Frank Pallone: “I do believe this is a very important amendment. I just want to give an example from my State to show that this is not…”

“I do believe this is a very important amendment. I just want to give an example from my State to show that this is not only important to the community at large but also for businesses, because in New Jersey the information from the toxic release inventory has actually been used in order for companies to streamline their permitting process. In cases where we have had, say, 30 permits that had to be granted to a company, sometimes now there is only one because of the information that has been provided. So it is not only good government, if you will, from the point of view of the right to know and the community's right to know, but also for business's right to know because oftentimes they can use that information also to their advantage in terms of streamlining the permitting process. I just wanted to again thank the gentleman from Illinois for introducing this. I think that every effort that we make to increase right to know is important to this Congress and to the public in general.”