The inventory was first proposed in a 1985 "New York Times" op-ed piece written by David Sarokin and Warren Muir, researchers for an environmental group, INFORM. Congress established TRI under Section 313 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 (EPCRA), and later expanded it in the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990. The law grew out of concern surrounding Union Carbide's releases of toxic gases in the 1984 Bhopal disaster (India) and a smaller 1985 release at a plant in Institute, West Virginia.