPA Actions Could Reduce Environmental Information Available 
to Many Communities (GAO-07-880). EPA appreciates the thorough and 
thoughtful review GAO conducted as well as the opportunity to provide 
comments on this draft report to Congress. EPA disagrees, however, with 
a number of conclusions reached by GAO as well as with GAO's 
recommendation that EPA report to Congress, within 30 days of the final 
GAO report, providing a new evaluation of the costs and benefits 
anticipated to communities and reporting industries from increased use 
of Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Form A and advising whether EPA will 
revisit the rule.

Before addressing GAO's concerns about process, however, we emphasize 
that the December 22, 2006 TRI rule put into place important incentives 
to reduce chemical emissions and increase recycling and treatment as 
alternatives to disposal and other releases. This rule does not excuse 
any facilities from reporting to TRI. The only change in requirements 
is that facilities are permitted to use the short form (Form A) if they 
maintain releases and total wastes below levels set in the rule. With 
these incentives the rule is an important part of EPA's strategy to 
minimize releases of toxic chemicals across the United States. [See 
comment 1] 

As far as the rulemaking process is concerned, EPA disagrees with GAO's 
conclusion that failure to follow internal guidelines for rulemaking 
resulted in an inadequate consideration of the costs and benefits 
associated with expanded Form A eligibility. EPA exercised discretion 
provided within the Agency's Action Development Process (ADP) while 
developing the proposed rule and the draft GAO report acknowledges that 
senior EPA management has discretion to accelerate regulatory 
development (p.12). Before EPA finalized expanded Form A eligibility 
for both Persistent, Bioaccumulative, and Toxic (PBT) chemicals and non-
PBT chemicals, EPA entertained extensive stakeholder participation and 
completed a thorough evaluation of the uses of TRI data and associated 
economic and policy issues. Consideration of expanding Form A 
eligibility began in 2004, well before even the proposed rulemaking 
commenced, with the posting of a white paper on the Internet and 
consideration of hundreds of stakeholder comments on this as well as 
other burden reduction options. [See comment 2] 

We further note that expanded Form A eligibility under the December 
2006 rule was based on all the analyses completed and considered as 
part of the final rulemaking record. It is the full rulemaking record, 
consisting of input received before proposal and during the public 
comment period, as well as analyses by the Agency undertaken in 
response to comments that is best reviewed to determine whether 
adequate analyses were conducted before EPA issued the final rule. [See 
comment 3] 

EPA believes fully that all appropriate and necessary analyses were 
conducted and would be happy to discuss this further with GAO in the 
context of the full rulemaking process (proposal and final rule). 
Please note, however, that the entire economic analysis, prepared based 
on OMB-approved burden estimates for completing Form R and Form A, is 
in the publicly-accessible docket for the final rule. It includes 
analyses at the state, local, and facility levels (e.g., zip code and 
facility analyses identifying areas/facilities which might receive/file 
fewer or no Form Rs, and for which chemicals). These analyses enabled 
EPA to more fully consider comments submitted on the proposed rule. In 
fact, these analyses are similar to those undertaken by GAO for this 
draft report, though GAO used 2005 TRI data, which were not available 
at the time EPA conducted its analyses. (EPA used 2004 data for the 
final rule analyses.) Between January 2006 and December 2006, EPA 
carefully considered and evaluated with workgroup input the more than 
100,000 comments submitted in response to the proposed rule and some of 
these analyses were prepared during that process. [See comment 4] 

Consideration of the final rulemaking supporting analyses and decision-
making is important when evaluating this EPA initiative. EPA in fact 
modified provisions from the proposed rule after thoughtful 
consideration of the thousands of comments received, most of them 
voicing concern about the impacts to local communities from the loss of 
detailed Form R information, especially detailed release information. 
Specifically, EPA decided to modify the proposed expansion of Form A 
eligibility for non-PBT chemicals to include a 2,000-pound cap on 
releases. [See comment 5] 

Another important consideration is that Form A provides useful 
information. Aside from a brief footnote on page 31, GAO fails to make 
clear in its report that in addition to providing information about the 
facility and identifying the toxic chemical being submitted on Form A, 
Form A also can be used by the public as a "range report," i.e., an 
indication that the facility manages as waste between 0 and 500 pounds 
of a PBT chemical and has no releases or other disposal, and for a non-
PBT chemical, the facility manages between 0 and 5,000 pounds of the 
chemical as waste, of which no more than 2,000 pounds is released or 
otherwise disposed. [See comment 6] 

EPA issued a final rule to promote improvements in environmental 
performance by providing incentives to reduce chemical emissions and to 
increase recycling and treatment of chemicals, while minimizing the 
loss of information to communities about toxic releases and pollution 
prevention. As proposed and finalized, the TRI rule rewards facilities 
that completely eliminate releases of the worst environmental 
substances, PBT chemicals, by permitting such facilities to use the 
shorter Form A, provided they do not exceed 500 pounds total for 
recycling, energy recovery, and treatment. In response to commenters 
concerns about 5,000 pounds of non-PBT releases being eligible for Form 
A, EPA decided to limit expanded Form A eligibility for non-PBT 
chemicals to those facilities that reduce or maintain releases to 2,000 
pounds or less, provided their total waste does not exceed 5,000 
pounds. The rule's limits on total waste quantities encourage pollution 
prevention thereby promoting national policy under the Pollution 
Prevention Act that pollution should be prevented or reduced at the 
source whenever feasible. [See comment 7] 

The final rule's potential for promoting improvements in environmental 
performance is another reason EPA disagrees with GAO's recommendation 
for a cost-benefit analysis within 30 days of the final report. EPA has 
already performed analyses focused on the potential impacts of the rule 
as finalized. These analyses have been placed in the publicly-
accessible docket for the rule. Another set of analyses focused on 
potential impacts would be redundant with what EPA has already 
undertaken. An analysis of actual results of the rule (i.e., 
information lost compared to environmental performance improvements 
resulting from the final rule) would be meaningful but at this point in 
time, premature. The rule was finalized in December 2006. Therefore, we 
would not expect the effects of the new incentives to be reflected in 
2006 reports (received by July 1, 2007). However, beginning with 2007 
reports (due to EPA by July 1, 2008), EPA will evaluate the 
effectiveness of expanded Form A eligibility in reducing releases and 
promoting pollution prevention. As part of our evaluation of the 
effectiveness of the rule's incentives to reduce releases and promote 
pollution prevention EPA will continue to explore other ways to reduce 
toxic chemical releases and encourage better waste management 
practices. [See comment 8] 

EPA values TRI as the cornerstone of successful environmental 
information programs. The Agency will continue to demonstrate its 
commitment to this information program through a range of compliance-
assistance activities (e.g., training workshops, guidance documents) 
and technology-based enhancements (e.g., electronic reporting software 
and Internet-based form submission) which improve the quality, utility, 
and the timeliness of the TRI data. The TRI rule expanding Form A 
eligibility represents yet another innovative approach by the Agency to 
use TRI information to encourage facilities to reduce their emissions 
and improve their environmental performance. [See comment 9] 

If you would like to discuss these matters further, please contact me 
at 202-564-6665 or your staff may contact Michael Petruska, Director of 
the TRI Program Division at (202) 566-1686. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Molly A. O'Neill: 
Assistant Administrator and Chief Information Officer: 

The following are GAO's comments on the Environmental Protection 
Agency's letter dated October 4, 2007. 

GAO Comments: 

1. We disagree with EPA's assertion that the TRI rule put into place 
important incentives to reduce chemical emissions and increase the use 
of alternatives to disposal and other releases. To the contrary, we 
concluded that the rule may actually reduce the incentives for a 
facility to prevent pollution by allowing up to 2,000 pounds of 
releases for those chemicals--a quadrupling of the threshold. 
Furthermore, as we show in appendix III, Form A provides no details 
about a facility's efforts to increase use of alternatives such as 
source reduction, recycling, or treatment of chemicals. We agree with 
EPA's assertion that the only change in requirements is that facilities 
are permitted to use the short form (Form A) if they maintain releases 
and total wastes below levels set in the rule. Indeed, we described the 
old and new Form A requirements in the first pages of this report. 
However, we did not state or imply that any facilities would be excused 
from submitting a TRI Form R or Form A under EPA's rule. Instead, our 
analysis showed that thousands of facilities that previously filed Form 
R may file Form A under the new levels. Given differences in the amount 
and specificity of information on Form R and Form A, which we presented 
in appendix III, we concluded that EPA's change could result in 
significantly less information about toxic chemicals being reported to 
communities around the country. For example, our analysis shows that 
EPA's levels do not maintain any Form R reporting for certain 
chemicals. Also, as we recently testified, the change appears likely to 
disproportionately impact minority and low-income communities.[Footnote 
41] Consequently, we believe that EPA's assertion about the change in 
requirements, while technically correct, misrepresents the impact of 
that change on the intended recipients of toxic chemical information 
provided by the TRI.

2. We disagree with EPA's contention that it completed a thorough 
evaluation of the uses of TRI data and the associated economic and 
policy issues. Although EPA does have discretion to accelerate 
regulatory development, we continue to believe that, in this instance, 
the agency's acceleration of the rule relatively late in the 
development process, coupled with pressure from OMB to provide burden 
reduction at levels advocated by the Small Business Administration 
(e.g., a 5,000 pound Form A threshold), resulted in a poorly analyzed 
proposed rule that drew criticism from thousands of commenters. In 
response to EPA's comment, however, we have added a sentence to clarify 
that we considered in our review the results of EPA's stakeholder 
process, which started well before the proposed rulemaking commenced. 
In fact, that process began in November 2003 and concluded in February 
2004, even earlier than EPA indicated in its letter. We also added a 
sentence to make clear that EPA officially began its rule-making 
process by approving the Action Initiation Form on March 30, 2004.

3. We agree with EPA's statement that the full rulemaking record is 
best reviewed to determine whether adequate analyses were conducted 
before EPA issued the final rule. Indeed, we reviewed all relevant 
documentation in the record, and none of that material--including the 
studies that EPA inserted into the record between the proposed and 
final rules--addresses the shortcomings that we have identified in our 
report. For example, EPA did not fully consider the impacts of the rule 
on users and recipients of TRI data, including the states, which under 
the law, receive TRI data directly from facilities. It is for this 
reason that many commenters, including states and EPA's own Science 
Advisory Board, objected to any increase in the Form A threshold 
provided for in the proposed or final rules. EPA also did not 
substantiate its assertion that the final TRI rule puts into place 
important incentives to reduce chemical emissions and increase 
recycling and treatment as alternatives to disposal and other releases. 
If that claim is true, as EPA contends, then some analysis is warranted 
to support it. Prior to the rule, a facility could use Form A if its 
total waste management did not exceed 500 pounds. For example, a 
facility could use Form A if it released 100 pounds of a non-PBT 
chemical and treated an additional 400 pounds of the chemical for 
disposal (i.e., a total annual reportable amount of no more than 500 
pounds). Now, instead of treating the 400 pounds of chemical, that same 
facility could simply release all 500 pounds and qualify for Form A. 
EPA has not demonstrated in any analysis that the incentives to 
decrease releases outweigh the incentives to increase releases of 
chemicals.

4. We disagree that all appropriate and necessary analyses were 
conducted for either the proposed or final rule. Contrary to EPA's 
assertion, we considered the entire economic analysis that EPA included 
in the publicly accessible docket for the final rule--in addition to 
reviewing extensive internal documentation that is not publicly 
available and conducting interviews with knowledgeable EPA staff to 
clarify our understanding--regarding the rulemaking process. We do not 
believe that any further discussion is necessary without analyses or 
comments from its program offices that were not available in the 
publicly-accessible docket or made available for our review. We also 
considered the 122,000 public comments--99 percent of which did not 
support the TRI rule--and EPA's analysis of them. GAO continues to 
believe that EPA has not demonstrated that the costs of the TRI rule 
exceed its benefits.

5. We considered the supporting analyses of the final rulemaking in our 
evaluation. We clearly stated in our draft report that EPA decided to 
modify the proposed expansion of Form A eligibility from 500 to 5,000 
pounds of releases so that the final rule only allowed a fourfold 
increase in releases (from 500 to 2,000) pounds within a 10-fold 
increase in total waste management practices (from 500 to 5,000 pounds).

6. We have included additional explanation in the report to clarify 
that EPA considers the Form A to be a range report indicating to the 
public that a facility released between 0 and 2,000 pounds of a 
chemical. At the same time, we note EPA's own statement in the final 
rule that some facilities eligible for Form A continue to report on 
Form R out of a desire to showcase their pollution prevention efforts 
or to demonstrate good environmental stewardship. That is, some 
facilities choose not to use Form A to avoid giving the impression that 
their releases may have been as large as the range allows. For example, 
a facility that released 100 pounds of a chemical may file Form R 
because it does not want the public to assume its releases may have 
been as high as 2,000 pounds.

7. We disagree that EPA has demonstrated that the rule provides 
incentives to reduce chemical emissions while minimizing the loss of 
information to communities about toxic releases and pollution 
prevention, especially for non-PBT chemicals. In fact, we concluded 
that the rule may actually reduce the incentives for a facility to 
prevent pollution by allowing up to 2,000 pounds of releases for those 
chemicals. Appendix III of this report shows that Form A provides no 
details about a facility's efforts to increase source reduction, 
recycling, or treatment of chemicals. Form A leaves the public to 
assume that the facility is releasing between 0 and 2,000 pounds of a 
chemical and is managing (e.g., recycling, treating) between 0 and 
5,000 pounds of that chemical. With regard to EPA's comment that the 
rule promotes national policy under the Pollution Prevention Act of 
1990--it is unclear whether expanded use of Form A serves that policy. 
The Congress declared in the Pollution Prevention Act that the national 
policy of the United States is that (1) pollution should be prevented 
or reduced at the source whenever feasible; (2) pollution that cannot 
be prevented should be recycled in an environmentally safe manner, 
whenever feasible; (3) pollution that cannot be prevented or recycled 
should be treated in an environmentally safe manner whenever feasible; 
and (4) disposal or other release into the environment should be 
employed only as a last resort and should be conducted in an 
environmentally safe manner. EPA apparently assumes that some 
facilities will reduce the amount of toxic chemicals they release in 
order to qualify for the new, higher Form A thresholds. However, 
facilities that are presently below these thresholds could now increase 
their releases of toxic chemicals without triggering the requirement to 
file Form R. EPA provides no evidence that the higher Form A thresholds 
will result in net source reduction. Therefore, we disagree that 
increasing the amount of releases and other waste management allowed on 
Form A supports national policy to prevent or reduce pollution at its 
source.

8. We disagree that EPA has sufficiently supported its assertion that 
the final rule promotes improvements in environmental performance. In 
fact, only Form R allows facilities to showcase to the public their 
improvements. In drafting our report, we reviewed all supporting 
materials that EPA provided in the docket for the proposed and final 
rules. Although an analysis of actual results of the rule would be 
meaningful, we agree with EPA that it is premature. However, EPA could 
have lent credibility to this assertion by providing an analysis to 
determine whether, for example, whether introduction of Form A in 1995 
led to improvements in facilities' environmental performance.

9. We disagree that requiring less information from many facilities 
will encourage them to reduce emissions and improve their environmental 
performance. As a general matter, EPA failed to establish that reducing 
the amount of information that those facilities must disclose would 
improve accountability for facilities to reduce emissions resulting 
from their use of toxic chemicals. Also, as discussed above, EPA did 
not explain the basis for its apparent belief that the incentives 
provided by the new Form A threshold will result in a net reduction in 
toxic chemical releases. Hence, it is unclear how EPA's course of 
action would improve, rather than hinder, facilities' overall 
environmental performance.

[End of section]

Appendix V: Comments from the Office of Management and Budget:

Note: GAO comments supplementing those in the report text appear at the 
end of this appendix. 

Executive Office Of The President: 
Office Of Management And Budget: 
Washington, D. C. 20503: 

October 30, 2007: 

Mr. John B. Stephenson: 
Director: 
Natural Resources and Environment: 
U.S. Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street, NW: 
Washington, D.C. 20548: 

Dear Mr. Stephenson:

This provides the comments of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 
on the excerpts that you have provided to us from the General 
Accounting Office's (GAO) draft report entitled, Toxic Chemical 
Releases, EPA Actions Could Reduce Environmental Information Available 
to Many Communities.

As explained below, we have serious concerns regarding how GAO has 
characterized, in these excerpts, OMB's activities under the Paperwork 
Reduction Act (PRA) and Executive Order (EO) 12866. Our concerns fall 
into three areas.

I. The GAO excerpts do not provide the necessary context for properly 
understanding OMB's role in reviewing the burden estimates for the 
Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) information collection.

Our first concern with the GAO excerpts is that they do not provide the 
necessary context (including an accurate and coherent chronology) that 
would enable the reader to understand properly OMB's successive 
interactions with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on, 
initially, EPA's request that OMB renew our approval under the 
Paperwork Reduction Act of EPA's collection of information for the TRI 
and, subsequently, OMB's review under Executive Order 12866 of EPA's 
draft proposed and final rules to amend EPA's TRI regulations. [See 
comment 1] 

As a result, the GAO excerpts suggest, erroneously, that OMB 
"increased" the estimated paperwork burden for the TRI collection of 
information (allegedly due to OMB's interest in influencing the burden 
estimates in connection with EPA's subsequent proposed rule on TRI 
burden reduction), when the fact is that OMB approved – in response to 
EPA's request – a reduction of 59% in the estimated PRA burden for the 
TRI collection. What the GAO excerpts describe as OMB's "increase" in 
the burden estimate is OMB's decision to approve a 59% reduction in the 
burden estimate, rather than the 73% reduction that EPA had requested. 
We do not understand how GAO can describe OMB's decision to approve a 
59% reduction in the PRA-approved burden estimate as OMB having 
"increased" the burden estimate. 

Here is the chronology. OMB's review of EPA's proposed downward re-
estimates of the paperwork burden took place during OMB's PRA reviews 
of two successive EPA requests for renewal of OMB's approval for the 
TRI collection of information. These PRA reviews took place in 2002 and 
2003, which was a year and a half before there was discussion involving 
OMB of any specific burden reductions proposals or estimates associated 
with EPA's proposed rule on TRI burden reduction (which was published 
in October 2005).

In the first of the two PRA reviews, EPA requested that the approved 
burden estimate for the TRI collection be reduced by 73% (from the 
previously-approved estimate of 10.257 million hours downward to 2.737 
million hours). Not only would this be a very large reduction in the 
previously-approved burden estimate, but it was not associated with any 
change in the paperwork requirements of the TRI collection. In other 
words, the requested burden-estimate reduction of 73% did not reflect 
any actual real-world reduction in paperwork burden. Nevertheless, 
based on OMB's review of EPA's burden re-estimate, OMB approved a 
reduction of 41% in the burden estimate (a reduction of 4.227 million 
hours). A primary reason OMB did not approve all of EPA's requested 
reduction is that OMB was concerned that EPA's estimates did not appear 
to account for all categories of burden, including time for data 
tracking and assembly; creation, operation and maintenance of data 
tracking systems; training; and compliance determinations. OMB 
explained the basis for this determination in the public PRA file, 
[Footnote 42] and OMB provided EPA with a 10-month approval so that EPA 
and OMB could revisit again whether additional reductions in the burden 
estimate were warranted. [See comment 2] 

During that second PRA review, EPA again requested a further reduction 
in the burden estimate, again with no associated reduction in the TRI 
paperwork requirements. OMB ultimately agreed to a further reduction of 
1.859 million hours.[Footnote 43] When combined with OMB's prior 
approval of the 41% reduction, this represented OMB's approval of a 
total reduction of 59% in the approved burden estimate, from the 
original 2002 baseline of 10.257 million hours. Moreover, in approving 
a 59% reduction, OMB had approved the lion's share (80%) of EPA's 
original request for a 73% reduction in the burden estimate.

In addition, with respect to the engineering analysis that is discussed 
in the excerpts, EPA did not present this information to OMB as part of 
our PRA review, but instead later on – after OMB had renewed the PRA 
approval for the TRI collection (and prior to the discussions and 
review of EPA's proposed TRI rule). Therefore, when OMB – during its 
PRA review – decided to accept most, but not all, of EPA's proposed 
downward re-estimate of paperwork burden (as discussed above), OMB was 
not rejecting the engineering analysis, for the obvious reason that EPA 
had not yet presented that analysis to OMB for our consideration. [See 
comment 3] 

EPA presented the engineering analysis to OMB in the summer of 2004, 
outside of the regular PRA approval process (in other words, EPA was 
not requesting the downward re-estimate as part of a request for OMB to 
renew the approval of the TRI collection). In response, OMB expressed 
concerns about the merits of the engineering analysis and suggested to 
EPA that it discuss the analysis in the preamble of the proposed TRI 
burden-reduction rule the following year. EPA agreed with this 
approach. [See comment 4] 

In the preamble of the proposed rule, EPA described the engineering 
analysis. In addition, EPA also indicated that, if EPA had used this 
methodology as the baseline for estimating the burden reduction under 
the proposed rule, the total burden reduction resulting from the 
proposed rule would have been about three-fourths of the reduction as 
estimated using the currently approved PRA-burden estimate as the 
baseline.

Thus, neither OMB nor EPA concealed either the engineering analysis or 
what the results would be if its methodology were used to estimate the 
burden reductions that would occur under the proposed rule. EPA placed 
in the public docket for the proposed rule both estimates of burden 
reduction (the one using the current PRA-approved burden estimate and 
the other using the engineering analysis), and EPA requested public 
comment on both estimates. EPA also summarized, in the preamble, the 
results of the independent peer review that EPA had arranged of the 
engineering analysis:

The peer review panel was generally favorable to both the general 
methodology used in the engineering analysis (summing across Form R 
elements to derive total burden) and the specific form completion steps 
described. However, the panel felt that the time allocated for many of 
the tasks should be increased. The panel disagreed with the assumption 
in the Agency's engineering analysis that a typical TRI reporting 
facility was reasonably modern and well-organized. A majority of the 
panel thought that EPA overestimated the experience and knowledge that 
a typical TRI reporting facility would have in completing its Form R 
and thus underestimated the time it would take to complete the Form. 
[Footnote 44] 

In response to the proposed rule, EPA received a number of comments on 
the engineering analysis. The comments were mixed, with several 
comments questioning the validity of its methodology and/or the lower 
baseline burden estimates that would result from it. [Footnote 45] 
After reviewing the public comments, EPA decided not to use the 
methodology of the engineering analysis in estimating the burden 
reduction that would result from the final rule.

II. The GAO excerpts do not provide a complete and balanced 
presentation of OMB's review of the revised burden estimates that EPA 
proposed.

Our second concern, closely related to the first, is that the GAO 
excerpts do not provide a complete and balanced presentation of OMB's 
actions in approving most, but not all, of the proposed downward re-
estimates that EPA had put forward for the paperwork burden that is 
imposed by the TRI collection of information. [See comment 5] 

As part of our responsibilities under the Paperwork Reduction Act, OMB 
regularly reviews the re-estimates that agencies develop of the burdens 
imposed by their paperwork requirements. Such re-estimates and reviews 
are a normal part of the PRA process. That is because, under the PRA, 
OMB's approval for a collection of information must be renewed at least 
once every three years.

In this case, the downward re-estimate that EPA put forward, as part of 
EPA's request for OMB's renewal of the PRA approval for the TRI 
collection, were not associated with any actual change (i.e., 
reduction) in the paperwork requirements that are imposed by the TRI 
collection. In other words, in PRA terminology, the re-estimate was not 
associated with what we refer to as a "program change" (e.g., the 
elimination of certain questions, or a reduction in the frequency of 
reporting). Instead, EPA's re-estimate was just that – a change in 
EPA's estimate of the burden that was imposed by the (unchanged) TRI 
collection. In PRA terminology, we refer to such re-estimates as 
"adjustments." As OMB has explained in its annual PRA report to 
Congress (the "Information Collection Budget"), such adjustments can 
occur due to demographic and economic factors (e.g., during a 
recession, more people submit applications for unemployment benefits) 
or due to an agency's reconsideration of the prior burden estimates 
(e.g., because the agency has made a revision to its methodology for 
estimating paperwork burden). The downward re-estimates that EPA put 
forward for the TRI program included both types of "adjustments." That 
is, EPA reduced its estimates of both the number of TRI reports that 
would be filed and the time needed to complete each report.

Under the PRA, the preparation, review, and issuance of burden 
estimates is not an end in itself. Instead, burden estimates are an 
important part of the evaluation, which the PRA requires both the 
agency and OMB to conduct, of whether the "practical utility" of a 
proposed collection of information justifies the burden that the 
collection would impose on the public. For this reason, the burden 
estimates are most important when those estimates are associated with 
an agency's proposal to adopt a new collection or to make changes in a 
collection, such as by increasing – or decreasing – the reporting 
requirements (i.e., when there is a proposed "program change"). In such 
cases, the burden estimates are a key component in the evaluation, by 
the agency and by OMB, of whether the new collection (or the collection 
changes) should be proposed and approved. As noted above, EPA's request 
for a downward re-estimate of 73% did not result from a "program 
change" to the TRI collection, but instead was an "adjustment" based on 
EPA's reconsideration of the prior PRA-approved burden estimate.

As we have explained above, OMB approved 80% of EPA's proposed downward 
re-estimate (i.e., OMB approved a 59% reduction in the burden estimate, 
in response to EPA's request for a 73% reduction). This fact is not at 
all clear in the GAO excerpts. The excerpts describe the situation as 
OMB having increased the burden estimate for the TRI collection, and 
this is because the GAO excerpts use – as the operative "baseline" – 
EPA's burden estimate under its proposed 73% downward re-estimate. 
However, EPA's proposal is not the appropriate baseline to evaluate 
OMB's actions, because that is not the baseline that OMB, properly, 
applies under the PRA. Instead, the proper baseline is the estimate 
that had been previously approved for the TRI collection (which 
estimate EPA was proposing to reduce).

OMB approved most, but not all, of EPA's proposed burden re-estimate 
for the following reason. In the case of an information collection that 
is not being changed (as was the case with the TRI collection during 
OMB's PRA review), the starting point for the analysis is, as it should 
be, the collection's prior approved burden estimate. Re-estimates of 
burden — upward or downward — are permitted, and do occur, but they 
need to be explained and justified by reference to the prior approved 
estimate. In the absence of such explanation and justification, 
periodic re-estimates of burden could result in these estimates 
becoming meaningless. Accordingly, OMB decided to accept most but not 
all (i.e., 80%) of EPA's proposed downward re-estimate, because OMB had 
concluded that EPA sufficiently demonstrated that the original 2002 PRA-
approved burden estimate should be reduced by 59%, but OMB was not 
persuaded that the estimate should be reduced by 73%. OMB therefore 
proceeded to approve EPA's request that OMB renew its approval for the 
TRI collection, with the reduced burden estimate (reflecting the 59% 
reduction in the burden estimate from the original 2002 PRA-approved 
baseline). It should be noted that this did not mean that this would be 
the "final" burden estimate. That is because EPA could request a 
further re-estimate the next time that EPA submitted the proposed 
collection to OMB for review and approval. In fact, that is what had 
already happened in this case; OMB initially approved a 41% reduction 
in the burden estimate, and OMB subsequently approved a further 
reduction to the estimate, resulting in OMB having approved a total 
reduction of 59% in the burden estimate.

III. The GAO excerpts do not provide the necessary context for properly 
understanding EPA's decision to include an option for raising the Form 
A eligibility threshold in the proposed TRI Burden Reduction Rule.

Our third concern with the GAO excerpts relates to their discussion of 
OMB's role with respect to the inclusion, in EPA's proposed TRI rule, 
of an option to raise the Form A eligibility threshold from 500 to 
5,000 pounds. Again, we do not believe that the GAO excerpts provide a 
complete and balanced presentation of the facts. [See comment 6] 

As an initial matter, based on the GAO excerpts, one might conclude 
(erroneously) that the option of raising the Form A eligibility 
threshold was unheard of, and unanalyzed, before it was included in 
EPA's draft of the proposed rule. That is definitely not the case. The 
idea that one way to reduce TRI reporting burden would be by raising 
the Form A eligibility threshold had been a topic of discussion — both 
within the Federal Government and between the Federal Government and 
stakeholders — for many years, in part because several prior EPA rule 
makings had substantially increased the program's reporting burden.

In September 2002, EPA initiated a Stakeholder Dialogue process to 
identify improvements to the TRI and to develop opportunities to reduce 
the burden on reporting facilities. As part of that process, EPA issued 
a White Paper with options for TRI burden reduction intended to 
stimulate public comment. Option 3 in the White Paper was "Expanded 
Eligibility for the Form A Certification Statement," which included a 
discussion of raising the Form A eligibility threshold from 500 to 
either 1,000, 2,000 or 5,000 pounds,[Footnote 46] exactly the same 
options discussed in the proposed burden reduction rule several years 
later.

Moreover, the idea of raising the eligibility threshold had arisen in 
another public forum, which was OMB's request in February 2004 for the 
public to submit nominations for reducing regulatory burdens on the 
manufacturing sector.[Footnote 47] In response to this request, OMB 
received nominations for a wide variety of regulatory reforms, several 
of which – including one from the Small Business Administration's (SBA) 
Office of Advocacy – focused on the TRI program. [Footnote 48] (This 
was not the first time that the TRI program had been the subject of a 
reform nomination; the TRI program had also been nominated for reform 
in response to each of OMB's requests for nominations going back to 
2001. [Footnote 49]) One reform that the SBA Office of Advocacy 
specifically suggested was "expanding the number of filers eligible to 
use a `short form' annual form (Form A)." [Footnote 50] OMB and the 
relevant regulatory agencies then reviewed the 189 different sets of 
regulatory nominations. Based on that review, OMB and the regulatory 
agencies mutually agreed to pursue 76 of these nominations, and the 
agreed-upon course of action took various forms, such as the regulatory 
agency conducting a review and reporting back to OMB or the agency 
initiating a rulemaking.

OMB announced these 76 reforms in a report that OMB issued in March 
2005, and one of these reforms (#52) involved "Reporting and Paperwork 
Burden in the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) Program." As the report did 
for each of the 76 nominations, it summarized the comments that OMB had 
received in support of reform of the TRI program: "The required TRI 
database contains thousands of reports that show little or no release 
of toxic chemicals, an indication that expensive and time-consuming 
reports are required with little environmental benefit. Burden-
reduction reforms are needed such as raising the reporting thresholds 
on the amount of material that can be used without triggering a report. 
"[Footnote 51] The report then went on to outline the course of action 
to which OMB and EPA had mutually agreed, which included EPA issuing a 
proposed rule on TRI burden reduction in August 2005 and issuing the 
final rule in December 2006. 

Although it is not clear from the GAO excerpts, the March 2005 report 
must be what the excerpts are discussing when the excerpts refer, 
obliquely, to "EPA's commitment to OMB to provide burden reduction by 
the end of December 2006." Yes, this was a commitment that EPA had made 
to OMB, but this was also a commitment that EPA had made to itself and 
to the public.

Thus, the idea of increasing the Form A eligibility threshold, and 
EPA's commitment to issue a final burden-reduction rule by the end of 
2006, were a matter of public knowledge. By failing to provide this 
context (at least in the excerpts that we have received for review), 
GAO does not present a complete and balanced picture of EPA's 
development of the draft proposed rule.

Another context point, to which the GAO excerpts give insufficient 
weight, is that the discussion in the excerpts focuses on EPA's 
inclusion in the proposed rule of the option to increase the Form A 
eligibility threshold. In other words, this is a discussion of an 
option on which EPA was inviting public comment. Thus, by including 
this option in the proposed rule, EPA was not making a final decision 
to increase the eligibility threshold. Instead, EPA had decided that 
the long-discussed idea of increasing the eligibility threshold was 
serious enough to warrant inclusion in the proposed rule, so that this 
option would be subject to public scrutiny and comment (both in favor 
and against) that EPA would subsequently consider as it reviewed the 
public comments and developed the final rule. [See comment 7] 

We see nothing inappropriate about EPA including, in the proposed-rule, 
an option — namely, to increase the Form A eligibility threshold — that 
had long been a matter of policy discussion and that would be one 
possible and logical way of reducing the reporting burden of the TRI 
program. At the end of the day, what ultimately matters is the 
decisions that a rulemaking agency makes in its final rules. In this 
regard, courts review final rules; they do not review proposed rules. 
And, when the courts review a final rule, they evaluate whether the 
rulemaking agency has sufficiently justified the decisions that the 
agency has made in the final rule (not whether the agency had 
sufficiently justified, in the proposed rule, the agency's decision to 
include the particular options on which the agency was requesting 
public comment). Finally, we should note that, in its final rule on TRI 
burden reduction, EPA did not adopt the threshold increase as it had 
been proposed. Instead, in the final rule, EPA responded to the public 
comments on the proposal by adopting a significantly different (and 
smaller) increase in the eligibility threshold for releases to the 
environment (2000 pounds), while keeping the threshold for chemicals 
managed as waste at the proposed level of 5,000 pounds. 

In conclusion, OMB takes seriously its responsibility under the 
Paperwork Reduction Act to ensure the integrity of burden estimates. 
OMB reviewed a series of requests by EPA to reduce its estimates of TRI 
reporting burden, well before the development of specific options for 
the proposed burden reduction rule, and OMB approved most, but not all, 
of those estimated reductions. Contrary to the GAO excerpts, OMB's 
approval of a very substantial (59%) reduction in the burden estimate 
does not constitute OMB increasing the burden estimate. Moreover, with 
respect to EPA's subsequent rulemaking on reducing TRI burden, there 
was nothing inappropriate about EPA including in the proposed rule for 
which EPA was requesting public comment the long-discussed concept of 
increasing the Form A eligibility threshold. [See comment 8] 

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the excerpts from the draft 
GAO report. In order to correct the report, I request that your staff 
incorporate these comments.

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Kevin F. Neyland
Deputy Administrator: 
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs: 

Enclosures: 

The following are GAO's comments on the Office of Management and 
Budget's letter dated October 30, 2007.

GAO Comments:

1. We believe that the reader would be able to clearly understand OMB's 
successive interactions with EPA on the agency's request that OMB renew 
its approval under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) for EPA's 
collection of information for the TRI. The report provides considerable 
detail about the process used for estimating the baseline burden 
associated with collecting TRI information on Form R versus Form A. We 
provided that level of detail to help the reader understand that the 
net burden savings associated with EPA's changes is derived from the 
difference in burden estimates associated with each form. Nonetheless, 
we reviewed the relevant sections of the report and clarified that the 
reductions in TRI burden ultimately approved by OMB were smaller than 
the EPA requested but not necessarily "increased" relative to prior OMB 
information collection approvals.

2. We agree with OMB's assertion that EPA's request for a reduction in 
the approved burden estimate for the TRI collection was not associated 
with any change in the paperwork requirements of the TRI collection. 
However, we disagree with OMB's assertion that the revision did not 
reflect any "actual real-world reduction" in paperwork burden. In fact, 
the request for reduction was based on EPA's evolving understanding of 
the actual burden associated with reporting to the TRI based on best 
available information that the agency had at the time. We note that 
despite EPA's requests, OMB has not allowed EPA to contact more than 10 
TRI facilities to develop its burden reduction estimates.

3. OMB's comments implied that the report stated that the office 
rejected EPA's engineering analysis as part of a PRA review. The report 
simply compares the lower burden estimates derived from EPA's 
engineering analysis with the OMB-approved burden estimates for the TRI 
information collection. The report neither states nor implies that OMB 
rejected EPA's engineering analysis as part of an ICR. EPA staff 
knowledgeable about the ICR process stated that OMB had expressed 
concerns about the merits of the engineering analysis. When we met with 
OMB staff who were knowledgeable about the engineering analysis, they 
declined to provide details about the office's rationale on the grounds 
that such information was related to internal deliberations and OMB 
policy was to not discuss internal deliberations.

4. OMB stated that, as a result of concerns it raised, EPA decided to 
discuss the engineering analysis in the proposed TRI Burden Reduction 
Rule's preamble. OMB's comments also provided additional details about 
the comments that EPA received from the public on its engineering 
analysis. The excerpts that we provided to OMB did not include details 
of EPA's engineering analysis, or the public comments pertaining to it, 
because those details did not pertain to OMB's involvement in the TRI 
rule. Therefore, OMB had no reason to know that our draft report 
already included many of the details that OMB provided in its letter. 
OMB further stated that "neither OMB nor EPA concealed either the 
engineering analysis or what the results would be if its methodology 
were used to estimate the burden reductions that would occur under the 
proposed rule." Our report neither stated nor implied that OMB 
concealed any information. However, as noted earlier, OMB chose to not 
provide us with details about the office's concerns about the merits of 
EPA's engineering analysis.

5. OMB's comments raised a concern that the report excerpts did not 
provide a complete and balanced presentation of OMB's actions in 
approving most, but not all, of the proposed downward re-estimates that 
EPA requested in its TRI information collection. As we acknowledged 
previously, OMB did not have the benefit of the complete draft report, 
which provides context and balance. Specifically, none of the report's 
three objectives focused on OMB programs or even OMB's role in the TRI 
program. Nonetheless, to provide the reader with necessary context to 
understand the complexity in estimating the baseline burden associated 
with the TRI information collection requests (i.e., TRI Form R and Form 
A), we discuss OMB's actions under the PRA in approving EPA's recent 
TRI information collection requests. As we stated in an earlier 
comment, we have reviewed the report to ensure that our presentation of 
the facts clearly states that OMB did not approve all the reduction in 
estimated burden that EPA had requested and to ensure that the 
relatively smaller reduction is not construed as an increase in the 
baseline. Nonetheless, we do not believe that the level of detail 
provided by OMB's comments is proportional to the relative importance 
of OMB's role in the context of our report's scope and objectives.

6. OMB stated its belief that the excerpts provided by GAO do not 
provide a complete and balanced presentation of the facts associated 
with OMB's role in the development of EPA's TRI Burden Reduction Rule. 
OMB stated that one might erroneously conclude that the option of 
raising the Form A eligibility threshold was unheard of, and 
unanalyzed, before it was included in EPA's proposed rule. OMB stated 
that was "definitely not the case." We agree, and the draft report 
clearly states that we considered in our review the results of EPA's 
stakeholder process, which started well before the proposed rulemaking 
commenced. In fact, we state in the report that the TRI workgroup had 
carefully analyzed and decided to eliminate the option to raise the 
Form A eligibility threshold from its consideration, at an early step 
in the rule development process, because of the option's potential 
adverse impact on the TRI. Therefore, we do not agree that the reader 
will erroneously conclude that the option was unheard of or unanalyzed. 
Instead, we believe that the report as a whole provides the reader with 
the context to understand when in the rule development process OMB's 
preferred burden reduction option was identified, considered, 
evaluated, dropped from further consideration, and ultimately picked up 
again for inclusion in EPA's TRI Burden Reduction Rule.

7. OMB commented that it sees nothing inappropriate about EPA 
including, in the proposed rule, an option to increase the Form A 
eligibility threshold--that had long been a matter of policy 
discussion. Although our report explains that the option was identified 
well before the rulemaking process commenced, we do not believe that 
the length of time the option was discussed has much bearing on its 
appropriateness. Instead, our report focuses on the extent to which EPA 
followed its internal rule development process, which is intended to 
ensure that scientific, economic, and policy issues are adequately 
addressed at the appropriate stages of rule development and to ensure 
adequate stakeholder participation across EPA's offices until the final 
action is completed. OMB further stated that "at the end of the day, 
what ultimately matters is the decisions that a rulemaking agency makes 
in its final rules." We agree. Accordingly, our report discusses that 
EPA responded to the overwhelming negative public comments to its 
proposed rule by raising the Form A threshold only 4-fold, rather than 
10-fold, as EPA had proposed. Furthermore, our report evaluated the 
impact that the final rule may have on the TRI, and we concluded that 
EPA did not adequately address the analytical concerns we raised with 
its proposed rule in the supporting analysis the agency completed for 
the final rule [emphasis added]. Specifically, we found that despite 
the EPA's statement of the rule's purpose--to reduce burden while 
continuing to provide valuable information to the public--EPA did not 
adequately weight the benefits provided to facilities against the 
reduction in information available about toxic chemical releases to 
affected communities.

8. OMB concludes its comments by stating its belief that there was 
nothing inappropriate about EPA including in the proposed rule the long-
discussed concept of increasing the Form A eligibility threshold. Our 
report does not assert that inclusion of that option was inappropriate. 
Instead, we believe that EPA did not fully consider the true impacts 
its TRI Burden Reduction Rule would have on environmental information 
available to, and used by, many communities. In addition, we continue 
to believe that burden reduction can be achieved in ways that do not 
simultaneously reduce publicly-available information about use and 
management of toxic chemicals in many communities across the United 
States.

[End of section]

Appendix VI: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:

GAO Contact:

John Stephenson, (202) 512-3841, or stephensonj@gao.gov:

Staff Acknowledgments:

In addition to the contact named above, Steven Elstein, Assistant 
Director; Mark Braza; John Delicath; Karen Febey; Timothy Guinane; 
Terrance Horner, Jr.; Richard Johnson; Alison O'Neill; Jennifer 
Popovic; Steven Putansu; Kim Raheb; Michael Sagalow; and Jena Sinkfield 
also made key contributions.

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] Specifically, the rule expanded non-PBT chemical eligibility for 
Form A by raising the eligibility threshold to 5,000 pounds of total 
annual waste management (i.e., releases, recycling, energy recovery, 
and treatment for destruction) provided total annual releases of the 
non-PBT chemical comprise no more than 2,000 pounds of the 5,000-pound 
total waste management limit and provided the facility does not exceed 
a one-million-pound manufacture, process, or otherwise use activity 
threshold for the specific non-PBT chemical.

[2] Specifically, this rule allows the use of Form A for PBT chemicals, 
except dioxin and dioxin-like compounds, when total annual releases of 
a PBT chemical are zero and the total annual amount of the PBT chemical 
recycled, combusted for energy, and treated for destruction does not 
exceed 500 pounds provided the facility does not exceed a 1-million- 
pound manufacture, process, or otherwise use activity threshold for the 
specific PBT chemical.

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

[4] EPA reporting guidance states that the information contained in the 
Form R constitutes a "report," and the submission of a report to the 
appropriate authorities constitutes "reporting."

[5] [hyperlink, http://www.epa.gov/tri].

[6] 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 recycling 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.

[7] In a November 28, 2006, letter to Senator Lautenberg, the EPA 
Administrator announced that the agency had decided against moving 
forward with any changes to TRI reporting frequency. The letter did not 
specify EPA's reasons for abandoning the phase III initiative.

[8] Other types of actions that are covered by the guidance include 
policy statements, risk assessments, guidance documents, or models that 
may be used in future rulemakings.

[9] 44 U.S.C. § 3507(a).

[10] The Paperwork Reduction Act provides that no person shall be 
subject to any penalty for failing to maintain or provide information 
to any agency if the information collection request is invalid. 44 
U.S.C. § 3512. However, this provision is inapplicable to information 
explicitly required by statute, and accordingly does not relieve a 
facility of its reporting duty under EPCRA even in the absence of a 
valid TRI information collection request. Gossner Foods, Inc. v. 
Environmental Protection Agency, 918 F.Supp. 359, 362-63 (D. Utah 1996).

[11] 44 U.S.C. § 3508.

[12] Throughout the remainder of our report, we refer to our survey of 
state TRI coordinators simply as the survey of states. Unless otherwise 
specified, our discussion includes responses from 51 coordinators from 
the states and the District of Columbia.

[13] GAO, Toxic Chemical Releases: Survey of State Toxics Release 
Inventory Coordinators, GAO-08-129SP (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 26, 2007). 

[14] Form A essentially serves as a range report, revealing to the 
public that the facility released between 0 and 5,000 pounds of a non- 
PBT chemical.

[15] We estimated that approximately 11,700 new and 10,500 formerly- 
eligible Form R reports could convert to Form A under EPA's increased 
Form A thresholds.

[16] EPA cannot determine with certainty whether a facility exceeded 
the 1 million pound threshold, because facilities are not required to 
report quantities of a chemical that they manufactured, processed, or 
otherwise used.

[17] According to EPA, Form A serves as a range report, informing the 
public that a facility filing a Form A for a specific non-PBT chemical 
has total annual releases of that chemical in the range of zero to 
2,000 pounds and total waste management (which includes releases) in 
the range of zero to 5,000 pounds.

[18] Appendix II provides the number of affected facilities for each 
state.

[19] 42 U.S.C. §§ 11001-11050.

[20] 42 U.S.C. §§ 13101-13109.

[21] 5 U.S.C. § 706.

[22] Toxic Chemical Release Inventory Toxic Chemical Release Reporting 
Information Collection Request Supporting Statement; OMB Control No. 
2070-0093; EPA ICR #1363.14; October 2005 and Toxic Chemical Release 
Inventory Alternative Threshold For Low Annual Reportable Amounts; 
Toxic Chemical Release Reporting Information Collection Request 
Supporting Statement; OMB Control No. 2070-0143; EPA ICR #1704.08; 
October 2005.

[23] The original EPA burden amounts submitted to OMB for approval were 
expected to reduce total burden by approximately 62,000 hours, and the 
OMB-approved revisions increased burden reduction by about 97,000 hours 
to approximately 158,000 hours. 

[24] USEPA/OEI, Terms of Clearance for TRI ICR Renewal, January 20, 
2004. 

[25] Research Triangle Institute surveyed 18 facilities and collected 
1998 reporting year data indicating an average burden of 25.2 hours per 
form. The American Petroleum Institute survey 99 facilities and 
collected 2001 reporting year data, and EPA surveyed a total of 17 
facilities and collected 2000 and 2001 reporting year data from TRI-ME 
users. 

[26] TRI Reporting Burden Estimates, Memorandum, from Abt Associates, 
dated July 16, 2004. 

[27] In April 2002, EPA contacted nine facilities that file Form As to 
request information on the typical facility level burden associated 
with using the Form A. EPA found that the average facility level burden 
per chemical certification ranged from 11.2 to 15.5 hours depending on 
whether the midpoint or maximum range was used. However, one facility 
reported a much higher per chemical burden than the other eight 
facilities. Without this outlier, the average of facility-level burden 
hours per chemical certification would be 3.8 to 4.9 hours per chemical 
certified. 

[28] TRI Reporting Burden Estimates, Memorandum from Hilary Eustace, 
David Cooper, and Susan Day of Abt Associates to Paul Borst, EPA dated 
July 16, 2004.

[29] The engineering analysis derived estimates are based on the TRI 
reporting experiences of a typical facility. The Abt team of experts 
defined a typical facility as, among other things, (1) reasonably 
modern and well-organized; (2) having Internet access with reasonable 
connection speed; (3) normally, having no difference in completing a 
data element for a non-PBT versus PBT chemicals; and (4) having no 
significant changes to facility operations or waste management 
practices for subsequent-year reports.

[30] Response To Comments Toxics Release Inventory Phase 2 Burden 
Reduction Rule Office of Information Analysis and Access, Office of 
Environmental Information, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 
December 18, 2006.

[31] The National Mining Association is the industry association 
representing the producers of most of the nation's coal, metals, and 
industrial and agricultural minerals; the manufacturers of mining and 
mineral processing machinery, equipment and supplies; and the 
engineering and consulting firms, financial institutions and other 
firms serving the coal and hardrock mining industry. 

[32] These activities are (1) Form R calculations and report 
completion, (2) Form R recordkeeping/submission, (3) Form A 
calculations/certification, and (4) Form A recordkeeping/submission.

[33] Based on EPA's estimated TRI-ME savings of $11,737,699 from EPA's 
October 2003 ICR supporting statements.

[34] Oversight of Recent EPA Decisions, Hearing Before the Senate 
Committee on Environment and Public Works, 110th Cong. (2007).

[35] S. 595, introduced February 14, 2007.

[36] The bill 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. section 372.28 (or a successor regulation).

[37] H.R. 1055.

[38] Environmental Justice and the Toxics Release Inventory Reporting 
Program: Communities Have a Right to Know, Hearing Before the 
Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials, Committee on 
Energy and Commerce, House of Representatives, 110th Cong. (2007).

[39] GAO, Environmental Right-to-Know: EPA's Recent Rule Could Reduce 
Availability of Toxic Chemical Information Used to Assess Environmental 
Justice, GAO-08-115T (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 4, 2007).

[40] We estimated that approximately 11,700 new and 10,500 formerly- 
eligible Form R reports could convert to Form A under EPA's increased 
Form A thresholds.

[41] GAO-08-115T.

[42] See Notice of Office of Management and Budget Action, ICR 
reference numbers 200211-2070-005, and 200211-2070-006 (enclosed). 

[43] See Notice of Office of Management and Budget Action, ICR 
reference numbers 200310-2070-002, and 200310-2070-003 (enclosed). 

[44] Federal Register, Volume 70, Number 191, Tuesday, October 4, 2005, 
p 57827. 

[45] Response to Comments, Toxic Release Inventory Phase 2 Burden 
Reduction Rule, USEPA, December 18, 2006, pp 149-155 (enclosed). 

[46] TRI Phase II Stakeholder Dialog, EPA. Available at [hyperlink, 
http://www.epa.gov/tri/phase2/phase_2.htm#intro]. 

[47] Informing Regulatory Decisions: 2004 Draft Report to Congress on 
the Costs and Benefits of Federal Regulations and Unfunded Mandates on 
State, Local, and Tribal Entities, OMB, 2004. Available at [hyperlink, 
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/draft_2004_cbreport.pdf]. 

[48] Progress in Regulatory Reform: 2004 Report to Congress on the 
Costs and Benefits of Federal Regulations and Unfunded Mandates on 
State, Local, and Tribal Entities, OMB, 2004, p 70. Available at 
[hyperlink, http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/2004_cb_final.pdf]. 

[49] See, e.g., Making Sense of Regulation 2001 Report to Congress on 
the Costs and Benefits of Federal Regulations and Unfunded Mandates on 
State, Local, and Tribal Entities, OMB, 2001, p 94. Available at 
[hyperlink, 
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/costbenefitreport.pdf]. 

[50] Nominations for Regulatory Reform, Mar 2004, SBA, p 7. Available 
at [hyperlink, http://www.sba.gov/advo/laws/comments/ombO4_0514.pdf]. 

[51] Regulatory Reform of the US. Manufacturing Sector, OMB, 2005, p 
28. Available at [hyperlink, 
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/reports/manufacturing_initiative.p
df]. 

[End of section] 

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