Judge's Decision Favoring BP On Process Safety Citations Sets Up Wider Enforcement Issues

An administrative law judge (ALJ) has thrown out most of OSHA's citations and fines against BP Products North America and an Ohio subsidiary over a slew of allegations that the company violated process safety management (PSM) standards -- a decision that poses serious issues for the agency's enforcement of the rule and potentially has wider implications for the industry's reliance on generally accepted safety practices.