Clean Water Action joined the Environmental Intergrity Project, and 15 other local, regional, and national organizations to petition the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to require the oil and gas extraction industry—including companies engaged in fracking—to report to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI).  The oil and gas extraction industry has long used and released large amounts of TRI-listed toxic chemicals, and this has dramatically increased in the last decade with the rapid spread of horizontal hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”).

Lynn Thorp, Clean Water Action's National Campains Director says, “Inclusion of oil and gas sector pollution data in the Toxics Release Inventory is long overdue, and will provide people the information they need to protect their health, their drinking water, and their communities.”

Today’s petition would finally make this information available for the first time to citizens, communities, and lawmakers.  The full text of the petition is available here.

About the Toxics Release Inventory

• The Toxics Release Inventory (“TRI”) was established in 1986 as part of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act.  
• TRI reporting serves two critical goals: it encourages informed, community-based environmental decision making and provides an incentive for industrial sectors to reduce or prevent pollution.
• The TRI requires annual reporting of each industrial facility’s releases of over 650 TRI-listed toxic chemicals.  
• The law identifies certain industrial sectors that are required to submit TRI reports, but gave EPA the authority to require reporting from other industries as well. EPA has added industries before. In late 2011, EPA proposed to add six additional sectors, including phosphate mining and iron ore mining.
• Learn more about the TRI and the Petition!