Native Sun News: EPA establishes new tribal committee on toxics

Friday, January 7, 2011  

The following story was written and reported byTalli Nauman. All content © Native Sun News.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is forming a new National Tribal Toxics Committee to offer tribes greater opportunities for input on hazardous chemicals and pollution prevention.

The move stems from Administrator Lisa P. Jackson’s priority to build strong federal-tribal partnerships and expand the conversation on environmental justice, the White House announced Dec. 21.

“The administrator has made environmental justice a priority,” EPA Senior Advisor for Environmental Justice Lisa Garcia said at the EPA’s 2010 National Training Conference on the Toxics Release Inventory and Environmental Conditions in Communities, attended by the Native Sun News. Part of that is “improving our partnerships with tribal leaders and governments,” she said.

The event in November, subtitled “Connecting Communities and Decision-makers with Environmental Information”, was the first of EPA’s national training conferences to feature speakers involved locally with tribal issues.

The announcement this week of the new National Tribal Toxics Committee (NTTC) came on the heels of the first White House Forum on Environmental Justice, Dec. 15, held one day before the Second White House Tribal Nations Conference.

The forum, in turn, was a result of the Sept. 22 action by Administrator Jackson to reconvene the Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice for the first time in more than a decade.

The purpose of these actions is to advance the mandate of the 1994 Executive Order 12898, entitled “Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations”, which calls on government agencies to include environmental justice in their missions, according to official sources “This new committee will help increase our already close collaboration and communication with federally recognized tribes and intertribal organizations on critical issues relating to chemical safety and pollution prevention that affect Native peoples,” said Steve Owens, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.

“We are committed to reducing toxic exposures and increasing pollution prevention among tribal communities, and to respecting tribal sovereignty, culture and heritage,” he said in a White House communiqué.

The EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) manage a Tribal Program to improve communication between EPA and tribes for better exchange and coordinate information. Its stated goal is “to build more effective partnerships with Tribes to safeguard and protect human health and the environment from toxic hazards and to promote pollution prevention in Indian country.”

The new NTTC is conceived as a forum for tribes to provide advice on the development of EPA’s chemical management and pollution prevention programs.

“Given the uniqueness of tribal cultures, communities and environmental problems, the forum will help EPA better tailor and more efficiently address a variety of issues, including preventing poisoning from lead paint, expanding pollution prevention and safer chemical initiatives in Indian country,” the White House says.

A charter for the new NTTC is in the works, and the membership of the committee will be constituted over the next several months. The first meeting of the NTTC is slated for the spring of 2011.

This year marks the first time that the EPA’s annual national analysis of the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) highlights toxic disposals and releases to tribal lands. The TRI program publishes industrial pollutant discharges to air, land and water, as well as information on waste management and pollution prevention activities in neighborhoods across the country.

Last month, when EPA added 16 cancer-linked chemicals to the TRI list of 650 substances that manufactures must report, it was another first. The list had not been expanded for more than a decade, despite a marked increase in the number of new chemicals being used in production.

EPA also is seeking comment on the agency’s proposed “Policy on Consultation and Coordination with Indian Tribes.” The goals of the policy are to involve tribal officials when EPA is taking actions or implementing decisions that may affect tribes. It identifies clear standards for the consultation process, including defining on what, when, and how consultation will take place; designates specific EPA personnel responsible for serving as consultation points of contact in order to promote consistency, and coordination in the consultation process; and establishes a management oversight and reporting structure that will ensure accountability and transparency.

The policy initiative and agency wide efforts to strengthen public health and environmental protection in Indian country are coordinated by the American Indian Environmental Office (AIEO), which helps tribes administer their own environmental programs.

The AIEO opened a 60-day public comment period for the policy on Dec. 15. The deadline for input is Feb. 16. The office has developed a “tribal portal” to help American Indian community members locate tribal related information within EPA and other government agencies on the internet: http://www.epa.gov/indian.

(Contact Talli Nauman at: talli.nauman@gmail.com)