Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act - Lists of Chemicals (Section 301-304 and 311-313)

Lists of Chemicals (Section 301-304 and 311-313)

The EPA's guide provides a useful description of the four groups of chemicals subject to reporting under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act:

• Extremely Hazardous Substances : This list currently contains more than 300 chemicals. Because of their extremely toxic properties, these chemicals were chosen to provide an initial focus for chemical emergency planning. If these chemicals are released in certain amounts, they may be of immediate concern to the community. Releases must be reported immediately.
• Hazardous Substances: These are hazardous substances listed under previous Superfund hazardous waste cleanup regulations (Section 103(a) of the Comprehensive Environmental Resource and Conservation Liability Act—Superfund). The current list contains about 720 substances. Releases of these chemicals above certain amounts must be reported immediately because they may represent an immediate hazard to the community.
• Hazardous Chemicals: These chemicals are not on a list at all, but are defined by Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations as chemicals which represent a physical or health hazard. Under this definition many thousands of chemicals can be subject to reporting requirements if a facility manufactures, processes, or stores them in certain amounts. Inventories of these chemicals and material safety data sheets for each of them must be submitted if they are present in the facility in certain amounts.
• Toxic Chemicals: There are now more than 320 chemicals or chemical categories on this list, which were selected by Congress primarily because of their chronic or long-term toxicity. Estimates of releases of these chemicals into all media—air, land, and water—must be reported annually and entered into a national database.