Environmentalists and their allies say EPA’s recently finalized updates to its Risk Management Program (RMP) rule leaves out many measures they believe are necessary to ensure it covers all facilities at risk of accidental releases, in particular because the agency rejected calls to expand the list of chemicals whose use at a site triggers RMP requirements.
House Republicans have introduced a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution that seeks to roll back EPA’s controversial rule tightening many aspects of its risk management program (RMP) for chemical facilities, teeing up a statutorily mandated vote on the repeal in the coming weeks.
Industry groups and other supporters of the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program are urging lawmakers to reauthorize it as part of an emerging fiscal year 2024 appropriations package that could be finalized before the end of the month.
EPA’s newly final Risk Management Program (RMP) update is facing criticism from all sides over its cost-benefit calculations, especially for novel mandates to consider climate impacts and safer technologies -- provisions that industry says will be unworkably expensive but which pro-regulatory advocates say carry even greater benefits than the rule assumes.
EPA has finalized long-anticipated updates to the Risk Management Program (RMP), with several changes that aim to toughen the proposal issued in 2022 -- including a new mandate that a broader list of facilities now required to perform a safer technology alternatives analysis (STAA) adopt at least one of its recommendations, a win for environmentalists who argued that such upgrades should not be voluntary.
Without a public announcement, OSHA has updated its nearly 30-year-old enforcement handbook for the process safety management (PSM) standard, adding dozens of interpretations the agency previously set out in responses to stakeholders’ letters questioning various aspects of the rule’s meaning or application.
Republican leaders for the House Energy and Commerce Committee are urging EPA to withdraw and repropose its upcoming Risk Management Program (RMP) rule update, charging that the proposed version conflicts with OSHA and other agencies’ responsibilities, goes beyond Congress’ explicit mandates, and raises security concerns among things.
Lawmakers and industry groups that support the lapsed Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program are warning that states could create a “patchwork” of substitutes for the federal initiative following introduction of one such bill in Nebraska, adding urgency to their steady calls for Congress to pass a reauthorization.
A top official at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) says her team is refocusing their facility-safety resources on the voluntary ChemLock initiative after Congress allowed the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program to expire, but underlined that it “is not a substitute in any way” for binding regulation.
The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is again urging OSHA to either extend current safety standards to oil and gas drilling operations or craft a new rule for the sector in its report on a fatal 2020 blowout at a Texas oil well.