The waste management industry is cautioning EPA on its plans to make environmental justice (EJ) a key focus in expected revisions to a Trump-era chemical facility safety rule, warning that if the agency expands the rule to incorporate EJ considerations, then it must find a balance to ease burdens on businesses.
OSHA has broadened the liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector’s waiver from the agency’s process safety management (PSM) standard, holding that the rule does not apply to facilities subject to Transportation Department (DOT) pipeline safety rules while also revoking a narrower Clinton-era policy that exempted only “fire and explosion” dangers.
Environmental, labor and other groups are pushing to overhaul the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) by rebuilding its investigative capacity to better protect workers and by making reform of OSHA’s process safety rule and EPA chemical facility regulations its “top advocacy priority,” among other measures.
Environmentalists and industry groups are starting to draw battle lines over how or whether the Biden administration should revise the Trump-era rule governing chemical facility-safety requirements, with environmentalists urging officials to restore and strengthen the Obama-era rule while industry is arguing for retaining the Trump rule.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is seeking data and expert advice on use of personal protective equipment (PPE) by “underserved” workers -- a project that could aid not just workplace regulations but also EPA’s effort to tighten its approach to PPE in its chemical risk assessments and rules.
EPA’s top waste official is promising that the agency’s plan to revise the Trump-era rule setting safety mandates for chemical facilities will require that industry provides the “maximum protection possible” and will make environmental justice a key focus, bolstering environmental groups that have pushed for such approaches.
Democratic and Republican leaders on the House Energy & Commerce Committee are questioning the lone member of the Chemical Safety and Hazard Assessment Board (CSB) on a range of issues, from the “quorum of one” to possible conflicts of interest among staff, that the lawmakers say “may be undermining” the board’s work.
An environmental whistleblower group claims Katherine Lemos, chair and sole current member of the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) rewrote the panel’s governing rules to “consolidate” her power at the expense of three pending nominees, and claims she has improperly spent CSB funds during her tenure.
President Joe Biden’s nominees to fill three of four vacant slots on the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), the agency that advises OSHA and EPA on needed policy changes to curtail industrial incidents, are facing likely Senate confirmation battles as key outside groups are split over their relative expertise.
An industry attorney says chemical makers and users could soon face an “absurd,” onerous mandate to assess the hazards posed by chemicals they produce or use, not only in their own operations but in all possible downstream uses and combinations -- a duty he says could be aimed at supporting EPA’s risk evaluations of existing chemicals.