Early last year I wrote about some trade organizations that were “revising” their codes/practices, which in turn were making them “more flexible”. I stated it then and I will state it again, this time along with the US Chemical Safety Board… this is a REALLY BAD idea. Both OSHA and EPA wrote “performance oriented” standards for process safety. This allows the employer/owner/operator to choose the best suited Recognized and Generally Accepted Good Engineering Practices (RAGAGEPs) to design, build, operate, and maintain their “covered processes”. OSHA and EPA have issued citations against these RAGAGEPs, as, in many cases, the employer/owner/operator were not doing what these codes/practices called for. So this apparently has angered “paying members” to these trade groups, which is resulting in the “dumbing down” of these codes/practices. Take for example…
the CSB’s statement regarding an API code/practice…
The draft report notes that recommended practices of the American Petroleum Institute, the leading industry association, are written “permissively” with no minimum requirements to prevent HTHA failures. For example, API Recommended Practice 941 — Steels for Hydrogen Service – uses the term “should” 27 times and “shall” only once. It also does not require users to verify actual operating conditions in establishing operation limits of the equipment or to confirm that the materials of construction selection will prevent the damage. An inspection strategy that relied on design operating conditions rather than verifying actual operating parameters contributed to the accident.
The failure here is an administrative failure – we can not have layered requirements that are “suggestions”. We have the PSM/RMP standards that are “open natured” and now we are ending up with RAGAGEPs that are “open natured”. We end up with too much wiggle room and not enough direction for businesses to follow. OSHA/EPA permitted a business to pick the RAGAGEP(s) that best suited each covered process(s) within the business and that was where the “judgment” was meant to end.
When I first began working in the chemical industry right as PSM came out I can remember we did not “wiggle” and the RAGAGEPs we used did not permit much “wiggle”. Looking back at many of those RAGAGEPs, some are no longer in print, some have been retitled to be called a “recommended practice”, some have been revised using the word “should” in place of “shall”, and many have just removed some of the basic (and necessary) requirements to ensure a level of process safety we can live with.
I have heard the arguments already that this is all OSHA and EPA’s fault for using the RAGAGEPs to issue citations. Excuse me, but what the hell did we think was going to happen. You tell the inspector that your pressure vessel RAGAGEP is ASME Section VIII and you have pressure vessels that are NOT built/maintained to that code (e.g. no U1A or nameplate data and dozens of modifications) and this is somehow OSHA’s fault. As Earl Pitt’s would say “Wake Up America”!
The answer to workplace safety is certainly NOT OSHA, it is the employers doing the right thing. Most employers want to do the right thing and most are hungry to learn process safety. Sure they have a business to run but I have yet to find any business that wants to blow up, kill or injure anyone, or pollute a community. I have found businesses that “just did not understand process safety” and I used to be able to hand them an RAGAGEP and say “here… this is what we have to do for X”. Or I would hand them a couple of RAGAGEPs and say “read them all and take your pick”. I used to be able to do this with confidence, now – not so much. As the CSB points out, when we have RAGAGEPs that use the word “should” 27 times to the 1 time it uses the word “shall” there is really no guidance for these less experienced businesses. They read these “should” statements and they see this as a “suggestion” rather than a “needed task”. And when the process safety professional attempts to explain the risk associated with the “should’s” vs. the “shall’s” the business professional see’s something that is “suggested” and not required, thus it does not become practice and raises risks.
Lastly, we have seen this “should” vs. “shall” work its way into safe work practices that are REQUIRED for OSHA compliance. Yes, this is how dangerous this legalese has become. It is this safety professional’s opinion that the word “should” has little place in a LOTO procedure/program or a Confined Space program/procedure. My programs will use terms like “must” and I even make the word bold, all caps, and underlined (e.g. MUST vs. must). These safe work practices need to be written with ZERO wiggle room and supported by a “deviation procedure process” for those occasions where the procedure cannot be followed to the letter. I have sat in too many incident investigations where the worker says, “the procedure does not require that it says we should do it”.
Some may view the difference between “should” vs. “shall” as very little, but in reality, the difference between these two simple words adds up to make one hell of a difference in safety.