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The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) released a report on March 24, marking the 20th anniversary of fatal explosions and fires at the BP America Texas City Refinery in Texas City, Texas. The March 23, 2005, explosions and fires at the BP America refinery led to 15 deaths, 180 injuries, and significant […]
Back to Basics is a weekly feature that highlights important but possibly overlooked information that any EHS professional should know. This week, we examine compliance with OSHA’s Process Safety Management standard. Is your workplace covered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Process Safety Management (PSM) standard? Application of the PSM standard was covered […]
Every 3 years, you need to complete an audit of your process safety management (PSM) processes. Often, the emphasis is on the standard and the facility—but in order to conduct a thorough and effective compliance audit, you also need a skilled auditor. And that means more than someone who knows what the standard says.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited Philadelphia Energy Solutions for serious violations of the process safety management (PSM) standard and proposed $132,600 in penalties.
A “chain of failures” in emergency response and process safety management led to the November 2014 deaths of four workers following a methyl mercaptan release at the DuPont Plant in La Porte, Texas, according to the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB).
The Process Safety Management (PSM) standard applies to equipment like boilers that don’t involve highly hazardous chemicals if the equipment is interconnected with or located near equipment that does, the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission recently decided.
A provision in the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018 (Farm Bill), which passed in the U.S. House of Representatives in June 2018, would provide a definition that clarifies that retail facilities that receive more than half of their income from direct sales to end users or consumers, including farmers and ranchers, are exempt from […]
A little over a year ago, OSHA issued a memorandum revising the agency’s interpretation of the PSM standard’s retail facility exemption. However, on September 23, 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated the agency’s revised interpretation.
EPA’s Chemical Accident Prevention Program, more commonly referred to as the Risk Management Program (RMP), and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Process Safety Management (PSM) program will always go hand in hand, as both seek to prevent chemical process accidents and protect workers and the public from the sometimes devastating consequences of such […]
EPA’s Chemical Accident Prevention Program, more commonly referred to as the Risk Management Program (RMP), and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Process Safety Management (PSM) program will always go hand in hand, as both seek to prevent chemical process accidents and protect workers and the public from the sometimes devastating consequences of such […]