Pollutant Registry enacted.

The much anticipated Regulation to the General Environmental Law for the Pollutant Release and Transfer Registry ("PRTR Regulation") and the amendments to the Atmospheric Pollution and Control Regulation (the "Air Regulation") were published in the Federal Official Daily on June 3, 2004 and became effective the next day.

The PRTR Regulation is similar to the US Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) counterpart in that it envisions a publicly available database that contains information on toxic chemical releases and other waste management activities reported annually by certain covered industry groups as well as federal facilities. The US inventory was established under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 (EPCRA) and expanded by the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990.

The PRTR Regulation is also consistent with the efforts of the governments of the United States, Canada and Mexico to work together to improve the ability to compare data from their three PRTR systems. This work is coordinated by the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (NACEC), an organization created with the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). The NACEC's work includes helping Mexico establish a PRTR comparable to the US and Canadian PRTRs, publishing an annual report titled Taking Stock that compiles and compares the PRTR data, and operating a searchable website of comparable North American PRTR data.

The PRTR's objective, originally established as a voluntary initiative in amendments to the General Law published in 2001, is to compile and make public emissions and pollutants data from federally regulated facilities. Specifically, the following industries and activities are now subject to these reporting requirements: Petroleum and Petrochemical; Chemical; Paints and Dyes; Metallurgy; Automotive; Cellulose and Paper; Cement; Asbestos; Glass; Electric Energy; Hazardous Waste Treatment, together with Hazardous Waste Generators and Wastewater Discharges into Federal Waters.

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Practically, the databases of the Registry will consist of a variety of environmental information currently in the possession of the environmental agencies in the form of authorizations, permits, reports and licenses and will be supplemented with the regulated facilities' reports on emissions, pollutant and substance transfers subject to federal jurisdiction.

The basic characteristics of Mexico's PRTR are the following: facility-specific data; standardized data; chemical-specific data; annual reporting; public access to the data; mandatory reporting; limited trade secrecy, and, for each chemical, data on releases to air, water and land and data on transfers of the chemical in waste.

For these regulated industries and activities, reports must be filed annually between Jan. 1 and April 30 for the preceding year's operations. The Environment Secretariat (Semarnat) is empowered to enforce the PRTR Regulation through its Attorney General for Environmental Protection (Profepa) by means of official document requests and site inspections. Failure to comply may result in fines and other administrative sanctions.

Edward M. Ranger is the only US Environmental Lawyer licensed in Mexico. He may be contacted at [e-mail].