By MICHAEL GORMLEY �?5 days ago

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) �?Twelve states sued the Bush administration Wednesday to force greater disclosure of data on toxic chemicals that companies store, use and release into the environment.

The state officials oppose new federal Environmental Protection Agency rules that allow thousands of companies to limit the information they disclose to the public about toxic chemicals, according to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the lead attorney general in the lawsuit.

The change lets 100 polluters off the hook in New York alone, he said.

The EPA, however, said the change improves the Toxics Release Inventory law and eases requirements only on companies that can certify they have no releases of toxins to the environment.

The EPA this year rolled back a regulation on the law signed by President Reagan after the deadly Bhopal toxic chemical catastrophe in India in 1984, according to the states involved in the lawsuit. That law required companies to provide a long, detailed report whenever they store or emit 500 pounds of specific toxins.

The new rule adopted this year requires that long accounting only for companies storing or releasing 5,000 pounds of toxins or more. Companies storing or releasing 500 to 4,999 pounds of toxins would have to file an abbreviated form, said Katherine Kennedy, New York's special deputy attorney general for environmental protection.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in New York City seeks to invalidate the EPA's revised regulations.

"The EPA's new regulations rob New Yorkers �?and people across the country �?of their right to know about toxic dangers in their own backyards," Cuomo said. "Along with 11 other states throughout the nation, we will restore the public's right to information about chemical hazards, despite the Bush administration's best attempts to hide it."

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said the EPA's action cripples a 20-year program that required companies to report the amount of lead, mercury and other toxins they released.

"Polluters can release 10 times more toxins like lead and mercury without telling anyone," he said.

EPA spokeswoman Molly O'Neill had no comment on the suit. Companies that can show they release none of the toxins can avoid filing long and time-consuming reports, she said.

The change, O'Neill said, is "making a good program better."

California Attorney General Jerry Brown said more than 300 companies in California can conceal data under the new EPA rule, and a New Jersey official agreed.

"This rule change is a move in the wrong direction," said that state's environmental protection commissioner, Lisa P. Jackson.

States had not tried to negotiate a compromise before suing, noting that environmental groups and others have criticized the EPA's decision for more than a year.

"We feel the only course of action was to file suit and remedy this in the courts," said Cuomo spokesman Jeffrey Lerner.

The other states suing the EPA are Arizona, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Vermont.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. [http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iI6WCIUJC9CzKJipu82D45JlqJvAD8T6UEFG0]

By ANTHONY DePALMA

November 29, 2007:- Twelve states, including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, sued the Environmental Protection Agency [http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/e/environmental_protection_agency/index.html?inline=nyt-org] yesterday for weakening regulations that for two decades have required businesses and industries to report the toxic chemicals they use, store and release.

The suit, filed in the Federal District Court in Manhattan, asks the court to reverse the agency’s move and so restore all the chemical reporting requirements that were previously part of its Toxics Release Inventory program, or T.R.I.

Community groups across the country have used the program to track the amounts of hazardous chemicals in local neighborhoods. Under the program, companies must provide information about the types of toxic chemicals stored at plants and factories in each state, as well as the quantities discharged from each plant.

Besides the states of the New York tristate area, the plaintiffs are Arizona, California, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Vermont.

Their suit takes aim at a change, adopted by the environmental agency last December, that streamlined the T.R.I. process by reducing the amount of information that companies are required to report. The new rules allow them to file shorter, less detailed forms if they store or release less than 5,000 pounds of toxic chemicals. The old rules required a longer, more comprehensive form whenever a company stored or discharged as little as 500 pounds.

In addition to making compliance less burdensome for businesses, the agency says the new regulations provide an incentive for them to eliminate the release of the most dangerous chemicals, including those known as persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic pollutants, like lead and mercury. Last December’s change allows companies that handle those chemicals to use the shorter reporting form, but only if they can certify that they are not releasing them into the environment.

Molly A. O’Neill, assistant administrator for the agency’s Office of Environmental Information, defended the new rules in a statement yesterday, saying they were "making a good program better."

But Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, who is leading the plaintiffs, said, "The E.P.A.’s new regulations rob New Yorkers �?and people across the country �?of their right to know about toxic dangers in their own backyards."

Mr. Cuomo said the lawsuit sought to restore a public right to information about chemical hazards, "despite the Bush administration’s best attempts to hide it."

The Toxics Release Inventory program was enacted in 1986, two years after a deadly cloud of chemical gas was accidentally released from a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, killing thousands. The law quickly became a kind of "community right to know" rule.

Information on the location of dangerous chemicals is posted on the environmental agency’s Web site. Environmental organizations, community groups and labor unions across the country have used the inventory to prevent exposures to toxic chemicals in neighborhoods and at workplaces.

The first reporting deadline under the new rules was July 1. But officials say it is not yet clear whether individual companies have substantially reduced the amount of information they provide, or voluntarily decided to comply with the old rules.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/29/us/29EPA.html?_r=3&ref=us&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin]