Senate environment committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has agreed to a GOP request to postpone a planned markup on legislation creating a new Environmental Protection Agency program governing chemical releases from above-ground storage tanks, a delay that senators hope will allow them time to resolve concerns from states and others as they respond to the recent West Virginia chemical spill.
September 16, 2026
The Obama administration wants Congress to allow OSHA to inspect work sites with 10 or fewer employees that potentially fall under the agency's process safety management (PSM) standard or the Environmental Protection Agency's Risk Management Program (RMP), which would modify a longstanding congressional mandate that precludes OSHA from inspecting such small businesses.
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OSHA has decided to extend by three weeks the comment period on its request for data from stakeholders on whether changes are needed to the process safety management (PSM) and related standards, agreeing to stringent industry requests that the original March 10 deadline be delayed to provide more time for research due to complexity of the proposal and supporting analyses.
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OSHA says it is partnering with the Agricultural Retailers Association and The Fertilizer Institute to reach more than 7,000 agricultural retailers, distributors, producers and other facilities in the industry to “remind employers of the importance of safely storing and handling” ammonium nitrate. The effort follows the April 2013 ammonium nitrate explosion in West, TX, which killed 15 people, including 12 emergency response personnel, and triggered hearings on Capitol Hill into ammonium nitrate and other chemical safety issues, as well as a presidential order tackling the subject (see related story).
The trade associations will distribute a letter from OSHA chief David Michaels to fertilizer industry employers throughout the country.
“The tragedy in West, Texas, and other incidents underscore the need for employers who store and handle hazardous substances like ammonium nitrate to ensure the safety of those materials – not just for workers at the facility but for the lives and safety of emergency responders and nearby residents,” Michaels says in the letter. “I am calling on you today to take the necessary steps to prevent tragic ammonium nitrate incidents.”
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Federal chemical safety experts are blasting a major petrochemical company for allegedly blocking a crucial investigation of a sulfuric acid release at a California refinery that they say seriously injured two workers, but the company refutes the suggestion it is improperly preventing a probe and says the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) lacks jurisdiction in the matter.
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OSHA has reached a settlement with the petroleum industry and unions following 21 months of complex negotiations in a hazardous communication case challenging the agency's enforcement of its March 2012 Global Harmonization Standard amendment, according to sources and documents obtained by Inside OSHA Online.
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The federal Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is faulting voluntary oil industry safety standards for failing to prevent fires at refineries that killed or endangered workers and is reiterating a call for the Environmental Protection Agency to require inherently safer technologies (IST), such as use of less-toxic chemicals or other engineering changes to curb such industrial incidents.
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As OSHA is under fire from industry for allegedly downplaying the cost of its recent silica rulemaking, another federal agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, is asking its scientific advisors how the agency could better use "economy-wide" modeling to determine the costs and benefits of its regulations.
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Key House and Senate lawmakers are choosing different laws under which to create a new environmental chemical response program to address gaps highlighted by the recent West Virginia spill, with the Senate bill proposing to use the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) and the House proposing to use the Clean Water Act (CWA).
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Chemicals, petroleum and other industry groups are urging President Obama and other officials to drop consideration of a federal mandate requiring use of inherently safer technologies (IST), such as benign chemicals, in any upcoming proposal on facility security, saying it will create an impossible burden and derail the president's effort to improve safety at the nation's industrial plants.
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