----------------------------Original message----------------------------
                                 RTK.NET Mail 451395  Aug 21 00:07:41 1998
Action Alert!
 
Sign-on to our letter, or send your own!
 
The U.S. EPA is proposing changes that may weaken our
right-to-know about hazardous chemicals used in
communities.  EPA is proposing, among other things, to:
 
   [o] Let chemical companies conceal any chemical that the
company believes poses a "minimal" hazard.
   [o] Exempt from right-to-know one of the nations' biggest
sources of groundwater contamination-gas and diesel stored
underground at gas stations.
   [o] Exclude thousands of facilities from any comprehensive
future system for public access to environmental information.
 
Sign-on to the letter below or send your own comments to
EPA.
 
SIGN-ON DEADLINE: NOON, SEPTEMBER 4
EPA COMMENT DEADLING: SEPTEMBER 8.
 
To sign-on, please notify:
 
[o] Tom Natan, National Environmental Trust
[o] Phone: (202) 887-8828
[o] Fax: (202) 887-8877
[o] E-mail: [log in to unmask]
 
To sign-on, please provide complete information:
 
[o] Your name;
[o] Your organization (you must represent one);
[o] Your address and phone.
 
See EPA's proposal at:
www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-WASTE/1998/June/Day-
08/f14490.htm
or see the Federal Register, June 8, 1998, Pages 31267-
31317.
 
Note:  EPA's proposal is lengthy and covers many issues.  So
the following letter is a bit long and detailed too.  If you
prefer, send your own letter to EPA on the issues of greatest
concern to your organization.
 
Prepared by the Working Group on Community Right-to-
Know, Washington, DC.
 
[******************]
 
LETTER TO U.S. EPA
 
RE: Docket #300RR-IF1
 
On June 8, 1998, EPA proposed significant changes to right-
to-know reporting requirements for hazardous chemicals
under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-
Know Act (EPCRA), sections 311 and 312 (63 FR 31267).
We are seriously concerned that EPA may weaken the
nation's broadest, most basic right-to-know law for
hazardous chemicals at industrial facilities.
 
An estimated 868,000 facilities report hazardous chemicals
under EPCRA 311 and 312.  The facilities report hazardous
chemicals used on-site to their State Emergency Response
Commission (SERC), Local Emergency Planning Committee
(LEPC), and local fire department.
 
EPA's proposal is "intended to reduce reporting burdens."  In
fact, EPA's proposal would shift considerable burden from
industries that use and profit from hazardous chemicals to
under-funded local emergency agencies and to the general
public.  The proposal increases burden on data users by
adding obligations and increasing uncertainty.  Instead of real
burden reduction, the proposal chiefly allows special
exemptions to proliferate.  In addition, EPA fails to develop
real burden reduction for industry, government, and the
public through effective computer management of
information.
 
With this proposal, EPA's Chemical Emergency
Preparedness and Prevention Office shows a notable
disinterest in non-emergency uses of community right-to-
know data; it potentially undermines efforts to integrate
EPA's fragmented data systems; and it disregards the costs
and burdens these and other problems pose for communities.
We urge EPA to develop instead the information
infrastructure needed to better manage the EPCRA program.
 
Below are comments on five major issues.
 
1] Facility Identifier as a Tier I and Tier II Information
Requirement.
 
EPA states that it may exempt certain facilities from
reporting a simple facility identification number, making it
difficult to integrate thousands of facilities into a
comprehensive system for public access to environmental
information.
 
EPA requests public comment on whether it would be useful
to require facilities to provide a simple facility identification
number on their EPCRA 312 reporting forms.  The public
would clearly benefit from a simple facility identification
number that integrates environmental information reported
under diverse and fragmented laws and programs.  EPA
would benefit as well by being better able to resolve its
longstanding information management and integration
problems.
 
Unfortunately, EPA may exempt certain facilities from
reporting a simple facility identification number.
Specifically, EPA may exempt facilities from reporting an
identification number if they are covered by EPCRA 312 but
not covered by other state or Federal environmental laws.
This exemption would yield almost no burden reduction for
industry.  It would, however, compound EPA's information
integration problems and impair public access to a
comprehensive system for environmental information.
 
A complete, national facility identification system is essential
for many reasons.  Among other examples, such a system
will help researchers to conduct environmental justice
analyses by linking demographic data with site-specific
environmental information.  It will help emergency
responders cut response time with GIS mapping by
improving information on facilities and their locations.  It
will help states and water utilities conduct wellhead
protection mapping.  It will help people improve land use
planning and zoning.  And it will help EPA organize and
validate electronically submitted information.
 
We are seriously concerned about any potential exemption to
a complete national facility identification system, and that
EPA may adopt such exemptions without public comment.
 
 
2] Relief From Routine Reporting for Substances With
Minimal Hazards and Minimal Risks Under EPCRA
Sections 311 and 312.
 
EPA is proposing to allow companies not to report chemicals
that they think are of "minimal" hazard.  We strongly oppose
this proposal for the following reasons:
 
[o] EPA is improperly delegating decision-making power to
private parties, which the law does not allow (see Halverson
v. Slater, 129 F.3d 180, D.C. Cir. 1997).  EPA is setting an
infinite threshold quantity for all chemicals that are not
EHSs, CERCLA hazardous substances, Part 372 chemicals,
or CAA RMP chemicals that, as judged by a facility owner or
operator, pose "minimal" hazards.
 
[o] EPA is improperly setting the infinite threshold quantity
based on the wrong criteria.  EPCRA 311(b) and 312(b) each
provide that the threshold quantities "may be based on
classes of chemicals or categories of facilities."  However,
EPA is basing the thresholds on whether the chemicals pose a
"minimal" hazard to the environment, as judged by the
facility owner or operator.  This decision seems unrelated to
either classes of chemicals or categories of facilities, and is
therefore beyond EPA's power.
 
[o] EPA is improperly creating new obligations for LEPCs
and fire departments to review and exempt facilities from
reporting.  This will burden under-funded LEPCs, volunteer
fire departments, and taxpayers.  (EPA also creates new risk
assessment obligations for industry.)  The obligation for local
governments to assess site-specific risk is not found in
EPCRA, nor does EPA propose any funding to cover the
obligations that it is creating.  EPA's analysis under the
Unfunded Mandates Reform Act is inadequate (63 FR
32194).  What budget does EPA estimate will be required for
local entities to monitor the undocumented claims of up to
868,000 facilities, involving some 70,000 chemicals, most of
which lack basic health hazard characterization?
 
[o] EPA is not specifying any written documentation for
facilities to substantiate self-determined exemptions for
"minimal" hazards.  Nor does EPA specify any mechanisms
for the public to obtain information about the exemption,
such as the facility's name and address, and the chemical
involved.  Nor does EPA specify how and when the company
must update its (self-determined) exemption.
 
[o] EPA's "minimal" hazard standard is vague, subjective,
and unenforceable.  EPA does not even define the term.  How
can people enforce a requirement that has no consistent
criteria, no documentation, and no requirement to regularly
update information?
 
[o] EPA's proposal may allow SERCs, LEPCs, and local fire
departments to make different exemptions and keep different
information.  As EPA suggests, this will prove unwieldy and
unpredictable for the public, who will not know which entity
has the most complete information.  People must be able to
get complete information from a single source.
 
 
3] Underground Storage of Gas and Diesel.
 
EPA is proposing to exempt service stations that store gas or
diesel in RCRA regulated underground storage tanks (UST),
as long as the tank is not leaking and is in compliance with
regulations.  We oppose this exemption as long as if fails to
maintain effective information on potential sources of
groundwater contamination and complete facility
identification information.
 
EPA fails to address basic non-emergency purposes of
community right-to-know.  For example, leaking
underground storage tanks contaminate drinking water in
countless communities.  Soon, under the Safe Drinking
Water Act, states and water suppliers will conduct source
water assessments to identify actual and potential sources of
contamination.  In addition, the President's Clean Water
Action Plan requires unified watershed assessments.  To
conduct these assessments, people will use chemical
inventory reports to identify potential contamination sources.
Access to these reports should be straightforward-available
at the click of a computer mouse.  Instead, EPA suggests that
people can go look in the phone book, because service station
locations are "generally known."  People conducting water
assessments will be forced to expend resources painstakingly
using the phone book to establish what should be (and is) a
basic responsibility of the reporting facility.
 
EPA also proposes to exempt service stations because
underground storage tanks are regulated.  However, to void
right-to-know reporting based on the mere presence of
regulations is to accept false assurances.  Right-to-know
reporting exists, among other reasons, to help the public,
legislators, and regulators determine whether regulations are
working.  For example, EPA must develop the information
needed to measure the agency's effectiveness under the
Government Performance and Results Act.  Today, EPA has
only limited information on how many underground storage
tanks are leaking, and how many are not.
 
EPA claims that the proposal preserves public access to
information because people can request Tier II reports
through state or local officials.  However, there is a
fundamental difference between obtaining quick tracking
information and requesting data within 45 days from SERCs
or LEPCs, especially if the SERC or LEPC has to request the
information from dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of
facilities.
 
 
4] Draft Guidance on Information Reform.
 
4.A.] UST Forms to Fulfill the Requirements for Tier I
Information Under EPCRA Section 312.
 
EPA proposes to allow companies to use underground
storage tank (UST) forms to fulfill the reporting requirements
of EPCRA 312 Tier I reporting.  Here again, EPA attempts to
reduce burden by proliferating special requirements, rather
than by dealing with the underlying information reform
needs.  UST forms are no substitute for EPCRA 312 Tier I
reports.  UST reports are not reported annually, do not
identify materials or quantities, do not identify parent
companies, and are not reported directly to local fire
departments, SERCs, or LEPCs.  Rather than combine
requirements that are not truly the same, EPA should instead
promote the use of "intelligent" software that enables users to
fulfill multiple reporting requirements.  In this way EPA can
achieve real burden reduction, not just the proliferation of
exemptions.
 
4.B.] Partnership Programs for Joint Access to Information
and Streamlined Submission of EPCRA Sections 311 and
312 Reporting.
 
We see no reason why facilities could not satisfy their
EPCRA 311 and 312 reporting requirements through a single
point of contact (as long as SERCs, LEPCs, and local fire
departments jointly receive the information as required).  We
support and encourage compilation of information into a
single database, such as a web site accessible from the
Internet.
 
4.C.] Electronic Submittal for EPCRA Sections 311 and 312
Reporting.
 
We support and encourage electronic submission of EPCRA
reports.  EPA should develop the infrastructure needed to
manage information electronically.
 
4.D.] Incorporation of Previous Submissions Into EPCRA
Section 312 Reporting.
 
EPA should not burden SERCs, LEPCs, and local fire
departments with finding and incorporating previous years'
reports.  As EPA noted, this option increases burden on local
entities and public data users.  EPA incorrectly suggests that
the public's ability to request information from SERCs and
LEPCs will preserve its right-to-know.  However, the
public's right-to-know should not be limited to special
requests.
 
Effective electronic reporting would enable facilities to easily
incorporate previous submissions into EPCRA electronic
reports.  EPA should promote the development of
"intelligent" software that enables facilities to automatically
incorporate and update previously reported information.
 
4.E.] Electronic Access to Facilities' Databases of MSDSs.
 
EPA proposes to allow facilities to meet certain reporting
requirements by simply posting on-line a database of the
Material Safety Data Sheets for on-site chemicals.  We
oppose this option in lieu of proactive reporting required by
law.  It does not constitute a submission of information as
required by law.  It prevents the establishment of databases
that allow crosscutting analysis and the comparison of data
from one facility to another.  It could interfere with
emergency responders ability to access data during power
outages caused by hurricanes, earthquakes, year 2000
computer problems, etc.  And it prevents EPA and states
from developing databases that would help them measure
their effectiveness (under GPRA, etc.).
 
 
5] Burden Reduction through Information Reform.
 
By creating exemptions, EPA proposes to "promote a more
manageable EPCRA program."  But EPA has not developed
a more manageable program through electronic data
management.  EPA also seeks a "manageable quantity of
reporting data."  But EPA has not justified why the reported
information is not easily "manageable" on a computer.  In a
recent survey, an estimated 80 percent of LEPCs have or plan
to obtain computers.
 
Any facility that receives a public license to operate should
be able to identify it own name, location, business type,
parent company, and hazardous chemicals.  Calling this
burdensome is ridiculous.  The principal opportunity to
reduce burden-for industry, government, and the public-is
for EPA to nurture electronic reporting and management of
data.  Rather than create numerous special exemptions, EPA
should promote "intelligent" reporting, electronic reporting,
one-stop reporting, full integration of data, and other means
to improve information management.
 
Sincerely,
 
[Co-signatories - name and organization]
 
 ----------------------------------------
 Paul Orum
 Working Group on Community Right-to-Know
 218 D Street, SE;  Washington, DC  20003
 Ph: (202) 544-9586; E-mail: [log in to unmask]
 ----------------------------------------