By making toxic pollution information publicly available, the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) has become one of the premier tools for alerting U.S. citizens to chemical contamination in and around their communities. In 2005, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed weakening this program by raising reporting thresholds tenfold, potentially allowing large industrial facilities to release 5,000 pounds of toxic pollution before reporting them. The EPA also proposed allowing companies to withhold information on dangerous chemicals like lead and mercury and to report their pollution releases every two years, instead of annually.

During debate of the Interior-Environment appropriations bill, Representatives Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Hilda Solis (D-CA) introduced an amendment to prevent EPA from moving forward with these proposals. On May 18, 2006, House Amendment 844 was approved by a 231-187 vote (House roll call vote 165). YES is the pro-environment vote.