EPA is urging a federal appeals court to reject environmentalists’ request to stay litigation challenging its rollback of Obama-era chemical disaster safety mandates as the agency weighs their reconsideration petitions, arguing a stay runs counter to the Clean Air Act (CAA) even if petitions for rule reconsideration are pending.
September 16, 2026
As they seek to stall legal challenges, critics of EPA’s rule rolling back Obama-era chemical disaster safety mandates are urging the agency to reconsider the measure, arguing in administrative petitions that officials “cherry pick[ed]” new data, ignored significant continuing chemical accidents and relied on new rationales.
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Facing legal and administrative deadlines, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has finalized a first-time rule that mandates reports from chemical facilities in the wake of accidental chemical releases, despite industry claims that the rule is unnecessary or that the board should rely on other accident reports that facilities submit to other federal entities such as EPA or OSHA.
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Senators are warning that the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) risks losing its quorum when one of its two current member’s terms expires next week and are calling for the Senate to quickly vote on a pending Trump administration nominee, though the vote appears to have stalled amid partisan wrangling.
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Major industry groups are seeking to intervene on EPA’s behalf in litigation brought by environmentalists and a labor union challenging the agency’s rollback of Obama-era Risk Management Plan (RMP) facility safety mandates, an action the industry groups may need should President Trump lose re-election and the next administration abandons its defense of the rollback.
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The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board’s (CSB) proposed accidental chemical release rule is drawing competing criticisms, with environmentalists and other advocacy groups saying it weakens reporting mandates to the point of being “useless” while industry entities claim it risks subjecting companies to “inappropriate enforcement.”
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The United Steelworkers (USW) is joining an environmental coalition in challenging EPA’s rollback of the Obama-era chemical facility safety rule, contending the agency “capitulated to industry demands” by eliminating key provisions in the rule that would prevent foreseeable catastrophic accidents.
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A coalition of environmentalists has filed suit against EPA’s rollback of an Obama-era regulation tightening facility safety mandates on the same day the measure was promulgated, arguing the Trump administration has removed nearly all disaster-prevention measures and weakened many of the other protections that were in the 2017 rule.
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A new ad hoc coalition of companies is preparing to challenge the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board’s (CSB) recent plan requiring industrial facilities to quickly report certain accidental chemicals releases, charging, among other things, that the proposal is burdensome, duplicative and overly broad.
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EPA is facing likely challenges over its rule rolling back Obama-era chemical facility safety requirements, with early signs pointing to the parties battling over the adequacy of the agency’s legal justifications, including its claim that the original rule failed to sufficiently weigh an arson finding at a key industrial incident and its cost-benefit analysis.
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