[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND THE TOXICS
RELEASE INVENTORY REPORTING PROGRAM:
COMMUNITIES HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
ON
H.R. 1055 and H.R. 1103
__________
OCTOBER 4, 2007
__________
Serial No. 110-71
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
energycommerce.house.gov
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan, Chairman
HENRY A. WAXMAN, California JOE BARTON, Texas
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts Ranking Member
RICK BOUCHER, Virginia RALPH M. HALL, Texas
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York J. DENNIS HASTERT, Illinois
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey FRED UPTON, Michigan
BART GORDON, Tennessee CLIFF STEARNS, Florida
BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois NATHAN DEAL, Georgia
ANNA G. ESHOO, California ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky
BART STUPAK, Michigan BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois
ALBERT R. WYNN, Maryland HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico
GENE GREEN, Texas JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado CHARLES W. ``CHIP'' PICKERING,
Vice Chairman Mississippi
LOIS CAPPS, California VITO FOSSELLA, New York
MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania STEVE BUYER, Indiana
JANE HARMAN, California GEORGE RADANOVICH, California
TOM ALLEN, Maine JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania
JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois MARY BONO, California
HILDA L. SOLIS, California GREG WALDEN, Oregon
CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas LEE TERRY, Nebraska
JAY INSLEE, Washington MIKE FERGUSON, New Jersey
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin MIKE ROGERS, Michigan
MIKE ROSS, Arkansas SUE WILKINS MYRICK, North Carolina
DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma
ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania
JIM MATHESON, Utah MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
CHARLIE MELANCON, Louisiana
JOHN BARROW, Georgia
BARON P. HILL, Indiana
______
Professional Staff
Dennis B. Fitzgibbons, Chief of Staff
Gregg A. Rothschild, Chief Counsel
Sharon E. Davis, Chief Clerk
David L. Cavicke, Minority Staff Director
(ii)
Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials
ALBERT R. WYNN, Maryland, Chairman
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois,
BART STUPAK, Michigan Ranking Member
LOIS CAPPS, California CLIFF STEARNS, Florida
TOM ALLEN, Maine NATHAN DEAL, Georgia
HILDA L. SOLIS, California HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico
Vice Chairman JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin VITO FOSELLA, New York
G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina GEORGE RADANOVICH, California
JOHN BARROW, Georgia JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania
BARON P. HILL, Indiana LEE TERRY, Nebraska
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado MIKE ROGERS, Michigan
ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma
HENRY A. WAXMAN, California TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania
GENE GREEN, Texas JOE BARTON, Texas (ex officio)
JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan (ex
officio)
------
Professional Staff
Richard Frandsen, Chief Counsel
Ann Strickland, Brookings Fellow
Caroline Ahearn, Counsel
Rachel Bleshman, Clerk
Gerald Couri, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hon. Albert R. Wynn, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Maryland, opening statement................................. 1
Hon. John Shimkus, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Illinois, opening statement................................. 3
Hon. Hilda L. Solis, a Representative in Congress from the State
of California, opening statement............................... 5
Hon. John Barrow, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Georgia, opening statement..................................... 6
Hon. Tim Murphy, a Representative in Congress from the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, opening statement................ 7
Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the
State of New Jersey, opening statement......................... 8
Hon. Tammy Baldwin, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Wisconsin, opening statement................................ 10
Hon. Gene Green, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Texas, prepared statement...................................... 11
Witnesses
Granta Y. Nakayama, Assistant Administrator, Office of
Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency.............................................. 12
Prepared statement........................................... 15
Answers to submitted questions............................... 219
Wade Najjum, Assistant Inspector General, Program Evaluation,
Office of Inspector General, U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency......................................................... 24
Prepared statement........................................... 25
Answers to submitted questions............................... 210
Molly O'Neill, Assistant Administrator, Office of Environmental
Information, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.............. 28
Prepared statement........................................... 31
Answers to submitted questions............................... 232
Thomas M. Sullivan, Chief Counsel, Advocacy, Office of Advocacy,
U.S. Small Business Administration............................. 38
Prepared statement........................................... 40
Answers to submitted questions............................... 264
John B. Stephenson, Director, Natural Resources and Environment,
Government Accountability Office............................... 48
Prepared statement........................................... 50
Answers to submitted questions............................... 257
Hilary O. Shelton, Director, National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, Washington Bureau............... 93
Prepared statement........................................... 95
Robert D. Bullard, Ware professor, Department of Sociology;
director, Environmental Justice Resource Center, Clark Atlanta
University..................................................... 97
Prepared statement........................................... 99
Answers to submitted questions............................... 202
Jose Bravo, Communities for a Better Environment; executive
director, Just Transition Alliance............................. 107
Prepared statement........................................... 108
Answers to submitted questions............................... 197
Andrew Bopp, director, public affairs, Society of Glass and
Ceramic Decorators............................................. 110
Prepared statement........................................... 113
Answers to submitted questions............................... 193
Alan Finkelstein, assistant fire marshal, Strongsville Fire and
Emergency Services............................................. 119
Prepared statement........................................... 121
Answers to submitted questions............................... 206
Nancy Wittenberg, assistant commissioner, New Jersey Department
of Environmental Protection.................................... 131
Prepared statement........................................... 133
Answers to submitted questions............................... 215
Submitted Material
H.R. 1055, to amend the Emergency Planning and Community Right-
to-Know Act of 1986 to strike a provision relating to
modification in reporting frequency............................ 148
H.R. 1103, to codify Executive Order 12898, relating to
environmental justice, to require the Administrator of the
Environmental Protection Agency to fully implement the
recommendations of the Inspector General of the Agency and the
Comptroller General of the United States, and for other
purposes....................................................... 151
Keith W. McCoy, executive director, Business Network for
Environmental Justice, letter of October 4, 2007, submitted by
Mr. Shimkus.................................................... 158
Letter of support from various organizations, September 28, 2007. 182
307 Community, Environment, Faith Investor, Labor, Legal, Public
Health, Public Interest, Research and Scientists Organizations,
letter of September 28, 2007................................... 184
Roxanne Brown, legislative representative, United Steelworkers,
submitted statement............................................ 191
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND THE TOXICS
RELEASE INVENTORY REPORTING PROGRAM: COMMUNITIES HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW
----------
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2007
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Environment
and Hazardous Materials,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 a.m., in
room 2322 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Albert R.
Wynn (chairman) presiding.
Members present: Representatives Solis, Capps, Baldwin,
Barrow, Pallone, Pitts, Terry, Murphy, and Barton.
Also present: Representative Shimkus.
Staff present: Caroline Ahearn, Ann Strickland, Mary
O'Lone, Dick Frandsen, Rachel Bleshman, Lauren Bloomberg, Jodi
Seth, Jerry Couri, Garrett Golding, and Mo Zilly.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ALBERT R. WYNN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND
Mr. Wynn. Good morning. I would like to call the hearing to
order. Today we have a hearing on H.R. 1103, the Environmental
Justice Act of 2007, introduced by the distinguished vice chair
of the subcommittee, Ms. Hilda Solis, and a hearing on H.R.
1055, the Toxic Right-to-Know Protection Act, introduced by
another distinguished member of this subcommittee,
Representative Frank Pallone.
For purposes of making opening statements the Chairs and
ranking members of the subcommittee and the full committee will
each be recognized for 5 minutes. All other members of the
subcommittee will be recognized for 3 minutes, however, those
members may waive the right to make an opening statement and
when first recognized to question witnesses instead, add those
3 minutes to their time for questions.
Without objection all members have 5 legislative days to
submit opening statements for the record.
The Chair would now recognize himself for an opening
statement.
As I indicated, we are here to hold a hearing on two very
important bills, the Environmental Justice Act of 2007, and
also the Toxic Release Inventory Right-to-Know Act sponsored by
Mr. Pallone. That is H.R. 1055. It restores the requirements
for reporting toxic emissions data from polluting facilities
and assures that the information is reported annually to the
EPA.
With respect to environmental justice, many people believe
that the movement began in Warren County, NC, a poor,
predominantly African-American community where I lived as a
child. In 1978, transformer oil contaminated with cancer-
causing PCBs was illegally dumped over 210 miles of North
Carolina roadsides. The roadsides were listed as an EPA
Superfund site, and EPA approved a landfill to dispose of the
contaminated soils.
In 1982, dump trunks containing this waste rolled into
Warren County and more than 6 weeks of marches and non-violent
street demonstrations followed.
In 1993, the community's greatest fear was realized,
however. The landfill seal began to fail, threatening to
contaminate drinking water. Decontamination of the landfill was
not completed until 2003.
The national attention given to Warren County resulted in a
landmark study. In 1987, the United Church of Christ study,
``Toxic Waste and Race in the United States,'' found that race,
more than income or home values, was the main predictor for the
location of hazardous waste facilities. In fact, people of
color were 47 percent more likely to live near hazardous waste
facilities than white Americans.
To focus the Federal Government's attention on
environmental and human health conditions in minority and low-
income communities, in 1994, President Clinton issued the
Environmental Justice Executive order. Environmental justice
strategies and policies were issued, and EPA created the Office
of Environmental Justice.
But more than a decade later, where are we? In a 2004
report, the EPA Inspector General determined that EPA needs to
consistently implement the intent of the Executive order on
environmental justice. In a 2006 report the EPA Inspector
General concluded, EPA needs to conduct environmental justice
reviews of its programs, policies, and activities, and finally
in 2005, the Government Accountability Office determined that
EPA should devote more attention to environmental justice when
developing clean air rules.
In the United States today minorities are exposed to higher
levels of air pollution. These exposure levels negatively
affect the health of infants, are associated with higher rates
of infant mortality, and also result in higher prevalence of
death rates from asthma.
For example, Puerto Rican children have an asthma rate 140
percent higher than non-Hispanic white children and African-
Americans, only 12 percent of the population, constitute 25
percent of all deaths from asthma.
H.R. 1103 directs EPA to, one, conduct environmental
justice reviews of its program and policies to determine
whether they may have a disproportionately high and adverse
human health or environmental affect on minority or low-income
populations.
Second, it requires EPA to analyze new rules to identify
potential environmental justice issues to see if such
disproportion affects will be created.
Third, it requires EPA to fully respond to public
confidence that raise environmental justice issues, and fourth,
requires the EPA to provide emergency planning procedures. And
fifth, creates Congressional reporting requirements to provide
for oversight of EPA's implementation of the Act.
Interesting, to add insult to injury, in December of this
past year EPA adopted a new rule that reduces the amount of
information on toxic chemical management and releases that is
provided to EPA and the public. Under the Emergency Planning
and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986, EPCRA, facilities that
manufacture, process, or otherwise use more than the specified
amounts of nearly 650 toxic chemicals are required to report
their releases to water, air, and land. This information is
compiled in the Nation's Toxic Release Inventory.
However, under EPA's new rules, for the first time,
facilities will not have to provide detailed information about
persistent bio-accumulative and toxic PBT chemicals. PBTs are
long-lasting toxics such as lead, mercury, and PCPs that can
build up in the body.
In addition, for non-PBT chemicals, the EPA has
significantly raised the threshold before facilities are
required to report detailed information on releases or waste
management. The impact of these data reporting changes is
significant to minority and low-income communities. According
to GAO nearly 22,000 detailed TRI reports containing
information on the amounts of chemicals released and managed in
some 3,500 facilities will no longer be required.
EPA received over 120,000 comments about these changes; 99
percent oppose the changes--including 23 States, 30 public
health organizations, 40 labor organizations, and more than 200
environmental and public interest groups. Even the EPA's
Science Advisory Board objected to the changes.
The Toxic Right-to-Know Protection Act will maintain the
annual reporting requirements and provide the community with
information it needs to assess the potential affects of toxic
emissions from polluting facilities.
At this time I recognize my distinguished ranking member,
who is waiting eagerly, for 5 minutes.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN SHIMKUS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
Mr. Shimkus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for
recognizing me, and thanks for listening to me on the floor
about one of the concerns about the hearing.
These are really two distinct issues, and as the Senate had
an opportunity to hold hearings, add comments and ask questions
on environmental justice and the toxic release inventory, and I
understand scheduling and committee rooms and all that stuff,
but I don't think we do justice to both these issues by
clomping them and putting them together.
Having said that, here we are, and we will continue to move
forward. We, but we owe it to our constituents and all
Americans to be thorough, balanced, and thoughtful.
First of all, on the H.R. 1055, the Toxic Right-to-Know
Act, amends one sub-section of one section of the environmental
law. It will have impact on thousands of small businesses
across this country, many in my district, and several, I
suspect, in every member of Congress's district.
For example, today on the second panel we will hear
testimony from Andy Bopp, who will be representing Baltimore
Glass Decorators. Here is one of the products Baltimore Glass
decorates, and I think there is some in their gift shop, too.
This business does not have the financial or the manpower
resources to comply with unnecessary regulations, and as you
follow their testimony, we will see how stringent and just
bureaucratic they are.
I worry that small business benefits and employees rise or
fall depending upon the layers of regulations they are
subjected to, and it is our duty to insure that our Nation's
small businesses are not being crippled for little to no public
benefits.
Highlighting this is the troublesome word of ``release.''
As part of this program it is extremely misleading and harmful,
and I have got Webster's Dictionary to--and what happened in
the passage of this law, we redefined the word, ``release,'' to
not mean release. And I, the one thing I will do when we bring
this bill to the floor is try to clarify what this bill
actually does. And I would just refer, I don't have time to
read the Webster's Dictionary, but most people when they hear,
release, will think of stuff like emit or discharge.
Well, according to TRI, release could mean manage, use, or
recycle. A lot different than emitting or discharging. So that
is problematic in the legislation just to begin with.
Does filling out more paperwork improve the health of our
constituents? I don't believe it does, but I am interested to
learn more today about this proposal.
I would also like to highlight the testimony of the first
responder on the second panel, who a fire marshal, Mr.
Finkelstein. Sir, first of all, I would like to thank you for
your service, and many of us work with our local firefighters
through the Fire Act Grant, but in his testimony I think there
is going to be an attempt to connect TRI with emergency
planning and responding, but since this data is 18 months old,
any first responder who is using 18-month-old data to enter a
facility has bigger concerns than just TRI. Because they use
other sections, especially sections 311 and 312, for more
appropriate use in managing emergency information and data as
far as entry into facilities.
The other bill on environmental justice, I think we just
have a long way to go to understand, and the Clinton order says
let us address this, and the real question is is the EPA moving
in a way in which, that is part of the hearing process today,
we will take the comments and hopefully be able to work with
you as we are having good success in the elemental mercury
debates. I hope that we can move both these pieces of
legislation with like effort so that when we get to the floor,
that we have got the big kumbayah movement, and we can move
quicker rather than slower.
And with that I yield back my time.
Mr. Wynn. I thank the gentleman. I am also in favor of
kumbayah.
At this time I would like to recognize the vice chair of
the committee, Representative Hilda Solis, who is also the
sponsor of H.R. 1103, the Environmental Justice Act, and I
would like to compliment her for her leadership on this issue
over the years. Ms. Solis, the floor is yours.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HILDA L. SOLIS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Ms. Solis. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the
ranking member also.
Believe it or not, this is a very historical moment. In the
last several years that I have been serving on this committee,
I can't recall ever having a hearing on this particular
subject. So I applaud our chairman and thank goodness for the
changes that occurred this last fall because otherwise we
wouldn't be sitting here today. And I really want to thank the
members that worked with us very closely on this and really
salute our chairman for the work that he has done.
This isn't just an idea that was hatched yesterday. We have
been talking about environmental justice issues for many, many
years, only we never had the ability to have a formal hearing
on it. Today is that day. So I really want to say how pleased
and thankful many, many communities, communities of color, that
are disadvantaged, that are looking for our leadership here in
the House of Representatives. And I have worked tirelessly
throughout my career before I came here to the Congress,
passing and codifying the Executive order that Clinton had
introduced in 1994, back then, to talk about environmental
justice.
And I guess today what we are going to try to find out is
how well the administration has been doing in implementing that
Executive order and then focus on this piece of legislation,
which I really believe will provide a better path to where we
need to go to understand how we implement this Executive order
that we hope to one day soon see codified. And this is the
first beginning for that.
And I want to just cite that there are many, many advocates
that are supporting us on this mission today, and according to
a recent report released by the United Church of Christ titled,
``Toxic Waste and Race at Twenty,'' people of color make up the
majority of those living in neighborhoods within 2 miles of the
Nation's commercial hazardous waste facilities. These
communities have been under attack under the policies of the
present administration, and since 2004, the administration has
requested at least a 25 percent cut in the environmental
justice budget.
And in early 2005, the EPA released a draft strategic plan
on environmental justice, which had disregarded race, of all
things, race, as a consideration for determining environmental
justice, in direct contradiction to the Executive order.
Despite reaffirming its commitment to environmental justice in
November 2005, in this memo, the administration finalized
weakening changes to the toxic release inventory program in
December 2006.
A proposed rule on locomotive emissions released this April
failed to mention environmental justice even one time, despite
the promises to include environmental justice considerations in
proposed and final rules. In 2004 the IG reported that EPA had
not consistently implemented the Executive order, and in 2006
reported that the EPA did not know the impact, the impact of
these policies and what they were having on environmental
justice communities.
In 2005, the GAO found that EPA failed to consider the
impact of its air regulations on communities of color and
underrepresented areas. And, during budget hearings in March,
Acting Inspector General Roderick testified that the EPA had
yet to establish a plan of action for implementation of
recommendations on environmental justice.
Absent a real commitment to environmental justice, the
health and well being of our communities will continue to
suffer. H.R. 1103 and H.R. 1055 will do better for the health
of all of our communities, regardless of where you live. H.R.
1103 will significantly, in my opinion, advance environmental
protections in communities of color and low-income communities
by requiring the implementation of the Executive order and the
implementations of recommendations that go along with that in
the IG and the GAO report.
More than 50 organizations and Congress are on record in
support of that Executive order, and it is time that we give
real protections to our communities by codifying this
legislation. We must reinforce the community right to know by
reinstating the Toxic Release Inventory Program, a successful
program for more than 21 years.
And I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Wynn. I thank the gentlelady, and again, compliment and
commend her for her passion and her leadership on this issue. I
think she is right, we wouldn't be here without her efforts,
and I am very pleased that we are here today.
At this time I would be happy to recognize Mr. Barrow, the
distinguished gentlemen from Georgia.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARROW, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF GEORGIA
Mr. Barrow. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I, too, want to
commend my colleague and my hero, Ms. Solis, for her authorship
of the Environmental Justice Act for 2007, my friend and
colleague, Mr. Pallone. He is not my hero yet, but he is
working on it. I appreciate your authorship of the Toxic Right-
to-Know Act.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling this hearing. There is
more than one way to repeal a law. There is more than one way
to repeal an Executive order. There is the up and up way, out
front and in the open where everybody can see it, and there is
another way, by neglect. You can repeal a lot of things by
neglect. I feel like there has been some neglect of Congress's
responsibility in overseeing the implementation of the
Executive order in question. There has been some neglect on the
part of the executive branch of the Government in implementing
the order, and this hearing is an opportunity for us to shine a
light on that and try and get things going back in the right
direction.
I know a little something about this. Back in Augusta, GA,
we have a community that is living smack dab on top of a
brownfield. Hyde Park in Augusta is an area that is on the
industrial edge of town, and there are people who are deeply
tied to the land. They got their lifetime's investment in the
homes in that area, and they don't know whether to stay, they
don't know whether to leave, we haven't got the money to buy
them out, a lot of folks don't want to be bought out. They are
attached to the community and the sense of community they have
and yet they are stuck with all of these issues.
And I sort of feel like it is important for us to kind of
add another element to this, try to build some support, but
getting going on this, you realize this isn't just some vast
environment conspiracy against poor folks.
You know, economic development in general fuels
environmental injustice.
There is a penalty to pay for going first in economic
development. In my part of the country, in Augusta, for
example, it was an industrial crossroads. It was a commercial
town. The railroad came. After the railroad, at the point where
the river crosses the fall line, and there is a lot of business
to be done, and a lot of folks did business in the old days
without much regard to the environmental consequences. And as a
result that area is pretty fouled up, and the economic
development just naturally moves onto the next area. It moves
onto the greenfield just beyond. And it leaves these
brownfields back to fester and to swelter and indecision and
indifference.
The point I want to emphasize is not only is that wrong,
not only is it unjust, it is expensive. It is wasteful. There
are reasons that some places develop first. There are reasons
why economic and transportation infrastructure grows there, and
it is there. It is incredibly wasteful for us to leave areas
basically undevelopable or unusable and to move onto the next
greenfield. It is expensive, because it adds to the
transportation costs for all concerned, it leaves these pockets
of economic stagnation behind. All that adds to the cost of
doing business for everybody.
And so one thing I want to try and add to the mix as we
talk about the injustice of this, is the stupidity of it. It is
like the French diplomat said, it is worse than a sin. It is a
mistake. And what I think we ought to recognize is cleaning up
the mess that has been made and stopping the messing from going
on any further is not only the right thing to do, it is the
smart thing to do. And I hope we can focus on that and build
support for this, because we got huge economic development
potential right in these brownfield backyards of ours.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I thank you again for your
leadership on this issue, and I yield back.
Mr. Wynn. I thank the gentleman from Georgia.
At this time I would recognize the gentleman from
Pennsylvania, Mr. Murphy.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TIM MURPHY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
Mr. Murphy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was on the floor
giving a speech, and I appreciate your indulgence in allowing
me to be a few minutes late.
The issue of environmental justice brings to light a
community in my district, Jeannette, PA, once home to a
thriving glass industry, where some years ago someone bought
that plant, and it remains a rusted heap that is surrounded by
an area that is becoming less and less desirable for people to
live there.
Low-income families face in their backyards an area that is
soon to be high in a number of pollutants in this brownfield,
and nothing is done about it. It is a place that I think breeds
less economic development and poverty rather than being an
economic engine for that embattled community.
That is why legislation that looks at environmental justice
is so important. We have to recognize a responsibility over
time for those who are involved with development and
manufacturing to make sure we are doing all we can to keep that
environment clean, create jobs, and make sure that we
understand the long-term legacy of responsibility to the
communities that those are in.
Today we are also going to be dealing with some issues
involving the burden of paperwork, and I know that we are going
to have people of divergent opinions on that, but it is
important for the future of all business, small and large, that
EPA is working with employers to making sure that we find ways
that work towards keeping our communities and our air and our
soil and our water clean but also working towards those,
working with those industries so that we find ways of making
sure we achieve that.
The issue is to keep the air, the water, the land clean and
not just to create more rules and not just to create mounds of
paperwork and polluting our desks with paperwork. Let us find
ways of solving these problems so we can really work towards
the protection of our environment and our communities and work
towards other jobs.
And I yield back my time, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Wynn. I thank the gentleman. At this time it gives me
great pleasure to recognize a gentleman from New Jersey, Mr.
Pallone, who is a leader on these issues and is the author of
H.R. 1055, Toxic Right-to-Know Protection Act.
Mr. Pallone.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, JR., A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I am trying to be
good this morning but with the other side but I just want to
commend you because the fact of the matter is that we couldn't
have even had a hearing on these issues in the previous
Congress, and I am not just saying that to be bad, because I
often requested this and other hearings when I was the ranking
member, and we weren't able to get them. In fact, it was very
difficult, even impossible to get somebody from the EPA to come
in and be questioned at all because for whatever reason the
previous majority just didn't want them to be questioned. And I
will leave it at that, but I do want to mention that, because I
think it is important that under your leadership we are able to
do this today.
I wanted to focus on the Toxic Release Inventory issue and
its relationship to environmental justice. Toxic Release
Inventory or TRI was actually authored by my Senator, Frank
Lautenberg, of New Jersey, and passed into law in 1986, as part
of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act or
EPCRA. After a tragic disaster at a Union Carbide facility in
Bhopal, India, that killed thousands of people, Congress passed
it to ensure that communities know how much the most dangerous
industrial chemicals are being released into the air, water,
and the ground, and for a decade it worked.
However, in December 2006, the EPA announced final rules
that loosen reporting requirements for the TRI. With these
rules, the Bush administration has undermined this critical
program in two ways. First, it eliminates detailed reports for
more than 5,000 facilities that release up to 2,000 pounds of
chemicals every year. And second, it eliminates detailed
reports from nearly 2,000 facilities that manage up to 500
pounds of chemicals known to pose some of the worst threats to
human health, including lead and mercury.
Now, this new rule adversely affects communities around the
Nation. Without accurate and detailed TRI data, communities
have less power to hold companies accountable and make informed
decisions about how toxic chemicals are to be managed. As the
GAO said in a recent report, and I quote, ``EPA's recent
changes to the toxic release inventory significantly reduce the
amount of information available to the public about toxic
chemicals in their communities.'' The changes mean that over
3,500 facilities nationwide, including more than 100 in my
State, will not have to submit detailed information about their
chemical use. In 75 counties around the country communities
will no longer have access to detailed information about the
status of toxic chemicals in their backyards.
The bottom line, Mr. Chairman, is that EPA's TRI Burden
Reduction Rule makes less information available that was
previously available to the public. Now, this is all about
right to know, which to me is so important. Communities have a
right to know what kinds of chemicals are being released in
their backyards. This information was also useful to workers
who could be affected on the jobsite and first responders who
need to plan for incidents at specific high-risk facilities.
It is also an environmental justice issue. According to the
GAO report many of the facilities that will no longer be
reporting detailed toxic and chemical release info, are located
in low-income and high-minority areas, and with that in mind I
look forward to hearing from EPA today on how much analysis
went into the agency's conclusion that the new rule would not,
and I quote, ``disproportionately impact minority or low-income
communities.''
I believe that today's testimony by GAO strongly rejects
such a notion. And in response to this ill-advised and
potentially harmful rule and process in which it was finalized,
myself and Congresswoman Solis, because I know she is a co-
sponsor, and she has had a lot to do with this, we introduced
together the Toxic Right-to-Know Protection Act, and that Act
codifies the stronger reporting requirements that were in place
before the Bush administration weakened them late last year by
codifying these requirements.
Neither the current administration nor future
administrations, because I don't trust anybody in the future
either, could again change the guidelines without the approval
of Congress.
And I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about this
issue. But thank you, again, Mr. Chairman, for even having this
hearing. I do appreciate it.
Mr. Wynn. Thank you, Mr. Pallone, and you were not being
bad. I do want to, again, compliment you for your leadership on
this particular issue. It is a critical and important thing.
You have done a great job over the years.
At this time I would recognize the gentleman, Mr. Terry,
for an opening statement.
Mr. Terry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wish to waive to
reserve enough time for questions.
Mr. Wynn. All right. Thank you. At this time I would like
to recognize Ms. Baldwin.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TAMMY BALDWIN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WISCONSIN
Ms. Baldwin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am very pleased
that the committee is holding this hearing today on two very
important measures, and I want to begin by commenting on H.R.
1055 and say that I am encouraged that today we will be
examining the EPA's decision to weaken the community right-to-
know rules.
Congress, as we have just heard discussed, created the
Toxic Release Inventory Program under the premise that
communities should know what toxic chemicals are being dumped
in their backyards. Over the years the program has also been
effective in protecting public health and urging businesses to
voluntarily reduce chemical releases, as no business wants to
be on the top of an EPA polluter list.
Given the successful nature of the program, it is really
difficult for me to comprehend EPA's justification for altering
the TRI rules. Yet, in changes that the EPA argues were
necessary to ease paperwork, the agency has weakened reporting
requirements.
The result is a quadrupling of the amount of toxic
pollutants that companies can release before they have to tell
the public. In my home State of Wisconsin EPA's rule allows 113
facilities to no longer have to notify my constituents of their
harmful releases. Clearly, at stake is our public health, but
EPA's rule also jeopardizes our communities' access to critical
information used by emergency responders, academics, public
interest groups, State agencies, and labor groups among others.
Emergency responders, for instance, use this data to
protect the public against chemical spills or situations where
toxic waste is released into the water supply. Similarly,
public interest groups use the data to push for environmental
policy changes, and labor groups use the data to evaluate
hazards to workers.
TRI data is so important that the EPA should be evaluating
ways to refine the data and make it available faster, rather
than coming up with ways to stifle the information and protect
the polluters. At least 305 community, environmental, faith-
based, investor, labor, public health, and science
organizations have called upon Congress to restore toxic
chemical reporting.
And I am hopeful that today's hearing will highlight the
importance of a strong TRI and demonstrate the need for passage
of Congressman Pallone's Toxic Right-to-Know Protection Act so
that the EPA can return to an agency that protects the public
interest rather than the polluting businesses.
I also want to commend Congresswoman Solis's efforts to
bring environmental justice to those in minority and low-income
populations who disproportionately bear the burden of our
Nation's pollution. These pollutions face higher rates of low
birth weight, greater risk of asthma, and increased occurrences
of infant mortality.
The good news is that together focused attention, increased
research, and public access to information can all help improve
the environment and human health conditions facing minority and
low-income communities. In the end environmental justice is not
just about cleaning up toxins, but rather it is about insuring
a healthy and bright future for generations to come.
So thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this very important and
historic hearing, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Wynn. Thank you very much, Ms. Baldwin. I appreciate
your comments and your insightful remarks.
At this time the Chair would recognize Mr. Pitts from
Pennsylvania.
Mr. Pitts. I will waive.
Mr. Wynn. The gentleman has waived. Are there any further
opening statements?
If not, at this time the Chair would like to acknowledge a
distinguished visitor from Maryland who has joined us for
today's hearing. He is Division Chief Michael Love of the
Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service.
Chief Love, we are delighted to have you here. In addition
to service on Montgomery County's Fire and Rescue Service,
Chief Love is also a member of the Local Emergency Planning
Commission, which is the local government organization that
receives TRI data and uses it in planning for chemical spills,
accidents, and other emergencies.
Thank you again for being with us.
That concludes all opening statements. Other statements
for the record will be accepted at this time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Green follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Gene Green, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Texas
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing on the
Environmental Justice Act of 2007 and the Toxic Right to Know
Act.
My district includes part of Houston, the fourth largest
city in the United States, and over 65 percent of the
population is Hispanic.
The 29th district also includes the Port of Houston and is
the home of many petrochemical companies.
Both of this bills that we are discussing today are of
importance to the 29th district.
Houston has its fair share of environmental problems. We
have higher than average levels of air toxics, which may be
related to adverse health effects in the population.
We also have our fair share of environmental waste sites.
On September 29, an abandoned waste site on the San Jacinto
River that is leaking toxic levels of dioxin into Galveston Bay
was placed on the National Priority List short list.
I have worked in conjunction with the EPA, the State of
Texas, and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to
have the site placed on the National Priority List.
I am hopeful that we will be able to work together and
begin cleaning up this site soon.
I support the industry in my district. They employ many of
my constituents. However, letting communities know what
chemicals are being released and disposed of in their backyard
is a responsibility these companies must uphold.
The current Toxic Release Inventory Program reporting
requirements, in an effort to reduce paperwork, have the
potential to endanger communities such as my own.
Companies that work with chemicals should be required to
report in detail their use and disposal of these chemicals.
Also, the EPA has a responsibility to practice
environmental justice. Just because my constituents live close
to where they work does not mean they should suffer from health
effects.
Communities that are heavily minority populated and lower
income areas should not be subjected pollution just because of
their race and economics.
I support both of these bills and I urge my colleagues to
do the same.
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
----------
Mr. Wynn. We are going to move into the testimony of our
witnesses. I think we have an excellent panel. The first panel
is a governmental panel, and I would like to introduce them at
this time.
First we have Mr. Granta Nakayama, Assistant Administrator,
Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency.
We also have Mr. Wade Najjum, Assistant Inspector General
for Program Evaluation, Office of Inspector General, U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency.
We have with us also Ms. Molly O'Neill, Assistant
Administrator, Office of Environmental Information, U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency.
And also we have with us Mr. Thomas, the Honorable Thomas
Sullivan, Chief Counsel for Advocacy, Office of Advocacy, U.S.
Small Business Administration.
And Mr. John B. Stephenson, Director, Natural Resources and
Environment, Government Accountability Office.
Thank you all for coming. We are going to now have 5
minutes opening statements from the panel, and your prepared
testimony in full will be, which you submitted in advance, will
be made a part of the hearing record.
Mr. Nakayama.
STATEMENT OF GRANTA Y. NAKAYAMA, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR,
OFFICE OF ENFORCEMENT AND COMPLIANCE ASSURANCE, U.S.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Nakayama. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Wynn,
Ranking Member Shimkus and Vice-Chair Solis, and distinguished
members of the subcommittee. I am Granta Nakayama, Assistant
Administrator for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance
Assurance at the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
My office is responsible for enforcing the Nation's
environmental laws, as well as serving as EPA's National
Program Manager for environmental justice.
Thank you for inviting me to the hearing today on
environmental justice legislation including the pending bills,
H.R. 1055 and H.R. 1103, the Environmental Justice Act of 1007.
I am pleased to discuss the environmental justice
accomplishments of the agency, what we have learned from our
efforts, and how we will continue to pursue the cause of
environmental justice.
Insuring environmental justice means not only protecting
human health and the environment for everyone but also insuring
that all people are treated fairly and given the opportunity to
participate meaningfully in the development, implementation,
and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and
policies.
EPA has learned that addressing environmental justice
issues is everyone's shared responsibility. We also recognize
that environmental justice issues are complex and multi-
faceted. While no single tool or approach along may provide the
solution, EPA continues to believe that using the range of our
existing statutory, regulatory, and enforcement tools for
protecting the environment and public health is a sound
approach. These tools coupled with building the capacity of
communities and other stakeholders to participate meaningfully
in the environmental decisions that affect them is an effective
way to protect the health and environment of all our Nation's
people and communities.
EPA is committed to comprehensively integrating
environmental justice considerations into its programs,
policies, and activities. EPA is the lead for implementing
Executive order 12898, Federal actions to address environmental
justice in minority populations and low-income populations.
This Executive order directs Federal agencies to make achieving
environmental justice part of its mission. EPA works to comply
with this Executive order and has taken significant and
meaningful steps to integrate environmental justice into its
mission.
In 2005, Administrator Johnson reaffirmed EPA's commitment
to EJ. The Administrator also identified national EJ priorities
such as reducing asthma and elevated blood lead levels. For
2008, the agency's national program guidance and strategic
plans are being examined to identify activities, initiatives,
and strategies for integrating environmental justice into
planning and budgeting documents.
EPA's Inspector General recently identified the need for EJ
program reviews. The agency agreed, and we will begin
conducting those reviews in March 2008. The EPA renewed the
charter of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council
for 2 years so that EPA will continue to receive valuable
advice and recommendations from its stakeholders.
Since 1993, EPA has awarded more than $31 million in grants
to more than 1,100 community organizations and others to take
an active role in our Nation's environmental stewardship. These
environmental justice grants promote community empowerment and
capacity building essential to maximize meaningful
participation in the regulatory process.
Just yesterday EPA announced it has awarded $1 million in
environmental justice small grants this year to 20 community-
based organizations to raise awareness and build their capacity
to solve local environmental and public health issues.
EPA is making significant headway on the road to
environmental justice. In moving forward we will complete the
Environmental Justice Program reviews so that we can
appropriately evaluate the effectiveness of EPA's actions for
environmental justice. We will also finalize the Environmental
Justice Strategic Enforcement Assessment Tool, or EJ SEAT, to
enhance the EPA Office of Enforcement and Compliance
Assurance's ability to consistently identify potential
environmental justice areas of concern and assist in making
effective enforcement and compliance assurance resource
deployment decisions. We will evaluate the tool, its strengths,
and limitations.
In conclusion, I believe we are on the right track and have
the statutory authorities and needed flexibilities to identify
problems and tailor solutions that result in improvements in
health and environmental quality for all.
I look forward to working with Congress to insure the
continued progress towards this goal. I want to personally
thank you, Chairman Wynn, for allowing me to appear before you
on behalf of the EPA. Thank you for holding this hearing on
this very important topic, environmental justice, and I would
be happy to take any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Nakayama follows:]
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Mr. Wynn. Thank you very much, Mr. Nakayama.
Let us see. Mr. Najjum, I believe you are next.
WADE NAJJUM, ASSISTANT INSPECTOR GENERAL, PROGRAM EVALUATION,
OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
AGENCY
Mr. Najjum. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee. I am Wade Najjum, Assistant Inspector General for
Program Evaluation with the EPA Office of Inspector General. I
am pleased to be here today to discuss the OIG's work on how
EPA has incorporated environmental justice within its programs
and activities.
Over the past 5 years, the OIG has been examining EPA's
environmental justice activities as part of our strategic plan
to review how EPA fulfills its responsibilities. We have issued
two reports specifically dealing with EPA implementation of
environmental justice reviews.
In 2006, we completed our most recent evaluation of whether
EPA program and regional offices had performed environmental
justice reviews of their programs, policies, and activities. We
sought to determine: if there had been clear direction from
EPA's senior management to perform environmental justice
reviews; if EPA had performed these reviews; and if EPA had
adequate guidance to conduct these reviews or if there was a
need for additional guidance or protocols.
We concluded that EPA program and regional offices have not
routinely performed environmental justice reviews. Therefore,
EPA could not determine whether its programs have a
disproportionately high and adverse human health or
environmental effect on minority and low-income populations. We
were given multiple reasons why the reviews were not performed,
including: the absence of a specific directive from EPA
management to conduct such reviews; a belief by some program
offices that they are not subject to the order since their
programs do not lend themselves to reviewing impacts on
minority and low-income populations; and uncertainty about how
to perform the reviews.
We made four recommendations to EPA to address these
issues: require program and regional offices to determine where
environmental justice reviews are needed and establish a plan
to complete them; ensure that these reviews include a
determination if there is a disproportionate impact on minority
and low-income populations; develop specific review guidance;
and designate a responsible office to compile the results of
these reviews and make recommendations to EPA senior
leadership. EPA agreed with our recommendations and established
milestones for completing those actions.
In our 2004 review, we reported on how EPA was integrating
environmental justice into its operations. Specifically, we
sought to determine: how EPA had implemented the order and
integrated its concepts into regional and program offices; and
how were environmental justice areas defined at the regional
levels and what was the impact.
We concluded that EPA had not fully implemented the order
and was not consistently integrating environmental justice into
its day-to-day operations at that time. EPA had not identified
minority and low-income communities, or defined the term
``disproportionately impacted.'' In the absence of
environmental justice definitions, criteria, or standards from
EPA, many regional and program offices individually took steps
to implement environmental justice policies. The result was
inconsistency in environmental justice actions across EPA
regions and programs. Thus, how environmental justice action
was implemented was dependent, in part, on where you lived.
We made 12 recommendations to EPA to address the issues we
raised. EPA disagreed with 11 of our 12 recommendations. EPA
did agree to perform a study of program and regional office's
funding and staffing for environmental justice to ensure that
adequate resources were available to fully implement its
environmental justice plans. EPA completed that study in May
2004.
In the interest of objectivity I should also say that since
the issuance of our reports, EPA has taken some positive steps
to address environmental justice issues. However, we think EPA
recognizes that more work needs to be done, particularly in its
efforts to integrate environmental justice into its decision
making, planning, and budgeting processes. Also, EPA still
needs broader guidance on environmental justice program and
policy reviews, which EPA acknowledges is not in place.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.
I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Najjum follows:]
Statement of Wade T. Najjum
Good morning Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee.
I am Wade Najjum, Assistant Inspector General for Program
Evaluation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Office of Inspector General (OIG). I am pleased to be here
today to discuss the OIG's work on how EPA has incorporated
environmental justice within its programs and activities. EPA
has made some progress in these areas over the past five years.
However, our reports show that more could be done.
Environmental Justice at EPA
EPA defines environmental justice as the fair treatment
and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race,
color, national origin, or income with respect to the
development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental
laws, regulations, and policies. Fair treatment means that no
group of people should bear a disproportionate share of the
negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial,
governmental, and commercial operations or policies. Meaningful
involvement means that: 1) people have an opportunity to
participate in decisions about activities that may affect their
environment and/or health; 2) the public's contribution can
influence the regulatory agency's decision; 3) their concerns
will be considered in the decision making process; and 4) the
decision makers seek out and facilitate the involvement of
those potentially affected.
In February 1994, the President signed Executive Order
12898 (Order) focusing Federal attention on the environmental
and human health conditions of minority and low-income
populations with the goal of achieving environmental protection
for all communities. This Order directed Federal agencies to
develop environmental justice strategies to help them address
disproportionately high and adverse human health or
environmental effects of their programs on minority and low-
income populations. The Order is also intended to promote
nondiscrimination in Federal programs that affect human health
and the environment. It aims to provide minority and low-income
communities' access to public information and public
participation in matters relating to human health and the
environment. The Order established an Interagency Working Group
on environmental justice chaired by the EPA Administrator and
comprised of the heads of 11 departments or agencies and
several White House offices.
At EPA, the Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ) within
the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA)
coordinates EPA's efforts to integrate environmental justice
into all policies, programs, and activities. Within each
regional office there is at least one environmental justice
coordinator who serves as the focal point within their
organizations and as the liaison to OEJ. Among the
coordinator's duties are to provide policy advice and to
develop and implement programs within their regions. There is
no specific environmental justice statute to fund environmental
justice activities at EPA. Consequently, OEJ performs
activities using a general Environmental Program Management
appropriation budget line item.
OIG Environmental Justice Work
For the past 5 years, the OIG has been examining EPA's
environmental justice activities as part of our broader
strategic plan to review how EPA fulfills its responsibilities
to address environmental threats and their impact on
ecosystems, communities, and susceptible populations. We have
issued two reports focusing on EPA's implementation of
Executive Order 12898 requirements.
Evaluation of EPA's Implementation of Executive Order
In a 2004 review, we reported on how EPA was integrating
environmental justice into its operations. Specifically, we
sought to answer the following questions: 1) how had EPA
implemented the Order and integrated its concepts into its
regional and program offices; and 2) how were environmental
justice areas defined at the regional levels and what was the
impact.
We concluded that EPA had not fully implemented the Order
and was not consistently integrating environmental justice into
its day-to-day operations at that time. EPA had not identified
minority and low-income communities, or defined the term
``disproportionately impacted.' Moreover, in 2001, EPA restated
its commitment to environmental justice in a manner that did
not emphasize minority and low-income populations which we
believed was the intent of the Order. In the absence of
environmental justice definitions, criteria, or standards from
EPA, many regional and program offices individually took steps
to implement environmental justice policies. The result was
inconsistency in determining environmental justice communities
across EPA regions and programs. For example, between the
regions there was a wide array of approaches for identifying
environmental justice communities. Thus, the implementation of
environmental justice actions was dependent, in part, on where
you lived.
We made 12 recommendations to EPA to address the issues we
raised, which are listed in Attachment A. Four key
recommendations were: 1) reaffirm the Executive Order as a
priority; 2) establish specific timeframes for developing
definitions, goals, and measurements; 3) develop a
comprehensive strategic plan; and 4) determine if adequate
resources are being applied to implement environmental justice.
EPA disagreed with 11 of the 12 recommendations. EPA did agree
to perform a comprehensive study of program and regional
offices' funding and staffing for environmental justice to
ensure that adequate resources are available to fully implement
its environmental justice plans. In May 2004, EPA issued its
report entitled ``Environmental Justice Program Comprehensive
Management Study'' conducted by Tetra Tech EM Inc.
Evaluation of EPA Environmental Justice Reviews
In 2006, we completed our evaluation of whether EPA
program and regional offices have performed environmental
justice reviews of their programs, policies, and activities as
required by the Order. We specifically sought to determine if:
1) there had been clear direction from EPA senior management to
perform environmental justice reviews of EPA programs,
policies, and activities; 2) EPA had performed environmental
justice reviews; and 3) EPA had adequate guidance to conduct
these reviews or if there was a need for additional directions
or protocols.
To determine the direction, frequency, and guidance for
environmental justice reviews, we met with OECA, OEJ, and
Office of Air and Radiation representatives. We then conducted
an EPA-wide survey of each of the Deputy Assistant
Administrators in EPA's 13 program offices and each of the 10
Deputy Regional Administrators on their experience conducting
environmental justice reviews of their programs, policies, and
activities. We also asked them to describe their satisfaction
with available guidance and instructions for conducting these
reviews, and whether they needed additional directions or
protocols. We did not design our survey to draw inferences or
project results. Rather we sought to obtain descriptive
information on implementing environmental justice at EPA.
Our survey results showed that EPA program and regional
offices have not routinely performed environmental justice
reviews. Reasons for not performing these reviews included the
absence of a specific directive from EPA management to conduct
such reviews; a belief by some program offices that they are
not subject to the Order since their programs do not lend
themselves to reviewing impacts on minority and low-income
populations; and confusion regarding how to perform the
reviews. In addition, we found that program and regional
offices lacked clear guidance to follow when conducting
environmental justice reviews. Survey respondents stated that
protocols, a framework, or additional directions would be
useful for conducting environmental justice reviews. We
concluded that EPA cannot determine whether its programs have a
disproportionately high and adverse human health or
environmental effect on minority and low-income populations
without performing these types of reviews.
We made four recommendations to EPA to address these
issues. We recommended that EPA: 1) require program and
regional offices to determine where environmental justice
reviews are needed and establish a plan to complete them; 2)
ensure that environmental justice reviews determine whether EPA
programs, policies, and activities may have a
disproportionately high and adverse health or environmental
impact on minority and low-income populations; 3) develop
specific environmental justice review guidance that includes
protocols, a framework, or directions; and 4) designate a
responsible office to compile the results of environmental
justice reviews and make recommendations to EPA senior
leadership. EPA agreed with our recommendations and established
milestones for completing those actions. For example, in
response to our third recommendation EPA convened an Agency-
wide Environmental Justice workgroup in April 2007 to begin
developing protocols to provide guidance for conducting
reviews. Implementation of the protocols developed is scheduled
for March 2008.
Noteworthy EPA Achievements
In the interest of objectivity I also should say that
since the issuance of our reports, EPA has taken some steps to
address environmental justice issues. In 2005, Administrator
Stephen Johnson reaffirmed EPA's commitment to environmental
justice by directing staff to establish measurable commitments
that address environmental priorities such as: reducing asthma
attacks, air toxics, and blood lead levels; ensuring that
companies meet environmental laws; ensuring that fish and
shellfish are safe to eat; and ensuring that water is safe to
drink. EPA is also including language in the fiscal year 2008
National Program Guidance that each headquarters program office
should use its environmental justice action plan and EPA's
strategic plan to identify activities, initiatives, or
strategies that address the integration of environmental
justice. Finally, EPA is modifying its emergency management
procedures in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to incorporate an
environmental justice function and staffing support in the
EPA's Incident Command Structure so that environmental justice
issues are addressed in a timely manner.
These are all positive steps but EPA recognizes that more
work needs to be done, particularly in its efforts to making
environmental justice part of its mission by integrating
environmental justice into its decision making, planning, and
budgeting processes. EPA needs to be able to determine if their
programs, policies, and actions have a disproportionate health
or environmental impact on minority or low-income populations.
EPA also still needs broad guidance on environmental justice
program and policy reviews, which EPA acknowledges is not in
place.
One of EPA's goals is to provide an environment where all
people enjoy the same degree of protection from environmental
and health hazards and equal access to the decision-making
process to maintain a healthy environment in which to live and
work. Our work has shown that EPA still needs to do more to
integrate environmental justice into its programs and
activities so that it may achieve this goal.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.
I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.
Attachment A
Recommendations from 2004 OIG Report ``EPA Needs to
Consistently Implement the Intent of the Executive Order on
Environmental Justice''
1) Issue a memorandum that reaffirms that Executive Order
12898 is the Agency's priority and that minority and low-income
populations that are disproportionately impacted will receive
the intended actions of this Executive Order.
2) Clearly define the mission of the Office of
Environmental Justice and provide Agency staff with an
understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the office.
3) Establish specific time frames for the development of
definitions, goals and measurements that will ensure that the
1994 Executive Order is complied with in the most expeditious
manner.
4) Develop and articulate a clear vision on the Agency's
approach to environmental justice. The vision should focus on
environmental justice integration and provide objectives that
are clear, precise, and focused on environmental results.
5) Develop a comprehensive strategic plan for environmental
justice. The plan should include a comprehensive mission
statement that discusses, among other things, the Agency's
major functions and operations, a set of outcome-related goals
and objectives, and a description of how the Agency intends to
achieve and monitor the goals and objectives.
6) Provide the regions and program offices a standard and
consistent definition for a minority and low-income community,
with instructions on how the Agency will implement and
operationalize environmental justice into the Agency's daily
activities. This could be done through issuing guidance or a
policy statement from the Administrator.
7) Ensure that the comprehensive training program currently
under development includes standard and consistent definitions
of the key environmental justice concepts (i.e., low-income,
minority, disproportionately impacted) and instructions for
implementation.
8) Perform a comprehensive study of program and regional
offices' funding and staffing for environmental justice to
ensure that adequate resources are available to fully implement
the Agency's environmental justice plan.
9) Develop a systematic approach to gathering accurate and
complete information relating to environmental justice that is
usable for assessing whether progress is being made by the
program and regional offices.
10) Develop a standard strategy that limits variations
relating to Geographical Information System (GIS) applications,
including use of census information, determination of minority
status, income threshold, and all other criteria necessary to
provide regions with information for environmental justice
decisions.
11) Require that the selected strategy for determining an
environmental justice community is consistent for all EPA
program and regional offices.
12) Develop a clear and comprehensive policy on actions
that will benefit and protect identified minority and low-
income communities and strive to include in States' Performance
Partnership Agreements and Performance Partnership Grants.
----------
Mr. Wynn. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Ms. O'Neill.
STATEMENT OF MOLLY A. O'NEILL ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE
OF ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION, U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
AGENCY, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. O'Neill. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and distinguished
members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to
testify today about the progress EPA is making in providing
important information to communities across the Nation
regarding our work to publish the annual toxic release
inventory or TRI. This testimony reflects my dual roles as the
Chief Information Officer at the U.S. EPA and as the Assistant
Administrator of Environmental Information where the toxic
release inventory is one of the programs that I oversee.
Let me begin by saying I believe environmental information
is a strategic asset as we work to protect human health and the
environment. I believe this is important because environmental
information underlies all decisions made by EPA and our
partners to achieve our goals. As you know, EPA's TRI Program
provides information on releases and waste management
activities for nearly 650 chemicals reported from industry.
Environmental information has many uses, and one of the most
effective is to encourage facilities to reduce emissions or
releases.
The December 2006 final TRI rule expanding eligibility for
use of short-form reporting provided important incentives for
pollution prevention. The rule would allow companies to use a
shorter, simpler reporting form known as Form A to provide
required information so long as they eliminate or minimize
releases to the environment. No facilities were excused from
reporting under the TRI rule, and no chemicals were removed
from the required reporting list. The only change in
requirements is that facilities are permitted to use the short
form if they maintain releases and total waste is below limits
established in the rule.
The rule is an important part of EPA's strategy to minimize
releases of toxic chemicals across the United States. It
rewards facilities that completely eliminate releases of the
worst environmental substances persistent by accumulative and
toxic chemicals to PBTs. By allowing them to use a shorter
reporting form, provided they do not exceed 500 pounds of
recycling energy recovery and treatment for that chemical, EPA
believes these stringent requirements for short-form reporting
are appropriate for PBT chemicals because of the greater
potential for environmental harm.
For other toxics the rule allows for short-form reporting
for those facilities that reduce or maintain releases below
2,000 pounds, provided their total waste management does not
exceed 5,000 pounds. EPA believes that providing incentives to
encourage pollution prevention and better waste management
practices is good for the environment, good for facilities, and
good for people who live around them.
These limits encourage pollution prevention and should be
given an opportunity to work. EPA does not support H.R. 1055,
because it would eliminate the valuable incentives provided in
the December 2006, rule before we have even had a chance to
determine their effectiveness and could also have adverse
resource implications to the TRI Program.
We would not expect the effects of the December 2006, new
incentives to be reflected in the reports for calendar year
2006, that we are not processing. Beginning with reports for
2007, which would be due July 1, 2008, EPA will begin to
evaluate the effectiveness of these incentives in reducing
releases and promoting pollution prevention.
EPA does continue to demonstrate our commitment to public
access to environmental information. This year we expanded TRI
reporting of dioxin and dioxin-like chemicals, compounds,
increasing public access to how facilities use, manage, and
release the most toxic chemical group.
In addition, EPA converted the entire TRI reporting system
over to the modern industry standard classification practice to
enhance information sharing and comparability across sectors.
We continue to take steps to improve TRI to enhance its utility
for local communities. We continue to get it out earlier and
earlier to the public.
In addition to TRI, my role as EPA's Chief Information
Officer, I also want you to know that we are working on new and
innovative tools and applications to deliver a new suite and a
more comprehensive suite of environmental data to local
communities, including the use of geo-special tools, which will
provide easy access to detailed local information. Ultimately
these efforts and other projects underway will provide a useful
set of environmental information about local environments.
On behalf of Administrator Johnson, thank you for inviting
me to come here to speak today and to tell you our progress
that EPA is making on providing important information to
communities across the Nation, including TRI.
And in particular I want to thank you for inviting me
personally to describe my views and our views at EPA on H.R.
1055, the Toxic Right-to-Know Protection Act.
I would be happy to address any questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. O'Neill follows:]
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Mr. Wynn. Thank you very much, Ms. O'Neill.
Mr. Sullivan.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS M. SULLIVAN, CHIEF COUNSEL, ADVOCACY,
OFFICE OF ADVOCACY, U.S. SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION,
WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Sullivan. Chairman Wynn, Congressman Shimkus, and
members of the subcommittee, thank you for giving me the
opportunity to appear this morning.
I am the Chief Counsel for Advocacy at the U.S. Small
Business Administration. My office is an independent one within
the SBA, and therefore, the comments expressed in my statement
do not necessarily reflect the position of the administration
or the SBA. Due to my office's independence, my statement was
not submitted to OMB for approval.
Small businesses have been asking for TRI paperwork burden
relief since 1990. This hearing is actually the fifth hearing
held by House committees on TRI reform in five consecutive
Congresses. Five years after TRI was created, my office
petitioned EPA to develop streamlined reporting for small
volume chemical users.
In 1994, EPA responded to the petition by adopting Form A,
as Ms. O'Neill mentioned, the short form for TRI reporting.
Adapted as a less burdensome alternative to the long form, Form
R, the original Form A allowed companies to report their
releases as a range instead of a specific number.
Unfortunately, the Form A developed in 1994 was never
utilized to its potential, owing to restrictive eligibility
requirements subsequently imposed on the short form. Small
business have consistently voiced their concerns to my office
that the TRI Program imposes substantial paperwork burdens with
little corresponding environmental benefit, especially for
thousands of businesses that have zero discharges or emissions
to the environment. These businesses must devote scarce time
and resources to completing the lengthy, complex form R reports
each year, despite the fact that they have zero discharges.
Why is TRI paperwork burden reduction important to small
business? Well, the reason for my office's involvement is
simple. Small businesses are disproportionately impacted by
Federal rules and regulations. The overall regulatory burden in
the United States exceeds $1.1 trillion. I will repeat that.
The burden in the United States exceeds $1.1 trillion. For
firms employing fewer than 20 employees, the most recent
estimate of their annual regulatory burden is $7,647 per
employee.
Looking specifically at compliance with Federal
environmental rules, the difference between small and large
firms is even more dramatic. Small firms have to spend four and
a half times more per employee for environmental compliance
than larger businesses do. Environmental requirements,
including TRI paperwork, can comprise up to 72 percent of small
manufacturers' total regulatory costs.
EPA's reform to the TRI reporting rules allows more small
businesses to use the short form instead of the longer Form R.
This will save money, and it provides an incentive for
companies to recycle chemicals instead of disposing them.
The TRI Burden Reduction Rule will strengthen overall
environmental compliance. I recently talked with a TRI expert
who runs an environmental consulting firm in southeast
Michigan. He works with small businesses on environmental
management issues, and he was proud of the help he provided to
a paper mill. He had worked with a paper mill to encourage them
to recycle small amounts of mercury generated when switches and
other process control circuits undergo maintenance in the
mill's powerhouse.
He explained to me that EPA's TRI reform will allow a
number of industrial operations such as tool and die shops and
metal stamping plants to file a Form A for the first time. It
will also provide an incentive for other companies to recycle
their TRI chemicals rather than disposing of them.
The Office of Advocacy supports EPA's TRI Burden Reduction
Rule. Although the rule reform does not go as far as some small
businesses would prefer, my office supports EPA's December 2006
rule. The rule demonstrates that EPA is listening to the
concerns of small business, and EPA's reform should be a model
for other agencies to reform their existing rules and
regulations to reduce costs while preserving or strengthening
regulatory objectives. H.R. 1055 prevents EPA from moving
forward with the reforms, so my office is opposed to the
legislation.
Thank you for allowing me to present these views, and I
would be happy to answer questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sullivan follows:]
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Mr. Wynn. Thank you, Mr. Sullivan.
Mr. Stephenson.
STATEMENT OF JOHN B. STEPHENSON, DIRECTOR, NATURAL RESOURCES
AND ENVIRONMENT, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE, WASHINGTON,
DC
Mr. Stephenson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Shimkus,
members of the committee.
I am here today to discuss two studies the GAO has
undertaken that relate these two issues. Our first study
examined the extent to which EPA was meeting its environmental
justice commitment that environmental laws will not
disproportionately impact minority and low-income communities.
As Ms. Solis indicated, in July 2005 we issued a report to
her that concluded that EPA in general devoted very little
attention to environmental justice when developing new air
rules. We made several recommendations for improvement that EPA
has only partially responded to since we issued our report.
For example, to its credit EPA now includes the Office of
Environmental Justice as an ex officio member of its Regulatory
Steering Committee, however, the Office is still not
sufficiently involved in working groups for individuals rules.
We believe that more specific guidance, training, and
manageable benchmarks are needed to hold EPA officials
accountable for achieving EJ goals.
Our second study on the new toxic release inventory rule is
almost complete and will result in a report later this month.
TRI's an extremely important system as has been mentioned
because it is EPA's mechanism for meeting the requirements of
the Emergency Preparedness and Communities Right-to-Know Act
for facilities to report and make public their use of toxic
chemicals. There are currently over 23,000 facilities across
the country that report valuable information annually on over
600 dangerous chemicals. In developing the TRI rule we found
that EPA did not follow its internal rule-making guidelines.
For example, the rule pretends to reduce industry's
reporting burden by quadrupling the threshold from 500 to 2,000
pounds for facilities to use the shorter, less-informative Form
A for reporting toxic chemical releases. However, EPA did not
fully analyze the impact of the loss of chemical information on
TRI users like States, communities, and first responders.
EPA's internal stakeholders were in the process of
analyzing several other burden reduction options when OMB late
in the process suggested increasing the reporting threshold, an
option that EPA had earlier rejected. Pressure to quickly
implement the rule left EPA with insufficient time for a
complete economic analysis.
For example, electronic reporting, which has been mentioned
today and which has shown to provide far more burden reduction
in this rule, was missing from the analysis. Notwithstanding
the lack of analysis, EPA published the proposed rule in the
Federal Register and received over 120,000 comments, including
a dozen attorney generals from California, Connecticut,
Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New
Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Vermont, and Wisconsin opposing
the rule because of its impact on TRI information and
environmental justice implications.
Mr. Chairman, we are very concerned that to achieve burden
reduction EPA is tinkering with what has historically been a
highly-successful program to control the use of toxic
chemicals. EPA contends that the rule will result in only a 1
percent loss of information, however, this is an aggregate
estimate based on total pounds of chemicals nationwide and
ignores the more important implications of the rule on
individual communities.
In fact, we estimate that the rule has the potential to
reduce information on toxic chemical releases from over 6,600
facilities. Moreover, a disproportionately larger number of
these facilities are near minority and low-income communities.
Time permitting, Mr. Chairman, I would like to, I have a
couple of graphics. I think each of you, if you can't see the
monitors, has a package, and it should be in front of them. To
illustrate the impact of the TRI rule on individual
communities.
This uses Google Earth, which is a free software available
to everybody and overlays EPA information on it. And what you
are seeing in this first slide is the, indeed, the 23,000 TRI
reporting facilities, and I know you can't count 23,000. Could
you switch the slide? There you go. You can see that there are
23,000 facilities, and you can see the focus of where those
are.
Now, this second slide shows you the 6,600 plus facilities
that are subject to information reduction under this new rule.
There is still quite a few facilities there. Now, you can use
this. We are not using this interactively. These are stagnant,
but you can actually use this to zoom in on any individual
community, and we selected Los Angeles, but you could do this
with any other area.
So the next slide zooms in on which 6,600 of these
facilities are located in and around the Los Angeles area, and
you can see there is quite a few.
And then finally we wanted to connect the dots between TRI
and environmental justice by showing you the implications of
these facilities in the Los Angeles area on low-income and
minority communities. The cylinders represent low income
households within a 1-mile radius of the facility. The higher
the cylinder, the poorer the community, and the colors
represent minority. Red colors represent 80 percent minority or
greater. And, frankly, I think the graphic speaks for itself.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, let me say that failing to
demonstrate any burden reduction, EPA now asserts that the TRI
rule will provide an incentive for facilities to reduce their
toxic chemical releases. It is difficult for us to understand
how raising the threshold for reporting would achieve that
objective.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes a summary of my statement. I
will be happy to answer questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Stephenson follows:]
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Mr. Wynn. Thank you very much for your testimony. I would
like to thank all of the witnesses.
At this time the Chair would like to raise a few questions.
Mr. Nakayama, about how many rulemakings does EPA engage
in?
Mr. Nakayama. I don't have the exact number. I am sure it
is hundreds.
Mr. Wynn. What percentage would you say the Office of
Environmental Justice substantially participated in?
Mr. Nakayama. I would say a very small fraction.
Mr. Wynn. OK. Thank you. Is it true that some programs of
the EPA have not incorporated environmental justice in their
core functions?
Mr. Nakayama. I know we are working on getting all parts of
EPA to integrate EJ into their functions, and this fiscal year
2008, strategic plan is moving forward.
Mr. Wynn. So that is somewhat of a left-handed way of
saying that, yes, in the last 13 years there are some that have
not.
Mr. Nakayama. I don't personally know one way or the other.
Mr. Wynn. OK. That is fine. In the 13 years since the
Executive order was issued, has EPA ever done a comprehensive
review to determine whether this program or policies have a
disproportionately high impact on minority communities,
minority or low-income communities?
Mr. Nakayama. We are engaged in that process now to conduct
these EJ reviews as a result of both the IG report----
Mr. Wynn. I guess that is also another way of saying, no,
you haven't in the past.
Ms. O'Neill, now, you said your basic rationale is if they
minimize the releases, you want to allow them to use the short
form. Is that basically your position?
Ms. O'Neill. There is incentive to use the short form if
they minimize or eliminate releases.
Mr. Wynn. OK. Now, it seems to me that the environmental
community States and everyone else really would like to
minimize releases as well, is it your position that you
disagree with the 23 States and the 30 public health
organizations and the 40 labor organizations and the 200
environmental organizations that have basically said they want
this data notwithstanding the incentivizing that has taken
place?
Ms. O'Neill. I think that the States would agree that the
first priority would be to eliminate or reduce waste as a
priority.
Mr. Wynn. But the States said that they didn't want this
rule. Twenty-three States at least said they didn't want it.
Ms. O'Neill. Some of the comments to the rule based on what
I have seen are not entirely or the understanding of what we
are doing. The reality of it is that each community is still
getting information on the chemicals that are there.
Mr. Wynn. Well, isn't it true that there would be 22,000,
more than 22,000 less long-form reports with detailed
information? Isn't that true?
Ms. O'Neill. That is not true for this particular December
26 rule. As a result of that. Actually, there were 11,000 that
were already eligible under the previous rule. So it is an
additional 11,000. In total you are correct.
Mr. Wynn. In total it is 22,000?
Ms. O'Neill. Right. I just wanted to clarify that.
Mr. Wynn. OK. Now, you are saying, well, they are not going
to release these toxic materials, and so you think that is a
justification for not providing the data. But isn't it true
that even if they don't release the toxic material, that the
material will still be in the facility?
Ms. O'Neill. It depends on whether it is PBT or non-PBT,
but some will. Absolutely. Up to 500 pounds of PBTs.
Mr. Wynn. So it would impact the employees in the facility
even if the material were not released. Isn't that true?
Ms. O'Neill. The facility employees should know where the
information is and where the chemicals are.
Mr. Wynn. Well, they wouldn't be able to get the
information because reports are not submitted. The detailed
reports are not submitted. Now, what about first responders and
others outside of the facility? Even if there is no release,
again, the toxic material is still inside. Isn't that true?
Ms. O'Neill. That is exactly right, and that is why EPCRA
sets up different sections of the rule so that it can address
emergency responses different than TRI.
Mr. Wynn. But the responders still need to be aware of that
information.
Let me turn to Mr. Sullivan. You are talking about
paperwork, but isn't it true that all these are electronically-
filed reports?
Mr. Sullivan. I don't know that the percentage that are
filed electronically or the number that are filed in paper. I
would ask----
Mr. Wynn. But they could be filed electronically.
Mr. Sullivan. The actual program that receives the reports
could respond.
Mr. Wynn. Now, you cited at one point $1 trillion is the
burden, but isn't it true that the burden on an individual
small business would only be about $900 a year?
Mr. Sullivan. You will hear from the next testimony that
one example of a saving is 2 days worth of paperwork for this
rule, and there are other estimates.
Mr. Wynn. Well, but it comes to an average of $900.
Mr. Sullivan. EPA's estimate is $900. That is correct.
Mr. Wynn. OK. Well, we will work with that. One final
question.
Now, you talked about small businesses and the implications
of these are very small, but isn't it true that the definition
of small business includes businesses up to 500 employees?
Mr. Sullivan. SBA's definition of small employers includes
businesses up to 500. That is correct.
Mr. Wynn. So these aren't exactly Ma and Pa operations that
are filing these reports.
Mr. Sullivan. Mr. Chairman, Mom and Pop operations from all
over the country have appealed to my office for over 10 years
to get this type of reform.
Mr. Wynn. But employees, businesses under 10 employees
aren't included.
Mr. Sullivan. The 10 employee threshold in the law was done
on a risk analysis, and if you extend that same risk analysis,
it leads to the reforms finalized in December 2006.
Mr. Wynn. But Ma and Pa really aren't included.
My time is up. I recognize my distinguished ranking member
for questions at this time.
Mr. Shimkus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The frustrating thing
with me in this is we keep using the word ``release'' and we
don't define it, and I know the chairman tried to identify. It
would help us, it would help the minority if in the movement of
this bill that we just properly label.
So we could say toxic use chemical reporting, use inside a
facility, we could say chemical reporting inside a facility, we
could say possible toxic release inventory, what is possible to
be released. We could say, here is a good acronym, TUMRI, toxic
use manage and release inventory. So it identifies as not--
every person on the panel kept using the word, release, and
what it tells the public is that we are releasing all this
stuff. All this stuff is in the atmosphere. All this stuff for
environmental justice is killing the people in the minority
communities when that is not true. This is a redefinition of
the word, release, in 1986, by Senator Lautenberg. It is not
Webster's definition of what a release is.
I am a simple infantrymen, southern Illinoian, rural
person, and I think just to help address this debate we need to
just properly define it, and that is my appeal to the people
who really want to address this, to say if we want industry to
report every chemical process in a facility and maybe they just
recycle it, where there is, it is just in a cycle of
manufacturing, then let us let them do that. Let us don't scare
the world to say that all these things that are on this list
are toxic releases, because they are not.
And so every testimony that is using the word, release,
based upon the Lautenberg language is really deceptive in this
testimony because 99.9 percent of all Americans would not agree
with that definition, nor would Webster's definition.
So I would hope that it is a simple change. It would be in
compliance with moving forward, but it is very, very
frustrating.
Mr. Sullivan, how does this EPA reform, not hurt local
communities?
Mr. Sullivan. Congressman Shimkus, when we appealed to EPA
to reform the rule, we wanted to make sure that the same type
of risk analysis that led to EPA Administrator Carol Browner's
adoption of the short form transcended into this new paperwork
burden reduction reform announced in December 2006. And when
EPA did the analysis of moving information from Form R to Form
A, and this was mentioned by GAO, they maintained 99 percent of
the information. That is the same percentage requirement that
Carol Browner used to adopt the short form.
So when you look at specific communities and you say, well,
is it the same environmental protections from Carol Browner
conveyed to this new rule, the answer is yes.
Mr. Shimkus. And we all love our first responders, and we
want to make sure that they are protected and knowledgeable.
How do you respond to the criticisms that this TRI reform hurts
emergency responders?
Mr. Sullivan. Well, first of all, I commend the committee
for having the hearing to clear up a terrible misconception,
and that terrible misconception is that the Toxic Release
Inventory provide first responder information when the alarm
goes off, they are responding to a tragedy, and they are faced
with a life-threatening situation of either breaking down a
door or knowing that there is an explosive chemical behind that
door, taking the appropriate procedures. That is not what TRI
data is for.
In fact, to supplement Congressman Shimkus's earlier
statement, the TRI covers about 24,000 facilities. MSDS sheets,
which are available for employees and local firefighters and
first responders, along with chemical inventory data, covers
over 550,000 facilities, and it is timely information, not
information that is over a year old like TRI data is. So I
think that this committee deserves credit for really exposing
terrible misinformation that the TRI data is the most important
for first responders. That is not what the facts bear out, Mr.
Shimkus.
Mr. Shimkus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I have 6 seconds
left, and I will yield back.
Mr. Wynn. Thank you. The Chair would recognize Ms. Solis
for questions.
Ms. Solis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My question is for Mr. Stephenson, and I wanted to ask just
quite frankly, in your opinion, do you believe that the
Executive order on environmental justice has been implemented
adequately by EPA?
Mr. Stephenson. In a nutshell, no. That is what we reported
in 2005, and we think they are moving in the right direction.
We think including them as an ex officio member of the steering
committee is good, but we saw no evidence of its inclusion in
individual rule marking.
Ms. Solis. And you mentioned something about the current
working groups that are coming about and that there is still a
lack of representation of EJ representatives or stakeholders in
those working groups. Is that correct?
Mr. Stephenson. That is right. The only one that was held
up oddly enough was looking at EJ implications of this very
rule, the TRI rule.
Ms. Solis. Which is amazing to me. I don't understand that.
My question is the facilities that you showed up here in
Los Angeles, what would happen in a community like East Los
Angeles, for example, which is pointed out very clearly in your
documentation as the hot spots here, if they didn't have to
report? This is like the 1 percent that doesn't, that would not
be, would not have the advantage of giving us information, and
this is where a higher tendency of minority, low-income, and
toxic levels are much higher.
What would that mean to communities of color?
Mr. Stephenson. Well, there is a misconception here. We
never said that TRI was the first source of information for
emergency responders. Nevertheless, they use it in overall
planning. We have been told that by the States.
This is a public right-to-know program, TRI, and we use
that term ``release'' because that is the name of the program,
Toxic Release Inventory. You are absolutely right that it is
any facility that manages, handles, disposes of appropriately,
nevertheless the program is called the Toxic Release Inventory.
So the purpose of this program, the reason it has been
highly successful is because the public has information about
these chemicals. Individuals can go into the TRI database put
in their ZIP Code and find out information about what is
happening around them. We don't see burden reduction from
raising the threshold from 500, 2,000 pounds.
Ms. Solis. And you mentioned something, if I could just
interrupt, that with the reporting requirements being now much
more easily accessible through computer, that that definitely
would possibly lower costs for businesses.
Mr. Stephenson. Absolutely. Right now, and we think EPA is
doing a good job integrating this information in more usable
forms to the public, and we are disappointed that it takes 12
months to get the data out, but that is changing.
Ms. Solis. Yes.
Mr. Stephenson. Right now over 95 percent of the filers use
electronic filing, and we expect that will go to 99 percent.
Ms. Solis. Yes.
Mr. Stephenson. So that is where the true burden reduction
and usefulness of this program comes, not from a rule to change
the threshold for reporting. It is not paperwork anymore.
Ms. Solis. Well, I think that this information is very
timely because in the area that I do represent, which is kind
of somewhat outlined in your graph here, the Port of Long Beach
and Los Angeles as we know are major targets for potential
terrorism, and if you can see in the map there, and I know the
area. Geographically there is a lot of refineries, oil
refineries, a lot of chemical plants, and a major thoroughfare
for our railroad system. God forbid if something were to
happen, and we didn't know what was available there. And this
is where that information would be lacking if we continue to
not see enforcement of the original legislation.
So I am very concerned about that, and I just want to thank
you for giving us your information.
And I want to go next, if I can, please, to Granta
Nakayama, and wanted to ask him with the administration's
request to cut back on environmental justice funding, which was
about a 30 percent cut, you mentioned earlier in your statement
that you were giving out grants now of $1 million to community
groups. Is it not true that during the discussion debate on the
budget that if this, if that went through, according to the
Bush administration, that these grant programs wouldn't even be
there, and it was partly because Congress put the money back
in?
Mr. Nakayama. First of all, I want to be very clear that
the President's budget request for the Office of Environmental
Justice has been fairly flat over the last 5 or 6 years. There
hasn't been much change. Congress through its generosity has
provided an add on so that we could pursue these environmental
justice grants. Appreciate the support of that program. We made
great use of that money. I think it is having a big impact.
Ms. Solis. But it would have been cut. That is my question.
Mr. Nakayama. Well, last year we didn't get the add on,
because he had a continuing resolution. We did not get that add
on, and yet we took out, the administration put $895,000,
almost $1 million, out of other EPA activities, not out of my
office, not out of the Office of Enforcement and Compliance
Assurance, put that money in there so we could continue this
program.
Ms. Solis. My next question is, did the Office of
Environmental Justice analyze the impact of the closure on the
Region 10 Environmental Justice Office for budget reasons prior
to its closure?
Mr. Nakayama. The Region 10 Environmental Justice Office
wasn't closed. What they did is they reorganized and pulled the
environmental justice function out of the administration and
resource management function and put it in a line operation. In
other words, the real, they put it in the actual line
organization that regulates the environmental activities in
region 10. And what that did is I think it produced a much more
active and much more effective environmental justice function
in region 10.
Ms. Solis. One of the other questions I have is for our
witness, Mr. Sullivan. You mentioned that the cost to small
business given reporting of these chemicals is about a 72
percent burden or something like that to that effect. How do
you quantify that with TRI? How do you quantify that? Please
explain that to me.
Mr. Sullivan. Of course. Every 2 or 3 years my office hires
an outside contractor to research regulatory burden with the
attempt of trying to figure out whether there is a
disproportionality of small versus large, because when we work
with OSHA and EPA and IRS and Department of Transportation, the
idea of our involvement and encouraging agency sensitivity to
small firms is to level that playing field.
Ms. Solis. But there were a lot of other regulatory
mechanisms in place where the Government actually provides
assistance for cleanup, the Underground Storage Tank Program as
an example. That isn't a direct burden necessarily placed on
small businesses.
Mr. Wynn. The gentle lady's time has expired.
Ms. Solis. We can submit. Thank you.
Mr. Wynn. We are going to try to get one more line of
questioning before recessing to vote.
Mr. Murphy of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
A quick question for the EPA here. Would the OSHA worker
safety requirements apply in any plant that has to report and
more specifically, does the TRI impact the OSHA safety
requirements for workers?
Ms. O'Neill. Assuming that is for me.
Mr. Murphy. Yes.
Ms. O'Neill. No, it does not impact.
Mr. Murphy. Not at all?
Ms. O'Neill. No.
Mr. Murphy. OSHA standards are separate here?
Ms. O'Neill. Yes, they are.
Mr. Murphy. OK. That is an important thing. I may have some
other follow up I want to use on that later on.
I am going to yield to the ranking member, Mr. Shimkus, the
remainder of my time.
Mr. Shimkus. I thank you. Chairman Barton, I mean, ranking
member, Joe, do you want to ask a question because we are going
to be----
Mr. Barton. No.
Mr. Shimkus. All right. Let me go to Ms. O'Neill. Does TRI
set pollution limits for permits?
Ms. O'Neill. No.
Mr. Shimkus. Does TRI set environmental health standards?
Ms. O'Neill. No, it does not.
Mr. Shimkus. Is it anything more than a reporting program?
Ms. O'Neill. It is a reporting program. Yes.
Mr. Shimkus. Is anyone newly exempted from TRI reporting
that previously had to file a report?
Ms. O'Neill. No, they are not.
Mr. Shimkus. Were any chemicals that previously had to be
reported removed from the list of reportable chemicals?
Ms. O'Neill. No, they were not.
Mr. Shimkus. How current is TRI data?
Ms. O'Neill. By the time it is published, a year and a half
old.
Mr. Shimkus. Eighteen months.
Ms. O'Neill. Eighteen months. We are working on that.
Mr. Shimkus. All right. Is EPA prevented from getting
additional data from reporting entities under TRI regulations?
Ms. O'Neill. No.
Mr. Shimkus. OK. And for my last opportunity, I am still
going to be lobbying for a change in the title. I got
corrected. It wasn't the 1986, Act. The 1986, Act actually
defined release as release. it was the 1990, changes that added
all this other stuff, so if you all want to submit to me
additional terminology that would adequately define what this
program is, I think the committee would be happy to receive it.
I would, and we would, maybe if we move forward, properly
define what we actually are trying to do here.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.
Mr. Wynn. Thank you. The subcommittee's going to stand in
recess until the conclusion of this series of votes. We are
going to reconvene 5 minutes after the conclusion of the last
vote. Thank you.
[Recess.]
Mr. Wynn. The subcommittee will reconvene. At this point we
are going to proceed directly with questions from Mr. Barrow of
Georgia.
Mr. Barrow. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I hear, and I can relate to Mr. Shimkus's point about how
the toxic release inventory is sort of misleading nomenclature.
I guess instead of TRI it might be best for us to rename it
TMI, toxic management index, but TMI also means too much
information. Some folks don't want us to have enough
information.
So I want to focus in on that concern of mine. I may agree
with him that the use of the word, release, ain't Webster's
definition of the word, release, but I will see him Webster's
definition of release and raise him Webster's definition of
small business, because I think the definition of small
business that works for some purposes. It doesn't necessary
apply in this context here.
And you can think about something without thinking about
the things which it relates. You have the quality of being
either a good Congressional staffer or a good lawyer, but I
want to talk about small business in a more practical sense,
because I hear Mr. Sullivan's point. He is right. You know,
little Mom and Pop outfits is one thing but 500 person,
employees, especially when you are going to outsource so much
of your stuff through contractors, who knows how that can be
done.
I am intrigued, though, and I want to pick up on his point
about the so-called trillion dollar burden we are imposing on
business in this country, and I can relate to that, but I
wonder if we think about what the cost of the compliance regime
in this country would be if it wasn't on the honor system,
people investigating themselves, but if we had a shown-up
police force that actually did the monitoring, came on the
premises and monitored. Came on the premises and recorded, came
on the premises and did the reporting. If we had third-party
verification rather than the self-reporting regime we have, I
would rather imagine that burden would be a great deal bigger.
Which leads me to my question. How is range reporting going
to lower that trillion dollar burden in a substantial way if
you still have the burden of knowing and determining yourself
through monitoring and assessment and recording and reporting
to yourself, you still have the burden of determining exactly
how much you are managing, how is it going to lower the cost if
you just go ahead, to report it in broad ranges? I can tell you
about range reporting. I have got an income that is a whole lot
bigger than something I don't recognize. The range reporting
regime we have got for Congressional income is something that I
can't relate to at all, bears no relation to my real-life
circumstances.
And what I am getting at is if you got to know precisely
how much you are managing and or releasing in order to be able
to validly comply with the oath you got to take when you fill
out the short form, just like you got to fill out that oath to
fill out the long form, if you got to know down to the jot and
tiddle how much you are managing, how much you are producing,
how much you are handling in order to fill out a range report,
why not go ahead and submit the precise report? Why not go
ahead and say how much of that trillion dollar burden are we
going to relieve by them, by forcing the small businesses and
the medium sized and all to know precisely how much they are
handled but not tell us, to keep that information secret.
When you add to the fact that you are creating a tremendous
incentive for folks to fudge a little bit. The honor system
works better, I think, when you require people to be precise,
but here you are actually inviting people to be vague and
general in the reporting. Aren't you going to be inviting
people to be vague and general in their ascertainment and their
monitoring?
I am concerned about that. Who can tell me how it is going
to lower the cost and how much it is going to lower the cost if
you still got to know and we are still imposing the burden of
finding out and determining to your own satisfaction so you can
take that oath, just exactly how much stuff you are generating.
Mr. Sullivan, you want to try?
Mr. Sullivan. I would love to try to respond to the
Congressman.
Mr. Barrow. Since I took most of my time leading up to
this, I want you to be quick.
Mr. Sullivan. First of all, we are in agreement about the
honor system. I think that really the crux of EPA's reform is
to incentivize the honor system.
Mr. Barrow. Am I correct in understanding, though, that the
rule still requires the managers to know and to monitor and
determine exact, precisely, for them to know exactly how much
it is, but we are still going to require them only to report it
in general terms? And that is somehow going to incentivize them
to produce less?
Mr. Sullivan. If I may fully respond to the Congressman's
question, I would like to try and point out that a small firm
with 15 employees that wants to manufacture the brass for this
distinguished hearing room is given a choice of making sure as
a start up do we act responsibly, and there are a number of
reasons why that person would want to act responsibly and
manage the alloy responsibly so that the amount, the small
amount of lead that is in there does not leave this facility,
is not emitted or discharged.
That is what is the incentive based in this EPA's reform.
That is in sharp contrast to the old system that doesn't
recognize this incredible innovator and entrepreneur who wants
to start a domestic manufacturing of brass and says it doesn't
matter if you send this outside of your facility or you have
legally permitted emissions and discharges, because you are
going to have to fill out the same long form anyway.
So filling out the small form----
Mr. Barrow. It seems to me that if we are going to require
them to know what is in the long form and to determine what is
in the long form, it is not that much weight of a burden for
them to tell us what they already know, what they are already
forced to know.
Mr. Sullivan. We respectfully disagree. Any burden
reduction is important in small business.
Mr. Barrow. Mr. Najjum, in the 2 seconds I have, I had
remaining, I want to ask you, you heard me talk about the
situation in Augusta. Would your folks be willing to come down
there and help us look into the situation at places like Hyde
Park? Because we have got a community that is literally
trapped. They can't, do they stay, do they go, and we need to
bring the resources to bear, to help them evaluate whether or
not staying is a viable option and how to deal with the unrest
and the anxiety and the uncertainty of the folks who want to
stay but also want to make sure that their neighborhoods are
clean.
Can you do something about that? Can you come down and look
at Hyde Park?
Mr. Najjum. We can talk with your staff about it, and if
that means going down to look and see if there is something the
IG can do, certainly.
Mr. Barrow. Thank you.
Mr. Wynn. Thank you, Mr. Barrow.
At this time the Chair would recognize Mr. Pallone, sponsor
of the TRI bill.
Mr. Pallone. Thank you. I am going to try to get in a
question or two about TRI, and then I want to ask an
environmental justice question.
Ms. O'Neill, in the GAO report they specifically say at
one point here that the EPA's TRI burden reduction rule will
reduce the amount of information about toxic chemical releases
previously available to the public, and then it says that taken
by facility some 3,500 facilities no longer have to report any
quantitative information about their chemical use and releases
to the TRI.
With regard to EPA's assertion the critical information
would be, would not be lost. The agency estimates that less
than 1 percent of the total pounds of chemical releases would
on longer be reported, however, we found the impact on data
available to many communities could be more significant than
EPA's National totals indicate, particularly at the local
level.
Do you disagree with any of those things?
Ms. O'Neill. I disagree that communities will not be
getting information. They will be getting information, and they
can assume, because it is range related.
Mr. Pallone. But they are saying there is going to be less
information and that a lot of facilities won't be providing any
information. Do you agree with that?
Ms. O'Neill. Ninety-nine percent of the data will still be
available. There will be some cases where it will be less data,
but the most important data is available to the community and
which is what chemical is being managed there, and that is the
most important thing. And there is a whole suite of other
information available to local communities. I think it is
really important that we say that TRI is one set of data.
Mr. Pallone. OK.
Ms. O'Neill. And we really need to get, put that in context
with other environmental data out there that I think is equally
as important to the communities.
Mr. Pallone. See, my problem is, and I will be honest with
you, and I am not trying to denigrate you in any way, the whole
notion of right-to-know in my opinion, I am only speaking for
myself, is based on the idea that we can't trust industry to do
the right thing, we can't even trust agencies and the
Government, whether it be the Federal or the State or even
Congress to do the right thing. And the best thing is to have
transparency, throw everything out there as much as possible
because the public will be, will react and take on whoever has
to be taken on because we can't trust the industry or the
Government to do it.
So when you say that by raising the threshold you provide
this incentive, you create an incentive for pollution
prevention, it kind of goes against the whole philosophy of the
right to know because you are saying, well, we will incentivize
the companies or the potential polluter, if you will, and
provide theoretically less information to the public.
Well, the whole premise of the right-to-know is that we
need to incentivize the public, not the potential polluter
because we can't trust the company or the Government to do the
right thing.
I know that Mr. Stephenson at one point, how does raising
the threshold achieve the objective of less toxic releases, I
don't see it. So let me just ask you one thing.
In proposing the new rule did the EPA conduct any studies
on reporting reductions, creating incentives for pollution
prevention? Prior to the new rule did the EPA conduct any
economic analysis demonstrating an incentive affect with
reduced reporting?
In other words, you state that the EPA is working to
determine the effectiveness of these incentives, but shouldn't
they have determined the effectiveness of those incentives
before changing the rule rather than hoping that this incentive
is going to work? I don't, it doesn't seem to me you have
enough evidence that the incentive works.
Ms. O'Neill. Well, first of all, EPA did do a lot of
analysis. They did economic analysis, they looked at a number
of chemicals that might be affected. We looked at by ZIP Code
communities that might be affected. We looked at the number
forms that might switch over. So there was a lot of analysis
that was put in this. There was discussions, it is my
understanding there was discussions in terms of do companies if
they have this opportunity, would they have incentive? I don't
know in terms of analysis----
Mr. Pallone. Do you really have any evidence? I have to
ask, I want to go to one more question unrelated, but do you
really have any evidence that the incentive will work?
Ms. O'Neill. In terms of the incentive?
Mr. Pallone. Yes.
Ms. O'Neill. I will have to get back to you, quite frankly,
to see what studies are there, but we can get back to you on
that.
Mr. Pallone. All right. I would appreciate that.
I wanted to ask the Inspector General one question. I had a
case of environmental, what I considered environmental racism.
You may not be familiar with it. With the Ringwood Superfund
Site in New Jersey, and this was a site where it was taken off
the Superfund list, and myself and my two Senators made an
issue of the fact that we didn't think there was proper
cleanup, that we didn't think that the residents were properly
informed about what was going on. We asked the IG to look into
it from an environmental racism point of view because it was
primarily a Native American community.
The IG, thankfully, came back and said you have got to put
this back on the Superfund list, you have got to do a more
thorough cleanup, you didn't do enough to inform the residents
about this, and all that happened. It is back on the list, a
more thorough cleanup is being done. They are out there doing
more public information hearings.
But they said that there was no evidence that the reason
this happened, all these bad things happened was because of
social, cultural, or environmental ethnic reasons. And I guess
my question is how do we prove that? This was a case of total
negligence. They didn't do what they were supposed to do, and I
believe it was because it was a Native American community. But
it is hard to say, to pinpoint evidence, because they didn't do
what they were supposed to do. They didn't have the public
meetings, they didn't have, they didn't do the proper cleanup.
I don't think anybody was stepping forward to say, we didn't do
this because you were Native American.
So I just question that evidentiary requirement. What do
you require to show that the reason all these bad things
happened and need to be corrected was related to the fact that
these were Native Americans? How, what is the evidentiary
basis? They said there is no evidence, but there is not much
evidence of anything because they didn't do what they were
supposed to do.
Mr. Najjum. I understand the question and the concern,
Congressman. I understand your frustration, but when we go as
an IG looking for an audit or an evaluation, we have to have
evidence and various ways to get it. We went through, in the
case of Ringwood, yards of e-mails and documentation, anything
that we could find that would show an indication or evidence
that the actions or lack there of were based on the Native
American population.
Mr. Pallone. In other words, you have to have somebody
actually saying that we didn't do this or we were negligent or
we didn't report to these people because they are Native
American in order for you to come to that conclusion? Nobody is
going to say that.
Mr. Najjum. Sometimes they do, sir. When you are going back
looking through the records sometimes there are indications or
there would be evidence that actions were taken or not taken in
the official documents and also in the e-mails and other things
that go along with that, that would show that people were
making, or taking actions based on that. But short of that,
yes, it is very difficult for an IG to look at something
without comparing it to something else and say in nine out of
10 cases they did this, and in this one case they did that.
But then we would still be ascribing a particular motive to
that, which may or may not be it. That is the problem we face,
so when we say there was no evidence, we are not coming to a
conclusion that it happened or it didn't happen. What we are
saying is we can't prove that without evidence.
Mr. Pallone. Well, I am going to, I know my time is up, but
I am going to follow up if I could, Mr. Chairman, with some
questions on this, because I really believe that more needs to
be done to look at the cause, whether this really was an
environmental justice issue.
But I am sorry. Thank you. Thank you for letting me go over
a little bit.
Mr. Wynn. At this time the Chair would recognize Mrs. Capps
for questions.
Mrs. Capps. Thank you. I have three people I would like to
question in this very short time period.
A brief question, Mr. Nakayama, during the hearing you
stated that the EPA Office of Environmental Justice has
participated in very few agency rulemaking efforts.
Mr. Nakayama. That is true, because we depend on----
Mrs. Capps. Let me ask you the question. If EPA were about
to develop a rule that on its face would apply primarily to
minority, urban, low-income communities, wouldn't that be
exactly the kind of rule that your Office of Environmental
Justice should be actively involved in in order to insure that
EJ impacts are addressed?
Mr. Nakayama. We are trying to integrate environmental
justice----
Mrs. Capps. You believe you should be involved in those
kind of----
Mr. Nakayama. I believe the environmental justice
activities impacts should be considered during the rulemaking.
Now, we take the position that really we need to build the
capability of the program office that is developing the rule so
that they need to take the lead and conduct that EJ analysis,
because they have special expertise, for example, on air rule,
they may have expertise of the demographics, their air
modeling.
Mrs. Capps. So you don't believe you should be actively
part of the rulemaking.
Mr. Nakayama. We should be involved, but the primarily
lead, we are trying to develop the capability to have the
program office be the lead.
Mrs. Capps. All right. Let me turn to Mrs. O'Neill, and
this will take a little bit of a narrative because it is a
company in my district that has been reporting its ammonia
release data to TRI.
As you know, this is a vegetable company in Santa Maria,
CA, I happen to represent. I am very happy to. As you know,
exposure to ammonia can irritate the skin, eyes, and
respiratory system. Extreme exposure may cause death. The
company's trend line on TRI starting in 1989, has been to
reduce its ammonia releases year after year. In 1989, the
company released 14,000 pounds of ammonia. It is now down to
5,400 in the last report. This shows, in my opinion, that TRI
is working, because it is motivating a company like Pick Sweet
to lower its releases. And it is successful and has something
to brag about as it is doing that.
What I am concerned about is companies like this dropping
out of detailed reporting. Requiring public disclosure provides
a powerful incentive for facilities to continue to decrease
toxic releases, provides community residents and first
responders with vital information in cases of accidental
releases, in cases of anything happening on the site. The TRI
rule as proposed would have allowed this company to stop
providing detailed reports to local emergency planning
commissions.
If it weren't for the changes to the proposed rule, would
this company have been required to file detailed reports and
provide that information to the local first responders? They
were only 400 pounds away from the 5,000-pound disclosure
threshold, and if they had gotten below that and didn't have to
report it all, the public health people would not have known
that there was 4,500 pounds of release.
I would like your reaction.
Ms. O'Neill. Well, again, on the Emergency Right-to-Know
Act, the TRI report for EPCRA is broken out into several
different sections. So under this we are not affecting the
section for emergency planners at all.
Mrs. Capps. No matter what the level?
Ms. O'Neill. No matter what the level. This is just for TRI
reporting. So EPCRA has several sections in it. OK. So some
emergency responders use the TRI reports as supplemental
information, and in that case they will still understand, in
this particular case they will still have an understanding of
what the chemicals of concern are there. But they rely on the
different EPCRA section for all the hazardous materials that
are there and their locations. So I just want to point that
out.
Mrs. Capps. Right. And so we want, I am saying wouldn't,
shouldn't that continue no matter what the release so that
they----
Ms. O'Neill. It does continue for emergency response. What,
you are talking about two different----
Mrs. Capps. For emergency response it does?
Ms. O'Neill. Well, this, the final rule does not affect
EPCRA associated with emergency response reporting. OK. So what
you are talking about is the TRI reports where the, for the
impact for the final rule. And so depending on the type of
chemical, and I don't have a list in front of me, I am not sure
if they would meet the threshold. I don't know what else they
have in their waste management. So they might have had to go
further down. They might not have been 400 pounds.
Mrs. Capps. They wouldn't have to report after they got
below a certain----
Ms. O'Neill. Well, it is a little bit more complicated than
that because it is 5,000 for everything but there is a cap on
the actual type of management and releases, which is 2,000
pounds. So it may, it actually may incentivize them to go down
even further. It may incentivize them.
Mrs. Capps. Well, is there a way to find that out? I would
like to follow up with you because----
Ms. O'Neill. If you, yes, if you could submit the question
so I know what the particular chemical is and the facility, it
might be a lot easier to get back to you.
Mrs. Capps. I will.
I am thinking about first responders to an incident there
to any kind of incident in the public where they need to have
some way of knowing what they are walking into.
Ms. O'Neill. Right, and again, what, the final rule is not
for section 312 of EPCRA, which is the primary source of
information for first responders.
Mrs. Capps. Thank you. I just, I hope, may I have an extra
few seconds to ask, I would like to get Mr. Stephenson to be
able to comment on some of these incentives I have been talking
about.
The reporting and disclosure requirements in TRI I believe
myself are very important incentives. Data is, for this company
supports that conclusion. They worked hard to get their
releases down. Other than the release of ammonia and accidents
do happen, they are heading in the right direction. Releases
were going down.
What, I want your response if I could ask indulgence of the
Chair, to----
Mr. Stephenson. That is our point exactly. If you increase
the threshold for reporting from 500 to 2,000 you are de-
incentivizing them to go much below 2,000. So, if there is no
burden reduction, why not keep the rule the way it was at 500
pounds? We think that will provide the incentives necessary to
keep----
Mrs. Capps. Bring it all the way down.
Mr. Stephenson. Bring it all the way down.
Mrs. Capps. Thank you.
Mr. Wynn. I would like to thank all the witnesses on this
panel first for your testimony but also for your patience. I
know we had a pretty considerable break. We appreciate your
presence here, and as I said, members may be submitting written
questions.
Thank you very much.
At this time I would like to call forth our second panel.
While they are coming up, I would like to ask unanimous
consent that two documents be inserted in the record. The first
is a March 6, 2007, letter to the Honorable John Dingell and
the Honorable Joe Barton signed by 40 individuals and public
interest organizations expressing support for the Environmental
Justice Act of 2007, and the second is a September 28, 2007,
Dear Representative letter from 307 organizations urging
support for H.R. 1055, the Toxic Right-to-Know Protection Act.
Mr. Shimkus. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Wynn. Yes.
Mr. Shimkus. I think I am being drafted a unanimous consent
as we speak.
Mr. Wynn. Well, what I would like to do if there are no
objections, the two letters that I have just referenced will be
submitted to the record, and if at some point you would like to
introduce or make a unanimous consent request, the Chair will
certainly entertain that.
Hearing no objections the two items that are mentioned will
be entered into the record.
Mr. Wynn. I would like to welcome our second panel and
introduce them to you.
First we have Mr. Hilary O. Shelton, director, National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Washington
Bureau.
Second we have Dr. Robert Bullard, Ware professor,
Department of Sociology, director, Environmental Justice
Resource Center, Clark Atlanta University.
Third we have Mr. Jose Bravo, executive director, Just
Transition Alliance on behalf of the Communities for a Better
Environment.
Fourth, Mr. Andrew Bopp, director of public affairs,
Society of Glass and Ceramic Decorators.
Fifth, Mr. Alan Finkelstein, assistant fire marshal,
Strongsville Fire and Emergency Services.
And last but certainly not least Ms. Nancy Wittenberg,
assistant commissioner, New Jersey Department of Environmental
Protection.
Again, I would like to welcome you, offer you 5 minutes
each for your statements. Your full prepared testimony will, of
course, be entered into the record.
Mr. Shelton.
STATEMENT OF HILARY O. SHELTON, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE, WASHINGTON BUREAU,
WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Shelton. Good morning, Chairman Wynn and members of the
subcommittee. I thank you for the opportunity this morning to
testify before you.
As you mentioned, my name is Hilary Shelton, and I am the
director of the Washington Bureau of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People. I have been invited here
today to discuss environmental justice and communities' rights
to know.
Sadly, more than 40 years after the enactment of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, we are
still a much too segregated society. Centuries of legal
segregation and Jim Crow and continuing America in which the
amount of education received and the salary you earn is
determined in a large part, unfortunately, by the color of your
skin. And as a result, Americans still living in communities
marked by concentrations of people who look alike. Even sadder,
it is communities of color, neighborhoods with large
concentrations of racial and ethnic minority Americans which
bear a disproportionate share of the Nation's air, water, and
toxic waste pollution problems. And since the places where
people live and work have an enormous impact on their health,
this disproportionate exposure to pollution leads to a more
racial and ethnic minority Americans suffering from ill health.
And perhaps the saddest part of all this is that the
Federal Government has a proven track record of being less
responsive to the needs of communities if color when pollution
is a problem. As a seminal study in the National Law Journal in
1992, stated, there is a, ``racial divide in the way the United
States Government cleans up toxic waste sites and punishes
polluters. White communities see faster action, better results,
and stiffer penalties than communities where blacks, Hispanics,
and other racial minorities live.''
There have been several conclusive studies that
demonstrate, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that communities of
color are disproportionately targeted by polluters. As the
United Church of Christ, ``Toxic Wastes and Race in Twenty,
1987-2007,'' concluded, race is the most significant
independent predictor of commercial hazardous waste facilities
locations. In fact, a December 2, 2005, report by the
Associated Press reported that 79 percent of African-Americans
live in polluted neighborhoods.
So what is the impact and cost of these disparities to
communities of color? Perhaps most importantly it has been
effectively argued that disparities in pollution are a leading
cause of health disparities among America's populations. Many
of the principle causes of death in the United States today,
that is cancer, chronic lung disease, and diabetes, have
significant environmental causes. Furthermore, the
environmental causes of non-lethal conditions, including birth
defects, asthma, learning disabilities, and nervous system
disorders, are also well documented.
The NAACP recognizes that one of the major hurdles facing
this committee, as well as the Federal Government, is the fact
that many of the zoning laws and regulations which determine
who is exposed to hazardous pollution are made at the local
level. This, however, does not and should not absolve the
Federal Government from taking action to try to mitigate
environmental injustices and help communities help themselves.
The NAACP strongly supports the two bills that are the
subject of today's hearings; H.R. 1103, the Environmental
Justice Act of 2007, and H.R. 1055, the Toxic Right-to-Know
Protection Act. If enacted, these bills will provide
communities with powerful tools in their struggle against
pollutants. By providing communities with details about the
quantities and quality of the pollution in their air, water,
and soil, they can make informed decisions and demands on their
elected officials. An informed community is an empowered
community.
In my written testimony I elaborate on why the NAACP feels
this legislation is necessary and important. For the record, I
have also included in my testimony an excerpt from this month's
Crisis Magazine, the magazine of the NAACP. The cover story of
the July-August edition is on environmental justice, and within
this article are several good examples of individuals and
communities who have fought against polluters and pollution.
I would again like to thank Chairman Wynn and Congresswoman
Solis, Congressman Pallone and the other members of this
committee for all of your efforts on this important issue.
I would also like to thank Leslie Fields of the Sierra
Club, Environmental Justice Department, for her assistance in
preparing this statement, as well as the input of the group
called Advocates for the Environmental Human Rights.
With that I welcome your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Shelton follows:]
Statement of Hilary Shelton
Good morning Chairman Wynn and members of the subcommittee.
I thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.
My name is Hilary Shelton, and I am the Director of the
Washington Bureau of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP. The Washington Bureau
is the public policy advocacy branch of our Nation's oldest,
largest and most widely recognized grassroots civil rights
organization. I have been invited here today to discuss
environmental justice and communities' right to know.
It is sad but true that today, more than forty years after
Dr. King spoke to us in his ``I Have a Dream'' speech of one
nation in which we all lived together under God, and despite
the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and
the Fair Housing Act of 1967 we are still a much too segregated
society. Centuries of legal segregation and Jim Crow and a
continuing America in which the amount of education you receive
and the salary you make is determined in large part by the
color of your skin have resulted in many Americans still living
in communities marked by a concentration of people who look
alike.
Even sadder, it is communities of color, neighborhoods with
large concentrations of racial and ethnic minority Americans,
which bear a disproportionate share of the Nation's air, water
and toxic waste pollution problems. And since the places where
people live and work have an enormous impact on their health,
this disproportionate exposure to pollution leads to more
racial and ethnic minority Americans suffering from ill
health--both physical and mental.
And perhaps the saddest part of this all is that the
Government, our American Government, has a proven track record
of being less responsive to the needs of communities of color
when pollution is a problem. As a seminal study on the National
Law Journal in 1992 stated, there is a ``...racial divide in
the way the United States Government cleans up toxic waste
sites and punishes polluters. White communities see faster
action, better results and stiffer penalties than communities
where Blacks, Hispanics and other minorities live.''
There have been several conclusive studies that
demonstrate, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that communities of
color are disproportionately targeted by polluters. Perhaps the
most famous of these studies, by the United Church of Christ,
is the 1987 study Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States,
and the more recent follow-up, Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty
1987-2007. Both the 1987 and the 2007 UCC reports found race to
be the most significant independent predictor of commercial
hazardous waste facility locations when socio-economic and
other non-racial factors are taken into account. In fact, as I
am sure we will hear from more than one source today, in the
2000 study the UCC study found that neighborhoods within 3
kilometers of commercial hazardous waste facilities are 56
percent people of color whereas non-host areas are 30 percent
people of color.
So what is the impact and cost on communities of color of
these disparities? Perhaps most importantly, it has been
effectively argued that disparities in pollution are a leading
cause of the health disparities among America's populations.
Many of the principal causes of death in the United States
today (cancer, chronic lung disease and diabetes) have
significant environmental causes. Furthermore, the
environmental effects of non-lethal conditions (including birth
defects, asthma, learning disabilities and nervous system
disorders) are also well documented.
The NAACP recognizes that one of the major hurdles facing
this committee, as well as the Federal Government, is the fact
that many of the zoning laws and regulations which determine
who is exposed to hazardous pollution are made at the local
level. This however does not, and should not, absolve the
Federal Government from taking action to try to mitigate
environmental injustices and help communities help themselves.
The NAACP strongly supports the two bills that are the
subject of today's hearing, H.R. 1103, the Environmental
Justice Act of 2007 and H.R. 1055, the Toxic Right to Know
Protection Act. If enacted, these bills will provide
communities with powerful tools in their struggle against
pollutants. By providing communities with details about the
quantity and quality of pollutants in their air, water or soil,
they can make informed decisions and demands of their elected
officials. An informed community is an empowered community, and
bills like H.R. 1103 and H.R. 1055 will provide individuals and
neighborhoods with much-needed tools in their struggles to
safeguard themselves and their families.
H.R. 1055 corrects a January 2007 regulation by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which would allow up to
ten times more pollution to be released by a facility before
that facility is required to submit to EPA a detailed report of
its emissions. EPA collects such reports in a publicly
accessible database known as the Toxic Release Inventory or
``TRI.'' TRI has proven to be an effective tool for raising
public awareness of the amounts and kinds of toxic pollution
released by a variety of facilities, and providing support for
public advocacy that has reduced toxic pollution levels.
Without H.R. 1055, communities that are disproportionately
burdened with toxic pollution will not have the vitally
important information needed to protect their health and
environment.
For example, African Americans living in Mossville,
Louisiana have been documented by EPA and a Federal Government
health agency as having elevated levels of dioxin, an extremely
toxic chemical that can cause cancer and harm the normal
development of the unborn and children. Using TRI reports that
were collected by EPA prior to its January 2007 rule change,
the residents of Mossville were able to identify the industrial
facilities operating near their community that release the same
unique dioxin compounds that have been detected in their blood
and environment. Without TRI reports, the people of Mossville
would not have the ability to find the sources of their dioxin
exposures, and call on EPA to take action that protects their
health and the health of future generations.
By requiring TRI reports to provide more complete
information about toxic pollution, House Bill 1055 supports the
right of communities to access reliable information regarding
the pollution that affects their health and environment.
H.R. 1103 also takes tremendous strides towards ensuring
environmental justice. By codifying executive order 12898, H.R.
1103 will strengthen compliance and enforcement of
environmental justice goals at the Federal level. This
Executive Order reinforced the promise of the Civil Rights Act
of 1965, which prohibits discrimination in programs receiving
Federal funds. In the years since Executive Order 12898 was
issued, the EPA and other Federal agencies have adopted
commitments to environmental justice. Yet numerous studies have
concluded that significant action is still needed for EPA to
integrate equity concerns into their operations in a way that
will end this form of injustice for minority and low-income
groups. H.R. 1103 would ensure that Executive Order 12898 is
carried out faithfully and without delay.
I would like to close my statement with a few examples of
why H.R. 1103 and H.R. 1055 are necessary and the good they can
do. For the record, I would like to include in my written
testimony an excerpt from this month's Crisis Magazine, the
Magazine of the NAACP. The cover story of the July / August
edition is on Environmental Justice, and within the articles
are several good examples of individuals and communities who
have fought against polluters and pollution.
Included in these articles is the story of Peggy Shepard,
the co-founder of WE ACT, a community group focusing on
cleaning up communities of color in New York City. Despite a
strong organizational structure which was able to harness
public outrage into demonstrations and effective legal
strategies, Ms. Shepard reports that ``science, technology and
research are also indispensable tools for a community in its
struggle to create a safe and sustainable environment. Its lack
is a void that contributes to communities of color being
excluded from decision-making positions.''
I would also like to thank Congressman Wynn, Congresswoman
Solis, Congressman Pallone and the other members of this
subcommittee for all of your efforts on this important issue. I
would also like to thank Leslie fields of the Sierra Club's
Environmental Justice Department for her assistance in
preparing this statement, as well as the input of the group
Advocates for Environmental Human Rights.
I will happily take your questions.
----------
Mr. Wynn. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Dr. Bullard.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT D. BULLARD, WARE PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF
SOCIOLOGY; DIRECTOR, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE RESOURCE CENTER,
CLARK ATLANTA UNIVERSITY, ATLANTA, GA
Mr. Bullard. Good afternoon. My name is Robert Bullard, and
I direct the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark
Atlanta University. Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee, I want to thank you for holding this hearing.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Warren County, NC,
PCB Landfill protests in 1982, that made headlines and ignited
the environmental, the national environmental justice movement.
This year also represents the 20th anniversary of the landmark,
``Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty, Toxic Wastes and Race in the
United States Report,'' published by the United Church of
Christ.
To commemorate this milestone, the UCC asked me to assemble
a team of researchers to update that report. We did, and that
report is titled, ``Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty, 1987-
2007.'' We released that report in March in Washington, DC.
The findings, people of color make up the majority, 56
percent of those living in neighborhoods with a 2-mile radius
of the Nation's commercial hazardous waste sites, nearly double
the percentage in areas 2 miles, more than 2 miles.
People of color make up more than two-thirds, 69 percent,
of the residents in neighborhoods with clustered facilities. It
is easier to get two facilities if you have one. It is easier
to get five if you have four.
Nine out of 10 EPA regions have racial disparities in the
location of hazardous waste facilities. I wrote a book in 1990,
called, ``Dumping in Dixie.'' This is not a Southern phenomena.
It is national.
Forty of 44 States, 90 percent of the hazardous waste
facilities have disproportionately high percentages of people
of color in host neighborhoods.
Conclusions: People of color are concentrated in
neighborhoods and communities with the greatest number of
facilities and people of color in 2007, are more concentrated
in areas with commercial hazardous waste facilities than they
were in 1987.
Clearly, low-income and communities of color continue to be
disproportionately and adversely impacted by environmental
toxins. It has now been more than 13 years since President
Clinton signed Executive order 12898, however, environmental
justice still eludes many communities across this Nation.
Numerous studies have documented that people of color in
the United States are disproportionately impacted by
environmental hazards in their homes, schools, neighborhoods,
and workplace. Schools are not safe in some communities. A
2001, report indicated that over 600,000 school children in
Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and California
were, live within, these schools were located within a half a
mile of a Federal Superfund site.
When we look at the reports from GAO, from the EPA's
Inspector General, it is clear that environmental justice from
the Executive order is not being implemented. Numerous studies,
the most recent study done by the Associated Press shows that
79 percent of African-Americans live in the most dangerous
facilities where, related to TRI.
If you look at the whole question of the weakening of TRI,
it is important to note that when you overlay the toxic release
inventory database facilities with the commercial hazardous
waste facilities and the other facilities that is located in
communities of color and low-income communities, you have
saturated communities. You have sacrifice zones. You have
communities that not only bear a disproportionate burden but in
many cases are fence-lined with facilities. And so when you
tinker and tamper with a database that has been used for many
years for longitudinal data and for comparative studies, it is
important to understand that it is not just one facility that
you are talking about or one database. You are talking about
communities that are suffering.
There are more than 36 recommendations from the report.
There are 10 that were highlighted and lifted out and more than
100 organizations around the country endorsed them. It is
important to note that two of those 10 recommendations that
were top priorities included passing a National Environmental
Justice Act codifying the Executive order and protecting and
enhancing community right-to-know, worker right-to-know,
community and worker right-to-know so that H.R. 1103,
Environmental Justice Act of 2007, and H.R. 1055, Toxic Right-
to-Know Protection Act, fall hand in hand with the findings and
the conclusions of the report.
Getting Government to respond to environmental and health
concerns of low income and people of color communities has been
an uphill struggle. The time to act is now. Our communities
cannot wait another 20 years. Achieving the environmental
justice for all makes us a much healthier, stronger, and more
secure Nation as a whole.
I will be pleased to answer any questions that you may
have. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bullard follows:]
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Mr. Wynn. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Mr. Bravo.
STATEMENT OF JOSE BRAVO, COMMUNITIES FOR A BETTER ENVIRONMENT,
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, JUST TRANSITION ALLIANCE, CHULA VISTA, CA
Mr. Bravo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, members
of the subcommittee for inviting us here to give testimony
today. On behalf of Communities for a Better Environment and
the Just Transition Alliance, I would like to thank you for
inviting me to speak on the important issues of right-to-know
and environmental justice.
The bulk of my testimony is based on the courageous work of
Communities for a Better Environment, where I serve as a board
member. But my comments here today are also endorsed by the
Just Transition Alliance, which I am the executive director of.
Communities for a Better Environment is a California community-
based environmental organization working for environmental
justice in highly-industrialized areas of California,
especially in communities of color and low-income communities
that have been shown to bear the higher, a higher burden in
concentration of toxic sources.
We believe that with the weakening of the toxic release
inventory California loses more ZIP Codes reporting to TRI than
any other State in the Nation. The weakening of TRI by setting
higher reporting thresholds causes California data, lost data
from all reporting facilities for 64 of 502 ZIP Codes, and
other California ZIP Codes also lose important data. This is
tragic, because TRI has been so useful in identifying and
prioritizing pollution sources, because reporting is so easy to
do and because the act of reporting itself makes companies much
more aware of their toxics use. Consequently, weakening, the
weakening of the, of TRI must be rolled back.
CBE has used the toxic release inventory since its
inception as a fundamental right-to-know tool. For example, one
of the earliest analyses documenting environmental racism was
the 1989, CBE ``Richmond at Risk'' report. This analysis of
TRI, Superfund, and demographic data demonstrated that much
higher concentrations of topic sources and emissions are sited
in areas with the highest populations of people of color.
Reports like these were crucial to community-based campaigns
that led to the development of new environmental justice
policies by public agencies and the phase-out of unnecessary
chemical use.
CBE and many other community-based groups have continued to
use the toxic release inventory in concert with demographic
data to map cumulative exposure from large numbers of smaller
toxic sources, which individually may have posed lower health
risks, but because of geographic concentration presented
formidable risks. CBE continued to use the data to document
increased risks in our 1998, ``Building a Regional Voice for
Environmental Justice'' report. And in hundreds of individual
research efforts throughout the years. Frequently, community
members have used TRI data themselves to push for local
improvements.
Our 2004, report found in southern California that African-
Americans are a third more likely and Latinos nearly twice as
likely to live in a census tract containing a facility emitting
high-priority TRI pollutants. The racial differences in
exposure persisted even when data was controlled for income,
land use, and manufacturing presence. The racial chasm is also
larger than emissions are, also larger when emissions are
carcinogenic, the more dangerous the facility, the higher the
likelihood that minorities are concentrated nearby.
The continued undisrupted concentration of large numbers of
industrial polluters in communities of color with highest
incidents of health problems, including asthma, is a major
reason why TRI reporting thresholds need to be restored to the
lower thresholds for reporting.
Reporting thresholds back down to 500 pounds instead of the
new relaxed 2,000 pound threshold is crucial. Not only do
concentrations of large numbers of smaller emitters cause toxic
hotspots, but individual companies' emissions can fluctuate or
grow. Failure to report at the lower significant level can
cause companies to miss reporting when their emissions increase
because they are accustomed to reporting. This can lead to many
years of delay in identification of the problem emissions. In
one case of a steel company located in a residential
neighborhood in the Bay Area, the company's toxic emissions
were causing frequent odor problems, and emissions were about
500 pounds, but lower than 2,000 pounds, but growing. If TRI
thresholds had been weakened at that time, the trend in
documented emissions increases would have been identified.
Neighbors pushed for cleanup, resulting in the company agreeing
to install a carbon control plant.
Some of the worst carcinogens such as methylene chloride
and perchloroethylene previously widely used in California
manufacturing are now more rarely used, thanks to community
campaigns using TRI. These have been a widespread phase out by
scores of California manufacturers of many carcinogens and
early phase out in the past of ozone-depleting chemicals due to
community publications of TRI data on individual companies and
on regional concentration facilities, of facilities. Good and
comprehensive TRI reporting was not only responsible for public
health improvements in the past, but will also provide crucial
safeguards for overuse of other toxic chemicals and toxic
hotspot concentrations, which is still, unfortunately,
widespread.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bravo follows:]
Testimony of Jose Bravo
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee:
On behalf of Communities for a Better Environment (CBE)
and the Just Transition Alliance (JTA) I would like to thank
you for inviting me to speak on the important issues of public
right-to-know and environmental justice.
The bulk of my testimony is based on the courageous work
of CBE, where I serve as a board member. But my comments here
today are also endorsed by the Just Transition Alliance for
which I am executive director. Communities for a Better
Environment is a California community-based environmental
organization working for Environmental Justice in highly-
industrialized areas of California especially in communities of
color and low income communities that have been shown to bear a
higher burden of concentration of toxic sources.
With the weakening of the Toxic Release
Inventory, California loses more zip codes reporting to the TRI
than any other state in the nation. The weakening of the TRI by
setting higher reporting thresholds causes California to lose
data from all reporting facilities for 64 out of 502 zip codes,
and the other California zip codes also lose important data.
This is tragic, because TRI has been so useful in identifying
and prioritizing pollution sources, because reporting is so
easy to do, and because the act of reporting itself makes
companies much more aware of their toxics use. Consequently the
weakening of the TRI must be rolled back.
CBE has used the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI)
since its inception, as a fundamental Community Right-to-Know
tool. For example, one of the earliest analyses documenting
environmental racism was the1989 CBE ``Richmond at Risk:
report. This analysis of TRI, Superfund, and demographic data
demonstrated that much higher concentrations of toxics sources
and emissions are sited in areas with the highest populations
of people of color. Reports like these were crucial to
community-based campaigns that led to the development of new
Environmental Justice policies by public agencies, and to
phaseout of unnecessary chemical use.
CBE and many other community-based groups have
continued to use the TRI in concert with demographic data to
map cumulative exposure from large numbers of smaller toxic
sources, which individually may have posed lower health risks,
but because of geographic concentration presented formidable
risks. CBE continued to use the data to document increased
risks in our 1998 ``Holding Our Breath'' report, in our 2004
``Building a Regional Voice for Environmental Justice'' report,
and in hundreds of individual research efforts throughout the
years. Frequently community members have used the TRI data
themselves to push for local improvements.
Our 2004 report found in southern California that
African-Americans are a third more likely and Latinos nearly
twice as likely to live in a census tract containing a facility
emitting high-priority TRI pollutants. The racial differences
in exposure persisted even when data was controlled for income,
land use, and manufacturing presence. The racial chasm is also
larger when emissions are carcinogenic ``the more dangerous the
facility, the higher the likelihood that minorities are
concentrated nearby. Mobile sources of pollution just made this
problem worse.
The continued undisputed concentration of large
numbers of industrial polluters in communities of color with
the highest incidences of health problems (including asthma) is
a major reason why the TRI reporting thresholds need to be
restored to the lower thresholds for reporting.
Putting the TRI reporting thresholds back down to
500 lbs instead of the new relaxed 2,000 lb. threshold is
crucial. Not only do concentrations of large numbers of smaller
emitters cause toxic hotspots, but individual companies'
emissions can fluctuate or grow. Failure to report at the lower
significance level can cause companies to miss reporting when
their emissions increase because they are not accustomed to
reporting. This can lead to many years of delay in
identification of problem emissions. In one case of a steel
company located in a residential neighborhood in the Bay Area,
the company's toxic emissions were causing frequent odor
problems and emissions were above 500 lbs., but lower than
2,000 lbs, but growing. If the TRI threshold had been weakened
at the time, the trend in documented emissions increases would
not have been identified. Neighbors pushed for cleanup,
resulting in the company agreeing to install a carbon control
system at the plant.
CBE reports based on TRI data led directly to
phase out of toxic chemicals at many industrial facilities,
which operated even better without these chemicals. For
example, after public campaigns based on TRI data, many
companies using toxic solvents as degreasing agents found that
they could eliminate the production steps introducing grease in
certain metals processing, so that degreasing with toxic
solvents became completely unnecessary. Other companies found
that toxic cleaning solvents could be replaced with soap and
water! Of course this did not cause the phaseout of all toxic
chemicals, but it resulted in phaseout of many of the most
unnecessary uses of toxics for many chemicals. It also pushed
many companies to voluntarily minimize usage until alternatives
could be phased in.
Some of the worst carcinogens such as methylene
chloride and perchloroethylene previously widely used in
California manufacturing are now more rarely used, thanks to
community campaigns using TRI data. There has been a widespread
phaseout by scores of California manufacturers of to community
publications of TRI data on individual companies and on
regional concentrations of facilities. Good and comprehensive
TRI reporting was not only responsible for public health
improvements in the past, it will also provide crucial
safeguards for future overuse of other toxic chemicals and
toxic hotspot concentrations which still are unfortunately
widespread.
In the past, CBE identified many companies that
failed to report to the TRI, skewing the data. To do this, CBE
had to find data through painstaking research of individual
local permit information (which is very inaccessible to the
public, frequently taking months to receive). CBE succeeded in
getting the non-reporting companies to submit their data to the
publicly accessible TRI. Even more importantly, CBE won many
dozens of EPA-approved settlements with these companies in
which we convinced the companies to completely phase out use of
the toxic chemicals in lieu of paying penalties for past
failure to report. We helped the companies identify pollution
prevention options and consultants, who often found that
companies would MAKE money from chemical phaseout. As a result,
millions of pounds of toxic, cancer-causing, and ozone-
depleting chemicals were completely phased out by dozens of
California companies.
While community organizations like CBE have used
the TRI data successfully for decades, we still have a long way
to go and cannot afford to lose the full use of this important
tool. Data shows persistent disparity in statewide patterns of
toxic use, with continued higher exposure for African Americans
and Latinos as compared to Anglos.
We urge you to reinstate the strong TRI reporting
requirements at the lowest thresholds.
----------
Mr. Wynn. Thank you, Mr. Bravo.
Mr. Bopp.
STATEMENT OF ANDREW BOPP, DIRECTOR, PUBLIC AFFAIRS, SOCIETY OF
GLASS AND CERAMIC DECORATORS, ALEXANDRIA, VA
Mr. Bopp. Thank you, Chairman, and thank the committee for
allowing me to testify today on EPA's efforts to reduce the
paperwork burden of TRI reporting on small business. My name is
Andrew Bopp. I am the public affairs director of Society of
Glass and Ceramic Decorators. This group is made up primarily
of companies that custom-print mugs and glassware including
very small family businesses. And I noted that earlier people
were referring to companies up to 500. I am talking of
companies around 15 to 20 employees and then, well, I will get
into this.
I have worked with SGCD members for 10 years now, including
business owners like Nancy Klinefelter, who is president of
Baltimore Glassware Decorators. I have tried to help her as she
grapples with the regulatory issues related to operating a
business where lead is a necessary part of the process. Nancy
testified on the TRI burden reduction before the Senate EPW
Committee back in January, and she was eager to be here today.
Unfortunately, the nature of a small business, she is at a
trade show in Maryland. No one else from her company could do
it, so she couldn't be here, so I am basically speaking for her
and others like her.
As with most regulations as has been pointed out before,
the TRI reporting burden creates far more problems for small
business than for large business. Companies like Nancy's
especially, and again, we are talking 15, 20 employees, not the
500 threshold people referred to earlier. To give you an idea
of the type of company I am talking about, Baltimore Glass was
started by Nancy's brother back in 1977, with the help of her
father, who had worked in the glass industry for more than 50
years. They employ 15 employees, like I said before, including
Nancy's mother, who works in the office, her father, who acts
as general manager, and her brothers who work in sales and
production. This is truly your family-type business that we are
talking about. They employ no engineers on staff, certainly no
environmental engineers, so the TRI burden, it falls entirely
on Nancy.
Baltimore Glassware is not a unique company. It represents
the typical wholesale glass and ceramic decorator in this
country. They print small quantities of glass and ceramic ware,
such as mugs as Mr. Shimkus showed, for ad specialty,
restaurants, souvenir-type uses. When custom printing these
mugs or glasses, companies may use lead-bearing enamels on the
outside surfaces to achieve the color and mainly durability
demanded by customers.
As a rule, unleaded enamels do not have the durability,
gloss, or color ranges the customers require. It is not a case
of, oh, we are just going to choose to pick this. It is a case
of you either get the order or you don't, which means something
in business.
These lead-free colors do not hold up well for abrasion of
deterioration in dishwashers. It is very important to
understand that the leaded colors become a part of the glass
after they are fired. Also, due to the cost of these colors,
Baltimore Glass and all the companies like them use what is
needed and the rest goes back on the shelf. These are not
companies that are emitting as I will get to.
I am testifying today really in support of EPA's recent
burden reduction rule that allows companies such as Baltimore
Glass to use the TRI Form A instead of the more complicated
Form R. To do so, and this is the important thing, they must
meet very strict eligibility requirements. It is really similar
to using the 1040EZ instead of the 1040, if you qualify. You
are still reporting everything, but you get to do it in a
simpler way.
To qualify, that decorator, Nancy's company or a company
like them, must use less than 500 pounds of lead in a year, and
again, that is use, not release, and the key is they must
report zero release of lead onsite and offsite. They have to
report nothing. So this is not a case of losing information.
This is a case of nothing. She is able to do it on a simpler
form. Essentially all of the information that the neighbors
need is what lead is released, like Congressman Shimkus
referred to earlier, the release. That is what counts.
Baltimore Glass does exceed the threshold of 100 pounds
used in a year to enter into the program, and they exceed the
employee threshold of 10 employees to get into the program, but
barely, so there they are. They are in the program with major
companies using the Form R.
I have spoken with Nancy every year as she has attempted to
complete the Form R properly, but every year she receives
notices from EPA that paperwork corrections are needed. These
changes do no reflect the failure to report color use or
release. They just reflect paperwork errors. For example, last
year she received a 13-page notice from EPA that informed her
she had not identified lead compounds by their correct CAS
number. This is a small businesswoman who is expected to look
through these different forms that engineers process to fill
out a report. Using Form A streamlined the process for Nancy
since it was used for the 2006 report, and she has to date not
received any questions from EPA on her last report.
Remember, again, small business. Time spent on completing
paperwork is time that Nancy and others like her cannot spend
on doing things like supervising employees, working with
customers, and more importantly, looking for new business.
Glass and ceramic decorators face brutal competition like many
manufacturers from Chinese decorators. The reality is that
paperwork burdens add to the cost of doing business by
absorbing staff time. EPA estimated in the final rule that
companies would save 15\1/2\ a year of staff time if they
qualified to use the Form R. That was brought up earlier, and
that is 2 days worth of work for someone. That may not mean
much to a large company, but it means a lot, a real lot to a
small company. Nancy said this, she said this before the EPW
Committee.
SGCD and responsible small business owners like Nancy do
believe that it is important to keep track of any releases that
might impact their neighborhoods where they live. She lives
there. Or the environment. That has not changed as a result of
EPA's new burden reduction rule. If a decorator like Nancy has
a release, no matter how miniscule or even if it is managed
offsite, they will be required to use Form R as in the past.
One and you are back on Form R.
If a company manages, like Nancy's, its burden production
process during the year to avoid any release, then you can use
the Form A. That acts as an incentive to eliminate release, and
it definitely does. I talk to her every year she is doing the
paperwork, and it is confusing every year.
SGCD does commend EPA for listening to our concerns and
making an effort to reduce the TRI paperwork burden without
impacting the information that decorators provide to the public
through the TRI Program. I urge this committee to support such
paperwork burden reduction efforts which are critical to
maintaining the competitiveness of business in this country,
especially small business.
Thank you, again, for the opportunity to testify.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bopp follows:]
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Mr. Wynn. Thank you, Mr. Bopp.
Mr. Finkelstein.
STATEMENT OF ALAN FINKELSTEIN, ASSISTANT FIRE MARSHAL,
STRONGSVILLE FIRE AND EMERGENCY SERVICES, TRENTON, NJ
Mr. Finkelstein. Good afternoon. My name is Alan
Finkelstein, and I would like to thank Chairman Wynn and Mr.
Shimkus and the subcommittee members for permitting me to come
in and give testimony for this hearing. I would like to also
thank Mr. Shimkus for acknowledging my existence before. I
appreciate the acknowledgement.
I am here today because I wanted to speak in support of the
Toxic Right-to-Know Protection Act, H.R. 1055. I want to make
some clarifications. I am not here on behalf of my fire
department. I am not here on behalf of the Cuyahoga County
Local Emergency Planning Committee or any other organization I
am associated with.
I also need to make some clarifications. Mr. Shimkus made a
statement before regarding the fact that first responders don't
make use or wouldn't make use of the TRI in their response, and
that is correct. I take credit for making that comment on a
conference call that was last, made last winter, to which there
were several replies. It was not my intent for anybody to think
that first responders would make use of 313 rather than 311 and
312, which are the extremely hazardous substances, and those
are required to be reported.
I have been in the fire service for 25 years, and for the
last 15 years I have been involved with hazardous materials
response in planning as well our hazard emergency planning that
goes on within my city and Cuyahoga County. I have done
extensive work with the Local Emergency Planning Committee and
with the U.S. EPA Region 5 as far as getting chemical reporting
in and working with facilities to help make them safer.
The toxic release inventory provides us with information
that we wouldn't ordinarily have. There are some chemicals at
facilities or materials at facilities that aren't covered under
any other section of EPCRA. A facility in my jurisdiction has
copper and manganese in inventory. They are not covered under
any other section of EPCRA. They don't provide a hazard
probably as far as release because generally they are not in
particulate form, however, for the workers they are a hazard
and for responders they are a hazard if they go into that
building. We need to make sure that they have the proper
respiratory protection for themselves.
As the fire prevention officer for my city, I am
responsible for the facilities, protecting their workers and
for staff in general.
There are a couple of things that I learned when I was in
my original fire school way back in the dinosaur age, and there
are two things that stood out for me were that life safety is
always the first priority for firefighters, and for the
citizens at large. The second thing is that pre-planning is
important before an incident happens. Toxic release inventory
gives us information about facilities that may not be available
in other sections. It also helps us address things with the
facility. If they have issues, we can help, also help them out
as far as their planning goes.
There are sections of the Clean Air Act, section 112(r),
which is the risk management plan, and also the Emergency
Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act which were created to
help jurisdictions get the information they need for planning
and response. It was also created to help the citizens get
information for the facilities in their jurisdictions and which
they live around. Because of concerns about homeland security,
a lot of the things, a lot of the information that was
available is no longer available to citizens except on a case-
by-case basis. It makes things difficult for them.
By increasing the reporting threshold from 500 to 5,000
pounds for most facilities and enabling facilities to use the
Form A, which doesn't provide any quantitative information
about what is present at the facilities, it basically just
tells us that a facility is there. It doesn't give us any
information. There have been some companies that complained
that the TRI reporting was overly burdensome and that it was
expensive. My contention is that the cost of not reporting it
and having people get injured or killed is a lot more
expensive.
Basically as far as the reporting goes, it is the
responsibility of business to make sure that they are safe. It
may benefit the facility because they have transparent
operations. It lets the citizens know that they are being open
and correcting in what they have out there, and our facilities
tend to be thinking along those lines.
One of the side benefits resulting from toxic release
inventory and the risk management plan being out there is that
facilities decrease their inventories and change their
processes so that they can minimize the amounts of chemicals
they have on site at any one time. We have facilities that are
required to report 10,000 pounds of ammonia if they have it in
inventory. They have decreased the size of their tanks down to
7,000 pounds. So they save money by not having to file the
reports in certain areas of EPCRA and RMP, and they also save
on product because they don't need to keep so much on hand.
The safety is also benefited by having those reductions
made in the amount that is present and also there are
inherently safer processes being used. For the small business
people or the Small Business Administration, I would also like
to add that if facilities need environmental contractors to
come in and help them do their paperwork, they are able to do
so, and it helps the small businesses out.
The last point I would like to make, I cut it a lot
shorter. You have the written ones. I wanted to keep it a
little bit shorter, is that the facilities are generally
located in areas where there are low-income people who have the
most risk of health problems because they don't have healthcare
available to them, and they also have the least political
voice.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Finkelstein follows:]
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Mr. Wynn. Thank you very much, Mr. Finkelstein. We are
going to have to be a little tight, because as you can tell,
there is a vote.
I want to get Ms. Wittenberg's testimony in before we go to
the vote.
Ms. Wittenberg.
STATEMENT OF NANCY WITTENBERG, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER, NEW
JERSEY DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION, TRENTON, NJ
Ms. Wittenberg. Thank you. I will keep it short. I
optimistically wrote good morning. Good afternoon now. I will
learn my lesson. My name is Nancy Wittenberg. I am the
assistant commissioner of environmental regulation for the New
Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
New Jersey has got a unique perspective on the TRI issue.
We have combined implementation of several laws in New Jersey,
including our own Worker and Community Right-to-Know Law, our
own Pollution Prevention Act, and the Federal Emergency
Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act. The burden reduction
didn't impact New Jersey. We combined our forms into one form,
so regardless of what EPA did, facilities in New Jersey that
would be required to submit any form, be it A or R, to DEP have
to submit to us a different form, which is called a Release and
Pollution Prevention Report.
It is much like the Form R, but maybe it is a little easier
to do because we have never had any complaints from small
business. I checked. I went online, I worked through the form
myself. We have pretty much simplified it down as best we
could.
What we did sort of to make the point today was we looked
back over the data we have gotten over the years compared to
what we wouldn't have gotten if we had been subject to the
burden reduction in the State and just to throw out some of the
numbers quickly that we came up with is that we do a trends
report, which is perhaps one of the best things we get out of
our TRI data. And in my submitted testimony is the link to get
that. We would have missed out on knowing about over a million
pounds of cancer-causing compounds used in the State of New
Jersey. That includes 21,000 pounds of waste arsenic. All of
our arsenic data would be lost to us if that reporting level
changed. One hundred, twenty-two thousand, four hundred and
sixty-five pounds of styrene, 175,000 pounds of chromium, 44
different carcinogen data would have been lost to us
completely. Six-thousand, seven hundred and seventy-three
pounds of production-related waste for PBTs over just the last
4 years, 30 municipalities in New Jersey wouldn't have had any
of their facilities report at all. So we would have lost a
significant amount of data.
In terms of EJ, we looked at two urban areas in New Jersey:
Linden and Camden. Just over the past 2 years if we had been
subject to burden reduction, in Camden four facilities would
not have to report at all, and every facility in Camden is
right next door to where a lot of people live. In Linden six
facilities would not have had to report at all, and each of
these facilities use PBTs including lead as well as
carcinogens. So that would be a significant loss to those
communities to know about the use of those substances.
Clearly, New Jersey has seen the benefits of having this
data, and we went back and looked at what we wouldn't have had
should this change impacted us. So we are very supportive. My
testimony has much more information. I am keeping it short.
Thanks.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Wittenberg follows:]
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Mr. Wynn. Thank you very much. Short but effective.
I want to thank all the witnesses. Unfortunately, we do
have a vote on. We have two votes, a 15-minute and a 5-minute,
so I think it is safe to say that we probably wouldn't be back
before, about 25 minutes if you want to take a break, get a
sandwich, or something like that. We will be back, we will have
questions following that. Thank you.
The subcommittee stands in recess.
[Recess.]
Mr. Wynn. They will probably be drifting in. If someone
sees them, just let them know. In the meantime, I think what I
would like to do is go ahead and start. I know Mr. Bopp has
another engagement. I just have a couple of quick questions
that I will start with.
The Chair recognizes himself for questions.
Mr. Bopp, I am sympathetic to small businesses, but I want
to cover a couple things. One, we are talking about electronic
filing for the most part I think.
Second, you mentioned lead a number of times. Does your
client deal with other chemicals in her processes, or is she
primarily concerned about reporting on lead?
Mr. Bopp. It is really just lead.
Mr. Wynn. OK. So basically we have a situation of
electronic filing with one chemical, and isn't it true to
phrase this other question, isn't it true that basically once
you, after the first year, your basic data, name, address,
location, type of chemical, all is pretty much set. You just
touch the button.
Mr. Bopp. Right.
Mr. Wynn. So is it reasonable to say that it is less
burdensome in subsequent years than it is in the first year?
Mr. Bopp. It would seem so. For her, though, and I wish she
were here because she could answer this a heck of a lot better
than me, but she still files the paper forms. So, again, this
is someone who actually complains frequently about being forced
into the electronic forms. So she still does the paper forms. A
lot of the time that is spent is in tracking the lead use and
the colors because every color has a different percentage of
lead.
So, and, again, from her experience, like I have said,
every single year she has gotten something back from EPA saying
that something she has done is not correct. Again, there are no
releases there, but this is, again, a very small company.
Obviously they are computerized, who isn't, but she is not very
comfortable with working on the web, and again, I wish she were
here, because she would say exactly that, and she often really
gets wound up over things like that.
Mr. Wynn. Are there any other witnesses, do any other
witnesses want to make a comment on the small business problem?
I think Ms. Wittenberg----
Ms. Wittenberg. The only thing I would say is that from New
Jersey's perspective and we have been doing this a long time,
and it is a State program, so we provide as much assistance as
we can, we have never had a complaint from small business about
burden, about cost. I checked every office we had to make sure
that, over the years, we have a small business assistance
office.
As I said, our forms are on-line, it is mandatory
electronic. The form is set up to be pretty user friendly, but
it has not been an issue for the small businesses in our State
anyway to date to do the reporting.
Mr. Wynn. Thank you. Mr. Shelton, I appreciate your
testimony, and I know you said there are instances, and I am
aware of instances in which the environmental justice issue has
really caused hardship. I was wondering if you could help us
put a human face on this if you might relate one of the
situations that the NAACP has encountered.
Mr. Shelton. Thank you very much. We visited the small town
of Gainesville, GA, very close to a rather large production
facility. If you walked into this local community, what you see
is some very pristine, working class homes on a street that
slopes down to a very, very nice public playground at the
bottom of this very nice and pristine community. Just past the
playground you see a drainage ditch and just on the other side
of that you see a rather large facility.
That large facility has a number of smokestacks that pour
out toxins and so forth into the air. Interestingly enough, it
was the facility that actually paid for that very, very nice
playground and the great part and the great area that we had a
chance to visit.
We walked through the community and actually stopped by
each door on a one-block, both sides of the street, and stopped
at each house in which a member of the community actually had
some form of cancer. What we found as we moved through the
streets and put a black ribbon on the steps, on the railing of
each of the houses that actually got through stopping by many
to visit to find out in many cases that more than one member of
the family actually has some kind of cancer. We stopped and
visited one young man, 30 years of age, living with his mother,
his sister, and all three had some type of cancer. Mother had a
form of throat cancer, he had a form of a lung cancer, his
sister had a form of ovarian cancer, but this seemed to go on
on both sides of the street and throughout this entire city
block. As we got to the block after laying these black ribbons,
we turned around and looked back, and quite frankly, Mr.
Chairman, we were stunned and shocked to see that nearly every
house on this street, 20 houses on each side of the street,
almost every house had a black ribbon in front of it. It was
shocking to see how pollutants like this actually destabilized
the entire families and for that matter entire communities.
Mr. Wynn. Thank you very much. That has been the
observation that many of us have been able to make in
conversations in different parts of the country, and I
appreciate you sharing that with us.
At this time I am going to relinquish the balance of my
time to my ranking member, Mr. Shimkus.
Mr. Shimkus. Thank you, Mr.----
Mr. Wynn. Excuse me. I would like to relinquish my time and
recognize for a full 5 minutes. You didn't see that coming. A
full 5 minutes for questioning to Mr. Shimkus.
Mr. Shimkus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
A lot of the statements that are made in the second panel
talks about the community not knowing, having information, the
right-to-know. I don't disagree with any of that.
If we could change the definition so that release really,
so that TRI isn't toxic release, because we know as you heard
in the, you all sat in the first panel, that it really is toxic
use, management, and release inventory, no one here would have
a problem with that, would they?
Why don't you just, Mr. Shelton?
Mr. Shelton. It doesn't matter to us what you call it.
Mr. Shimkus. Right.
Mr. Shelton. The importance that----
Mr. Shimkus. Yes. I think there is a problem with what you
call it, because you by definition tell business and this form
says you are releasing toxics, where many times they are not.
They may be good stewards, so if we could just change the
terminology and still get the same information, you wouldn't
have a problem with that.
Mr. Shelton. As long as all the data is collected at the
same levels quite frankly. As a matter of fact, we would then
begin to push you further to collect even more data.
Nonetheless, as long as the data is collected don't care a
whole lot about what you call it as long as you continue to
collect that data.
Mr. Shimkus. OK. Mr. Bopp.
Mr. Bopp. No. I think that is a very good idea, because,
again, people look at that----
Mr. Shimkus. Mr. Finkelstein.
Mr. Finkelstein. I concur. I think that that is the ideal
way to go.
Mr. Shimkus. Ms. Wittenberg.
Ms. Wittenberg. Not a problem.
Mr. Shimkus. Not a problem. Great. Thank you.
I do have unanimous consent to have inserted into the
record of this hearing a letter supporting analysis submitted
both, to both of us and dated today from the Business Network
for Environmental Justice on H.R. 1103. I understand from staff
that this information was transmitted to your staff yesterday,
and we were told at the staff level that the majority would
have no objection to its inclusion.
Ms. Solis [presiding]. Without objection.
Mr. Shimkus. Thank you.
Ms. Solis. It will be entered into the record.
Mr. Shimkus. And then Mr. Bopp, thanks for staying. I think
it is important.
Your fellow, and remember, those of us who really, and we
are trying to talk about small business. I have problems with
that definition, what is it, 500, 250?
Mr. Bopp. Yes.
Mr. Shimkus. But most of us in rural America, small
business is small business. It is 30 employees or less. Small
business creates 50 percent of all new jobs in America.
Mr. Bopp. Uh-huh.
Mr. Shimkus. Are those Mom and Pops that create new jobs.
So your testimony is important, and I appreciate you coming
here, and I appreciate you staying.
Obviously, your fellow panelists has overwhelmingly
questioned the EPA's TRI burden reduction proposal. They keep
pointing to overwhelming amount of comments against this rule.
Why is this burden reduction so important?
Mr. Bopp. Again, the thing I keep coming back to is for
these small businesses it is zero releasers who are getting
reduction. Companies in the glass and ceramic industry face
real, real, real tough competition from overseas. Every 2-day
period, which is what the savings would be that it saved, is
valuable. It is helpful, and again, to report nothing. If you
are reporting something, our, to use the case of Nancy once
again, she lives in the neighborhood. She is the last one who
is going to want to have dumping in her neighborhood.
So to make it simpler for her, to save her time to just
make things better for business without losing any release
information, I don't see how that is bad.
Mr. Shimkus. Would any of your members or other fellow
small businesses be except from reporting under the new rule?
Mr. Bopp. No. It is, you are either on the Form R or the
Form A. If you release anything at all, you are back on the
Form R, and one pound transmitted offsite, you are back on Form
R.
Mr. Shimkus. Is the TRI, hopefully TUMRI, if we can change
that, is TRI the only environmental health or product safety
rule that you need to follow?
Mr. Bopp. Not at all. Starting with the final product FDA
has heavily regulated the use of metals on tableware for years.
OSHA rules take precedence for worker exposure possibly in
these situations, various States have different rules. As you
can imagine, when there is lead in the consumer product, FDA
has regulated this tightly for 35 years. It is sort of, it is
like leaded crystal. Lead is there. It is, if there is no lead,
there is no leaded crystal. That doesn't mean it is dangerous
in that form.
So it is highly regulated already.
Mr. Shimkus. And are Nancy's mugs and the paint on them
regulated by anyone else or in any other way? Probably the same
question.
Mr. Bopp. Same question basically. Yes. Those agencies
basically, again, for products using lead, they are heavily,
heavily, heavily regulated.
Mr. Shimkus. And Dr. Bullard and Mr. Bravo, the question I
asked before you returned was if reporting is all the same,
would you be supportive of changing the TRI phrase to TUMRI,
that is my new lobbying, which would be the toxic use,
management, and release inventory?
The other panelists, I don't want to sway you, they all
said they wouldn't have a problem. I am--could be an amendment,
so would you have, if everything else stayed the same, we just
changed, release, and added, use, management, and release.
Mr. Bullard. Well, Congressman, I would not have a problem
with changing that as long as everything stayed the same.
Mr. Shimkus. OK.
Mr. Bullard. We have lots of names for facilities and
reporting requirements like sanitary landfill.
Mr. Shimkus. Yes. I just want to get clarify. I am just
trying to bring clarity here.
Mr. Bravo.
Mr. Bravo. Yes. Likewise what Dr. Bullard is saying. I
wouldn't have a problem with that, but there is something to be
said about names.
Mr. Shimkus. Yes. That is right. And I am just, I thank
you. I went over my time. Yield back.
Ms. Solis. OK. Then I guess I am the closing person here,
but I have a lot of questions.
Mr. Bopp, you mentioned that there is a burden that is
shared by small businesses, and you say in the application
process and applying for this information.
What is the real cost, though, of compiling that
information that they have to by law do anyway? It doesn't mean
that they are going to be left without having to do that, so
can you give me an idea of what that is, that they currently
have to do anyway?
Mr. Bopp. Absolutely. Yes. Nancy, I believe she even said
in the EPW testimony back in February estimates without having
formally done anything that about 130 hours go into calculating
the colors used during the year by all employees, because,
again, if you are decorating 20 different types of mugs a day
with multiple colors, you have to track each color. Each color
has a different amount of lead, and so----
Ms. Solis. But she is still going to be required under law
to do that anyway.
Mr. Bopp. She still has to do that. Absolutely.
Ms. Solis. So, that is not really what we are talking about
here. We are talking about in this proposal by EPA is to reduce
the information so all you are going to, all we are really
talking about is that one application and which to me sounds de
minimus in some sense.
Mr. Bopp. According to EPA it is 15\1/2\ hours. So if Nancy
were here, and I will speak for her, that is 2 whole days when
she could be doing something else.
Ms. Solis. Right. And I understand that.
Mr. Bopp. So, and, again, it is, I think the key thing here
is in this case for lead to be on that simpler form she has to
be reporting zero release onsite and offsite. So I don't see
how being on a simpler form, that is the key thing we are
reporting here.
Ms. Solis. Well, she also makes a choice by running her
business that contains that kind of contaminants. So those are
choices that business people make. So everyone in our society
we usually agree that everyone pays under the law.
Mr. Bopp. Oh, absolutely.
Ms. Solis. So that is what is happening here.
So, anyway, my other question is for Dr. Bullard. Thank you
so much for coming and Mr. Bravo and all the panelists
obviously, but I wanted to ask you with respect to the comment
that was made earlier by Ms. O'Neill, what you feel about the
fact that just 1 percentage of less information is going to be
made available.
What does that mean for communities of color and
underrepresented areas?
Mr. Bullard. I think it is important to understand that 1
percent across the board may not seem like a large number for
the kinds of releases that we are talking about or the number
of facilities, but if you are talking about communities that
are already overburdened, communities that already have more
than their ``fair share'' of types of emitting facilities, you
are not talking about a level playing field.
Ms. Solis. So maybe what you, I am trying to understand. So
I am looking in my own district where we have maybe in the city
of Industry, near my district, you have several different
industry-run organizations that have heavy, heavy
concentrations of pollutants, whether it is paint, whether it
is battery acid and arsenic and what have you. And if you are,
you are taking some people off that list, it doesn't mean that
it lessens the toxicity in the air or the water.
And I guess that is what I am trying to understand is, in
your opinion is that what would happen? We are not taking away
the facility. The facility is still going to be there.
Mr. Bullard. Right. The facility will still be there.
Again, when you talk about one facility that may produce a
small amount of pollution, it may, the toxicity level for that
one facility may be such that it creates a huge health problem,
health threat in those communities that are already
overburdened and saturated.
Ms. Solis. And so my concern, too, is that OMB asked EPA to
work towards a national figure instead of looking at the
localities that we have been hearing today from our witness
from Mr. Chairman, and that is why I think when people somehow
disregard the importance of environmental justice, that we are
trying to somehow capture why it is important to have an equal
playing field, because so many times we are not looked at
adequately. And I know that is the case right now in my
district. I have three Superfund sites, and we have high levels
of contaminants, perchlorate in our water, which is another
discussion that we have had before.
And we have, this is, there is no scientific evidence yet,
but I wish we could collaborate and have HHS here at another
time to collaborate the data for incidents of diseases as well
as high asthma rates, high incidence of epilepsy, cancer, and
what have you. In an area where I grew up nearby a battery
recycling plant where acid, arsenic was produced and disposed
of, our water has been contaminated.
Thank goodness for local jurisdictions in our State of
California because we have Proposition 65, which requires
notification. And most people will read a flyer that you will
get in the mail, but they won't even understand what that
means, and it means to be aware of, that there are some maybe
ambient particular matter that is there in the air. We have
found neighborhoods adjacent to where I live, where I grew up
where there are cancer clusters; ovarian, all kinds, uterine.
All kinds of different types of cancers, and it is rather
alarming to me to know that this isn't just going on in my part
of town, that it continues to happen.
My time is up.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back to you.
Mr. Wynn [presiding]. I want to thank the vice-chair for
giving me a little break there and particularly, again, for her
leadership throughout on this issue.
If there are no other questions at this time, I believe
that concludes our business with these witnesses. We have no
further witnesses today. Thank you again for your patience and
for your testimony.
I would like to remind Members that you may submit
additional questions for the record to be answered by the
relevant witnesses. The questions should be submitted to the
committee clerk in the electronic form within the next 10 days.
The clerk will notify your offices of procedures.
And without objection thank you, again, and the
subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:10 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]
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