In December 1984, an explosion at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India killed more than 2,000 people and injured an estimated 200,000 more, many of whom suffered permanent blindness and debilitating respiratory damage. The explosion had released a cloud of methyl isocyanate, an acutely toxic poison produced as an intermediate step in the manufacture of carbamate pesticides. Eight months later in Institute, West Virginia, an accidental release of methyl isocyanate from a Union Carbide plant sent 134 people to the hospital. The accidents added fuel to already strong public sentiment that was driving efforts to pass right-to-know laws in state legislatures. By 1982, ten states had adopted laws giving workers the right to find out about toxic chemicals they handled on the job. By the end of 1985, 100 right-to-know bills were under consideration in 35 states. Then, in 1986, California voters approved Proposition 65, a citizens’ initiative that required companies to warn the public whenever people were exposed to substances that could cause cancer or birth defects. For the first time, companies had to tell their neighbors about releases of toxic chemicals, and product labels were required to warn of any ingredients determined to be carcinogenic or otherwise hazardous. In 1986, Congress also approved the federal Community Right-to-Know Act. That law established the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) which publicly lists pollution releases from individual chemical plants and other industries. The TRI gave people the ability to find out about contaminants released into their communities; citizens began to use the information in legal actions to force cleanups. A Louisiana State University professor used the data to demonstrate that on a per-worker basis, Louisiana plants released nearly ten times more pollution than plants in New Jersey and California. What’s more, stock prices sometimes dropped for companies with the worst toxic release records. All of this knowledge had an impact. According to an analysis published in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, companies that experienced the biggest stock price declines following TRI reports put the most money into cleaning up their contamination problems – and were found to have reduced emissions significantly in subsequent years. A few years after the law took effect, a Dow Chemical executive said in a newspaper interview that, "Mandatory disclosure has done more than all other legislation put together in getting companies to voluntarily reduce emissions." Despite the resulting reductions of toxic pollution and improvements in plant safety, documents from the chemical industry archives lay out the industry’s strategy to stop or weaken right-to-know laws. At the top of the agenda was an effort to prevent more states from adopting laws similar to California’s Proposition 65. “Prop 65 put the fear of God in the chemical companies,” says attorney Al Meyerhoff, who helped craft the California initiative. “It turned the entire system on its head.” The Chemical Manufacturers Association amassed a war chest of millions of dollars in a contingency fund to fight citizen initiatives wherever they appeared. One CMA document lays out the spending plan, estimating that its state “initiative funding” could cost between $25 and $70 million - all to be raised from member corporations. According to a 1994 CMA report, the contingency fund was “activated” five times, beginning in 1989 in response to a toxic use reduction initiative in Massachusetts. It also was used in 1990 against the Big Green/Hayden Initiative in California; in 1992 against the Ohio right-to-know initiative and again in Massachusetts to defeat a measure prohibiting corporate contributions to ballot campaigns – such as right-to-know initiatives. No citizens' right-to-know initiative has passed since 1986. With its success in shutting down state initiatives, the chemical industry turned its attention to Congress. By January 1995, the CMA had considerable reason for optimism in its war against right-to-know. When the 104th Congress was called to order, a new congressional majority, led by House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia), had pledged to deliver on industry’s wish list of regulatory “reforms.” Near the top of that list was a measure to roll back the Toxic Release Inventory. EPA had gradually expanded the list of chemicals that must be reported from the original 300, and was set to add another 286 chemicals. At the industry’s urging, the House approved a bill giving the EPA only six months to prove that each of these chemicals would cause significant health or environmental problems – or drop them from the TRI. The bill set up an all but impossible task for the EPA. Without information on how much of each chemical is released, the agency would have difficulty proving environmental harm. But, without adding the chemicals to the TRI, the EPA could not get that information. A separate Senate bill would have eliminated virtually all TRI reporting requirements. Ultimately, these measures did not find their way into law. A filibuster in the Senate killed the rollback of the TRI and other “reforms.” President Bill Clinton vetoed others. After this defeat, the CMA sued the EPA in Federal court, seeking to remove the 286 chemicals from the TRI, claiming that their addition had been arbitrary and capricious. In August 1997, a Federal Appeals Court unanimously rejected the CMA’s petition. Regulatory relief issues remain high on the agenda of the newly-renamed American Chemistry Council. And now a new battle is underway. The EPA is considering a proposal, much like a Massachusetts state law, that would require industries to turn over information about chemicals used and stored at each facility. The ACC has committed to fighting that action, claiming that releasing such information would violate the ability of its member companies to protect their trade secrets.