Minnesota, other states suing federal government over limits on toxic release data

Twelve states want to reverse a new policy on toxic-release disclosures. In the past, the EPA said the old rule was too costly.

By Tom Meersman, Star Tribune

Last update: November 30, 2007 - 1:38 PM

Minnesota and 11 other states filed a lawsuit Wednesday to stop the federal Environmental Protection Agency from scaling back a law requiring public disclosure of toxic pollution.

The lawsuit, led by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, objects to a 2006 rule change in which the EPA decided that facilities do not need to provide as much information about lead, mercury and hundreds of other toxins as they did previously.

The data, provided for the past 20 years under a system called the Toxics Release Inventory, has allowed environmentalists and community groups to discover what chemicals are being used in factories near their homes, and have given fire departments and first responders critical information about what hazards may be present when a facility reports a fire or a spill.

By requiring manufacturing firms to provide annual public reports, the program also provided an incentive for them to cut back on the hazardous chemicals that they use, store or send away for recycling or disposal.

Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson said that EPA's relaxation of the rule is a step in the wrong direction and that knowing what chemicals are present has been invaluable for everything from local fires to major disasters such as Hurricane Katrina.

"EPA has done a real disservice to the public by favoring polluters over public safety and public health," Swanson said. "The laws that were put in place during the Reagan years have functioned well and they should have just kept up with those laws instead of backtracking on them."

EPA officials had no immediate comment on the lawsuit. In the past, they have justified the changes by saying that the annual reporting is burdensome and costly, especially to small- and medium-size firms.

The former rule required companies to report if they stored or emitted 500 pounds of certain chemicals, but the new rule increases that threshold to 5,000 pounds. Other parts of the new rule allow reporting on shorter forms for different groups of chemicals.

Minnesota officials said the revised rule will mean less information provided to state public safety and pollution-control authorities. Cathy Moeger, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency manager, said that 418 firms in the state are required to file reports each year, but that under the new rule, 41 of them would be free to stop.

The remaining companies, she said, would be able to drop certain chemicals off their reporting lists, and the state would receive about 25 percent less information from them. "We petitioned the EPA not to do this, but they did it anyway," Moeger said.

MPCA and University of Minnesota officials offer technical assistance to certain facilities to save money and reduce hazardous chemical use by reformulating products or manufacturing processes, or by taking other steps to reduce emissions.

With less reporting, the MPCA will not be able to identify facilities most in need of assistance, such as those near growing population centers or those using increasing amounts of chemicals, she said.

"If we don't know about these companies or how much they're emitting, we really won't have a good sense of who we can provide assistance to," Moeger said.

Companies affected by the rule change include utilities and firms involved in services and products including plating, metal casting, circuit boards and other electronics, medical devices, chemical and paper manufacturing and food processing.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in New York City said that the EPA was "arbitrary and capricious" in revising the rule and seeks to invalidate the changes. In addition to Minnesota and New York, the plaintiffs are Arizona, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Vermont.

Tom Meersman • 612-673-7388

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