The Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA): A Summary

This report summarizes the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to- Know Act EPCRA and the major regulatory programs that mandate reporting by industrial facilities of releases of hazardous chemicals to the environment, as well as local planning to respond in the event of significant, accidental releases. The text is excerpted, with minor modifications, from the corresponding chapter of CRS Report RL30798, Environmental Laws Summaries of Statutes Administered by the Environmental Protection Agency, which summarizes 12 major environmental statutes. The Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act 42 U.S.C. 11001-11050 was enacted in 1986 as Title III of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act P.L. 99-499. In Subtitle A, EPCRA established a national framework for EPA to mobilize local government officials, businesses, and other citizens to plan ahead for chemical accidents in their communities. EPCRA required each state to create a State Emergency Response Commission SERC, to designate emergency planning districts, and to establish local emergency planning committees LEPCs for each district. EPA is required to list extremely hazardous substances, and to establish threshold planning quantities for each substance. The law directs each facility to notify the LEPC for its district if it stores or uses any extremely hazardous substance in excess of its threshold planning quantity. LEPCs are to work with such facilities to develop response procedures, evacuation plans, and training programs for people who will be the first to respond in the event of an accident. EPCRA requires that facilities immediately report a sudden release of any hazardous substance that exceeds the reportable quantity to appropriate state, local, and federal officials.