WHITE HOUSE WANTS MORE PUBLIC ACCESS TO TOXICS DATA; NEWEST STATS

[Press Release] (San Francisco) Vice President Al Gore today proposed increasing by about 30 percent the number of industrial facilities required to make public the levels of toxic chemicals they release into the air, water and land.  The Vice President also released the national community-right-to-know update, known as the Toxic Release Inventory. Currently, 23,000 facilities from a wide variety of industries publicly report their emission levels.  Today's proposal would require seven additional industries, approximately 6,400 facilities, also to report on their emissions.  The industries are: electric utilities, chemical wholesalers, solvent recovery services, coal mining, metal mining, commercial hazardous waste treatment, and petroleum bulk terminals.