On October 24, 2012, the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP)and 16 other environmental groups petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to add the oil and gas industry to the list of facilities required to report pollutants released into the air, water, and land to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI).
The TRI was enacted in 1986 in response to the disaster in Bhopal, India and initially applied only to manufacturing industries.
However, Congress vested the EPA with authority to include additional industry groups as needed; and since its inception, the EPA has added electricity producers, mining operators, and others.
The environmental groups petitioned the EPA to require the oil and gas industry to disclose the chemicals and other substances that are released during their operations, including hydraulic fracturing.
This disclosure is not tied to any permitting requirements and is sought by the groups to purportedly “give citizens information about air, water and land pollution.”
The 81-page petition is available at www.environmentalintegrity.com.
This article was prepared by Barclay R. Nicholson (bnicholson@fulbright.com or 713 651 3662) from Fulbright's Energy Practice.
