Under the Bush administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is slowly dismantling its flagship [open access] environmental information tool --the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI)....The TRI tracks the amount and types of toxic chemicals released into the environment, stored at facilities, or transferred in between facilities. The program’s authority comes from the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA), enacted in 1986....The primary purpose of the TRI is to allow citizens access to information on chemical hazards in their communities....The program has been protected and improved for over the last 15 years, since it was put in place during the Reagan administration....Unfortunately, the program’s success has made it a target for those that seek to reduce corporate oversight and accountability. The easy access to pollution information provided by TRI has empowered citizens to push for improvements, and facilities have acted to reduce releases. Since facilities began reporting in 1988, there has been a nearly 60 percent reduction in total releases of the 299 core chemicals that the program began tracking. This is a significant drop, one that was fueled by merely making information publicly available. As new chemicals have been added to the TRI program, those releases have also dropped. This year, EPA reported a 42 percent reduction in releases and disposal of the more than 650 chemicals now tracked under TRI over the 6 years between 1998 and 2003. TRI is EPA’s premier database of environmental information, and it demonstrates the power that information holds to promote change that benefits everyone’s environment, health and safety....Despite the program’s positive impacts, the TRI is under attack from the very agency administering this success story. EPA’s recent actions and stated plans are geared to downgrade and weaken the TRI program. These actions represent a recent and definitive shift in EPA’s approach to TRI and are largely a result of the current administration’s political priorities --corporations first, communities last.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/08/2006 10:10:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
