Undoing more of Bush's wreckage

In 2006 the Bush administration reduced the reporting requirements for companies that release toxic chemicals into the environment:

The changes have made it more difficult for citizens to track toxic pollution in their neighborhoods and take steps to reduce the impact on their family's health.

In 1986, Congress created TRI in response to the catastrophic release of toxic chemicals at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India that killed thousands of people. For nearly 20 years, TRI has been an essential tool in alerting communities, workers, first responders, and public health officials to the presence of chemicals and has provided critical assistance in dealing with highly hazardous situations....

By weakening the TRI program:

• Companies may produce ten times the amount of toxic wastes before detailed reporting is required.
• The most dangerous class of chemicals-Persistent Bioaccumulative Toxins (PBTs) can be exempted from detailed reporting for the first time ever.
• Ten percent of communities with TRI reporting facilities (922 communities) may lose all numerical data on toxic pollution.
• Numerous toxic chemicals will lose all or a majority of detailed reports being filed, leaving the program in violation of the original statute's requirement that any threshold change retain a substantial majority of releases of chemicals.

The final rule announced in December 2006 was opposed by public health and environmental organizations, governmental agencies in 23 states, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and more than 122,000 individual public commenters. In May 2005, the House of Representatives voted to block EPA from implementing the TRI rollbacks, but the Senate was unable to consider a similar measure before EPA finalized the changes. Moreover, the state attorneys general of New York and twelve other states have sued the agency to reverse the rollback.

You can sign a petition to reinstate the rules in effect prior to 2006 here.