The Changing Tide of US Process Safety/Risk Management Regulations - How CCPS Risk Based Process Safety and Vision 20/20 Concepts Can Harmonize Future Requirements

Over the past several years there have been numerous industrial accidents which have occurred that have brought the effectiveness of OSHA’s Process Safety Management (PSM) Standard and EPA’s Accidental Release Risk Management Planning (RMP) Rule under review. On August 1, 2013, President Obama, largely in response to the explosion at the West Fertilizer Company in Texas, signed an Executive Order mandating that the relevant agencies improve” the safety and security of the chemical industry in the United States”. As a result, both OSHA and EPA have recently requested information on sweeping new proposed changes for both the PSM and RMP regulations.   This paper/presentation will examine OSHA’s and EPA’s proposed changes in the context of how they can be harmonized and streamlined by utilizing the basic concepts of the CCPS Risk Based Process Safety (RBPS) Guidelines and CCPS Vision 20/20 themes. As such, the paper will outline a suggested path forward for US regulations that incorporate the basic CCPS Vision 20/20 tenets to establish US rules that are harmonized with leading generally accepted global Process Safety practices.