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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

The United States Environmental Protection Agency in Washington DC. (Photo by: Loop Images/UIG via Getty Images)

On March 14, 2016, Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) proposed changes to the Risk Management Plan Program (“RMP”) Rule. On January 13, 2017, the EPA published a new final rule.  This is fourth in a planned series that will address five major changes: root cause analysis for near misses, third-party audits, inherently safer technology,

Process safety information (“PSI”) is the foundation on which the rest of the PSM and RMP elements are built. Process safety information is that information that is needed to make sound safety decisions and it includes descriptions of the hazardous chemicals, the technology of the process, and the equipment in the process. Both

A PHA team must have the following expertise:

  • engineering and process operations;
  • experience and knowledge specific to the process being evaluated; and
  • a facilitator (knowledgeable in the specific PHA methodology being used)

Employers must have a written plan to include employees and their representatives on the conduct and development of PHAs. 29 CFR 1910.119(c) and