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1.1 Introduction 9

Section 313 requires the EPA and the states to annually collect data on releases and trans-
fers of certain toxic chemicals from industrial facilities, and make the data a ailable to the v
public in the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI).

Other countries, including Australia (NPI in 1998), Canada (NPRI in 1999), and the
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European Union (EPER in 2000), followed in deeloping national PRTR systems.
Focusing on Europe, it is important to clarify what EPER is about, e . xactly
The European Pollutant Emission Register (EPER) is the establishment of a European regi-
ster with comparable data on the emissions from individual activities covered by the Council
Directive 96/61/EC, known as the IPPC Directive. It is a useful monitoring tool and a suitable
instrument for public dissemination of emission data and its effectiveness could be seen in the
European effort to achieve the goals set in Agenda 21 of the UNECE Conference in Rio de
Janeiro (1992), in the IPPC Directive (1996), and in the UNECE Aarhus Convention (1998).
The IPPC Directie was brought into effect at the end of 1999. Since then, member
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states hae gradually adopted national regulations to comply with the IPPC Directi e, v
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including a national inentory of emission data to be reported to the commission. An
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inventory of principal emissions and sources responsible has to be published by the com-
mission every three years based on data supplied by the member states.
On January 25, 2000, the committee referred to in Article 19 of IPPC Directie gae a v v
favorable opinion of a draft Commission Decision on the implementation of a European
Pollutant Emission Register. The Commission Decision (2000/479/EC), to be referred to as
the EPER Decision, w2000. According to the EPER Decision, as adopted on July 17, mem-
ber states shall report to the Commission on emissions into air and water from all individual
facilities with one or more activities as mentioned in Annex I to the IPPC Directive. The pro-
vided data will be made publicly accessible and disseminated on the Internet. Specifically,
“EPER is a publicly accessible register with emission data that enables the Commission and
national governments to monitor the trends in annual emissions of large industrial activities
covered by Annex I of the IPPC Directive” (Commission Decision, 2000).
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EPER coers the releases into the environment from industrial facilities aboe a mini- v
mum production capacity. It excludes emissions from the transport sector and from most
agricultural sources. The comparison with the EU-15’s total emissions of some important
greenhouse gases and air pollutants (as reported under the UN Frame ork Con w ention on v
Climate Change and the UNECE Conention on Long-Range Transboundary Air
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Pollution) shows that EPER co ers around— v

• 42% of EU-15’s total—carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions
• 15% of EU-15’s total—methane (CH 4 ) emissions
• 13% of EU-15’s total—dinitrogen oxide (N 2 O) emissions
• 6% of EU-15’s total—nonmethane volatile organic carbon (NMV OC) emissions
• 26% of EU-15’s total—nitrogen oxides (NO x ) emissions , and
• 70% of EU-15’s total—sulfur oxides (SO x ) emissions.

There are still some problems about the enforcement of the relevant directives and guide-
, lines, and at present, data are a er v . Ho we it should be seen as a huge ailable for 2001 only v