[Senate Hearing 117-643]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 117-643
A HEARING ON THE NOMINATIONS OF STEPHEN
A. OWENS TO BE CHAIRPERSON OF THE
CHEMICAL SAFETY AND HAZARD INVESTIGA-
TIONS BOARD AND CATHERINE J.K.SANDOVAL
TO BE A MEMBER OF THE CHEMICAL SAFETY
AND HAZARD INVESTIGATIONS BOARD
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CHEMICAL SAFETY,
WASTE MANAGEMENT, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE,
AND REGULATORY OVERSIGHT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
NOVEMBER 17, 2022
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
51-752 PDF WASHINGTON : 2025
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COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware, Chairman
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont Virginia,
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island Ranking Member
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan RICHARD SHELBY, Alabama
MARK KELLY, Arizona JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
ALEX PADILLA, California ROGER WICKER, Mississippi
DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska
JONI ERNST, Iowa
LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
Mary Frances Repko, Democratic Staff Director
Adam Tomlinson, Republican Staff Director
----------
Subcommittee on Chemical Safety, Waste Management,
Environmental Justice, and Regulatory Oversight
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon, Chairman
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont ROGER WICKER, Mississippi,
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts Ranking Member
MARK KELLY, Arizona RICHARD SHELBY, Alabama
ALEX PADILLA, California DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware (ex JONI ERNST, Iowa
officio) LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
Virginia (ex officio)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
NOVEMBER 17, 2022
OPENING STATEMENTS
Merkley, Hon. Jeff, U.S. Senator from the State of Oregon........ 1
Wicker, Hon. Roger, U.S. Senator from the State of Mississippi... 3
WITNESSES
Owens, Stephen A., Nominee to be Chairperson of the Chemical
Safety and Hazard Investigations Board......................... 3
Prepared statement........................................... 5
Responses to additional questions from:
Senator Capito........................................... 10
Sandoval, Catherine J.K., Nominee to be a Member of the Chemical
Safety and Hazard Investigations Board......................... 11
Prepared statement........................................... 13
Responses to additional questions from:
Senator Markey........................................... 15
Senator Capito........................................... 18
HEARING ON THE NOMINATIONS OF STEPHEN A. OWENS TO BE CHAIRPERSON OF THE
CHEMICAL SAFETY AND HAZARD INVESTIGATIONS BOARD AND CATHERINE J.K
SANDOVAL TO BE A MEMBER OF THE CHEMICAL SAFETY AND HAZARD
INVESTIGATIONS BOARD
----------
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2022
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Environment and Public Works,
Subcommittee on Chemical Safety, Waste Management,
Environmental Justice, and Regulatory Oversight,
Washington, DC.
The committee, met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m. in
room 406, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Jeff Merkley
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Senators Merkley, Capito, Wicker.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF MERKLEY,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF OREGON
Senator Merkley. Good morning and welcome to today's
hearing to examine the qualifications of two individuals
nominated to serve as members of the U.S. Chemical Safety and
Hazard Investigations Board, or CSB, one of whom, Stephen
Owens, is currently serving on the Board as interim Chairman
but has been nominated by President Biden to fill that position
for a full term.
For more than two decades, the CSB has been responsible for
investigating industrial chemical accidents at fixed industrial
facilities. This small agency and its team of investigators
consisting of chemical and mechanical engineers, industrial
safety experts and other specialists with experience in the
private and public sectors decide what accidents to investigate
and get to the root causes.
They then offer recommendations to facilities, local and
State governments, regulatory agencies, industry organizations
and labor groups on how to fix and avoid similar incidents.
Their mission is to drive chemical safety change through these
recommendations and they have a long record of doing so. The
agency has investigated over 100 accidents from large
explosions that destroyed communities to small releases in labs
and isolated work sites.
For many years, this agency was considered to be the global
gold standard in conducting industrial accident investigations.
We know, however, that the agency and the dedicated men and
women within it have faced more than their fair share of
challenges in fully carrying out their mission and duties over
the past few years. The previous Administration attempted to
zero out the budget but refused to nominate replacements for
board members whose 5-year terms had expired. As a result, the
agency only has nine dedicated investigators today, less than
half the 24 once employed by the CSB.
In addition, a number of vacancies in key staff positions
has kept the agency from being able to fully utilize resources
provided to them by Congress leading to a backlog of incomplete
investigations. This situation, purposely created, is
unconscionable and inexcusable for an agency vital to
preventing industrial catastrophe.
One article from 2016 quotes Trish Kerin, the Australian
Director of the Institution of Chemical Engineers Safety Center
as saying, ``The rest of the world is jealous of the CSB. We
wish we had one because its purpose is to investigate and
understand what happened, not because of community pressure or
for the purpose of prosecution.''
The good news is that under the Biden Administration, there
is still a good way to go but I believe the situation at the
U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board is
improving. At the end of last year, the Senate confirmed two of
President Biden's nominees, Sylvia Johnson and Steve Owens, to
fill vacancies on the Board and return it to a functioning
quorum.
These leaders have taken it upon themselves to try to
rejuvenate the Board, bring on new staff, conduct listening
sessions to hear the concerns of current and former staff and
former Board members. Just last month, the CSB released final
reports on two concluded investigations along with updates on
four more ongoing investigations demonstrating their ongoing
commitment to addressing the backlog.
It is critical that here in the Senate we help them in
these efforts. Toward that end, we will hear today from two
nominees who have the potential to contribute greatly to these
efforts to restore and revitalize the Board.
Steve Owens currently serves as a member and the interim
Chairman of the U.S. Board since his confirmation last
December. He is currently nominated for a full term as
chairman. Since being sworn in, he has worked to increase
transparency and information sharing, identifying ways to
reduce the backlog, and increased collaboration and
communication between agency leadership and CSB career
professional staff and stakeholders.
Professor Catherine Sandoval is a tenured law professor at
Santa Clara University where she teaches and conducts research
on energy, communications, antitrust and contract law. A
regulatory and legal expert for over three decades, a safety
leader for more than two decades, Professor Sandoval's
interdisciplinary work advances infrastructure safety,
reliability, access and equity.
In addition, Professor Sandoval has served a 6-year term as
a Commissioner of the California Public Utilities Commission to
which she was appointed by Governor Brown and unanimously
confirmed by the California State Senate. During her prior
Federal service, she served as Director of the Office of
Communications, Business Opportunities at the Federal
Communications Commission.
Former California Governor Davis appointed her to serve as
Undersecretary and Senior Policy Advisor for Housing, and
before that as Staff Director of California's Business,
Transportation and Housing Agency. In that capacity, she worked
with law enforcement, including the California Highway Patrol,
to respond to infrastructure vulnerabilities and hazardous
incidents.
That is quite a variety of responsibilities, and quite a
breadth of experience.
I would like to thank both of our nominees for being here
with us today.
Now, I will turn it over to our Ranking Member, Roger
Wicker.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROGER WICKER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI
Senator Wicker. Thank you, Chairman Merkley.
I want to welcome our two nominees today. Steve Owens has
been nominated to serve as the Chair of the Chemical Safety and
Hazard Investigation Board, or CSB. I have learned that he is a
Memphis boy and grew up right up the highway from me, where I
grew up in north Mississippi.
Mr. Owens appeared before this subcommittee last year when
he was first nominated to be a member of CSB and he was
confirmed by the Senate for that position last December.
Catherine Sandoval, who has been nominated to be a member of
the CSB, is also with us this morning. I appreciate their
willingness to serve.
As the Chair mentioned, the CSB is an independent, non-
regulatory agency charged with investigating the root causes of
chemical accidents at industrial facilities. Congress created
the CSB to investigate accidents, to understand what went wrong
and help prevent them from happening again. This investigative
work is vital for the safety of our Nation's communities.
Since becoming operational in 1998, the CSB has
investigated three accidents that occurred in my State of
Mississippi. A 2002 explosion injured three workers; a 2006
explosion killed three contractors and seriously injured
another; and in 2016, an explosion occurred in which
fortunately no one was hurt.
The CSB works to investigate these types of incidents in
order to prevent them from happening again. This work is
vitally important and can save lives. It is therefore critical
that the Board be filled with experts in chemical process
safety.
Today's hearing presents an opportunity to hear from each
of these nominees about their qualifications for this important
role. I look forward to getting to know them and hearing more
about their experiences.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Senator Wicker.
We will start with Stephen Owens. The floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF STEPHEN OWENS, NOMINATED TO BE CHAIRPERSON OF THE
CHEMICAL SAFETY AND HAZARD INVESTIGATIONS BOARD
Mr. Owens. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
If I may, at the beginning I would like to introduce the
members of my family who are with me as well. My wife, Karen
Owens, is behind me to my left and my son, Ben Owens, is behind
me to my right.
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Wicker and members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for holding this hearing and inviting
me to be here today. It is good to see you again, both of you.
Senator Wicker, I didn't get a chance to say hello but
hopefully we will get a chance to chat before the end of the
hearing. It is good to see you as well.
I am extremely honored to be nominated by President Biden
to be the Chairperson of the Chemical Safety and Hazard
Investigation Board. I have been a member of the Board since
February of this year, confirmed by the Senate last December. I
became the Board's Interim Executive Authority in July after
our former chairperson resigned.
As I said when I appeared before you last year, the CSB is
a very small agency, but it has a very big and very important
mission: to conduct investigations and make recommendations
that help ensure that chemical facilities are operated safely
and that the people who work in them, and the families who live
near them, are protected from chemical disasters.
Since I have been the Interim Executive, I have worked very
closely with my fellow Board member, Sylvia Johnson, and the
dedicated career public servants at the CSB to address the
serious challenges facing the agency, including reducing the
backlog in investigation reports, addressing staff vacancies,
improving morale, breaking down silos, and increasing
communication between CSB leadership and career staff.
For example, since late July, we have released the final
reports for three investigations: the fatal 2017 explosion at
the Loy-Lange Box Company in St. Louis; the fatal 2016 fire at
the Sunoco terminal in Nederland, Texas; and the 2019 fire and
explosions at the PES refinery in Philadelphia.
Prior to issuing the Loy-Lange report in late July, the CSB
had not released an investigation report in over 10 months.
Going forward, we anticipate releasing the final reports for
another three investigations by the end of this calendar year.
In the last few years, the CSB has suffered serious
attrition among our investigative and other critical staff, and
fell to one of the lowest levels of career staff in its
history. Since I have been the Interim Executive, we have hired
a new Chief Information Officer to address the serious
cybersecurity and information technology issues plaguing the
CSB, and we will be adding other IT staff soon.
We onboarded a new chemical incident investigator and plan
to hire several more in the months ahead. We also hired two
recommendations specialists, and we are recruiting other key
staff as well.
Additionally, in September, we deployed a team to
investigate the fatal fire and explosion at the BP-Husky
Refinery in Ohio. This was the first deployment that the CSB
had undertaken in 14 months.
We also have increased transparency and are providing more
information to the public and our stakeholders. For example, we
have begun to post data on chemical incidents that we receive
under the agency's reporting rule.
We also have reinstituted public comments at CSB Board
meetings. In September, we issued updates on four
investigations, including the 2020 fatal fire and explosion at
the Optima Belle facility in West Virginia and the fatal 2021
liquid nitrogen release at the Foundation Food Group facility
in Georgia.
The agency had stopped providing these updates last year,
but we believe that they provide important information to the
public and stakeholders. In the next few weeks, we plan to
issue an update on another investigation, the fatal 2021
explosion and fire at the Yenkin-Majestic facility in Ohio.
The Chemical Safety Board began operations in January 1998.
As we approach the 25th anniversary of the CSB, I am very
optimistic about the agency's future. I strongly believe that
we can rebuild and revitalize the CSB and perform our mission
as Congress intended. I look forward to working with this
committee to do that.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Wicker,
for the opportunity to appear before you. I will be happy to
answer any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Owens follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much.
Ms. Sandoval.
STATEMENT OF CATHERINE J.K. SANDOVAL, NOMINATED TO BE A MEMBER
OF THE CHEMICAL SAFETY AND HAZARD INVESTIGATIONS BOARD
Ms. Sandoval. Thank you very much.
I would like to begin by introducing my family: my husband,
Steve Smith; my sister, Barbara Sandoval; and also my family
friends, Didas Catagi [phonetic] and Esther Noltrig [phonetic].
Thank you so much.
Senators, thank you for this opportunity to discuss my
nomination to serve as a member of the U.S. Chemical Safety and
Hazard Investigation Board. I would also like to thank
President Biden for the honor of this nomination and my family,
particularly my husband, Steve, my sister, Barbara, my late
sister, Anna Lugo, my father, Vernon Kissee; and my friends,
colleagues, and Santa Clara University for their support and
encouragement of my safety leadership work.
In the decades before the CSB was founded, prior to the
Clean Air Act, and before the establishment of the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration, my great uncle, Ishmael
Martinez, was killed in a chemical explosion at the Apache
Powder Company near Benson, Arizona.
Apache Powder made nitroglycerin-based dynamite used in the
mines near my mother's hometown, a small town served by a rural
electric utility. My mother, Maria Elena Martinez Sandoval----
Kissee, who watches this hearing from heaven; my Uncle Juan
and Aunt Tina often talked about the fear and dread they felt
as the explosion rocked the town.
Fear quickly turned to shock and sadness as they learned
that several workers were killed in the blast including Tio
Ishmael, who lived with their family. A joint funeral Mass, and
the birth and naming of my cousin Ishmael, better known as
Smiles, in memory of my great uncle, began the journey toward
community healing.
That company operates today as Apache Nitrogen Products,
making ammonium nitrate-based products through safety
management systems now required by OSHA and EPA rules.
As my family's history illustrates, the CSB's mission to
protect people and the environment through independent
investigations and recommendations that drive chemical safety
is vital to communities, families, workers, the environment,
and the economy. The chemical incidents the CSB investigates
are often lose, lose, lose, lose calamities. They may injure or
kill workers, cause community harms including injury, death,
and property damage, and loss of job opportunities, release
hazardous chemicals into the environment, and generate losses
for investors and insurers. The CSB's root cause analysis and
recommendations can create quadruple wins.
If honored by Senate confirmation, I would bring to the CSB
more than 30 years of regulatory and legal experience, two
decades of safety leadership and expertise as a tenured Energy,
Communications, Antitrust, and Contracts Law Professor. My
collaborative management experience for multi-billion-dollar
budget organizations would contribute to effective CSB
operations.
As a former Commissioner of the California Public Utilities
Commission and former Undersecretary and Staff Director of
California's Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, I
gained experience in collaborative response to chemical
incidents. My CPUC colleagues and I responded to the largest
industrial methane leak in U.S. history at the Aliso Canyon
natural gas storage facility in Los Angeles, California.
To address the safety, air pollution, and energy challenges
this 2015 incident created, we listened to communities, worked
with public and private stakeholders, and engaged with experts
to conduct a root cause analysis and adopt responsive measures.
That investigation built on expertise developed in responding
to the 2010 natural gas explosion in San Bruno, California
caused by Pacific Gas and Electric. That methane explosion
killed eight people and leveled a neighborhood.
The CPUC's root cause analysis examined the pipeline's
metallurgy, including welding, process safety and human factors
including recordkeeping and operational deficiencies, risk
identification and management.
These experiences and my work with the California Highway
Patrol in responding to refinery incidents when I was BTH Staff
Director and Undersecretary highlight the importance of safety
management and operational integrity. My experience in working
with first responders during and following incidents, and in
developing policy with first-responder input would be an asset
to CSB investigations and safety recommendations.
My work with underserved and disadvantaged rural, urban,
and tribal communities would enhance CSB community
collaboration. My approach to CSB investigations would be
driven by the facts and by science, and faithful to the
agency's statutory safety mission.
If I were to earn the honor of Senate confirmation, I would
serve the CSB and the American people with dedication and
diligence.
Thank you very much for this opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Sandoval follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Merkley. Thank you for the testimony from both of
you.
Mr. Owens, since this is a nomination for you to serve as
Chair, I noted in my opening remarks that the staff has been
quite short. I know you have been working in the interim
capacity. How much progress so far? Do you have the funding you
need to be able to hire the number of investigators you need?
Is the backlog getting worse or better? What would it take to
make it better?
Mr. Owens. Senator, I was going to ask how much time we
have to talk about that today. I could talk all day about this.
Senator Merkley. Concisely.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Owens. I will be concise.
The answer is, we have very concrete plans to hire
additional staff. As I mentioned, we have already hired a
recommendations specialists, a chief information officer, and a
new incident investigator. We are currently in the process of
advertising, I don't think it has been posted yet, for another
four to five chemical incident investigators.
What my colleague Sylvia Johnson and I did, after I became
the Interim Executive, is sit down with our budget staff to
identify what were the priority positions we needed to hire. We
prioritized, obviously, chemical incident investigators and IT
staff as the two highest. Recommendations specialists go along
with that.
Under the current funding that we have, under the
continuing resolution, we should be able to accomplish all of
that over the next several months. We are keeping our fingers
crossed on the appropriations bills that are currently pending
in front of both the House and the Senate which would increase
funding for the CSB, which would enable us to bring on
additional chemical incident investigators as well as other
much needed staff in our administrative offices like HR,
finance, contracting, and a few other positions that would
support our legal team responding to FOIA requests as well as
helping on other mission critical activities.
Our challenge is, as you have noted, is that there has been
a great loss of experienced personnel at the agency. We do have
less than half the number of investigators that we had not that
long ago, less than 10 years ago.
The backlog is enormous. We have reduced it by three
already. We plan to reduce it by another three by the end of
this calendar year. But that is still going to leave us with 11
more reports that we anticipate being able to issue by the end
of the next calendar year. We posted a plan on that. But if we
can get additional funding, we would be able to hire the
additional investigators to do that and clear up the backlog.
Senator Merkley. To summarize, how many investigators do
you have right now?
Mr. Owens. Well, at the moment, it depends on how you count
them. We have 10 in the field investigators, plus two
supervisors and a third person, so anywhere from 10 to 13. The
people who actually go out and do the heavy lifting in the
field, we have about 10.
Senator Merkley. How many more do you need?
Mr. Owens. My goal would be to get it up to at least 20.
Senator Merkley. Thank you.
Ms. Sandoval, you really answered my question which was to
highlight the two or three things that make you a very good fit
for this position. I won't ask you to repeat those; they were
in your testimony.
How did you hear about the position? How did you become
interested in serving on this board?
Ms. Sandoval. Thank you, Senator.
The White House asked me if I would be interested, given my
energy expertise and my experience in responding to chemical
safety incidents. We honor the victims of the San Bruno natural
gas explosion by recognizing the chemical safety, energy and
utility regulation failures that leveled a neighborhood.
That is something that we talk about in my energy law
class. I tell students that they get a bonus class in part
looking at the science. Because much of energy as well as water
work marches through the periodic table in dealing with
hydrocarbons and other types of chemicals.
I have experience in responding to a variety of chemical
incidents and then also looking at the process safety, human
factors and material factors that caused failures.
Senator Merkley. As you were talking, I was thinking about
Roseburg, Oregon, where the entire downtown was leveled by an
explosion when I was a child. I remember seeing the charred
city blocks. It wasn't actually a factory, it was a chemical
truck that was left parked and then a fire in an adjacent
building blew it up and it blew up the town.
I think that is probably outside the purview of the CSB but
it sticks in my mind, the destructive power that can occur when
chemicals are not carefully managed.
Let me turn this over to my colleague.
Senator Wicker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Sandoval, on the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage
facility, the largest industrial methane leak in U.S. history,
tell us a little about that. We do not have a lot of time. Were
there any injuries?
Ms. Sandoval. I hesitate because the causation has been
hotly debated and is still currently being litigated.
Senator Wicker. So, the question of causation is still up
in the air?
Ms. Sandoval. There is a nearby neighborhood where several
people complained about nosebleeds and headaches. They have
entered into a settlement with the natural gas utility that ran
that field.
That particular field didn't have any homes on top of it or
structures on top of it other than what was needed to run the
natural gas facility. But the homes that were approximately a
mile and a half away with some of the fumes from the methane
leak as well as some of the other hydrocarbon, CO2 and other
things incident to that field, they complained of nosebleeds
and headaches. In fact, many of them were evacuated for a time.
Senator Wicker. You mentioned root cause analysis. Do you
have an opinion about the root cause?
Ms. Sandoval. Yes. The root cause analysis for that
incident has been completed. There was a tremendous methane
flare and actually the son of Red Adair came to help to put it
out. It took a long time to kill the well, as they said.
Finally that happened through some great ingenuity.
Ultimately, it was found that corrosion in the natural gas
pipeline, which happened through microbial corrosion from water
leaking down through the ground, was part of what caused the
leak in the pipeline. Then actually the CO2 in the pipeline
nourished the water and made the leak worse.
Then the methane leaked throughout the field, as will
happen geologically because methane is lighter than air, so it
seeks to escape.
This is why the plume from Aliso Canyon was visible from
NASA's satellites. It is an example where these chemical
incidents have tremendous impacts on the environment as well as
having impacts on public health. And also secondary impacts in
this case on energy. It was the largest natural gas storage
facility in the Los Angeles Basin. So it had impacts and
consequences for energy, safety and reliability. We had to
manage the public safety issues as well as the environmental
issues and the energy issues while working with the community
and with experts.
Senator Wicker. Is it still functional?
Ms. Sandoval. Yes, it is.
Senator Wicker. Thank you.
Let me ask you, Mr. Owens, a key aspect of your work is
identifying and applying process safety management principles.
What are some of the core principles that you are working to
advance regarding process safety management?
Mr. Owens. Senator, thank you for the question.
As you know, there are 14 aspects, 14 elements of process
safety management. I think probably the simple one is
prevention, identifying causes, and having plans in place so
that you can anticipate problems before they arise and involve
employees of the facility in identifying what the issues may be
that could create problematic conditions that could result in a
release, or an explosion or a fire, those kinds of things.
We have identified a number of issues in the course of the
history of the CSB recommendations that address various
elements of process safety management. A couple of the most
important ones are employee involvement and also taking sort of
a hierarchy of controls approach to addressing conditions that
exist at facilities so when there are conditions that could
lead to an upset, or a release, or a fire and explosion, that
there are systems in place to minimize the consequences of that
if not actually prevent it in the first place.
Senator Wicker. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Merkley. Senator Capito.
Senator Capito. Thank you, Chairman Merkley, and thank you,
Ranking Member Wicker for having this. And I thank the both of
you for being before the committee. We appreciate it.
We are obviously considering both your nominations, Stephen
Owens and Catherine Sandoval. I guess the entire Board consists
of five, but there are presently just two. Is that correct?
Yes.
Congress obviously established the CSB to investigate
facts, conditions, circumstances and causes of chemical
releases. It is a critical role in determining, certainly for
where I live, we are called Chemical Valley, and for a reason.
So your role is very important to us in my home State.
But we do have some question as to how the CSB has been
fulfilling its responsibilities. The EPA inspector report
stated that the CSB's operations are challenged by vacancies in
mission critical positions and an inability to fully use
resources Congress has allocated.
Further, CSB staff are concerned that leadership, internal
review processes, and reported backlogs are impeding CSB's
ability to accomplish its mission. The inspector general also
identified significant data vulnerabilities. So attracting and
maintaining full-time staff is difficult.
I want to say we have many boards in front of us. You are
not alone here. This is an issue I think government wide as we
see a turnover of people in their 60's moving on.
But to only have 12 chemical incident investigators now
working on 17 open investigations, what happens when we have
the next accident? You can see why everything is so delayed and
timely release is pushed back.
One of the questions that came to mind that I have along
those lines is keeping us, as members of the Senate and also
over on the House side, apprised as to what has happened with
investigations in our own States. I think Senator Wicker talked
about something that is parochial to his State. I would ask, I
think it came about that we have had an accident and we were
not made aware of what the final findings were until after it
was made public to the press.
Mr. Owens, I don't know if we can elicit a promise from you
that you will take into better consideration the updates and
final reports before going public. We would certainly like to
have a little bit of a heads up there.
Mr. Owens. Senator, thank you for the question. The answer
is absolutely. That is a commitment I will make here today and
is one we have tried already to do. I was saying before you
arrived, we just released updates on four investigations,
including the Optima Belle incident in 2020 that occurred in
your State.
The agency had stopped doing those updates last year. But
Sylvia Johnson, my fellow board member, and I determined that
these provide very important information to stakeholders as
well as members of the House and Senate. We are going to
continue to do that.
We are more than happy, and in fact, eager to brief you and
your staff on any incident. We can certainly give you a heads
up before we release a final report so you will know what is
going on with it.
Senator Capito. Thank you. That would be much appreciated.
Ms. Sandoval, can I elicit the same response from you, that
you would be more inclusive of giving us a heads up and updates
in our offices?
Ms. Sandoval. I absolutely would be happy to coordinate and
I certainly believe in transparency.
Senator Capito. Good. It is essential for us to in order to
conserve our constituencies but also to provide the best
information to them. A lot of times we are working with county
and city officials to make sure we understand what the reports
are saying. We want to be helpful to you but we also want to be
helpful to those who are going to be interacting.
Mr. Owens, I went through some of what the inspector
general said. Do you agree with the report that came out? Do
you take any issues with the quotes that I decided to kind of
handpick out of there?
Mr. Owens. Thank you for the question. There have been a
lot of inspector general reports. I think most of them are
right on. They are very spot on in terms of the issues they
have identified with the lack of board members, decreasing
personnel, IT and cybersecurity issues. We are working very
hard to address all of those.
I worked very closely with the EPA Inspector General when I
was at EPA during the Obama administration. I am very
appreciative of the work that they do. They have highlighted
some very important issues for us to address.
Senator Capito. In terms of hiring, you do have a much,
much higher attrition rate than the EPA. What plans does the
Board and the agency, or the whole entity have to fill these
much-needed positions?
Mr. Owens. Senator, thank you for the question.
We have already begun the process of filling some of the
more mission critical positions. We hired a new chief
information officer who is already working on a lot of the
cybersecurity issues, working with the CSIA to address some of
those concerns.
We have hired a new chemical incident investigator already.
We are in the process of advertising for another four or five
more. We have hired a couple of new recommendations specialists
already. Those are the people who actually write the
recommendations and work with our investigative staff to help
produce the reports.
But as you very correctly identified, with only 12 or so
investigators who not only go into the field and do the
investigations when we do deployments, they have to come back
and write those reports. They are already overloaded. When we
did the deployment to the BP-Husky Refinery in Ohio back in
September, we had to take a half dozen or so investigators off
of writing reports and send them to the field. That is a very
significant incident that occurred there. They have interviewed
100 people already in conjunction with that incident.
We are very eager to get new staff onboard. We are working
within the resource constraints we have, but we feel very
optimistic that we can do that.
Senator Capito. I certainly hope you can, too. I think
these are important jobs that you are filling and important
reports that you are generating. Obviously in this time of
cybersecurity, it is extremely important in terms of some of
the dangerous materials being produced gladly here in this
Country.
Thank you very much.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much.
I think Senator Ernst was hoping to join us but she is in
another meeting right now. I will ask you one question and we
will see if she returns.
I was thinking about the massive explosion that happened in
Lebanon that leveled a good portion of a city. Does the storage
of chemicals in warehouses also fall into the purview of the
CSB?
Mr. Owens. Senator, thank you for the question.
Yes, it does. The incident in Lebanon involved, as you
know, ammonium nitrate. One of the issues that we had in the
investigation the CSB did was in West Texas at the West Texas
fertilizer facility where there were very, very large amounts
of fertilizer grade ammonium nitrate.
That has been a big issue that the CSB has been
investigating. We are working very closely with EPA and OSHA,
for that matter, both with the EPA's risk management plan,
proposed rule and OSHA's process safety management standard, to
encourage them to take more action from a regulatory
perspective in dealing the storage of substances like
fertilizer grade ammonium nitrate.
Generally, the jurisdiction of the CSB are facilities that
process, use, store, and handle chemical substances. It is
within the parameters of the Clean Air Act, but it is a very
broad jurisdiction.
Senator Merkley. I have just been alerted that a couple
Senators are trying to make their way here, so I will fill in a
little bit here.
After you make these recommendations, do you have any
leverage in getting them implemented? If that leverage exists,
in what form does it exist?
Mr. Owens. The biggest leverage is in the form of the
persuasiveness of the recommendations themselves and
implementability. That is one of the things the agency does
when we are developing recommendations, is discuss them in
advance with the recipients of the recommendations to make sure
they can actually do them. Because it does not do us any good
to issue recommendations that no one can implement.
But in a broader sense, we work very closely with the
recommendation recipients to try to encourage them to implement
them, especially some of the regulatory agencies. For example,
EPA and OSHA, now that I and Sylvia Johnson are on the Board
because of experiences we have had, myself at EPA and herself
working in labor organizations and being very familiar with
OSHA, that we have in a personal sense, we have a better
relationship with both those agencies and have already been in
communication with people there about implementing some of the
longstanding recommendations that we have issued to EPA and
OSHA.
More important than that, with some of the trade
associations as well as individual companies, trying to stay in
touch on a more continuous basis, so that they don't just get a
recommendation from the CSB, as sometimes happened in the past,
and then the agency will check in once a year to see how it is
going. Before you know it five, six, or 7 years have gone by
and a recommendation has just been hanging out there without
being implemented.
So we are working on improving communication with
recommendation recipients, but also making sure we are more in
touch with recipients up front.
Senator Merkley. You don't just want that recommendation to
be implemented at that particular company, but across the scope
of that industry or related circumstances.
Mr. Owens. That is correct, Senator. Historically, the
agency has done a very good job of looking at issues that are
broader than just the individual facility.
The recommendations themselves are based on the specific
facts of the incidents that occurred, but especially when we
have noticed patterns over the years of incidents where it is
one of those things that, does it happen at one facility but
either has happened or can happen in other facilities?
The agency has tried to make the recommendations as broadly
applicable as it can. That is where working with trade
associations, for example, and with regulatory agencies really
comes into play.
Senator Merkley. The fact you don't issue citations, you
don't deliver information for criminal prosecutions, helps
greatly in actually getting to the root of the problem and
being able to understand the challenge in a way that allows
those recommendations to carry forward.
Mr. Owens. Yes, Senator, that is absolutely right. It is a
nonregulatory agency. Again, our ability to get things done is
dependent on the relationships we have developed, the factual
accuracy of the reports, the implementability and
persuasiveness of the recommendations.
But the fact we do not have individual enforcement
authority or regulatory authority as an agency, having been on
the other side of that, both as a regulator and representing
parties who did work with regulators, I like this situation
much better, because we can work more closely with entities
that we are investigating and really get to the causes of the
problems and find solutions to them.
Senator Merkley. Ms. Sandoval, do you want to add anything
to the points Mr. Owens has made?
Ms. Sandoval. Yes, thank you, Senator. Here is an area
where I also think my academic background may be helpful. As a
law professor, certainly when I write law review articles, I
can recommend things, but I have no power except the power of
persuasion and analysis. Even with my students, I may assign
things and hopefully they will turn in their assignments.
So I am certainly accustomed to working through the power
of persuasion. I wanted to also underscore the importance of
working in advance with a large group of stakeholders.
I also have regulatory experience and experience in looking
at root cause analysis, and as well as doing the enforcement
side. I think the independence of the Chemical Safety Board is
important because it really creates an opportunity, as Board
Member Owens said, to look at the facts of that specific
incident but also to take a broad look at other incidents that
are arising.
A couple things I would like to highlight is we have seen
growing examples of where the loss of electricity has actually
caused chemical incidents as happened in the Arkema fire in
Texas, and as well flooding. We need to be looking forward to
some of those commonalities to ensure we are not just
responsive to chemical safety incidents, but we are also
thinking proactively with companies, with insurers, with
communities and first responders so we can hopefully prevent
some of these incidents and damage in the future.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much.
I am going to wrap up now with three questions that this
committee asks all nominees who appear before it. They are
basically yes or no questions. If you feel the necessity of
answering in a more complicated fashion, I understand. The
press asks electees to answer yes or no questions all the time,
when we see things, but I think these are important points.
So I will ask each of you, do you agree, if confirmed, to
appear before this committee or designated members of this
committee and other appropriate committees of the Congress and
provide information subject to appropriate and necessary
security protections with respect to your responsibilities? Mr.
Owens?
Mr. Owens. Yes, Senator.
Senator Merkley. Ms. Sandoval.
Ms. Sandoval. Yes, Senator.
Senator Merkley. Second, do you agree to ensure that
testimony, briefings, documents, electronic and other forms of
communication of information are provided to this committee and
its staff and other appropriate committees in a timely manner?
Ms. Sandoval. Yes, Senator Merkley.
Mr. Owens. Yes, Senator.
Senator Merkley. Thank you. Do you know of any matters
which you may or may not have disclosed that might place you in
a conflict of interest if you are confirmed?
Mr. Owens. No, Senator.
Ms. Sandoval. No, Senator.
Senator Merkley. With that, I appreciate my colleagues
coming to share in this hearing.
We have a standard way of wrapping up. I ask unanimous
consent of all the committee members present to submit into the
record a variety of materials related to today's hearing.
Hearing no objections, so ordered.
[There was no material related to today's hearing submitted
prior to the time of print.]
Senator Merkley. Finally, Senators will be allowed to
submit written questions for the record through the close of
business on Wednesday, November 23d. We will compile those
questions and send them to our witnesses who we will ask to
reply by Wednesday, November 30th. So, the 25th to the 30th, we
would appreciate you giving intense attention to any questions
that are submitted.
Thank you for working to address such important issues and
being willing to serve the American public in this capacity.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 10:45 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
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