A Texas refiner is petitioning a federal appellate court to review a controversial ruling from OSHA’s review panel that industry attorneys say “dramatically” expands the agency’s process safety management (PSM) rule's applicability to boilers and other “interconnected” units.
Environmentalists say the Trump administration’s just-announced monthslong delay of its self-imposed deadline for finalizing a rollback of an Obama-era rule tightening facility safety Risk Management Plan (RMP) requirements may suggest the plan is “dead in the water” as it signals ongoing legal doubts about undoing the changes.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB)is urging EPA to reassess its 26-year-old study on the potential risks from refineries’ accidental releases of hydrofluoric acid (HF), citing two recent refinery fires as highlighting concerns over whether the facilities’ risk management plans (RMPs) are adequate to control unplanned HF releases.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is pledging to renew efforts to get the Defense Department (DOD) to weigh contractors' safety records before awarding contracts after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found a series of contractor violations as well as problems with OSHA and DOD tracking systems.
Citing worker safety and other risks, food safety advocates are urging the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) to halt approval of line speed wavers for poultry processing plants and to reopen the comment period for a 2014 final rule after a Georgia plant was granted a waiver despite failing a required safety inspection.
A federal district judge is ordering the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) to issue within one year a final rule requiring chemical facilities to report their accidental releases, backing health and public interest groups’ claims that CSB has unreasonably delayed the rule that could inform worker protections and is mandated by law.
The House is poised to vote Jan. 8 on Democrats' legislation to reauthorize for two years the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) industrial facility security program which rejects GOP calls for changes to the program, though the effort faces uncertain prospects amid the ongoing government shutdown.
Labor advocates are urging the Trump administration to withdraw a plan to increase line speeds at hog processing plants after a study found “significant limitations” in the data underlying the plan, findings that could also bolster an expected lawsuit from critics who charge the proposal is “arbitrary and capricious” and would increase worker injuries.
Industry proponents of a permanent waiver from OSHA's process safety management (PSM) standards for agricultural retailers are lamenting Congress' decision to drop House language from the Farm Bill that would have codified the exemption.
In compliance with an appellate court order, EPA is issuing a final rule imposing requirements of the Obama administration's January 2017 final rule strengthening the agency's Risk Management Plan (RMP) facility accident prevention program, despite plans to issue early next year a final rule largely scrapping the Obama-era rule.