GOVERNMENT & POLICY IN THE KNOW EPA's Office of Environmental Information collects data on pollution released to air, water, and land. The agency uses this information to make regulatory decisions and makes much of it available to the public.
ENVIRONMENT
EPA'S DATA HUB Office of Information aims to provide solid foundation for better decision-making CHERYL HOGUE, C&EN WASHINGTON
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I T H I N THE ENVIRONMEN-
tal Protection Agency, there are programs devoted to air, water, waste, enforcement of environmental laws, and the manufacture of pesticides and commercial chemicals. Other long-established offices address international issues and research. The newest office at EPA is not quite three years old. It deals with an issue key to nearly every other part of the agencyenvironmental information. Environmental information is data about pollution in the air, in waterways, and on land. It includes information on the types and amount of pollution that a particular chemical plant—or all chemical manufacturers or all industries together— emit. EPA uses environmental information to make decisions on whether to issue new regulations, to track the effects of its rules, and to ensure that facilities are abiding by those regulations. And the agency also provides access to much of its environ-
mental information to the public through its World Wide Web site. Before the Office of Environmental Information (OEI) was created in 1999, data entered the agency at many points. The Office of Water received data demonstrating whether facilities were within the bounds set in their permits to discharge water pollution. The Office of Air & Radiation collected information on air pollution. The Office of Prevention, Pesticides & Toxic Substances amassed annual Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) reports. As EPA's assistant administrator for OEI, KimberlyT. Nelson is overseeing a major shift in how EPA gets, checks, and accesses data, including the acceptance of required reports over the Internet. Nelson came to EPA from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, where she held a variety of posts, including chief information officer and secondin-command of that agency "In the old days, every office {within EPA} built its own system" for data, says
Nelson. To get data on air, water discharge permit compliance, andTRI data for a single facility meant tapping into three separate systems. Information managers have a term for having many entry points for data, each of which leads into unconnected storage systems: It's called stovepiping. Nelson's job is to oversee integration of all these stovepiped information systems. According to Nelson, the goal is to "overlay" separate systems for air, water, and waste data for a single facility or a single chemical in a way that is transparent to Web-based users of that information. 'All of us have different needs for information, and the challenge for this organization is to meet those many needs so that people can make the right decision for the best environmental results. That's a huge challenge," Nelson tells C&EN. When all the data repositories are linked through a single system, "we get this enterprisewide view that we can better use to understand the impacts on the environment." ADD TO THIS TASK of integration the challenge ofupdating the technology used to collect and store environmental data. The 20-year-old system for data on water pollution discharges, for example, still runs on COBOL software. According to Nelson, about 95% of the environmental information that EPA amasses is collected by state environmental agencies and provided by them to the federal agency Mark A. Luttner, who heads OEI's Office of Information Collection, says that over many of the past 30 years, this meant states provided paper reports to EPA. The agency is currently in a transition period, Luttner says. Data arrive at EPA from states and companies in several formats: electronically on paper, and "things in between"—on diskettes and compact disks. The goal, Luttner says, is for this to become 100% electronic data that are stored safely yet can be accessed over the
"All of us have different needs for information, and the challenge for this organization is to meet those many needs so that people can make the right decision for the best environmental results/' HTTP://PUBS.ACS.ORG/CEN
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GOVERNMENT & POLICY Internet. Electronic reporting is providing access to information, easier, reduces stafftime to produce other parts of OEI address data and process data, and cuts errors quality deal with information techwhen data on paper are entered innology and security manage EPAs to a computer system, he notes. computer hardware and networks, and perform strategic planning and Nelson ultimately wants to elimresource management. inate half the different data systems EPA uses. One way to do this is to get rid of EPA systems that are reA MAJOR PART of OEFs work fodundant with state environmental cuses on the Toxics Release Invendata systems, she says. Instead, tory, which consists of yearly reEPA will tap directly into state sysports of environmental releases by tems to access this information. tens of thousands of facilities across the U.S. To accomplish these goals, OEI, which has a 2002 fiscal-year operStanley calls T R I "the primary atingbudgetof $112 million for its INFORMATION CHIEF Nelson says the data that feedstock" data for EPA. Agency 384 employees in Washington, EPA collects ultimately help the agency determine regulators often use T R I data as D.C., is establishing a central data whether the quality of the environment is improving they develop a regulation and deexchange, or CDX. This, Luttner termine which facilities will be poexplains, is a capability as well as a hardtentially affected by it. Researchers use p e r m i t s . It also provides watershed ware system that is based at EPAs Research T R I in community health studies. And names, congressional districts, and cenTriangle Park, N.C., facility CDX allows regulators at the state, local, and federal sus data for the area. Windows to My Enusers to pull together environmental inlevel use T R I to prioritize their work, vironment currently has nationwide information from state and tribal databases. Stanley says. formation and data for 22 states and the Through it, companies can electronically "It's a tremendously powerful database," District of Columbia. By the end of file their annual T R I reports. CDX also she says. 2002, this tool should include informanow accepts reports required of drinking In the world of information managetion for all states, Stanley says. water providers on unregulated contamiment, T R I has room for improvement. In addition to collecting, analyzing, and nants and state and regional agencies' reports on air quality While Luttner's staff handles collection R I G H T - T O - K N O W VERSUS S E C U R I T Y of environmental data, another part of OEI focuses on using that information and making it available to the public. The Office of Sean M. Moulton, a senior policy anaInformation Analysis & Access, directed •ear resonated within policymakers lyst with 0MB Watch, a group that tracks by Elaine G. Stanley, is responsible for after the Sept. 11. 2001, terrorist atthe White House Office of Management & EPAs popular website, through which the tacks. Could terrorists use the data Budget and federal information policy, public can access a great deal of environthe Environmental Protection Agency procredits OEI officials with withstanding mental information. vides over the Internet to select new tar-
Taking Data Off EPAs Website
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"THE WEBSITE is increasingly popular," she says. The public demand for environmental information often exceeds the ability of the agency to supply it, Stanley adds. Those who use the data include EPA and state environmental regulators, businesses, researchers, federal agencies, and the public at large. Stanley's office is in charge of developing electronic tools for all these constituencies to use environmental data through EPAs website. One such tool is TRI Explorer, which allows users to sort toxics release information by industry chemical, state or zip code, and year. "That's been enormously popular," Stanley says. EPA recently released a new information crunching tool called Window to My Environment. W h e n a user types in a zip code or town name, this Internet tool pulls up an interactive map of the area that shows the location of facilities with state or federal pollution control 22
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pressure to remove data from the EPA gets, such as chemical manufacturing website. "They've held their ground on plants? keeping information available," he tells Kimberly T. Nelson, head of EPA's OfC&EN. fice of Environmental Information (OEI), 0MB Watch provides executive sumsays the agency did remove one set of data from its website since Sept. 11 —risk maries of risk management plans through management plans for chemicals used at e-mail—it is not directly available from its websites, Moulton notes. The summaries commercial facilities. Those plans, redo not include worst-case scenarios of inquired by the Clean Air Act, include assessment of the hazards posed by chemi- dustrial explosions and do not give security plan information for facilities, he says. cals at a facility, a prevention program, 0MB Watch received electronic versions and an emergency response plan. Nelson says that despite pressure from of the summaries from EPA through Freesome quarters to strip off more data, EPA dom of Information Act requests, he adds. Nelson says that in the future, EPA will is likely to remove little else from its webcarefully examine the level of information site. "We have to be careful not to overdetail and site-specific information it react," she says. "So much of what we have on our website is so readily available makes public. The agency will also screen the Internet tools it provides so they canin other places. By taking it off, we're not be used to piece the agency's environhurting our mission, which is to help edumental information together in ways that cate the public. could assist those with sinister motives, "I think you'll see us stay the course," she says. she says.
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Nelson rolls her eyes when she describes the system EPA has used for ensuring the quality ofTRI data. EPAis transitioning from the receipt of paper reports through the mail or courier services from the tens of thousands of fa cilities that report under the TRI program each year. Each number listed on each form is entered into an EPA computer separately by two different people, Nelson explains. The system electronically compares the two inputs andflagswhen the two sets of numbers don't match. "When we start to receive those reports electronically not only can we eliminate data entry one time, but we'll eliminate da ta entry twice," Nelson says. But transitions take time. Two years ago, EPA began accepting TRI data submis sions through a portal on the World Wide Web. However, because of legal concerns with electronic signatures, facilities must submit a signed postcard with a number that links it to the electronic report. "The inefficiencies of matching up that piece of paper with the electronic report when it came in eliminated all of the sav ings from getting them electronically" Nel son says. According to Luttner, 60 facilities sub mitted electronic TRI reports in 2000. The next year, the number grew to 200. Of the 22,000 TRI reports covering releases in 2001, which were due at EPA July 1, 2002, some 2,000 reports werefiledover the Internet, Luttner says. He expects that number to grow to 90% of allTRI reports in coming years. "WE'RE PUSHING electronic reporting as hard as we can," Luttner says. Facilities may continue to file paper reports if they choose. Under the 1998 Government Pa perwork Elimination Act, federal agencies must, wherever possible, allow—but not require—reports to be filed electronically asofOct.21,2003. EPA proposed a rule in 2001 to imple ment electronic reporting. The plan ran into a hornet's nest of industry opposi tion—but not because of the provisions al lowing companies to send data to EPA over the Internet. The controversy centered on proposed new criteria for environmental records that companies store on comput ers. Industry argues that the proposed stan dards would make electronic record keep ing mandatory and would cost millions of dollars to implement, outweighing the fi nancial savings of switching from paper to computers (C&EN, Oct. 22, 2001, page 47). Luttner says EPA will leave out the record-keeping criteria in the final version HTTP://PUBS.ACS.ORG/CEN
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GOVERNMENT & POLICY of the rule. It will focus solely on report ing and is expected in 2003, he says. The quality of the data reported by in dustrial facilities on their TRI reports is of concern to EPA. Stanley says, "We need to work with industry to hold them more accountable for information they provide." For example, EPA regularly returns TRI forms to companies that have failed to pro vide certain numbers. The agency has developed a reporting software that can reduce companies' re porting burdens and improve the quality of the data they submit to EPA, Stanley says. The EPA program, dubbed TRI-ME,
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helps users determine whether they need tofilea toxics release report and provides hints for filling out the forms. Nelson likens it tolurboTax, a series of commercial soft ware packages that assist taxpayers in fil ing returns. TRI-ΜΕ "eliminates a lot of errors" on the reports, Nelson says, in part because
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time, Nelson says. For instance, the agency will be open to suggestions on improving TRI-ΜΕ to improve the quality of reports, she adds. Beyond the challenges involved in col lecting and improving the quality of TRI data, Nelson is also concerned about trends this information shows over time. Since ONE OF NELSON'S goals for changing the TRI reporting began in 1986, releases to TRI process in the future is cutting the the environment have dropped steeply, number of reports EPAreturns to facilities. Nelson notes. EPAwants to know why this The agency compares newTRI reports to is happening and how much of the change previous ones from the same facility EPA can be attributed to agency regulatory pro sometimes finds new numbers that don't grams, she says. "We can produce lots and lots of docu jibe with older reports or discovers that some numbers are missing. mentation about that decline. I'd love to In such a case, the agency know, however, how much of that decline then returns the new report is directly related to the TRI program it to the facility so it can get self and to the whole notion of reporting checked for accuracy "We and public dissemination of information do that multiple times," versus how much of that decline is based on other regulatory changes," she says. "I'd Nelson says. Nelson suspects that like us to do more analysis in that area." It when faced with the July 1 would be helpful, for example, to tease out reporting deadline, some how much of the decline in reported re leases is due to rules required by the 1990 people responsible for TRI at facilities hurriedlyfillout amendments to the Clean Air Act or from the forms andfigurethey'll stricter water pollution control permit correct any problems later, standards or hazardous waste rules, Nel son says. she says. This information would "position the "It's incredibly costly to this agency and the taxpayers—to the fa agency so we understand the consequences cilities, ultimately—not to get it right the of our actions," Nelson explains. Ultimately environmental information first time," Nelson continues. "Every time we have to send it back to them, they have such as this will help EPA determine whether it is meeting Administrator Chris to spend more time on it." tine Todd Whitman's goal of seeing to it OEI plans to ask facilities thatfileTRI reports what sort of assistance they need that the air is clearer, the water cleaner, and to get their submissions correct the first the land better protected, Nelson says. • the form can't get sent to EPA unless all of its requiredfieldsarefilledout. In contrast, she says, it's easy to take a paper report and forget to fill in some of the blanks. This feature helps save EPA and companies fil ing TRI reports the time and expense of correcting them, she adds.
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