The Systematic Underreporting of Toxic Air Emissions
Texas - Louisiana Summary

Federal and state environmental regulators have known for more than a decade that toxic air emissions are widely under-reported. Underreporting is usually due to a lack of adequate monitoring. Instead, industrial facilities report their toxic emissions based on calculations that are often outdated and inaccurate. Rather than address this problem, the United States Environmental Protection Agency has weakened monitoring requirements, continuing to relay inaccurate toxic air emissions data.

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) is critical to the public's right to know about chemical releases into the environment. Nationwide, "Who's Counting?" found that refineries and chemical plants failed to report approximately 330 million pounds of just ten air pollutants to the 2001 TRI.

For Texas and Louisiana, the picture is even worse. Without the adjustment for under-reporting, Texas and Louisiana rank third and ninth, respectively, as sources of air pollution. With it, these two states jump to #1 and #2.

Based on the adjustment, Texas air polluters report less than 40% of actual emissions. For Louisiana, the results are only somewhat better: about 58% of actual emissions are reported. The reason for these dramatic differences is that Texas and Louisiana are home to the vast majority of the nation's refineries and, especially, chemical plants.