At the national level, on February 14, 2007, Senator Lautenberg (NJ) and Representatives Solis (CA) and Pallone (NJ) introduced legislation to restore the public’s right-to-know about toxic pollution. The Toxic Right-to-Know Protection Act (H.R. 1055 and S. 595) would reverse a recent Bush administration rollback that allows more than 3,500 polluting facilities to keep silent about their toxic releases.

Every year, factories and manufacturers release thousands of tons of dangerous pollutants, toxic metals, and poisonous fumes into our air, water and urban centers.

Despite overwhelming public opposition, in December 2006 the Bush administration’s EPA issued a rule exempting more than 3,500 facilities from reporting their pollution under the Toxic Release Inventory program. The rule also allows polluters to keep the public in the dark about releases of up to 500 pounds of persistent bioaccumulative toxins. The Toxic Right-to-Know Protection Act would reverse these rollbacks and restore the public’s access to information about the toxic pollution released into communities.

We need to be doing more, not less, to monitor toxic pollution. That’s why we’re standing with the public against powerful special interests to make sure we know what polluters are dumping into our communities.