The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday weakened a rule governing how companies store dangerous chemicals. The standards were enacted under the Obama administration in the wake of a 2013 explosion in West, Texas, that killed 15 people, including 12 first responders.
Under the new standards, companies will not have to provide public access to information about what kinds of chemicals are stored on their sites. They also will not have to undertake several measures aimed at preventing accidents, such as analyzing safer technology and procedures, conducting a “root-cause analysis” after a major chemical release or obtaining a third-party audit once an accident has occurred.
In a statement, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the revised “Risk Management Program” rule addresses concerns raised by security experts, who feared releasing the location of the country’s chemical stores could provide a road map for terrorists, as well as others. Wheeler’s predecessor at the EPA, Scott Pruitt, suspended the Obama administration rule in his first month on the job after chemical companies and refiners complained the 2017 guidance imposed too much of a burden on them.
“Under the Trump Administration, EPA is listening to our first responders and homeland security experts,” Wheeler said. “Today’s final action addresses emergency responders’ longstanding concerns and maintains important public safety measures while saving Americans roughly $88 million per year.”
Federal regulators sought to tighten handling procedures for flammable and toxic chemicals after more than 80,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate stored at a fertilizer plan in the central Texas town of West caught fire April 7, 2013, killing 15 people and injuring 160. Investigators concluded in 2016 that the company had stored the ammonium nitrate in an unsafe manner, though arson was the direct cause of the blaze.
In a document released by the EPA on Wednesday, the agency said one of the reasons it decided to revisit the standards, which apply to more than 12,000 facilities across the country, is that the 2013 fire “was caused by a criminal act (arson) rather than being the result of an accident.”
But environmental and public health groups said the changes would leave chemical and refining operations vulnerable to future accidents.
Criminal prosecution and convictions of polluters have fallen to quarter-century lows under the EPA, according to Justice Department statistics.
The administration says it’s focusing on quality over quantity in pollution cases, but an Associated Press analysis found little sign of that so far in court cases closed in 2019.
EPA spokeswoman Melissa Sullivan said Thursday it was “not unusual” for complex criminal cases to take years to move from initial investigations to filing of charges.
“We have devoted substantial resources to larger, more complex investigations with more benefit to the environment and public health,” Justice Department spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle said in a statement. “Such cases have resulted in billions of dollars in criminal penalties.”
“By any recognized metric, the odds of corporate polluters facing criminal consequences have reached a modern low,” stated Tim Whitehouse, a former EPA enforcement attorney and executive director of the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility watchdog and advocacy group.
Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse compiled the records from Justice Department and EPA cases for fiscal year 2019, which ended in September.
The EPA sent 190 cases to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution, the figures show. That’s up from 166 last year, the second year of the Trump administration, but otherwise the lowest since George H.W. Bush’s first term in 1990.
The Justice Department filed 75 EPA prosecutions in fiscal year 2019. That’s the lowest number since 1994, and down from a high of 198 in Bill Clinton’s second term.
Justice Department investigators won 60 federal convictions on pollution cases referred by the EPA, the fewest since 1995, according to the Syracuse University figures.
Information for this article was contributed by Juliet Eilperin of The Washington Post and by Ellen Knickmeyer of The Associated Press.