There goes half your right to know

We never even noticed, did we?

The Environmental Protection Agency would sharply curtail public reporting of releases of toxic chemicals into the environment under a proposal published in the Federal Register on October 4.

The EPA's Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), which was created in the wake of the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India, is a landmark achievement of the community "right to know" movement that pressed for improved public reporting of toxic chemical hazards.

It has functioned successfully for nearly two decades, leading to significant reductions in releases of toxic chemicals.

But now EPA proposes to drastically reduce the data collected and reported in the Toxic Release Inventory, beginning with a move to eliminate the current annual reporting requirement in favor of reporting every other year...

Other changes to the threshold for reporting, he said, would mean that "pollution information from almost 4,000 facilities would essentially disappear."

In its October 4 Federal Register notice, the EPA said these changes are needed "to reduce the reporting burden associated with TRI reporting requirements."

Critical background on the EPA proposal may be found in this Action Alert from OMB Watch:

http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/3117/1/396

The web site of the EPA's Toxic Release Inventory Program is here:

http://www.epa.gov/tri/

Yes, but look how beautiful our minds will be!