The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has freed up investigative resources by completing phases of two major investigations and is now in a position to probe last month's explosion at the ExxonMobil refinery in Torrance, CA, which could eventually lead to safety recommendations to federal and California OSHA.
Federal chemical safety investigators have pinpointed “hydraulic shock” as the root cause of an accident several years ago in Alabama that resulted in a disastrous release of anhydrous ammonia -- findings that come as OSHA and other regulatory agencies collaborate on a sweeping initiative to mitigate chemical plant safety hazards.
Federal chemical toxicity experts are anticipated to release soon their initial findings from studies regarding effects of human exposures to the substance involved in last year's disastrous spill and ensuing environmental disaster in West Virginia's Elk River, a chemical that worker health advocates are concerned poses a danger to workers if they come into contact with it during any similar future events.
Democratic-backed language that would allow OSHA to inspect small work sites -- those defined as 10 or fewer employees -- for purposes of identifying process safety management (PSM) hazards did not make it into Congress' final budget deal for fiscal 2015, with a Capitol Hill source telling Inside OSHA Online that House lawmakers blocked the provision when drafting the spending bill.
Federal chemical safety officials launched an investigation Saturday into a chemical release incident that took four workers' lives at the La Porte DuPont Plant near Houston, potentially bringing new attention to the substance involved, which is frequently used to odorize natural gas.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is weighing competing comments on improving its facility security program, with industry groups citing an "inherent conflict" with Environmental Protection Agency information-sharing requirements and urging changes to DHS' inspection protocols, while labor and community groups are calling for greater coordination with other federal programs, including OSHA inspections.
The Environmental Protection Agency is boosting its procedures for how to inspect chemical facilities to ensure they are complying with security rules, as well as sharing data and coordinating inspections with OSHA, as steps in meeting President Obama's executive order (EO) to bolster plant security, according to an EPA-devised plan.
A technical report from federal chemical safety investigators into February's Tesoro Refinery sulfuric acid spill that injured two workers in California concludes in part that many of the nation's chemical facilities need to beef up their process safety management (PSM) activities to avert such accidents, a recommendation aligned with their push for more federal regulation and OSHA oversight on the issue.
NIOSH has backed off its relatively aggressive call earlier this year for OSHA to consider two approaches -- one, called the “safety case” model, which has drawn apprehension in both management and labor circles, and the other known as “inherently safer design” -- as OSHA casts a wide net for information about possible future changes to its process safety management (PSM) and related regulations.
The Obama administration is putting new pressure on Congress to increase OSHA penalties, leveraging a new federal interagency report on chemical safety and security to push in vague terms a highly controversial proposal earlier written into OSHA reform legislation, which gained tentative momentum early on in the Obama presidency but long since receded as a viable issue after Republicans seized control of the House in 2010.