U.S. Chemical Safety Board could be eliminated

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!

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.

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.

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.