Mandatory Disclosure of Plants’ Emissions into the Environment and Workers’ Chemical Exposure Inside Plants

Abstract

Our study is the first to test if mandatory pollution disclosure programs, exemplified by the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) program, reduce worker chemical exposure. We examine newly available measurements of personal exposure to air contaminants at 1333 plants in the US chemical manufacturing sector between 1984 and 2009. The maximum ratio of exposure to the legal limits per inspection declined substantially, by 11%, in the post-program period. This result provides the first evidence of a reduction in measured risks coinciding with the inception of the TRI program. We find suggestive, not conclusive, evidence to attribute this reduction in part to the TRI program. Our preferred specifications find that plants that are more responsive to the TRI program, as indicated by larger industry-level TRI emission reduction, had 6.5% to 8% lower exposure. However, not all models find statistically significant larger exposure reductions in plants that are more responsive to the TRI program.