A chicken processor petitioned for review of a determination by the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (the “Commission”) that it violated various regulations of the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”). We find no error, so we deny the business’s petition. The Secretary of Labor (“Secretary”) is charged by statute “with responsibility for setting and enforcing workplace health and safety standards” and has delegated that power to OSHA. The business operates a chicken-processing plant in Waco, Texas that uses anhydrous ammonia as a refrigerant to freeze the processed chickens. In 2017, OSHA issued document requests to the facility and conducted inspections of its plant to check for compliance with OSHA’s Process Safety Management of Highly Hazardous Chemicals (“PSM”) standard, 29 C.F.R. § 1910.119. The PSM standard “contains requirements for preventing or minimizing the consequences of catastrophic releases of toxic, reactive, flammable, or explosive chemicals,” expressly including anhydrous ammonia. The Secretary issued a citation charging six violations of the PSM standard. Two items from that citation are at issue in this petition:
(1) Item 5a, which charges that the facility did not “establish and implement written procedures to maintain the on-going mechanical integrity of the process” with respect to safety cutouts, emergency stop testing procedures, and pressure vessel level control test procedures, in violation of 29 C.F.R. § 1910.119(j)(2); and
(2) Item 5b, which charges that the facility “failed to perform inspections and tests on process equipment” including three compressor cutouts and two emergency stop buttons, in violation of 29 C.F.R. § 1910.119(j)(4)(i).
Both of the allegedly violated regulations are found in the section of the PSM standard that requires an employer to implement a mechanical integrity program, 29 C.F.R. § 1910.119(j). That section “contain[s] requirements for maintaining the mechanical integrity of process equipment in order to assure that such equipment is designed, installed, and operates properly,” with the ultimate goal of “ensur[ing] that highly hazardous chemicals covered by the standard are contained within the process and not released in an uncontrolled manner.”
The safety cutouts of Item 5a and compressor cutouts of Item 5b refer to the same equipment, viz., devices that shut down ammonia compressors when monitored conditions—temperature, pressure, or oil pressure—fall outside of allowable limits. The emergency stops referred to in Items 5a and 5b are buttons inside and outside of the ammonia machinery room that, when pressed, shut down the flow of ammonia to respond to a release. The pressure vessel level control mentioned in Item 5a ensures that the level of ammonia in the pressure vessel stays low enough to avoid overflowing.
The business contested the citation. The Secretary withdrew several citation items in May 2018, and an Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) held a hearing on the remaining items in August 2018. The ALJ affirmed Item 5a in its entirety and Item 5b with respect to the compressor cutouts and emergency stops. The ALJ vacated all other parts of the citation. The business petitioned the Commission for discretionary review of the ALJ’s decision. When the Commission declined to direct the case for review, the ALJ’s order became the final order of the Commission on July 1, 2019.
The business now petitions this court for review of the Commission’s order.