A federal investigative agency is ramping up calls for the Biden administration to strengthen a proposed safety rule aimed at preventing chemical-facility incidents, though in recently filed comments the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) backs some provisions that safety advocates oppose or takes a different approach to strengthening other provisions.
EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG)’s annual report on management challenges facing the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) says vacancies at top staff positions as well as in three of the panel’s five seats remain threats to its work, especially after rule changes that bar the board from functioning with a single member.
EPA has denied industry requests to extend comments on its proposed overhaul of the risk management plan (RMP) rule mandating safeguards against spills and releases of hazardous substance at many facilities, rejecting claims by several trade associations that 60 days is not enough time to fully analyze the “complex” proposal.
Labor groups and employers used a recent hearing on OSHA’s plans for a long-promised update to the process safety management (PSM) standard to set out competing demands for the rulemaking, while officials from the agency itself vowed to ensure the new policy will still be “compatible” with EPA’s pending revisions to its own facility safety rule.
The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is renewing its calls for EPA to strengthen its oversight of refiners’ use of hydrofluoric acid (HF), in a report on a 2019 refinery incident that urges officials to prioritize HF for risk evaluation under TSCA and to require a safer-alternatives review under the risk management plan (RMP) program.
The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board’s (CSB) new report on a 2016 fire and explosion at a crude oil terminal emphasizes findings that the ultimate cause of the incident was a failure to follow OSHA’s standard for safeguarding “hot work,” and urges industry to prioritize those practices to avoid future disasters.
Industry groups appear to be conceding that EPA will finalize a new risk management plan (RMP) regulation despite their early calls to retain a 2019 rule that rolled back Obama-era changes to the program, while renewing arguments for a lenient approach based on accident data they say shows there is no need for “prescriptive” new facility-safety mandates.
A top official in EPA’s waste office is making the case for the agency to finalize a risk management plan (RMP) rule he said would be “improved” from the Trump administration’s, rejecting industry claims that the current policy is adequate even as environmentalists charge that the pending proposal needs to be significantly strengthened.
A pair of environmental groups is touting a new report that it says shows that EPA’s proposed risk management program (RMP) rule would not have prevented several recent, high-profile incidents, renewing their push for the agency to tighten key provisions just days before a series of public hearings on the rulemaking.
OSHA has postponed its public hearing on potential changes to the process safety management (PSM) standard and extended the deadline for written comments, giving stakeholders more time to weigh in on a range of possible changes that include expanding the rule to cover oil and gas facilities, and updating its list of “highly hazardous” chemicals.