I am pleased to have this opportunity to present information about the importance of chemical safety, community right to know, and our plan to balance these benefits with the continuing challenge of protecting national security.
Following the world's largest chemical accident in Bhopal, India, Congress passed the Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act in 1986. The law enhanced community planning and provided significant new information on chemical handling and releases to the public. Because of the public availability of chemical information, awareness of the potential danger from chemical use and production has grown. We have seen many facilities take steps to implement safety practices that prevent accidents. But much work remains to be done.
According to EPA's Emergency Response Notification System (ERNS), more than 402,000 accidents involving hazardous chemicals were reported in the United States in the 12 years from 1987 to 1998. These accidents resulted in nearly 4,000 deaths, 25,300 injuries, and 1,400 evacuations affecting 147,000 individuals. Eighty percent of these accidents occurred at industrial and commercial facilities. Propane releases are not required to be reported to our ERNS system; however, we received reports on more than 1,000 propane accidents from 1987 to 1998. The largest amount released was 450,000 pounds and the average amount released was more than 5,000 pounds. These reported accidents resulted in 32 deaths, 259 injuries, and evacuations in 32 communities.
The core elements of process safety management required by the Risk Management Program rule directly address such accidents. Therefore, EPA expects that this regulation will ultimately reduce the number of accidents, injuries, and fatalities.
Risk Management Program
Through passage of Section 112(r) of the CAA in 1990, Congress recognized the need for facilities to develop or improve their planning and accident prevention programs to reduce the risk of accidents and allow local communities to enhance emergency preparedness. The law also recognized that citizens should have access to information about the hazards these facilities present.
Under the chemical accident provisions of 112(r), facilities must conduct hazard assessments, establish accident prevention programs, and bolster emergency response planning. These requirements are implemented by EPA's Risk Management Program regulations and are aimed at reducing the likelihood and severity of chemical releases. Facilities that are covered under these regulations must submit a Risk Management Plan or RMP. Under the law, these plans, except for Confidential Business Information, must be available to the public, the federal Chemical Safety Board, and state and local officials involved in planning for and responding to chemical emergencies.
Under EPA's regulatory requirements, by June 21, 1999, facilities that handle large quantities of very hazardous chemicals will submit Risk Management Plans to EPA for the first time. In these plans, facilities will describe how they will prevent or minimize chemical accidents and how they will promptly respond to accidents that do occur.
Listing Criteria
Congress told EPA to regulate at least 100 substances ``which, in the case of an accidental release, are known to cause or may reasonably be anticipated to cause death, injury or serious adverse effects to human health or the environment.'' The law said EPA should use, but was not limited to, the list of extremely hazardous substances regulated under EPCRA. Furthermore, the law said EPA could modify the list of covered substances when the Agency thought it was appropriate to do so.
The law specified the criteria EPA must consider in deciding whether to list a substance under section 112(r). Those criteria are:
The severity of any acute adverse health effects associated with accidental releases of the substance;
The likelihood of accidental releases of the substance; and
The potential magnitude of human exposure to accidental releases of the substance.
Concerns have been raised about EPA's decision to list flammable substances including propane, and other highly flammable substances used as fuel. EPA applied the statutory criteria and developed a list of 77 highly toxic and 63 highly flammable substances, that, based on their intrinsic hazard and regardless of their use, pose the greatest risk of harm to the public and the environment if they were accidentally released. In fact, accident history shows that accidental releases of several of the listed toxic or flammable substances have had a devastating impact on the public and the environment. Further, legislative history suggests that flammable substances, as well as toxic chemicals and other substances, that meet the statutory criteria for listing should be regulated under section 112(r) (see, e.g., report of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, U.S. Senate, accompanying S. 1630, Dec. 20, 1989, p.211, 219-20). Consequently, EPA believes that facilities that handle these highly toxic or flammable substances must take action to prevent accidental releases that could harm the public or the environment.
At the same time this list was published, EPA issued a supplemental notice asking for comment on whether EPA should exempt flammable substances when used as a fuel. In particular, the Agency requested submission of any data showing that flammable substances when used as a fuel are less hazardous than flammable substances when used for other purposes. In response to that notice, no accident data were submitted to support such a finding, and EPA found accident data indicating that fuels were responsible for many accidents including several that resulted in deaths, injuries, and large scale evacuations and property damage. Propane is propane, regardless of whether it is used as a fuel or whether it is a process feedstock. Therefore, in the final Risk Management Program rule issued on June 20, 1996, EPA did not provide a fuel use exemption. That rule was submitted to Congress for review under the Congressional Review Act (subtitle E of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act), and Congress did not act in response to that submission.
Major Accidents
After Bhopal, the second largest industrial chemical accident in history occurred at a propane gas terminal in 1984 in Mexico City. Ruptures in several propane storage tanks caused an accident that killed 650 individuals and left 6,400 injured. The ruptures produced a fire ball estimated to be 1,200 feet in diameter. The heat from the rupturing tanks and the damage from flying tank debris allowed the release of more propane from other tanks. Some tanks weighing 20 tons skyrocketed, landing nearly 4,000 feet away.
The United States also has experienced devastating accidents related to propane. On New Year's Eve 1998, an accidental propane release and fire at a facility near Des Moines, Iowa, resulted in the evacuation of 10,000 nearby residents and the closure of a major interstate transportation route. At least seven other major accidents occurred at propane facilities in 1998. In total, these accidents involved at least 4 deaths, 22 injuries, many thousands of dollars of property damage, community evacuations, and other offsite impacts.
The hazard associated with propane and other highly flammable substances is not abstract or hypothetical. Accidents at propane facilities happen every year, and they often involve causes that are directly related to poor hazard control. The core elements of process safety management required by the Risk Management Program rule directly address such causes and prevent accidents. Risk Management Programs implemented by facilities, such as the one in Des Moines, will improve chemical safety in two ways. First, they will ensure that such facilities identify and address the hazards posed by their handling of flammable substances. Second, and equally important, they will provide information to the public about the risk of accidental releases and facilities' efforts to prevent and mitigate any releases. The availability of these plans is expected to stimulate communication among industry, local governments, and the public to improve accident prevention and emergency response practices.
Consistent with the purpose of Section 112(r), EPA provides national leadership and assistance to communities so that they will have the tools and expertise they need to receive, assimilate, and analyze all chemical accident prevention data, and to take appropriate measures to reduce chemical accidents.
Compliance Assistance
EPA has labored to lessen the regulatory burden on industry and in particular small businesses. At the same time, EPA has been mindful of the fact that even a small business if it handles more than a threshold quantity of a hazardous chemical can have an accident that harms the public and the environment if the chemical is not used safely.
To ease the regulatory burden on these facilities, EPA has prepared model plans for propane users and other industry sectors, which should make compliance with the Risk Management Program rule relatively easy. That guidance recognizes the safety practices embodied in existing industry standards, such as the National Fire Protection Association Standard 58, and encourages propane facilities to take credit for those practices when implementing their risk management program and preparing their risk management plan. EPA also distributes free software that makes preparation and submission of Risk Management Plans easy. And, EPA Regional offices hold workshops to help facilities answer compliance concerns.
EPA has also provided guidance to help small propane users determine if they are subject to the RMP rule. Facilities with small tanks need to know when the amounts in their tanks must be added together to determine if the facility is subject to the rule. Tanks located close together can cause a domino effect if an accident were to occur. The guidance provides facilities with information about safe distances. According to EPA's information, most small users' tanks are likely to be far enough apart that they will not be subject to the rule. This guidance in combination with the 10,000 pound threshold will result in the exclusion of most of these small users.
Issues Raised
Concern has been expressed that the Agency has reached beyond the intended scope of the Clean Air Act to regulate small businesses such as farms, restaurants, hotels, and other small-quantity commercial propane users that use relatively small amounts of propane. As mentioned previously, EPA believes the majority of these small-quantity users will not be covered.
The principal intent of regulations issued under Section 112(r) is to prevent and mitigate accidents at industrial facilities that present the most risk to the public. While accidental releases involving as little as 10,000 pounds of propane can easily affect workers, EPA is reexamining whether such releases generally constitute a serious risk to the public beyond the fence line. However, EPA believes facilities storing large quantities of propane, such as propane distributors and other industrial facilities, should submit Risk Management Plans. Accidents at these types of facilities have ranked among the most severe industrial accidents on record.
And, while EPA encourages use of clean burning fuels such as propane, it is a highly flammable hazardous material and must be handled safely. Additionally, alternative fuels are likely to be regulated under other laws. EPA expects some inventory reduction to take place, but we believe that most businesses are unlikely to switch fuels in response to the relatively modest cost of implementing the RMP rule. We expect a small user to spend approximately $500 to comply with the rule.
Electronic Submission/Access
Next, I want to address concerns about the availability of worst-case chemical accident information on the Internet. To make RMP information more useful, EPA was urged by our stakeholders to collect and distribute that information electronically. Our experience with Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act implementation taught us that electronic data collection and distribution not only would be more efficient than collecting information on paper, but also that it would improve data quality and allow State and local governments to apply their limited program resources to use the information to reduce chemical risks rather than to manage the data.
On November 6, 1998, following a lengthy debate, EPA announced that on the advice of security experts at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice and others, we would not post the off-site consequence analysis data on the Internet. All other RMP information, except for confidential business information, will be available on the Web.
Since November, some members of Congress and others have expressed concern about what is being done to prevent someone other than EPA from posting the OCA data on the Internet. On February 10, I testified before the House of Representatives Committees on Commerce, Subcommittee on Health and Environment, and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations about the issue of public disclosure of OCA data. As I testified, the challenge before us is to determine how to provide citizens with the data they need to make informed decisions about reducing risk, while not providing an easy targeting tool. Therefore, the goal is to strike the proper balance between chemical risk reduction and national security.
EPA is now engaged in an interagency process involving the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Council, the Department of Justice, the Office of Management and Budget and the National Institute of Standards and Technology to explore potential ways of striking that balance. We will keep you informed as those discussions progress.
EPA also continues to work with an advisory committee of stakeholders to identify potential local sources of RMP data. This committee is considering using the facilities themselves, the State Emergency Response Commission, the Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC), or other State and local government sources. We also have met with the Library Programs Service of the U.S. Government Printing Office to discuss their providing access to all RMP data at 1,300 Federal Depository Libraries nationwide.
In addition, we are developing procedures for EPA's response to FOIA requests, such as: Contacting each requestor to inquire whether the individual is seeking the entire database and describing what information already is publicly available on the Internet, which is all RMP data except OCA; Asking whether the RMP database without facility identification information would suffice; Explaining the rationale behind EPA's decision not to post OCA data on the Internet; and Asking whether providing the data in a format that would deter copying or posting on the Internet would suffice.
EPA understands that concern over information access and the risk of terrorism is not limited to RMPs. This, and other similar challenges will continue to present themselves as we move further into the Information Age. EPA is positioning itself to meet these challenges, in part, by creating a new, high-level office focused solely on information - information technology, information management and information policy.
Even as we complete the design of this new office, EPA is committing to better understanding the broader issue of balancing the two important goals of encouraging health and environmental protection through public access to information and protecting national security. EPA's new information office will engage a broad range of stakeholders in a dialogue on this and other information issues.
Conclusion
EPA is committed to providing citizens with RMP information that will help them work with government and industry to protect themselves, their families, and their communities from chemical accidents and to make other informed decisions about their lives. The Agency also is committed to providing this information in a way that is responsible, and takes into account of the security concerns raised by the FBI and others. We will continue to work with all interested parties to meet this challenge.
Furthermore, EPA continues to examine concerns raised to us about the regulatory burden of this rule. As I described earlier, we have responded to stakeholder concerns by producing tailored and detailed guidance, model plans, and free RMP software. We believe that these efforts will considerably ease the reporting burden and expense associated with the regulation. Our goal remains to protect human health and the environment, but we are ever vigilant that we must accomplish this goal in the most efficient and least burdensome way.