This week Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) calling on the agency to strengthen the proposed revisions to the Risk Management Plan rule. Specifically, she wants the following prevention requirements added to the rule before it is finalized (apparently she thinks it will be finalized in 2016):
- Require ALL hazardous chemical facilities (including at least all Risk Management Program level 2 and 3 facilities) to conduct a safer technology and alternatives analysis – and to do so within five (5) years. In the proposed rule, this important requirement applies to just 12% of the 12,542 chemical facilities in EPA’s RMP.
- Require ALL facilities to submit these analyses to EPA and make appropriate summaries, with due consideration of security issues, available to the affected public online. Workers and surrounding communities must be able to take action locally to help protect themselves and their families.
- Require not just an analysis but actual implementation. It is not enough merely to assess and determine that a chemical, technology, maintenance and process requirement, or monitoring method for leaks is safer, cost-effective and feasible – such tools must actually be put in place to save lives. This could start with a pilot program to ensure selected facilities put all feasible inherently safer technology (IST) measures in place as soon as possible.
- Follow the lead of the 2014 report of California’s Interagency Working Group on Refinery Safety which called for new requirements to “implement inherently safer systems to the greatest extent feasible”.
CLICK HERE for the letter.