Dems Want to Remove Environmental Incentives for Small Business

Earlier this year, Senate Democrats introduced legislation (S.595) to overturn the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Final Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) Burden Reduction Rule that was announced on December 18, 2006 [Link to final rule ]. At an EPW Committee hearing on February 6, 2007, Democrats on the committee characterized the new TRI rule as weakening the public’s right to know, eliminating disclosure requirements, and allowing facilities to hide the amounts of chemicals they may use.

FACT: The new TRI rule does not exempt any facility from reporting its releases. It simply changes the eligibility requirements for using the shorter, easier to complete Form A, allowing certain smaller reporters to use the less-detailed version. Everyone still has to report; no one is off the hook.

So who are these small businesses who get to use the shorter form? They are the good guys; the environmental stewards. The shorter form is available to those reporters who have lowered their emissions to zero and who manage their waste using preferred methods, such as recycling and treatment. Tom Sullivan, Chief Counsel for the Office of Advocacy at the U.S. Small Business Association, testified at the February 6 hearing:

"[S]mall businesses are disproportionately impacted by regulation. The overall regulatory burden in the United States exceeds $1.1 trillion. For firms employing fewer than 20 employees, the most recent estimate of their regulatory burden is $7,647 per year per employee." [Link to SBA commissioned report]

An SBA Office of Advocacy contracted report released in 2004 revealed that businesses incur costs of $300 million annually for compliance with the TRI program.
The new TRI rule attempts to relieve some of those costs on smaller reporting facilities and retain the integrity and public accessibility to information in the TRI program.
Based on studies commissioned by the SBA Office of Advocacy, the increased reporting threshold in the new TRI rule involves very little change in the potential risk associated with releases that are being reported on the more detailed TRI Form Rs. In fact, these studies report that for 99% of all the nation’s 3,142 counties, the changes in reported risk are not significant. [Link to entire SBA work on TRI]

So why do Senate Democrats want to make everyone use the more-detailed version? Perhaps it’s because they don’t think people should be rewarded for doing the right thing. Perhaps it’s because they still believe command and control is better than environmental performance incentives. Despite their protestations to the contrary and all the evidence that incentives work, they still believe sticks are better than carrots.