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U.S. Chemical Safety Board could be eliminated

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386 points z991 | 3 comments | 23 Jun 25 23:53 UTC | HN request time: 0.435s | source
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drjolly ◴[24 Jun 25 01:15 UTC] No.44361936[source]▶
I think this is pretty consistent with the old school 1950s views of the current administration. Companies can prioritize profits over people again. Yeah, dump in the rivers, dump in the woods, just drive around in circles dumping in an empty lot. You don’t need masks- give everyone cancer and blow some shit up, maybe get some acid burns. Super-fund sites? When was the last one we had anyway- we need more of ‘em- lots more! Let’s let the kids eat the lead paint and complain of the smells wafting into their cars from the chemical, paper, etc. plants on road trips, just like the olden days!
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nerdsniper ◴[24 Jun 25 01:37 UTC] No.44362062[source]▶
I wrote elsewhere:

> Please note that the CSB is not an enforcement agency - they don’t assign fault or levee fines or bring any charges or write any regulation.

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hn_throwaway_99 ◴[24 Jun 25 01:51 UTC] No.44362147[source]▶
I don't necessarily think that goes against what the parent commenter is saying. The CSB does apparently do investigations and root cause analysis of chemical accidents and spills - in my mind they sound analogous to the NTSB and how they investigate aviation accidents.

So, by that analogy, I think the NTSB is amazing and has done crucial, instrumental work that makes flying safer (as the saying goes, aviation regulations are written in blood). So I think getting rid of the CSB sounds colossally stupid, and I think it's elimination could lead to a willingness by companies to be more careless when it comes to chemical safety.

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1. jandrewrogers ◴[24 Jun 25 03:51 UTC] No.44362704[source]▶
To be honest, I’d never heard of them until now. Industry runs on Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS), which are privately produced. The thing is, the hazards for chemicals at least are highly standardized. The nature of e.g. ammonium perchlorate doesn’t change much depending on where it comes from. No one needs to write their own MSDS.

Safety operationally is regulated by OSHA, based on the MSDS among other things. It isn’t entirely clear where the CSB fits in. There aren’t many surprises in chemistry and OSHA is aggressive.

The safety protocols are pretty straightforward forward and strict, there isn’t much novelty in chemical disasters. Chemical disasters are virtually always for stupid reasons covered by other regulatory organizations.

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2. nerdsniper ◴[24 Jun 25 04:19 UTC] No.44362820[source]▶
MSDS is just a small part of process safety. CSB deals with the very largest industrial accidents. These are at plants where millions of pounds of chemical flow through any pipe every day.

The examples you mention about MSDS sounds relevant to a large building/warehouse, but we’re talking about massive industrial complexes nearly equal to the area encompassing all of Seattle+Bellevue+Redmond+Renton+Tukwila.

At that scale, there are still plenty of surprises. Like, “oh shit, I didn’t realize the new version of the lubricating oil the manufacturer recommends for our massive pumps have a different additive that reacts with an impurity in our process stream which catalyzes an exothermic reaction”.

I highly recommend a very short book named “What Went Wrong” by Trevor Kletz. It’s surprisingly entertaining and walks you through basic things that have caused disasters at countless chemical plants over and over again.

3. EvanAnderson ◴[24 Jun 25 05:03 UTC] No.44362975[source]▶
I learned about the CSB listening to the Causality podcast[0]. The various chemical plant mishaps described there make me think there's ample need for the CSB.

[0] https://engineered.network/causality/