Washington Post reporter Lyndsey Layton writes about the thousands of chemicals exempted from EPA screening for potential harm to the environment and public health — and the three-decades-old Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that renders it possible, in the interest of protecting manufacturers' bottom lines.

Use OMB Watch's user-friendly database to track environmentally-related funds in many ways, such as type of project, affiliated federal or state agency, location, dollar amounts, and number of contracts awarded.

Spurred in part by a petition filed in January 2009, the Agency's new rule, if finalized, could add approximately 240 monitors in about 40 states near known lead emission sources.

With data on ~4,600 civil and criminal enforcement actions in fiscal year 2009, you can determine trends by state and EPA Region for type and extent of enforcement; track down enforcement actions in areas of interest to your audience; and serve as a starting point for stories that are seemingly unrelated to an enforcement action.

There is no word yet on when the full Senate will take it up. The House has already passed a different shield bill — raising hopes that one could become law during this Congress.

It's easier to see trends now, and the analysis includes state-by-state fact sheets summarizing statistics for the year, as well as contacts at state agencies.

While there are plenty of EPA databases already on line, not all of them are in a form that can be quickly downloaded in their entirety and imported into standard database software. That's a key criterion specified, and one that will ease computer-assisted reporting for journalists.

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