Groups to Petition EPA to Require Fracking, Other Oil & Gas Toxic Releases to Be Reported

Oil and Gas Would Join Other Industries, Including Coal, That Already Report to the Toxics Release Inventory; Federal Disclosure of Fracking Chemical Pollution Not Yet Required

WASHINGTON, D.C. --- The Environmental Integrity Project, along with 16 other national, regional, and local organizations, will submit a petition to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Wednesday asking it to include the oil and gas extraction industry (including hydraulic fracturing, or ?fracking? for short) in its Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) reporting requirements.

TRI reporting is already required of most other energy industries including coal. ?The groups will argue that the loophole for the oil & gas extraction industries makes no sense, given the huge amounts of toxic chemicals involved that have only increased with the rapid rise of fracking. ?Since oil and gas facilities are currently not required to report such data, the full scope of environmental and public health risks to citizens and communities are not known. The ? toxics-related risks include air pollution, drinking water contamination, and discharges to rivers and streams.

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The petition will be unveiled during a live, phone-based news conference at 1 p.m. EDT on October 24, 2012.

Speakers on the phone-based news event will be:

• Eric Schaeffer, director, Environmental Integrity Project
• Jane Davenport, senior attorney, Delaware Riverkeeper Network
• Bruce Baizel, senior staff attorney, Earthworks
• Pam Judy, a resident living near a natural gas compressor station, Carmichaels, Pennsylvania
• Deb Thomas, organizer, Powder River Basin Resource Council, and resident of Clark, Wyoming
• Eric Robinson, president, CitizenShale, and resident of McHenry, Maryland.

The TRI is an EPA-maintained database which contains information on the disposal and other releases of over 650 toxic chemicals from thousands of facilities nationwide. One of the primary purposes of TRI data is to inform citizens, communities, and lawmakers of potentially hazardous or toxic releases of chemicals in their area. ?This data allows communities to plan for their futures, lawmakers to assess the effectiveness of and need for environmental controls, and the facilities themselves to review and often voluntarily reduce their toxic releases.

TO PARTICIPATE: ?Join the live, phone-based telenews event, at 1 p.m. EDT on October 24, 2012 by dialing 1 (800) 860-2442. Ask for the ?TRI data petition? news event.

CAN?T PARTICIPATE?: ?A streaming audio replay of this news event will be available as of 5 p.m. EDT on October 24, 2012 athttp://www.environmentalintegrity.org/.

CONTACT: ?Leslie Anderson Maloy, (703) 276-3256 or?lmaloy@hastingsgroup.com.

ABOUT EIP

The Environmental Integrity Project (http://www.environmentalintegrity.org) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization established in March of 2002 by former EPA enforcement attorneys to advocate for effective enforcement of environmental laws. EIP has three goals: 1) to provide objective analyses of how the failure to enforce or implement environmental laws increases pollution and affects public health; 2) to hold federal and state agencies, as well as individual corporations, accountable for failing to enforce or comply with environmental laws; and 3) to help local communities obtain the protection of environmental laws.

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