By JAMES CELENZA
 |
| It CAN happen here: 2007 fire at Bradford Dying in Westerly |
President Trump’s fiscal 2018 budget proposal would eliminate the U.S.
Chemical Safety Board (CSB) even though the CSB is to
catastrophic chemical disasters what the National Transportation Safety Board
is to airline crashes, train derailments and bridge collapses.
Take one example: CSB’s investigation of the Texas City BP
refinery explosion in 2015 that killed 15 workers.
While the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
found numerous violations of the facility’s Process Safety Management standard
and issued hundreds of violations with a $21 million penalty, the CSB
identified serious problems about how BP failed to evaluate the “safety
implications of major organizational, personnel, and policy changes,” and
failed to “provide adequate resources to prevent major accidents.”
The CSB also determined that BP had failed to “create an effective
reporting and learning culture; reporting bad news was not encouraged.
Incidents were often ineffectively investigated and appropriate corrective
actions not taken.”
The CSB was authorized by the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, in
the wake of catastrophic chemical plant accidents such as the Philips 66
explosion in the United States, which killed 23 workers in 1989, and the Bhopal
chemical release that killed thousands in India in the mid-1980s.
While OSHA and EPA can only look into specific violations of their
standards and regulations, the CSB can look at deeper causes that aren't
covered by any regulations — things such as the effect of worker fatigue or
organizational changes that may increase environmental and workplace hazards.
CSB’s real value, however, is conducting root-cause analyses of
chemical disasters, and then proposing a range of organizational, engineering
and structural recommendations to prevent additional disasters.
Many of the
CSB’s recommendations are currently forming the basis of OSHA’s revisions to
its Process Safety Management standard, and revisions of EPA’s Risk Management
Program rules, the two major federal rules that address catastrophic chemical
accidents and releases.
Ironically, considering Trump’s complaints that regulations have
frustrated industry, many in the chemical industry strongly support the CSB, as Bloomberg News reported
earlier this year.
“I don’t think anyone in the industry wants to see the Chemical
Safety Board be abolished,” Stephen Brown, a vice president with Tesoro Corp.,
an oil refiner that was the focus of a 2014 CSB report, told
the media outlet.
“The goal is a fully functional, professional investigative body
that approaches things in a professional manner with integrity.”
Even the Chlorine Institute, which has been the subject of a
number of CSB recommendations, opposes the board's elimination. In a letter to
Congress, Chlorine Institute president Frank Reiner wrote that his institute
“fully supports” the agency and stressed that “the CSB fills a vital role in
the chemical industry and we strongly encourage the full funding of the CSB.”
Many states have adopted new safeguards for chemical safety as a
result of CSB reports. North Carolina, Kentucky and New Jersey trained fire
inspectors on prevention of dust explosions.
Colorado took measures to protect emergency responders during
rescues in confined spaces.
Connecticut banned flammable gas for cleaning
pipes. New Jersey issued policies to prevent runaway chemical reactions.
New York City strengthened its fire code to address chemical
risks, thanks to CSB recommendations.
After a 2012 fire at a Chevron Corp. refinery in Richmond, Calif.,
the CSB discovered that the pipe used was
subject to corrosion and rupture because of the materials it carried. Though
there were no rules against using that kind of pipe, industry changed its
practice because of the CSB recommendations.
“We know CSB recommendations have made our plants safer, not just
for workers but for residents surrounding those plants,” said Mike Wright,
health and safety director for United Steelworkers.
“When a chemical accident
is prevented, it doesn’t make news.”
James Celenza is the executive director of the Rhode Island
Committee on Occupational Safety and Health.