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Safety

EPA issues long-delayed chemical plant safety regulation

Risk management requirements likely to face unfriendly review by Trump, incoming Congress

by Jeff Johnson, special to C&EN
December 22, 2016

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Credit: Mark Wingard/CSB
EPA’s safety regulation came in response to the 2013 explosion and fatal fire at a West, Texas, warehouse that stored ammonium nitrate.
Photo from the air shows leveled building in West, Texas, after the 2013 explosion and fire.
Credit: Mark Wingard/CSB
EPA’s safety regulation came in response to the 2013 explosion and fatal fire at a West, Texas, warehouse that stored ammonium nitrate.

The Environmental Protection Agency revised a 25-year-old regulation intended to reduce chemical plant accidents and protect communities, workers, and emergency responders.

The revision to EPA’s Risk Management Program (RMP) is part of a sweeping regulatory overhaul of federal industrial safety regulations ordered by President Barack Obama in 2013. Obama directed agencies to make changes in the wake of the deaths of 15 people, mostly emergency responders, in a warehouse explosion of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in West, Texas.

RMP provisions cover some 12,500 facilities that, according to EPA, reported 1,500 accidents over a recent 10-year period. These incidents involved nearly 60 deaths, 17,000 injuries, the evacuation of 500,000 people, and property damage of more than $2 billion.

Among changes, the new regulation calls for better communication and coordination among emergency responders; independent, third-party audits of companies following an accident or near-accident; and consideration of inherently safer manufacturing approaches. However, the rule specifies that implementation of safer approaches may only occur when “practical.”

Much of the accident data would be kept from public view but some would be generally available.

The American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group, withheld comment on the regulation. “We will need to examine the changes and the entire rule more closely, but we have some initial concerns regarding the rule’s auditing regime and safer [manufacturing] alternatives analysis requirements,” says ACC’s Scott Jensen.

The Coalition to Prevent Chemical Disasters, an organization of 120 community and environmental organizations and labor unions, is disappointed. In a statement, it notes the regulation fails to use EPA’s authority to require inherent safety technologies—a policy championed by Obama when he was a senator, the group adds.

Also nearly a year ago, the coalition urged EPA to issue the regulation. It now appears likely that the incoming Trump Administration and the Republican-controlled Congress will halt the rule.

President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick to head EPA, former Oklahoma Attorney General E. Scott Pruitt, has opposed the RMP overhaul. In a letter to EPA last July, Pruitt and 10 other state attorneys general objected to it, primarily because some accident information would be made public. In addition, Trump’s transition team has made clear its intention to suspend and review many regulations.

Plus, under the Congressional Review Act, Congress has 60 legislative days to review a new regulation and can vote to block it. Several sources say this is likely with the incoming Congress.

This regulation is the only one to emerge from the Obama-ordered review. It does not cover ammonium nitrate, the chemical compound that exploded in Texas and led to the review.

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