RSEI and TRI Emissions Data

Users of EPA's Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators (RSEI) model should be aware that the TRI Program captures a significant portion of toxic chemicals released to the environment and otherwise managed as waste by industrial and federal facilities, but the reported data do not cover all toxic chemicals or all industrial facilities and sectors of the U.S. economy.

Facilities that report to TRI are typically larger ones and from industry sectors involved in manufacturing, metal mining, electric power generation, and hazardous waste treatment. Federal facilities are also required to report to TRI. Section 313 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) requires facilities to use readily available data (including monitoring data) collected pursuant to other provisions of law, or, where such data are not readily available, reasonable estimates of the amounts involved when reported chemical information to the TRI Program.

• Who reports to TRI?
• What chemicals are reported to TRI?
• What are important sources of potential health risk?
• What are other sources of environmental information?
• How does TRI compare to other data collection programs?
• How are RSEI data different from TRI data?

Who reports to TRI?

TRI reporting forms must be submitted by owners and operators of facilities that meet the following criteria:

• The facility falls within a TRI-reportable industry sector or is federally-owned or operated;
• The facility has 10 or more full-time (or equivalent) employees; and
• The facility manufactures (including imports), processes, or otherwise uses a TRI-listed chemical in an amount above the TRI reporting threshold during a calendar year (thresholds vary depending upon chemical).

What chemicals are reported to TRI?

In general, chemicals covered by the TRI Program are those that cause one or more of the following:

• Cancer or other chronic human health effects.
• Significant adverse acute human health effects.
• Significant adverse environmental effects.

The current TRI toxic chemical list contains over 800 individually listed chemicals and chemical categories. In 2022, over 21,000 facilities reported to TRI. RSEI modeled releases or transfers from over 16,000 facilities in 2022. The remaining facilities not modeled by RSEI only reported releases and transfers that RSEI does not model to produce risk-related RSEI Score results, such as land releases, underground injection, or transfers off site to recycling.

What are important sources of potential health risk?

A low RSEI Score (relative to other RSEI Scores) indicates lower potential concern from TRI chemical releases, but other kinds of health risk may still be present that are not related to TRI chemical releases, including:

• Releases not covered by TRI:
  • Facilities not covered by TRI (e.g., dry cleaners, small auto body shops).
  • Chemicals not covered by TRI regulations.
  • Air pollution from cars and other mobile sources.
  • Municipal wastewater treatment outflows, except for waste volumes transferred from TRI-reporting facilities.
  • Nonpoint source water pollution (runoff from cities and agricultural areas).
• Other sources of exposure to chemicals:
  • Groundwater contamination
  • Hazardous waste contamination (e.g., in Superfund sites or river and lake sediments).
  • Indoor air pollution.
  • Worker exposure.
  • Deposition from air releases onto waterbodies or land.
  • Exposure from food or consumer products.
• Other types of health risks:
  • Flammable or potentially explosive chemicals transported or stored by facilities.
  • Microbial contamination in water.

What are other sources of environmental information?

Other sources of environmental information can provide additional information about facilities, chemicals, and releases not covered by TRI, as well as other kinds of human health and environmental risks. The following sources may be useful when investigating situations of potential concern.

Multi-Program Databases: These sites are useful for screening-level investigations because they bring together data from many individual EPA programs, including some that are listed in the next section:

Envirofacts: A centralized point of access for major EPA data systems, including systems for water and air releases, brownfields, greenhouse gases, drinking water and hazardous waste. Query capabilities range from simple facility look-ups by name or program identifier to complex queries with multiple variables.

Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO): An online tool providing integrated compliance and enforcement information on regulated facilities nationwide. Its features range from simple to advanced, catering to users who want to conduct broad analyses as well as those who need to perform complex searches. ECHO allows you to find and download information such as on permit data, inspection dates and findings, violations, enforcement actions, and penalties assessed.

EJScreen: EPA's environmental justice mapping and screening tool that provides EPA with a nationally consistent dataset and approach for combining environmental and demographic socioeconomic indicators. EJScreen users choose a geographic area; the tool then provides demographic socioeconomic and environmental information for that area.

Other useful sites:

The National Emissions Inventory (NEI): A comprehensive and detailed estimate of air emissions of criteria pollutants, criteria precursors, and hazardous air pollutants from air emissions sources. The NEI is released every three years based primarily upon data provided by state, local, and tribal air agencies for sources in their jurisdictions and supplemented by data developed by EPA. The NEI is built using the Emissions Inventory System (EIS) first to collect the data from state, local, and tribal air agencies and then to blend that data with other data sources. 

Air Toxics Screening Assessment (AirToxScreen)/National Air Toxics Assessment (NATA): EPA's ongoing review of air toxics in the United States, developed as a screening tool for state, local and tribal air agencies. Assessment results help these agencies identify which pollutants, emission sources and places they may wish to study further to better understand any possible risks to public health from air toxics. Assessments include estimates of cancer and noncancer health effects based on chronic exposure from outdoor sources, including assessments of noncancer health effects for diesel particulate matter. AirToxScreen is the successor to the previous National Air Toxics Assessment, or NATA.

Risk Management Plans: The Risk Management Program (RMP) rule implements section 112(r) of the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments and requires facilities that use extremely hazardous substances to develop a Risk Management Plan. These plans must be revised and resubmitted to EPA every five years. RMPs are available in EPA Federal Reading Rooms and also some RMP information is available through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request process.

Water Pollutant Loading Tool: An online tool designed to help determine who is discharging, what pollutants they are discharging and how much, and where they are discharging. The tool calculates pollutant loadings from permit and discharge monitoring report (DMR) data from EPA's Integrated Compliance Information System for the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (ICIS-NPDES). Data are available from the year 2007 to the present. The tool also includes wastewater pollutant discharge data from TRI, for the years 2007 to the most recent reporting year. 

AirData: The AirData website gives you access to air quality data collected at outdoor monitors across the United States, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The data comes primarily from the Air Quality System (AQS) database. 

Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Chemical Data Reporting (CDR): The Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) rule, under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), requires manufacturers (including importers) to provide EPA with information on the production and use of chemicals in commerce. The database contains reporting on basic exposure-related information on the types, quantities and uses of chemical substances produced domestically and imported into the United States. The data include information on industrial processing and use, and consumer and commercial use of certain chemicals currently listed on the TSCA Chemical Substance Inventory (TSCA Inventory), a list of chemicals that are manufactured (including imported) or processed in the United States. EPA uses CDR data to support risk screening, risk assessment, chemical prioritization, risk evaluation, and risk management activities, among other activities.

Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP): The GHGRP requires reporting of greenhouse gas (GHG) data and other relevant information from large GHG emission sources, fuel and industrial gas suppliers, and CO₂ injection sites in the United States. The GHGRP has nine years of data for most sectors and is available in various formats on the GHGRP website and through Envirofacts. Approximately 8,000 facilities are required to report their emissions annually.

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Programs: The RCRA is the public law that creates the framework for the proper management of hazardous and non-hazardous solid waste. RCRA gives EPA the authority to control hazardous waste from the "cradle-to-grave." This includes the generation, transportation, treatment, storage and disposal of hazardous waste. To achieve this, EPA develops regulations, guidance and policies that ensure the safe management and cleanup of solid and hazardous waste, and programs that encourage source reduction and beneficial reuse. 

Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) Programs: The EPCRA of 1986 was authorized by Title III of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act to help communities plan for chemical emergencies. It requires industry to report on the storage, use, and releases of certain chemicals to federal, state, tribal, territorial, and/or local governments. It also requires these reports to be used to prepare for and protect their communities from potential risks.

Tier II: Under section 312 of EPCRA, facilities that are required to submit safety data sheets (SDSs) or the list of hazardous chemicals under section 311, also need to submit an annual inventory report for the same chemicals to the State or Tribal Emergency Response Commission (SERC or TERC), Local or Tribal Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC or TEPC), and the local fire department by March 1 of each year.

State EPCRA Data: This website provides links to each state’s requirements and procedures for EPCRA Tier II reporting.

Other EPCRA: Other provisions of the 1986 law and later amendments provide for the availability of SDSs, notification of accidental releases, and local and state emergency planning.

How does TRI compare to other data collection programs?

Information on facilities exempt from TRI reporting might be available in other EPA databases compiled by other programs that regulate the facilities, some of which are described above. Each of these programs has different requirements for who must report and the data and frequency of the reporting; however, there is overlap between the facilities in these databases and the facilities that report to TRI. Users who want to find information that is not available in TRI can check these other databases. For example, the NEI can be used to find estimates of air releases for facilities that do not report to TRI or for mobile sources, which are not covered by the TRI Program. Find more information on how TRI relates to other programs.

How are RSEI data different from TRI data?

RSEI uses a TRI dataset that is the basis for EPA's TRI National Analysis, but makes some adjustments because of modeling and analytical needs:

• Off-site Facility Consolidation: RSEI employs an algorithm to match text records describing off-site facilities that are receiving transfers from TRI reporting facilities.
• Off-site and On-site Facility Latitude/Longitude Revisions: Some manual verification of locational information for certain facilities is necessary to ensure accurate modeling, so in certain cases, the RSEI location of a facility may not match the location listed in EPA’s Facility Registry Service (FRS).
• Adjustments for Double-Counting: Certain TRI analytical products such as the TRI National Analysis adjust for double-counting of waste management activities from treatment, storage, and disposal (TSD) facilities regulated under the RCRA that both receive TRI-reported chemical transfers from other facilities and also report the management activity of that same chemical to TRI. Beginning with Version 2.3.5, RSEI makes a simplified double-counting adjustment by dropping off-site transfers to incineration where the receiving facility is also a TRI reporter. The adjustment is performed for reporting years 1998 and later, since 1998 is the first year these facilities (RCRA Subtitle C) were required to report to TRI.
• RSEI only models certain releases and transfers reported to TRI (from stack and fugitive air emissions, discharges to receiving streams or waterbodies, transfers off site to publicly owned treatment works (POTW) facilities, and transfers off site to incineration). In some applications, such as EasyRSEI, “RSEI Modeled Pounds” may be less than total pounds (or “TRI Pounds”), because only pounds included in RSEI modeled releases and transfers are counted.
• Note that in previous versions of EasyRSEI, each facility was assigned a single set of North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes. Starting with Version 2.3.6., RSEI has adopted the TRI Program method of using the NAICS codes for each TRI Form R submission. Using this method, releases from the same facility may be counted in different industries, if those releases are reported under different NAICS codes. RSEI continues to assign a single NAICS code to each facility to determine certain modeling parameters (the RSEI-assigned NAICS code is called Modeled NAICS to avoid confusion and is included in the RSEI facility table as "ModeledNAICS").
• Also beginning with Version 2.3.6, RSEI is including all of the chemical entries reported to TRI, including entries like “Trade Secret” and “Mixture” which cannot be modeled. Including all entries ensures aggregated pounds in RSEI will match the totals in other TRI tools and data products.