Congress panel is critical of chem safety agency

22 August 2008 19:12  [Source: ICIS news]

WASHINGTON (ICIS news)--A federal watchdog agency charged on Friday that the US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is not investigating as many industrial accidents as required, but the board said it needs more funding to expand its workforce.

 

The US Government Accountability Office (GAO), the audit and investigative arm of Congress, said that the safety board has met some of the recommendations made by an earlier 2000 GAO report but that in other areas the chemical safety agency still has shortcomings.

 

“We found that CSB has not fully addressed several critical recommendations, and problems in governance, management and oversight persist,” the GAO said in its latest analysis of the safety board's operations and performance.

 

“Specifically, CSB has not fully responded to key recommendations related to investigating more accidents … improving the quality of its accident data, resolving human capital problems and ensuring accountability and continuity of management,” the GAO said.

 

CSB spokesman Daniel Horowitz said that the board generally agrees that it should investigate more chemical accidents, but he argued that GAO’s criticisms are not well founded, given that the CSB has limited staff and an annual budget of less than $10m (€6.7m).

 

“In general terms, we agree.  We agree that there are more chemical accidents than we have capacity to investigate, and that’s why we are seeking additional resources from Congress to do so,” Horowitz said.

 

The board said on Thursday that it plans to open a regional office in Denver, Colorado, early in 2009 and another satellite operation in Houston, Texas, in 2010. 

 

CSB Chairman John Bresland said he plans to seek additional funding from Congress for fiscal year 2010 to support the opening of those two regional sites and to boost the board’s staff from its current 38-person complement to perhaps 50 personnel.

 

Horowitz also said that “some criticisms in the GAO report are not well founded, and we’re disappointed that the GAO didn’t look at the tremendous impact CSB is having with such a limited budget”.

 

He said that the board has tripled productivity between 2002 and this year.  “We have issued some very significant products that are having a major impact on the safety of the chemicals industry,” he said, citing board reports on the 2005 BP refinery blast, the board’s combustible dust study and its safety videos programme.

 

Horowitz also said that the GAO criticisms “are out of step with what people in the industry are saying about the board,” noting that the American Chemical Society (ACS) recently cited CSB for “outstanding contributions to chemical health and safety”.

 

In making its CSB report to Congress, the GAO said it is recommending that the board seek additional funding and that it should issue a regulation requiring chemical facilities to report accidents directly to CSB.

 

($1 = €0.67)

 

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By: Joe Kamalick
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