The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board's (CSB) is asking a federal appellate court to grant it broad power to subpoena documents related to “potential” releases at facilities where it is investigating industrial incidents, a move that a major refiner is resisting, charging it amounts to an unlawful expansion of the board's powers.
Critics of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's two-year delay of Obama-era updates to the agency's risk management plan (RMP) facility safety program are criticizing a list of prior rule delays that EPA says justify postponing the RMP rule, with opponents of the delay saying the other rules had legal justifications and were not tested in court.
Health groups and the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) are at odds over how a federal court should proceed in the plaintiffs' lawsuit alleging the board has unlawfully failed to promulgate rules requiring industrial facilities to report their chemical releases following an incident and are asking the court to resolve the issue.
Environmental, labor and public interest groups are urging White House officials to preserve and quickly implement the Obama-era rule bolstering EPA's facility accident prevention program, even as the Trump administration prepares to issue a plan that is widely expected to scale back the regulation.
EPA is touting a list of more than two dozen federal rules from 1983 to 2013 in which agencies have delayed existing regulations while weighing revisions to those policies, in response to an appellate court order to provide the list in a suit testing EPA's delay of an Obama-era facility safety rule while the agency reconsiders the regulation.
Industry and public health advocates are skeptical that a Trump administration plan to create a new OSHA and EPA working group will better inform first responders of facilities' safety risks, with industry arguing EPA's facility accident prevention program already addresses the risk while an advocate is criticizing officials for rolling back Obama-era efforts to update the program.
Appellate judges hearing litigation over EPA's two-year delay of Obama-era revisions to the agency's facility safety rule are demanding that the Trump administration provide a list of all federal agency rules prior to 2017 where effective dates of existing rules were changed solely to allow time for a potential reconsideration of those regulations.
Responding to calls from Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY), OSHA, EPA and other agencies have agreed to take steps to improve notifications to first responders when a local company is cited for serious violations involving flammable materials, likely clearing the way for OSHA nominee Scott Mugno to secure a confirmation vote.
Appellate court judges appear to be backing the Trump administration's authority to delay the Obama-era rule strengthening EPA's facility accident prevention program, but some are questioning why the agency needs a two-year delay, suggesting it should quickly revise a controversial provision and allow other new protections to take effect.