Up-to-date Process Safety Information

When originally adopted in 1996, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) adopted

“the requirements of the OSHA PSM Standard, 29 CFR 1910.119(c) through (m) and (o), with minor changes to address statutory differences. This makes clear that one accident prevention program to protect workers, the general public, and the environment will satisfy

On May 17, 2018, the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) released a proposed revision to the Risk Management Program (“RMP”) rule following its reconsideration of the Obama era revisions.  The proposal strips out much of those additions.  According to the Rule Fact Sheet, the reconsidered rule will maintain consistency with the Occupational Safety and Health Administrations’

Recently, the US Fifth Circuit addressed three maritime tenets in the same case: McCorpen defense, unseaworthiness, and regulatory governance. While these issues can be rather straightforward in the typical case, the facts in Thomas v. Hercules Offshore Services, LLC (5th Cir. March 2, 2018) provided an interesting review of each. The specific issues addressed in

On August 30, 2017 the D.C. Circuit denied environmental and labor groups’ request to stay the Tump EPA’s final rule delaying the Obama-era amendments to the EPA’s Risk Management Program (“RMP”) rule. The RMP rule implements Section 112(r) of the Clean Air Act and requires facilities that use extremely hazardous substances to develop and update

Just a quick reminder that in 2007, the Louisiana State Police (“LSP”) adopted regulations requiring special reporting requirements for persons “engaged in the transportation of hazardous materials by railcars, vessels, or barges, or the temporary storage of hazardous materials in any storage vessel not permanently attached to the ground” if that activity is within “a

At the very end of 2016, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated two Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) citations for alleged violations of Process Safety Management (“PSM”) regulations. In that case, the Court held that OSHA was barred from issuing a citation for the failure to act on Process Hazard Analysis (“PHA”) findings/recommendations

At the very end of 2016, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated two Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) citations against an employer that allegedly failed to timely resolve open findings and recommendations from Process Hazard Analysis (PHA). The 2008 citation related to multiple PHAs that occurred over a decade (with the last being

The EPA received three petitions asking it to delay and reconsider amendments to the RMP rule. First, the “RMP Coalition” submitted a petition dated February 28, 2017. On March 13, 2017, the Chemical Safety Advocacy Group also submitted a petition, followed by a third petition from a group of eleven states. On March 13, 2017,