When it comes to chemical safety, Donald Trump’s first term was a mess. In 2017, for example, the president nominated someone to lead the Environmental Protection Agency’s office of chemical safety, despite the nominee’s background helping chemical companies fight against chemical safety regulations.
Two years later, the Trump administration took steps to weaken safeguards on how companies store dangerous chemicals. The Republican and his team also reversed a ban on toxic chemicals known to pose serious health threats.
In his second term, the administration is picking up where it left off. The Washington Post recently reported:
An independent agency that investigates chemical disasters — including fatal fires and explosions at chemical plants and oil refineries nationwide — would shutter by October 2026 under little-noticed language in White House budget documents released Friday. The proposal to eliminate the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board is almost certain to face pushback from lawmakers in both parties.
That’s true. In fact, there’s nothing especially partisan or ideological about concerns related to chemical safety and addressing chemical hazards.
The Post’s report added that Congress established the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board — known informally as the CSB — in 1990. Since becoming operational in 1998, the agency “has played a key role in probing the root causes of major chemical accidents. It has also issued safety recommendations that have informed regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.”
But what I find truly amazing about this is that even chemical makers themselves think Trump and his team are going too far in their efforts to help the chemical industry. The New York Times reported: The board has a reputation for working collaboratively with companies, said Shakeel H. Kadri, executive director of the Center for Chemical Process Safety, an industry-funded organization that works on safety issues, adding that it also doesn’t penalize companies or issue new regulations. ‘It has a unique mandate to do independent investigations,’ Mr. Kadri said, that’s invaluable particularly at small- and medium-sized companies, where a lot of chemical accidents tend to happen but also where companies have fewer resources to investigate root causes themselves. The board’s findings are also used in other countries and in academia, he said. Rick Engler, who was appointed to the CSB by Barack Obama, told the Times that failing to investigate chemical disasters would be akin to failing to investigate airplane accidents and losing the opportunity to learn from them. According to the White House’s budget request, the Chemical Safety Board duplicates capabilities of other agencies to produce “unprompted studies” of the chemicals industry. It is a position rejected by Democrats, Republicans, former officials, public safety advocates and at least some in the chemicals industry.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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