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7 Conclusions and Policy Implications The 2009 TRI Public Data Release reported the release of 4.1 billion pounds of toxic chemicals in the United States. This represented a drop of 5 percent from the previous year and reflected a continuing trend of decreasing releases as a result of pollution prevention, changes in industrial use of chemicals, and a decline in U.S. manufacturing, among other factors (U.S. EPA 2009). But the 2009 data release was distinctive in at least one respect. It was the first to be prepared under relaxed requirements set in place by the George W. Bush administration and finalized by the EPA in January 2007 as the TRI Burden Reduction Rule. The new rule allowed smaller producers of toxic chemicals to report their releases on a simplified form that provided fewer details than previously, although in 2009 only about 2 percent of the 22,000 companies reporting made use of that option. The agency continued to ponder yet another proposed change, dropping the annual reporting requirement in favor of biennial submission of data. In this case, the EPA said that companies might save $1 million annually in reporting costs. Yet a spokesperson for the American Chemistry Council said the savings to industry would be much higher because companies would not have to estimate or calculate their releases in addition to not having to complete the form. He put the cost of current compliance with the TRI program at $650 million annually, and hence he anticipated a much greater savings than the EPA estimated.1 The Bush administration policy shift was short lived. A dozen states sued the EPA over the simplified form rule change, and the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) expressed concern that poor and minority communities would be especially affected by the new rule, in effect saying their residents would be denied valuable information that could assist in meeting EPA goals for environmental justice.2 In addition, out of concern for potentially lost information that could affect the 178 Chapter 7 conduct of epidemiological studies, the EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) sent a letter in July 2006 opposing the change.3 For its part, the EPA denied that the two proposed rule changes would cause the loss of much information. For example, in January 2006, Kimberly T. Nelson, then the EPA’s assistant administrator for the Office of Environmental Information, said of the proposed switch to the short form that the agency “would get 99 percent of the information we get today. There is less detailed information, but it’s like a rounding error on all the emissions we currently collect.” She went on to make clear that the EPA was not “gutting” the program as some of the critics had suggested.4 Congress considered legislative responses to the policy shift, particularly how to ensure that TRI reports assist in achieving environmental justice as well as the broader environmental reporting goals of the program. In the end, it overturned the Bush rules via a provision that Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, D-N.J., inserted into a budget bill in early 2009; Lautenberg was one of the authors of the 1986 Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act that established the TRI program. Lisa P. Jackson, the Obama administration’s newly appointed EPA administrator , applauded the congressional move, saying that Lautenberg’s provision would restore “the rigorous reporting standards of this vital program” (Wald 2009a). As a result, the TRI program was slated to continue as it has operated in prior years even if additional reform proposals can be expected. Debate over the value of the TRI program and the information that it provides is part of an ongoing and broad reassessment of U.S. environmental policies that shows little sign of dissipating even if only limited political consensus exists on what ought to be changed and how (Eisner 2007; Fiorino 2006). After four decades of reliance on command-andcontrol regulation, information disclosure and other new policy approaches increasingly are receiving serious consideration by policy scholars and policymakers. Yet empirical analyses of their effectiveness, efficiency, and equity remain limited (e.g., Bennear 2007; Coglianese and Nash 2001, 2006a, 2006b; Dietz and Stern 2003; Woods, Konisky, and Bowman 2009). As we argued in chapter 1, the next decade inevitably will bring proposals of many new ideas, at least some of which will lead to policy changes. These are likely to include reforms of the existing core environmental protection...

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