Practical EHS Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
Our first environmental enforcement report for August 2018 has summaries of five recent cases—and two of them resulted in penalties of over $1,000,000. It’s an ongoing reminder of the importance of environmental compliance to an organization’s bottom line.
The tragic explosion of fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate at the West, Texas, distribution facility in April 2013 has had a powerful impact on the direction of the EPA’s implementation of the Clean Air Act’s Risk Management Program (RMP, CAA Section 112(r)).
In a proposal that is extraordinary even under the deregulatory agenda of President Donald Trump and Administrator Scott Pruitt, the EPA is seeking to wipe off the books all but a handful of minor provisions in the Agency’s Risk Management Program (RMP) Amendments Rule (Amendments Rule, January 13, 2017, FR).
Obama EPA’s most consequential actions to prevent accidents at facilities with hazardous chemicals have been written out in the Agency’s just released final amendments to regulations implementing Clean Air Act (CAA) section 112(r), more commonly called the Risk Management Program (RMP).
On December 21, 2016, EPA finalized revisions to the Chemical Accident Prevention Provisions under 40 CFR 68, also known as the Risk Management Program (RMP). The revisions, which were proposed back in March 2016, are intended to improve elements of the RMP, enhance emergency preparedness, and ensure that local emergency response officials and the public […]
EPA’s Chemical Accident Prevention Program, more commonly referred to as the Risk Management Program (RMP), and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Process Safety Management (PSM) program will always go hand in hand, as both seek to prevent chemical process accidents and protect workers and the public from the sometimes devastating consequences of such […]
EPA’s Chemical Accident Prevention Program, more commonly referred to as the Risk Management Program (RMP), and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Process Safety Management (PSM) program will always go hand in hand, as both seek to prevent chemical process accidents and protect workers and the public from the sometimes devastating consequences of such […]
In its spring 2016 regulatory agenda, the EPA set a December 2016 completion date for its final revisions of regulations implementing Clean Air Act (CAA) Section 112(r), the Risk Management Program (RMP). Since issuing the first RMP rule in 1996, the Agency has revised the requirements at least six times. But the most recent proposed […]
Back in March, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed significant changes to the chemical accident prevention provisions, commonly referred to as the Risk Management Program (RMP). In a recent webinar, Risk Management Plan Updates: A Guide to Regulatory Compliance in Advance of EPA’s Final Rule, speaker Natalie VanLiew, PE, Managing Consultant at Trinity Consultants, […]
It has been 3 years since the ammonium nitrate explosion in West, Texas, killed 15 people, injured hundreds, and caused widespread damage. Just a few months after that event, President Obama’s Executive Order (EO) 13650 set into motion actions by numerous government agencies designed to enhance the safety and security of chemical facilities and reduce […]