• EPCRA has five major provisions and was passed in order to help communities protect public health, safety, and the environment from chemical hazards.

Congress passed EPCRA in 1986 in order to help communities protect public health, safety, and the environment from chemical hazards. It should be noted that EPCRA was passed as part of a larger piece of legislation that year. Specifically, EPCRA is Title III of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA), and SARA, itself, amended the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA). EPCRA has five major provisions:

• Emergency planning (EPCRA 301-303),
• Emergency release notification (EPCRA 304),
• Hazardous chemical storage reporting requirements (EPCRA 311-312),
• Toxic chemical release inventory (EPCRA 313), and
• Trade secrecy (EPCRA 322).

Information collected from these requirements helps states and communities develop a broad perspective of chemical hazards for the entire community, as well as for individual facilities. The chemicals covered by each of the sections are different, as are the quantities that trigger reporting. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations implementing EPCRA are codified in 40 CFR 350 to 372.

Purpose

EPCRA aims to prepare and protect the community from chemical accidents and provide information on potential chemical hazards to the community and first responders. The law creates a program with two goals: to facilitate and promote planning for chemical emergencies at the state and local levels and to provide information to the public about the chemicals used, stored, and released in their communities.

In enacting EPCRA, Congress recognized that that local planners and responders are in the best position to understand the chemical risks in their communities and quickly respond when an accident occurs. EPCRA creates the emergency planning infrastructure at the state, tribal, and local levels by placing implementation responsibilities on state, tribal, and local agencies and reporting requirements on facilities that handle, store, and use hazardous chemicals.