News
EPA Adds Seven More PFAS To Toxics Release Inventory Reporting Program for Reporting Year 2024
EPA Toxics Release Inventory Reporting Program Includes PFAS
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to add specific per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) program under Section 313 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, adding an additional seven chemicals via its final rule published in the Federal Register on May 17.
For year 2024 TRI reports, due July 1, 2025, EPA now lists 196 PFAS chemicals. For the 2023 reporting year, due July 1, 2024, the 189 PFAS previously on the TRI list reports must be reported.
Notably, as described in our prior client alert, EPA has classified PFAS as “chemicals of special concern,” thereby eliminating the de minimis reporting exemption for PFAS chemicals that had allowed facilities to avoid reporting on most TRI-listed PFAS, if PFAS made up 1% or less of a product (the de minimis threshold for PFOA was 0.1%).
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
State of Play
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”