Read the Full Report Toxic Chemical Releases: EPA Changes Could Reduce Environmental Information Available to Many Communities (GAO-08-128)

Background

The Environmental Protection and Community Right-to-Know Act requires certain facilities to submit Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) reports to their respective states, which have a created range of TRI programs. In order to learn about states’ TRI activities, we conducted a survey of state TRI coordinators in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. This document presents selected results of our survey. A link to the survey was e-mailed to TRI coordinators in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and we obtained a 100 percent response from the recipients. In this e-supplement, we do not include responses from individual states, nor do we include narrative responses that the state coordinators provided. Additionally, this supplement does not contain responses to questions 4 through 7, because many states answered inconsistently and responses could not be presented reliably.

A more detailed discussion of our scope and methodology is contained in our report: "Toxic Chemical Releases: EPA Changes Could Reduce Environmental Information Available to Many Communities", GAO-08-128 (Washington, D.C.: November 30, 2007). We administered the survey from January 2007 through March 2007 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

Instructions for Viewing this Survey

How to View The Surveys

  • Click on the Table of Contents link located in the lower right of this screen. To read to the bottom of the screen, you may need to use your scroll bar on the right side of this screen.
  • The first screen in the survey is an introduction and general information that was sent to and viewed by recipients of the survey. There are no survey results to view on this screen. This screen is for information only and you may by-pass it by clicking on Next located at the bottom of the screen in the lower right.
  • The survey may have links to allow respondents to bypass inapplicable questions (skip patterns). While these were active links during the data collection period, they have now been disabled.

How to View the Responses for Each Question

  • To view the responses to each question, click on the question number (Links to survey questions will look like this: 1., etc.).
  • After viewing the responses to each question, click on the "x" in the upper right corner of your screen to close that window and return to the questionnaire.

How to Return to a Page That You Previously Visited

  • To return to the last screen you viewed, click the Previous button on the lower right corner of the screen.
  • Click the Next button to advance to the next screen.

How to Make the Font Larger on Your Screen

  • You can make the font larger by changing your browser setting. For example, on Internet Explorer you can change the font size by going to View and selecting Text Size.

Contact Information?

  • If you have questions concerning these data, please contact John Stephenson at (202)512-3841 Stephensonj@gao.gov.
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