Policy Concentrates INDUSTRIAL SAFETY
Delay of U.S. chemical safety rule challenged EPA regulation to prevent industrial accidents is focus of lawsuits Eleven state attorneys general say they will file suit to block the Trump Administration’s delay of a final regulation intended to protect communities and workers from chemical accidents. Their suit will join similar legal challenges by community groups and labor unions that also oppose the Trump Environmental Protection Agency’s postponement of the rule, which was issued during the last days of the Obama Administration. The delay’s backers are acting too. Twelve states filed legal arguments with a federal court earlier this month supporting EPA’s action. Pressure from industry groups, including the American Chemistry Council, a chemical industry trade association, led EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt in June to delay the effective date of the rule until February 2019. “We are seeking additional time to review the program so that we can fully evaluate the public comments raised by multiple petitioners and consider other issues that may benefit from additional
public input,” Pruitt said when he pushed back the effective date. The new regulation calls for better coordination EPA’s rule on chemical accident prevention applies to among emergency respond- refineries, chemical manufacturing plants, and other ers; independent, third-par- facilities that use hazardous substances, such as this ty audits of companies Shell facility in Texas. after an accident or near cuit said EPA could change those Clean Air accident; and consideration Act regulations but not delay their impleof inherently safer manufacturing apmentation while the agency develops an proaches. However, the rule specifies that alternative. The case about the postponed implementation of safer approaches need chemical risk management rule is before occur only when “practical.” the same court. In their challenge, the community The industrial safety regulation grew groups and unions say Pruitt’s lengthy from concerns over an accident in West, delay of the regulation is not allowed unTexas, when ammonium nitrate fertilizer der the Clean Air Act, in which Congress exploded at a retail farm warehouse in established the chemical safety provisions 2013, killing 15, mostly firefighters. With 25 years ago. The challengers, mostly local fanfare, then-president Barack Obama organizations, say they hope to make legal ordered agencies to assess and possibly arguments similar to those against the overhaul U.S. chemical-related regulaTrump Administration’s delay of regulations. After three years of review, the Risk tions limiting methane leaks from oil and Management Plan regulation was the only gas drilling and production. change to become final.—JEFF JOHNSON, In the methane case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Cirspecial to C&EN
Valuing benefits beyond cancer prevention Despite scientific uncertainties, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency needs to estimate the value of all significant public health benefits when it considers regulating pollutants, a new report says (Science 2017, DOI: 10.1126/science. aam8204). As it decides whether and how much to control pollution, EPA estimates costs to industry and others as well as benefits from improved public health. But when the agency calculates the dollar value of these benefits, it often fails to include all available health-related data, points out a team of researchers from EPA, New York University, and the University of California, San Francisco.
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C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | AUGUST 7, 2017
EPA has long estimated the monetary benefits from reducing exposure to pollutants linked to cancer. It also considers noncancer health effects, such as asthma and other lung problems, when determining the benefits of cuts in major air pollutants, such as ground-level ozone. But frequently, the agency omits noncancer effects from other contaminants, such as those in drinking water or hazardous waste sites, the researchers point out. “Thus, benefits of preventing exposure to chemicals linked to adverse health outcomes such as birth defects, neurodevelopmental effects, and cardiovascular disease are typically not quantified,” the paper says. This could lead the
agency to overlook significant pluses when it considers whether and how much to regulate pollution, the authors suggest. Scientific uncertainty associated with toxicity or epidemiology data has led the agency to exclude such information as it estimates benefits of regulation, explains coauthor Tracey Woodruff of the UCSF School of Medicine. But analytical calculations can account for uncertainty about adverse effects from pollutant exposure in cost-benefit assessments provided to EPA’s decision-makers, she says. Policy-makers need the most complete information possible so they can make “more scientifically informed decisions,” Woodruff says.—CHERYL HOGUE
C R E D I T: CE N T E R FO R LA N D US E I N T E R PR E TAT I O N P H OTO A RCH IV E
REGULATION
