On October 17, 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA).
A free-standing law, the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 (EPCRA) was commonly known as SARA Title III.
During the early morning hours of December 3, 1984, a Union Carbide plant in a village just South of Bhopal, India released approximately forty tons of Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) into the air.
[1] The only other place in the world that Union Carbide manufactured MIC is at its Institute plant in the Kanawha Valley of West Virginia.
On August 11, 1985, on the heels of the completion of the safety improvement program just a few months before, 500 gallons of aldicarb oxime and highly toxic MIC leaked from the Institute plant.
In response to this growing threat, the United States Congress passed the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) in 1986.
Under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, SERCs and LEPCs are charged with four primary responsibilities: EPCRA does not place limits on which chemicals can be stored, used, released, disposed, or transferred at a facility.
For each district, the SERC appoints, supervises and coordinates the activities of a Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC).
This section applies to any facility that is required by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) under its Hazard Communication Standard to prepare or have available a Safety Data Sheet (SDS) for a hazardous chemical (See II above for definition) or that has on-site, for any one day in a calendar year, an amount of a hazardous chemical equal to or greater than the following threshold limits established by the EPA: If a facility is subject to reporting under these sections, it must submit information to the SERC, the LEPC and the local fire department with jurisdiction over the facility under two categories: SDS reporting and inventory reporting.
SDS reporting requirements specifically provide information to the local community about mixtures and chemicals present at a facility and their associated hazards.
The Tier One form, the simpler of the two, contains aggregate information for applicable hazard categories and must be submitted yearly by March 1.
The original data requirements for the TRI, specified in SARA Title III, have been greatly expanded by the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990.
Since April 30, 1993, the United States Air Force, in accordance with AFR 355-1, "Disaster Preparedness, Planning and Operations," has voluntarily complied with Sections 303 and 304 of EPCRA in spite of the fact that federal facilities were initially exempt from its requirements.
On August 3, 1993, President Clinton signed Executive Order 12856, "Federal Compliance With Right-to-Know Laws and Pollution Prevention Requirements."
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: