Chemical plant owners and operators need to carefully review a recent federal appellate court decision that could substantially expand process safety management (PSM) considerations and related chemical safety and accidental release regulatory requirements under EPA’s Risk Management Plan (RMP) program.
Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, affirmed OSHA’s interpretation and jurisdiction of its PSM program in ruling that a vessel does not actually need to contain a highly hazardous chemical to be subject to PSM — in this case a steam boiler — as long as the vessel is interconnected to a process that is subject to the standard.