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Safety

Clarity Sought In EPA’s Role In Plant Safety

by Glenn Hess
June 10, 2013 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 91, Issue 23

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Credit: Shutterstock
EPA is facing questions about its role in chemical plant security.
A photograph of an industrial plant behind a chain link fence.
Credit: Shutterstock
EPA is facing questions about its role in chemical plant security.

Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) is asking EPA to clarify its role in chemical safety management after the recent fatal blast at a fertilizer plant in Texas. “The West, Texas, incident demonstrates the existing confusion surrounding EPA’s chemicals regulations,” specifically the agency’s interpretation of the Clean Air Act’s general duty clause, Pompeo wrote in a letter to EPA Acting Administrator Robert Perciasepe. The clause requires chemical facilities to take steps to prevent an accidental release of hazardous substances, and it could be used to regulate plant safety and security. Activist groups want EPA to use the clause to require chemical facilities to adopt so-called inherently safer technologies, which would force companies to adopt safer manufacturing processes, switch to less dangerous chemicals, or reduce the quantity of chemicals stored on-site.

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