In those and thousands of other cases, New Jersey now allows businesses to conceal information once routinely disclosed as part of the New Jersey Worker and Community Right to Know Act. Under Governor Whitman, the state Department of Environmental Protection two years ago deleted more than 2,000 of the 2,900 chemicals once covered by the law. Harry Miller, who lives next door to Fabricolor, said he noticed that the company's Right to Know report had shrunk dramatically, but he didn't know why. It sounds like a sham to me. Whitman says the new policy was designed to ease the regulatory burden on businesses by allowing them to focus on their most dangerous substances.
Companies threatening to leave the state often cite overregulation as a reason.
But environmentalists, firefighters, and union officials have charged that the shortened reports are unsafe because they give emergency personnel less information at the scene of accidents and workers less knowledge about how to handle dangerous chemicals. An analysis by The Record shows that many chemicals removed from the list can cause death, cancer, or other serious health problems if mishandled, according to safety manuals and the state's own reports. In addition, funding and staff have been cut in the Right to Know program - which already had been struggling to enforce the law. The Record found that few facilities are inspected, violations are rampant, and scofflaws rarely are fined. An additional 10,000 public employers, such as schools and municipalities, are covered by the law, but under a separate list of chemicals maintained by the Department of Health.