Small Business Administration: Office of Advocacy - Memo dated 9/25/97 - Environmental Protection Agency - Comments filed with the National Advisory Committee on Environmental Protection and Technology (NACEPT) Toxic Data Release Committee of EPA, regarding recommendations to update the Form A, which is the streamlined reporting form for the Toxic Chemical Release Inventory reporting requirements (Section 313 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act of 1986

Date: September 25, 1997

To: Industry Representatives - National Advisory Committee on Environmental Protection and Technology (NACEPT) Toxic Data Release Committee

From: Kevin Bromberg,
Office of Advocacy
U.S. Small Business Administration

Subject: Two Recommendations to Update Form A (TRI "Streamlined Reporting")

As some of you might know, the Small Business Administration has been actively working with EPA on the TRI program since its inception in 1988. Both range reporting and the Form A were originally SBA initiatives that were designed to save resources and reduce paperwork burdens, while maintaining the integrity of TRI reporting.

Enclosed is the 1994 statement of the Small Business Coalition for a Responsible Toxic Release Inventory Policy, which sought to exempt tens of thousands of reports of "small releases" (generally releases under 5000 pounds of non highly-toxic chemicals) from the TRI system. For several years, I served as counsel to this Coalition. Under the Coalition proposal, reporting for 99.2% of the total releases and transfers would be retained, thereby preserving the right-to-know, but industry and EPA would save hundreds of millions of dollars annually. In response, in November 1994, the EPA promulgated a streamlined reporting option, the Form A, for reports with "reportable amounts" of less than 500 pounds.

This relief, while significant, is inadequate in two respects:

1. Sources that recycle TRI chemicals or perform energy recovery using TRI chemicals must count those quantities toward the 500 pound "reportable amount." Many thousands of reports are excluded from using the Form A despite the fact that EPA encourages energy recovery and recycling. These activities do not involve "releases" of the chemical to the environment and do not contribute to any environmental risk at the facility.

2. The 500 pound quantity is too low, and could be increased to 2000 to 5000 pounds for chemicals that are not highly toxic.

The 1994 statement provides the basis for excluding all reports with releases of less than 5000 pounds from TRI. Therefore, it also establishes the basis for extending the applicability of streamlined reporting from 500 pounds to a higher figure and extending it to sources that perform energy recovery and recycling (i.e. which do not involve releases to the environment).

The Office of Management and Budget has required EPA to revisit the Form A, and perform certain data analyses, to determine whether EPA should "exclud[e] recycling and energy recovery from the reportable amount" or adopt a "higher reportable amount such as 1000 or 5000 pounds" as a condition of approval of the Form A subsequent to June 1, 1998.

We hope that the Toxic Data Reporting Committee will review these recommendations, and ask EPA to perform appropriate data analyses regarding the current use and utility of the Form A, which also could be used for the OMB paperwork review early next year. Also, it may be appropriate to apply the TRI Environmental Indicators to "small source" data to examine the relative merits of applying the Form A or the Form R to such "small releases."