Environmental Right to Know

Feb 8, 2016

Top 400 Taxpayers See Tax Rates Rise, But There’s More to the Story

As Americans were gathering party supplies to greet the New Year, the Internal Revenue Service released their annual report of cumulative tax data reported on the 400 tax r...

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Feb 4, 2016

Chlorine Bleach Plants Needlessly Endanger 63 Million Americans

Chlorine bleach plants across the U.S. put millions of Americans in danger of a chlorine gas release, a substance so toxic it has been used as a chemical weapon. Greenpeace’s new repo...

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Jan 25, 2016

U.S. Industrial Facilities Reported Fewer Toxic Releases in 2014

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data for 2014 is now available. The good news: total toxic releases by reporting facilities decreased by nearly six percent from 2013 levels. Howe...

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Jan 22, 2016

Methane Causes Climate Change. Here's How the President Plans to Cut Emissions by 40-45 Percent.

UPDATE (Jan. 22, 2016): Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its proposed rule to reduce methane emissions...

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TRI Restoration Bill Passes Senate Committee

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted 10-9 to approve the Toxic Right-to-Know Protection Act (S. 595) on July 31. The act would reverse a December 2006 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rule change to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) that significantly reduced toxic release reporting requirements for polluting facilities.

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House Committee Holds Hearing on Abuse of Information

A July 31 House Natural Resources Committee hearing continued to investigate reports of science manipulation within the U.S. Department of the Interior. Much of the hearing focused on the 2002 Klamath salmon die-off and former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Deputy Assistant Secretary Julie MacDonald's interference in Endangered Species Act (ESA) findings.

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Size Matters: Nanotechnologies Present New Challenges

Three documents released since July 26, and a recent public hearing, highlighted the difficulties of promoting promising new nanotechnologies, protecting public health and safety, and safely disposing of waste products from their use and manufacturing. Nanotechnology involves manipulating matter the size of one-billionth of a meter or 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. In 2005, more than $30 billion in nanotechnology products were sold globally, according to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

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FEMA Ignores Toxic Trailers of Hurricane Victims

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) turned a blind eye to Katrina victims who became ill while living in FEMA-provided trailers, according to testimony given at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on July 19. Trailer tenants and experts described how FEMA, with evidence of toxic levels of formaldehyde in the trailers from construction materials, refused to substantively evaluate the extent of the problem, respond to known instances of formaldehyde poisoning or take adequate precautionary action.

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Energy Task Force Advisors Revealed, Six Years after Meetings

In the long-standing struggle to gain access to details regarding Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force meetings in 2000 and 2001, the Washington Post reported last week some of the many players who influenced the vice president's policy recommendations. An undisclosed former White House official gave the Post a list of approximately 300 names, companies and organizations who met with White House staff.

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Baltimore Calls on Congress for More Chemical Security

On July 16, the Baltimore City Council unanimously passed a resolution supporting federal chemical security legislation that would require, when feasible, the use of safer chemicals and technologies.

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Federal Government Kept Nuclear Accident Secret

Details on an accidental release of highly-enriched uranium at a nuclear fuel processing plant in Tennessee were kept secret from the public and Congress by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for thirteen months.

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Lawsuit Frees OSHA Toxic Exposure Data

A June 29 U.S. District Court decision ordered the Department of Labor (DOL) to disclose its Worker Exposure to Toxic Substances Database, the largest known compilation of workplace toxic chemical sampling data.

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GAO Issues Report on EPA Mishandling of Katrina

On the heels of a congressional hearing blasting the handling of public information about air quality after 9/11, a June 25 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report indicates the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA) similarly failed the public post-Katrina.

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EPA Holds off Industry Attack on Health, Safety and Environmental Data

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has rejected the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Data Quality Act (DQA) challenge and appeal of supposed inconsistencies across several EPA databases. While agreeing to make a few changes, the agency refused the Chamber's demands that all variations between the EPA databases on chemicals be eliminated, stating that they were not errors but acceptable differences based on different scientific models.

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