[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 137 (Thursday, October 17, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10665-S10666]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          WORKPLACE SAFETY IN THE CHEMICAL PROCESSING INDUSTRY

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I would like to bring to the Senate's 
attention a disturbing new Federal study related to chemical plant 
safety. This report, dated September 24th from the U.S. Chemical Safety 
and Hazard Investigation Board, describes the hazards of what are 
called reactive chemicals. These are substances that can react 
violently, decompose, burn or explode when managed improperly in 
industrial settings. Process accidents involving reactive chemicals are 
reported to be responsible for significant numbers of deaths and 
injuries and considerable property losses in U.S. industries.
  The investigation by the independent, non-regulatory board points out 
significant deficiencies in federal safety regulations that are meant 
to control the dangers from chemical processes. As the result of these 
inadequacies, more than half of the serious accidents caused by 
reactive chemicals occurred in processes that were exempt from the 
major Federal process safety rules.
  These regulations known as the OSHA Process Safety Management 
standard and the EPA Risk Management Program rule -were mandated in the 
landmark 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. Unfortunately, OSHA chose to 
regulate just a small handful of reactive chemicals only 38 substances 
out of the many thousands of chemicals used in commerce. EPA for its 
part did not regulate any reactive chemicals at all.
  The tragic results of these omissions now seem apparent. The Chemical 
Safety Board uncovered 167 serious reactive chemical incidents in the 
U.S. over the last 20 years. More than half of these occurred after 
OSHA's rules were adopted in 1992. Serious chemical explosions and 
fires continue to occur in states around the country. Recent fatal 
accidents in Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey are among 
those catalogued in the Chemical Safety Board's investigation.
  Take the case, for example, of 45-year old Rodney Gott, a supervisor 
at the Phillips Chemical complex in Pasadena, Texas, outside of 
Houston. On numerous occasions Mr. Gott was spared as deadly accidents 
occurred at his plant and those nearby. On one occasion in 1989, 23 of 
his coworkers were killed during a chemical explosion at his plant. But 
eleven years later, as he worked next to a 12,000 gallon storage tank 
containing reactive chemical residues, he fell victim to a huge 
explosion. Sixty-nine of his colleagues were injured, including some 
who were burned almost beyond recognition. Rodney Gott never made it 
out.
  As a result of the loophole in OSHA and EPA regulations, many 
industrial facilities that handle reactive chemicals are not required 
to follow basic good engineering and safety management practices 
practices such as hazard analysis, worker training, and maintenance of 
process equipment.
  Frankly, this is hard to understand. These sound to me like practices 
that should be followed universally in the chemical industry. There 
should be little disagreement about the need to require these practices 
wherever dangerous reactive chemicals are in use.
  Nonetheless, OSHA has failed to take action to improve its process 
safety standard. The last administration had regulation of reactive 
chemicals on its agenda, but did not complete work on the task before 
leaving office. In December 2001, the new OSHA administration 
inexplicably dropped rulemaking on reactive chemicals from their 
published regulatory agenda. I convened

[[Page S10666]]

an oversight hearing of the Subcommittee on Employment, Safety and 
Training in July of this year to examine this issue among others.
  OSHA Assistant Secretary John Henshaw appeared at that hearing. While 
he earlier stated that reactive chemical safety is a ``vital interest'' 
of the agency, he would not commit to me any particular timetable to 
put this important rulemaking back on track. I am deeply concerned at 
OSHA's failure to issue new and revised safety standards on an 
efficient schedule and at the low priority this item appears to have on 
OSHA's agenda. As the Chemical Safety Board's compelling statistics 
make clear, every year of delay on this regulation will cause 
additional needless deaths among America's working families. And there 
is ever present risk of a public catastrophe.
  The Chemical Safety Board has now issued strong recommendations to 
both OSHA and EPA to address the safety of reactive chemicals through 
new regulations. President Bush's new appointee to head the Board, 
Carolyn Merritt, endorsed both these actions. A 30-year veteran of the 
chemical industry, she lamented the loss of life from reactive 
chemicals, noting that ``it is much cheaper to invest in sound safety 
management systems than to pay the cost of a major accident.'' I hope 
this is a view that prevails within the administration.
  By statute, OSHA and EPA must respond to the Chemical Safety Board's 
recommendations within 180 days. I urge both Assistant Secretary 
Henshaw and Administrator Whitman not to wait, but to immediately 
accept these recommendations and begin enacting new standards. Every 
day without these standards is another day of peril for workers like 
Rodney Gott, and for the thousands of people who live and work around 
chemical facilities nationwide.
  The Executive Summary of the Chemical Safety Board's investigation 
Improving Reactive Hazard Management is too lengthy to include in the 
record. It can be found on the Chemical Safety Board Web site: http://
www.csb.gov/info/docs/2002/ExecutiveSummary.pdf

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