"The board said the administration is taking “a significant step backwards” on preventing chemical disasters."
"For a year now, the Chemical Safety Board, a small independent agency that investigates chemical spills and other disasters has faced elimination under President Trump’s budget cuts.
That hasn’t stopped the board from taking on the Trump administration. The agency is now opposing an attempt to roll back new chemical disaster rules that were introduced under former President Joseph R. Biden and aimed to prevent accidents at thousands of industrial facilities.
The board’s two remaining members — Steve Owens, the chairman, and Sylvia E. Johnson — warned publicly in a letter this week that the administration was taking “a significant step backwards” in preventing catastrophic chemical incidents. The letter urged the Environmental Protection Agency not to eliminate mandatory audits at plants with prior accidents or measures encouraging the use of safer chemical alternatives.
It also urged the administration to preserve requirements for sites to adopt new safeguards to prepare for storms, floods and other climate-related risks and to stick with a “stop work” provision that empowers workers to halt operations they perceive to be unsafe."
