In commenting on our draft 2005 report, EPA  disagreed with the four recommendations we made, saying it was already  paying appropriate attention to environmental justice. A year later, in its  August 24, 2006 letter to the Comptroller General, EPA responded more  positively to our recommendations and committed to taking a number of  actions to address these issues. As we testified in July 2007, EPA’s actions to date were sufficiently  incomplete that measurable benchmarks are needed to achieve  environmental justice goals and hold agency officials accountable for  making meaningful progress on environmental justice issues. EPA’s TRI Rulemaking Deviated From Key Internal Guidelines, Including Some Related to Environmental Justice

As I discussed in our February 2007 testimony, EPA deviated from key  internal guidelines in developing the TRI Burden Reduction Rule. EPA’s  Action Development Process provides a sequence of steps designed to  ensure that scientific, economic, and policy issues are adequately  addressed at the appropriate stages of rule development and to ensure  cross-agency participation until the final rule is completed. Nevertheless, we identified  several significant differences between the guidelines and the process that  EPA followed in developing the TRI rule. The first two  options allowed facilities to use Form A in lieu of Form R for PBT  chemicals, provided the facility had no releases to the environment. Second, we found problems with the extent to which the agency sought  input from internal stakeholders. Third, our review of EPA’s rule development process found that the  agency did not conduct an environmental justice analysis to substantiate  its assertion that the TRI rule would not have environmental justice  impacts. In its proposed rule, EPA stated that it had “no indication that  either option [changing reporting requirements for non-PBT and PBT  chemicals] will disproportionately impact minority or low-income  communities.” EPA concluded that it “believes that the data provided  under this proposed rule will continue to provide valuable information  that fulfills the purposes of the TRI program…” and that “the principal  consequence of finalizing today’s action would be to reduce the level of  detail available  on some toxic chemical releases or  management.” However, the reason EPA said it had no indication about  environmental justice impacts is because the agency did not complete an  environmental justice assessment before it published the rule for comment  in the Federal Register. (Compare table  1, columns B and C.) EPA argued that “while there is a higher proportion  of minority and low-income communities in close proximity to some TRI  facilities than in the population generally, the rule does not appear to have  a disproportionate impact on these communities, since facilities in these  communities are no more likely than elsewhere to become eligible to use  Form A as a result of the rule.” However, EPA’s analysis indicates that TRI  facilities are in communities that are one-third more minority and one- quarter more low-income, on average, than the U.S. population as a whole. However, the agency did not explain or  provide support for this assumption. Our analysis shows that EPA’s TRI 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 into their environment. However, to understand the potential impact of EPA’s changes to TRI  reporting requirements more locally, we used 2005 TRI data to estimate  the number of detailed Form R reports that would no longer have to be  submitted in each state and found that nearly 22,200 Form R reports (28  percent) could convert to Form A under EPA’s new Form A thresholds. Although the  facility’s releases totaled about 5,000 pounds, it released less than 2,000  pounds of each chemical, and therefore would no longer have to file Form  Rs for them.
Why GAO Did This Study

A 1994 Executive Order sought to ensure that minority and low-income populations are not subjected to disproportionately high and adverse health or environ-mental effects from agency activities. In a July 2005 report, GAO made several recommendations to improve the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) adherence to these environmental justice principles. The Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 (EPCRA) requires certain facilities that use toxic chemicals to report their releases to EPA, which makes the information available in the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). Since 1995, facilities may submit a brief statement (Form A) in lieu of the more detailed Form R if releases of a chemical do not exceed 500 pounds a year. In January 2007, EPA finalized the TRI Burden Reduction Rule, quadrupling to 2,000 pounds what facilities can release before having to disclose details using Form R. Congress is considering codifying the Executive Order and requiring EPA to implement GAO's environ-mental justice recommendations. Other legislation would amend EPCRA to, among other things, revert the Form A threshold to 500 pounds or less. In this testimony, GAO discusses (1) EPA's response to GAO's environmental justice recommendations, (2) the extent to which EPA followed internal guidelines when developing the TRI rule and (3) the impact of the rule on communities and facilities.

What GAO Found

EPA initially disagreed with GAO's July 2005 environmental justice recommendations, saying it was already paying appropriate attention to the issue. GAO called on EPA to improve the way it addresses environmental justice in its economic reviews and to better explain its rationale by providing data to support the agency's decisions. A year later, EPA responded more positively to the recommendations and committed to a number of actions. However, based on information that EPA has subsequently provided, GAO concluded in a July 2007 testimony that EPA's actions to date were incomplete and that measurable benchmarks were needed to hold agency officials accountable for achieving environmental justice goals. In developing the TRI rule, EPA did not follow key aspects of its internal guidelines, including some related to environmental justice. EPA did not follow guidelines to ensure that scientific, economic, and policy issues are addressed at appropriate stages of rule development. For example, EPA asserted that the rule would not have environmental justice impacts; however, it did not support this assertion with adequate analysis. The omission is significant because many TRI facilities that no longer have to submit Form R reports are located in minority and low-income communities; and the reduction in toxic chemical information could disproportionately affect them. EPA's TRI rule will reduce the amount of information about toxic chemical releases without providing significant savings to facilities. A total of nearly 22,200 Form R reports from some 3,500 facilities are eligible to convert to Form A under the rule. While EPA says the aggregate impact of these conversions will be minimal, the effect on individual states and communities may be significant, as illustrated below. Although making significantly less information available to communities, GAO estimated that the rule would save companies little--an average of less than $900 per facility.