The rule is designed to prevent chemical accidents.
EPA Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe said that it contains the “strongest safety requirements ever for industrial facilities.”
It restores measures that were rolled back by the Trump administration, including:
- Requiring companies to assess potentially safer technologies and processes that can limit hazards.
- Restoring a requirement for “root cause” analyses after accidents.
These regulations were first implemented under the Obama administration after a 2013 explosion at a fertilizer plant in Texas killed 15 people.
The rule also imposes new safety measures like:
- Requiring high-accident sectors to write plans and implement safeguards.
- Making more information about safety risks available to nearby communities.
The rules apply to 12,000 industrial facilities, including chemical manufacturers and distributors, oil refineries, food and beverage manufacturers and agricultural supply distributors.
Read more at TheHill.com.
