Dear Mr. Breen and Mr. Waterhouse: We, the undersigned Associations, submit these comments in response to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (“EPA” or “Agency”) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, “Accidental Release Prevention Requirements: Risk Management Programs Under the Clean Air Act; Safer Communities by Chemical Accident Prevention” (“Proposed Rule” or “Proposal”).[1]
Together, we represent a broad cross-section of companies that strongly value the safety of their employees and neighboring communities. Recognizing the critical importance of safety, our member companies engage in numerous voluntary measures to promote and enhance process safety. Many of those companies have also spent decades aligning their voluntary safety practices with the regulatory performance-based framework of EPA’s Risk Management Program (“RMP”) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (“OSHA”) Process Safety Management (“PSM”) regulations. As a result, reportable accidents and major incidents stand at record lows in the United States. Despite this progress, the Proposal would make several major changes to the RMP regulations that are unwarranted and otherwise unlawful, putting at risk these gains and creating substantial legal uncertainty.