Advocates Split On EPA Plan To Strengthen Facility Safety Through RMP

摘要

Facility safety advocates are split on the efficacy and speed with which EPA's plan to strengthen its Risk Management Plan (RMP) program will make industrial plants safer, with some arguing those measures will eventually encourage companies to implement safer processes, while others say any program changes will do little to reduce risk. Some advocates say that strengthening the RMP to bolster its hazard assessment and reporting requirements could help drive eventual consideration of the inherently safer technologies (IST) they are seeking but others say that short of mandating use of IST, the administration is doing little to reduce plant safety risks. Given the two-year rulemaking process, "the administration has to ask themselves, 'are they going to accept responsibility for not preventing the next disaster?'" says one critic of the administration's plan. Early this month, in long-awaited interagency recommendations to President Obama, EPA said officials are considering measures to encourage facilities to use IST, usually alternate chemicals or processes advocates say reduce the consequences of an accident or attack.