Chemical Disaster Prevention Program

Eliminating the CSB will come at a cost to the safety of plant workers and neighboring communities, especially along the Gulf Coast, where the bulk of the U.S. petrochemical industry is concentrated, said former CSB officials and environmental groups. “Closing the CSB will mean more accidents at chemical plants, more explosions and more deaths,” said Beth Rosenberg, a public health expert who served on the CSB board from 2013 to 2014. On average, hazardous chemical accidents happen once every other day in the U.S., according to Coming Clean, an environmental health nonprofit. Coming Clean documented 825 fires, leaks and other chemical-related incidents between January 2021 and October 2023. The incidents killed at least 43 people and triggered evacuation orders and advisories in nearly 200 communities.

The Environmental Protection Agency just hid data that mapped out the locations of thousands of dangerous chemical facilities, after chemical industry lobbyists demanded that the Trump administration take down the public records. The webpage was quietly shut down late Friday, according to records viewed by The Lever — stripping away what advocates say was critical information on the secretive chemical plants at highest risk of disaster across the United States. The data was made public last year through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Risk Management Program, which oversees the country’s highest-risk chemical facilities. These chemical plants deal with dangerous, volatile chemicals — like those used to make pesticides, fertilizers, and plastics — and are responsible for dozens of chemical disasters every year. A spokesperson for Coming Clean, an environmental health group focusing on the chemical industry, told The Lever that the organization was “surprised” to see the webpage taken down and that its staff had accessed the data as recently as Friday morning.“We know that industry had suggested it, so it seems like [regulators] are following industry’s lead,” the spokesperson added.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Thursday that it plans to rehash regulations under the Risk Management Program (RMP). The decision comes after lobbyists for the chemical industry sent a letter requesting the agency weaken the rule requiring nearly 12,000 highly hazardous industrial facilities to prevent and plan for chemical disasters.

The EPA is bending to the will of corporate lobbyists who are seeking to eliminate stronger rules finalized in 2024. These more protective rules were the result of years of public debate and incorporated input from industry and the public alike, including advocacy by environmental justice, labor, occupational and public health, and environmental organizations.

“It would mean a real disservice to communities, first responders and workers,” said Adam Kron, an attorney with Earthjustice. “It would put them in greater harm’s way from these chemical disasters.” Earthjustice is part of a coalition of environmental groups that tracks chemical disasters. This coalition has found that since January 2021, there have been more than 1,100 chemical incidents. The news of a potential rewrite comes days after Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress, in which he vowed to take on toxic chemicals, saying, “our goal is to get toxins out of our environment, poisons out of our food supply and keep our children healthy and strong.” Yet that rhetoric also comes as Trump has pledged broad deregulatory action, which could clash with upholding chemical safeguards. 

"The chemical industry is asking the Environmental Protection Agency ... to hide chemical facilities at the highest risk of disaster and their safety records from public view." This story in The Lever highlights Coming Clean's and EJHA's report on "Chemical Incident Tracking 2021-2023," part of our decade-long collaboration to prevent chemical disasters.

Expanding the list of chemicals to bring more facilities under federal oversight has become a priority for environmentalists, explained Maya Nye, the federal policy director at Coming Clean, an environmental health nonprofit focused on chemical industry oversight. Being subject to Risk Management Program requirements, Nye said, “would have required [BioLab] to think about, ‘What is the emergency response plan? What may lead to a chemical disaster?’” Environmentalists fought hard to strengthen the EPA’s Risk Management Program to account for the impacts of extreme weather on chemical accidents. Thanks to the regulations finalized this year, facilities covered by the program will be required to consider, and map out, the potential hazards posed by climate change. But BioLab’s facilities, which fall outside of the program, will not.

NEW FACTSHEET In spring 2024, after a multi-year collective advocacy effort, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized the “Safer Communities by Chemical Accident Prevention” rule which updated the Risk Management Program (RMP) rule “to further protect vulnerable communities from chemical accidents, especially those living near facilities in industry sectors with high accident rates.” You can read our high-level summary takeaways here.

Chemical safety advocates praised the EPA’s new requirements but added that the agency needs to go further, including by adding a notoriously explosive farm fertilizer – ammonium nitrate – to the list of chemicals that should require companies to develop risk management plans. Advocates also say EPA should have included more safety requirements and mandates for air monitoring at the fence lines of major facilities so nearby residents can see what chemicals are being released in real time.  “We’ve needed this rule for a long time,” said Maya Nye, executive director of chemical safety advocacy coalition Coming Clean. But she added that “additional measures are needed. Read more in Oil and Gas Watch News. 

The rule addresses a critical vulnerability in the protection of the country's waterways and communities. Thousands of facilities that manufacture, use and store some of the most dangerous chemicals brush up against waterways or are in flood-prone areas. The new policy comes after numerous disasters affecting drinking water supplies, wildlife habitats, and environmental justice communities that experience the brunt of extreme weather supercharged by climate change.  “We are thankful that this administration is finally taking long overdue action to protect workers and communities against chemical disasters. Communities of color and the poor, who are experiencing the worst of the climate crisis, are also on the front lines of the fight against policies that permit billions of pounds of pollution and concentrate the most dangerous industries in our communities” said Michele Roberts, National Co-Coordinator of the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform (EJHA). “While we’re glad to see this rule taking steps in the right direction, we will continue to call on EPA to truly prevent disasters by transitioning away from inherently dangerous chemicals and processes as outlined in the Louisville Charter for Safer Chemicals.” 

On March 1, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published updates to its Risk Management Plan (RMP) rule with stricter regulations for chemical accident prevention. The new rule is a result of listening sessions by the EPA in which industry, advocates, scientists and fenceline residents voiced their concerns. According to the new rule, facilities handling hazardous materials must consider safer technologies and practices, and the possibility of events caused by climate change in their emergency management plans. When a chemical incident occurs, the facility will have to undergo third-party testing to find the root cause and what could have prevented it. Any disconnection or disabling of air monitors in an emergency would be in violation of this rule and must be reported to the EPA. As a result, backup power options must be explored to prevent lack of emissions readings in events that result in the loss of power. To read a version of this story in Spanish click here. Haz clic aquí para leer este reportaje en español.

Pressure ramped up on the EPA last year after a network of environmental and economic justice organizations reported that hazardous chemical accidents have been occurring almost every day, on average, in the United States, exposing people to dangerous toxins through fires, explosions, leaks, spills and other types of releases. The network applauded the EPA’s actions this week. “We’re glad that EPA stood its ground despite strong industry pressure and required more [Risk Management Program] facilities to report on safer chemicals and processes that could be implemented to prevent chemical disasters,” Maya Nye, federal policy director for the environmental health collaborative Coming Clean, said in a press release. “This establishes an important precedent.” The Coming Clean report found hundreds of accidents happening each year, with the majority tied to the fossil fuel industry. Acknowledging the frequency of incidents, the EPA previously told The New Lede that over the past 10 years the agency has “performed an average of 235 emergency response actions per year, including responses to discharges of hazardous chemicals or oil.”

Hazardous chemical incidents such as explosions, fires, and toxic releases happen almost daily in the United States, often at fossil fuel facilities, and the Biden administration won praise on Friday for stepping up safeguards for impacted communities. Michele Roberts, co-coordinator of another coalition member, the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform, celebrated the EPA's new online database for RMP facilities, and highlighted that "communities have been asking for this information for decades. We have a right to know whether our houses, schools, and places of worship are threatened by a potential chemical disaster," she said. "We look forward to a time when a database on RMP facility and hazard information will no longer be needed because every facility will have transitioned to safe chemicals and processes, but in the meantime EPA making this critical information more accessible to communities is a huge step."