---
kind: "section"
citation: "42 U.S.C. § 11049"
title: "42"
title_heading: "The Public Health and Welfare"
number: "11049"
heading: "Definitions"
release: "119-102"
date: "2026-07-12"
url: "https://uscodex.org/usc/42/11049"
units:
  - "Chapter 116 — Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know"
  - "Subchapter III — General Provisions"
---

# §11049. Definitions


For purposes of this chapter—

- (1) **Administrator—** The term “Administrator” means the Administrator of the Environmental Protection [Agency](/usc/42/8262.md?p=1).
- (2) **Environment—** The term “environment” includes water, air, and land and the interrelationship which exists among and between water, air, and land and all living things.
- (3) **Extremely hazardous substance—** The term “extremely hazardous substance” means a substance on the list described in [section 11002(a)(2) of this title](/usc/42/11002.md?p=a-2).
- (4) **Facility—** The term “facility” means all buildings, equipment, structures, and other stationary items which are located on a single site or on contiguous or adjacent sites and which are owned or operated by the same [person](#7) (or by any [person](#7) which controls, is controlled by, or under common control with, such [person](#7)). For purposes of [section 11004 of this title](/usc/42/11004.md), the term includes motor vehicles, rolling stock, and aircraft.
- (5) **Hazardous chemical—** The term “hazardous chemical” has the meaning given such term by [section 11021(e) of this title](/usc/42/11021.md?p=e).
- (6) **Material safety data sheet—** The term “material safety data sheet” means the sheet required to be developed under section 1910.1200(g) of title 29 of the Code of Federal Regulations, as that section may be amended from time to time.
- (7) **Person—** The term “person” means any individual, trust, firm, joint stock company, [corporation](/usc/42/2297h.md?p=2) (including a government [corporation](/usc/42/2297h.md?p=2)), partnership, association, [State](#9), municipality, commission, political subdivision of a [State](#9), or interstate body.
- (8) **Release—** The term “release” means any spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, discharging, injecting, escaping, leaching, dumping, or disposing into the [environment](#2) (including the abandonment or discarding of barrels, containers, and other closed receptacles) of any [hazardous chemical](#5), [extremely hazardous substance](#3), or [toxic chemical](#10).
- (9) **State—** The term “State” means any State of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the United States Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and any other territory or possession over which the United States has jurisdiction.
- (10) **Toxic chemical—** The term “toxic chemical” means a substance on the list described in [section 11023(c) of this title](/usc/42/11023.md?p=c).

## Source credit

(Pub. L. 99–499, title III, § 329, Oct. 17, 1986, 100 Stat. 1757.)