The Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA), also known as Title III, is a statute enacted by Congress in 1986 as a part of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA). It was enacted in response to public concerns raised by the accidental release of poisonous gas from a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India which killed over 2,000 people.

EPCRA has two distinct yet complementary sets of provisions. First, it requires communities to establish plans for dealing with emergencies created by chemical leaks or spills and defines the general structure these plans must assume. Second, it extends to communities the same kind of right-to-know provisions which were guaranteed to employees earlier in the 1980s. Overall, EPCRA is an important step away from crisis-by-crisis environmental enforcement toward a proactive or preventative approach. This proactive approach depends on government monitoring...