> 12  States say Bush plan aids polluters 
>  
Attorneys general in 12 states,
> including New Hampshire,
> yesterday said the Bush administration's plan to
> change the annual Toxic Release
> Inventory would help polluters and hurt the public's
> right to know about health
> risks from the legal release of toxic waste in their
> neighborhoods. 
> The state officials contend that raising some
> baseline reporting thresholds and
> changing the annual release to every two years would
> have the greatest harm in
> low-income neighborhoods where plants are often
> located. 
> "New Hampshire would lose critical toxic release
> information from most companies
> currently reporting, hindering state and local
> efforts to protect the public
> from toxic releases," said Attorney General Kelly
> Ayotte of New Hampshire, the
> lone Republican in the effort. 
> Attorneys general in California, Connecticut,
> Illinois, IOWA, Maryland,
> Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York,
> Vermont and Wisconsin are also
> involved. 
> "The public has a fundamental right to know what
> hazardous materials their
> children and families are being exposed to in their
> communities," said Wisconsin
> Attorney General Peggy Lautenschlager. "No one has
> the right to hide their
> pollution, and the federal government has no
> business helping to cover up this
> vital information." 
> The Bush administration in September announced it
> wanted to reduce the
> regulatory burden on companies by allowing some to
> use a short form when they
> report their pollution to the EPA's Toxic Release
> Inventory. 
> Those changes would exempt companies from disclosing
> their toxic pollution on
> the long form if they claim to release fewer than
> 5,000 pounds of a specific
> chemical - the current limit is 500 pounds - or if
> they store it onsite but
> claim to release no amounts of the worst pollutants.
> Those include mercury, DDT,
> PCBs and other chemicals that persist in the
> environment and work up the food
> chain. However, companies must report any storage of
> dioxin or dioxin-like
> compounds, even if none are released. 
> "This EPA move appears to be yet another poorly
> considered notion to appease a
> few polluting constituents at the expense of a
> valuable program," said New York
> Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the lead state
> official in the effort. 
> EPA officials say communities will still know about
> the types of toxic releases,
> but not some of the details about how each chemical
> was managed or released. The
> inventory program began under a 1986 community
> right-to-know law. If Congress
> agrees, the first year the changes could be possible
> would be 2008. 
> "EPA's proposal would create incentive to accelerate
> environmental protection
> and improve public health while maintaining
> competitiveness for small businesses
> by setting a very high environmental bar," said Eryn
> Witcher, an EPA
> spokeswoman. "That is, if they significantly reduce
> pollution going into the
> environment from their facilities, they can reduce
> red tape and paperwork by
> using a more streamlined reporting form." 
> Low-income neighborhoods would be hurt most, said
> New Jersey Attorney General
> Peter Harvey. 
> "Citizens will be stripped of one of the most
> effective tools they have ever
> had," Harvey said. 
> A three-part series by The Associated Press in
> December that provided air
> pollution data for neighborhoods nationwide
> underscored the need for full and
> frequent disclosure of the data, said Judith Enck,
> an environmental specialist
> in the New York Attorney General's Office. 
> "The toxic release inventory is the essential first
> tool you look at to see
> patterns as the AP did very effectively," Enck said.
> Without the Toxic Release
> Inventory, "you don't get very far," she said. 
> "States need to fight back against a Bush
> administration that seems to believe
> that Americans don't have a right to know about
> poisons being pumped into our
> air and water and wants to give polluters a free
> pass," said U.S. Sen. John
> Kerry, D-Mass. "We all have a right to know what is
> in our environment ... the
> truth is the administration is just helping big
> corporate polluters avoid public
> scrutiny." 


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