Chemical Safety

In the March 2, 2011 Federal Register, the Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) announced that it is implementing enhanced inspection, investigation, and enforcement authority conferred on the Secretary of Transportation by the Hazardous Materials Transportation Safety and Security Reauthorization Act of 2005.

In a July 27, 2010 Federal Register Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), in coordination with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), is proposing to enhance existing attendance requirements for explosives stored during transportation by designating the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standard 498 as the Federally approved standard for the construction and maintenance of safe havens used for unattended storage of Division 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 explosives.

In a July 27, 2010 Federal Register  Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) is proposing to revise its procedures for applying for a special permit to require an applicant to provide sufficient information about its operations to enable the agency to evaluate the applicant’s fitness and the safety impact of operations that would be authorized in the special permit. In addition, PHMSA is providing an on-line application option.

DATES: Submit comments by August 26, 2010.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) is soliciting comments on the development of the 2012 Emergency Response Guidebook (ERG2012), particularly from those who have experience using the 2008 Emergency Response Guidebook (ERG).

The ERG is for use by emergency services personnel to provide guidance for initial response to hazardous materials incidents. The ERG2012 will supersede the ERG2008. The development of the ERG2012 is a joint effort involving the transportation agencies of the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

On June 28, 2010, U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) board members voted on a series of 18 urgent recommendations aimed at preventing fires and explosions caused when fuel gas is used to clean or purge gas pipes of debris, air, or other substances, typically during facility construction and maintenance. 

EPA found in 1985 that methylene chloride (MC) is a probable human carcinogen and poses a long-term danger to human health. OSHA published its final MC Standard (29 CFR 1910.1052) on January 10, 1997, reducing the permissible exposure limit from an 8-hour-time-eighted-average (TWA) of 500 parts per million (ppm) to 25 ppm.  

Limited research on environmental influences on cancer; conflicting or inadequate exposure measurement, assessment, and classification; and ineffective regulation of environmental chemical and other hazardous exposures are key issues for reducing environmental cancer risk, according to the report from the Presidents Cancer Panel, Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk: What We Can Do Now published May 6, 2010. 

U.S. Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, D-NJ, has announced legislation designed to overhaul the “Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976” (TSCA). Lautenberg, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics and Environmental Health, introduced on April 15th  the “Safe Chemicals Act of 2010” (S.3209), a bill that he says would place the burden on industry to prove that chemicals are safe in order to stay in the market and require the safety testing of all industrial chemicals. 

On March 22, the White House press office announced President Obama's intention to nominate Rafael Moure-Eraso as Chairman of the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) and Mark A. Griffon as a Board Member of the CSB.  Brief biographies of the two nominees follow: