The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently held a public meeting to announce two plans for reducing the burden of reporting for the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI). The first, scheduled for sometime in December, would propose simple changes to the TRI reporting forms in an effort to streamline the process. The second rulemaking, scheduled for June 2005, would contain a more substantial programmatic change, although EPA has not yet determined the exact nature of the change.

The FY 2006 federal budge, scheduled to be released in February 2005, is important now because federal agencies are already making decisions prior to submitting their individual budgets to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in September. The Bush administration has proposed cutting the budget deficit in half over the next five years, while John Kerry has proposed that he will do the same in four years. Because neither presidential candidate seems willing to cut funds from the Defense or Homeland Security programs, there is going to be considerable pressure for them to cut non-defense discretionary spending.

Citizens across the country have been gearing up for this election week for an untold number of months. And while much of the attention has been focused on the too-close-to-call presidential election and the key House and Senate races, when voters hit the polls on Nov. 2 they will also be deciding on a number of different ballot initiatives that potentially could have significant impacts on state and local tax policy.