Reactive Chemical Regulations

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: BUSH CHOKES REACTIVE CHEMICAL REGULATIONS

:

: Date: 020501

: Wrom: IJJPHSCRTNHGSWZIDREXCAXZ

:

: Environmental News Service, April 30, 2002

:

: Washington DC - Evidence that the Bush administration killed a

: proposal to tighten regulation of a group of hazardous chemicals is

: presented in a new report by the Center for Public Integrity, a

: Washington, DC based nonprofit group of investigative journalists.

:

: The White House has declined to regulate reactive chemicals despite

: evidence linking dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries to

: accidents involving them, according to the report's author Bill

: Dawson, who before he joined the Center was a 17 year veteran reporter

: for the " Houston Chronicle. "

:

: The shelved proposal deals with a group of materials that can produce

: runaway reactions when combined. An example of such deadly chemical

: combinations was a 1995 explosion and fire that claimed five lives at

: a Lodi, New Jersey plant following the reaction and explosion of sodium

: hydrosulfite, aluminum powder, potassium carbonate and benzaldehyde.

:

: The Bush administration abandoned a proposal to address such dangers

: last year, Dawson showed, after the workplace safety standard it was

: meant to expand appeared on a " hit list " of 57 regulations targeted by

: business groups who had contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars

: to the Bush presidential campaign. This government list, which came to

: light last fall, was solicited for White House budget officials.

:

: A spokesperson for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration

: (OSHA) told Dawson the agency was " unaware of any industry objections "

: to the chemical proposal, which OSHA officials had drafted.

:

: But the report quotes " a government source " who told the Center that

: industry trade groups, including the American Chemistry Council, the

: American Petroleum Institute and the Synthetic Organic Chemical

: Manufacturers Association, all opposed the initiative. Employees of

: those groups, their member companies and political action committees

: funded by the groups, contributed more than $216,000 to Bush's

: presidential campaign.

:

: Frumin, safety and health director for the Union of

: Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE), is quoted in

: the report as saying the decision to drop the proposal shows how

: " regulated industries are determining administration policies. "

:

: UNITE, which represented workers at the Napp Technologies plant in

: Lodi, has led efforts by industrial and firefighters unions to get

: more reactive chemicals covered by the OSHA standard.

:

: Dawson reports that the proposal to regulate the hazardous chemicals

: was dropped from the pending regulatory initiatives as administration

: officials were writing President W. Bush's budget request for

: 2003. The administration's spending proposal cut OSHA's budget by $7.9

: million and eliminated 83 jobs in the workplace safety agency.

:

: The OSHA personnel cuts are being proposed even though evidence has

: been accumulating that reactive chemicals outside of OSHA's current

: regulatory standard can pose serious hazards.

:

: The Center's investigation also revealed that an unpublished OSHA

: study determined that 44 reactive chemicals not currently covered by

: its standard had been implicated in 408 documented workplace accidents

: from 1992 through 1997. The incidents resulted in 66 deaths and 404

: injuries, including 225 injuries that required hospital treatment.

:

: One of the reactive chemicals that the abandoned OSHA proposal cited

: for possible regulation, ammonium nitrate, was involved last September

: in an incident that became France's worst industrial disaster in 50

: years.

:

: A stable explosive material used as a commercial safety explosive or

: as a fertilizer, ammonium nitrate is difficult to ignite unless mixed

: with other chemicals such as oxiders or nitroglycerine when it becomes

: highly explosive.

:

: The explosion at a fertilizer factory in Toulouse killed 31 people,

: injured more than 2,400 and made 500 nearby homes uninhabitable,

: according to a United Nations report. Atofina, the fertilizer plant's

: owner, has said an unintended reaction of ammonium nitrate with other

: chemicals was not likely, but it is being investigated along with

: other possible causes.

:

: Another reactive chemical that was on the OSHA list for future

: regulation is toluene diisocyanate, used in the synthesis of

: polyurethane foams for furniture, bedding and insulation. " Reasonably

: anticipated to be a human carcinogen, " toluene diisocyanate " may react

: violently with water, acids, and alcohols. Contact with bases, such as

: caustic soda and tertiary amines, may cause uncontrollable

: polymerization and the rapid evolution of heat, " according to the 9th

: Report on Carcinogens issued by the National Institute of

: Environmental Health Services, in January 2001.

:

: A series of incidents involving reactive chemicals excluded from the

: 1992 standard, especially the Napp disaster, prompted six unions to

: petition OSHA for an emergency rule. In response to the unions'

: request, OSHA prepared the now abandoned proposal during the late

: 1990s.

:

: Dawson says that the Clinton administration was expected to issue the

: proposal, but it remained unpublished at the time of President Bush's

: inauguration.

:

: After President Bush chose chemical safety expert Henshaw to

: head OSHA, a voluntary approach to reactive chemical safety appeared

: to be on track.

:

: In a draft a copy obtained by the Center, Dawson wrote, several

: alternative measures were outlined, including one described as

: " nonregulatory " suggesting an increase in government assistance to

: employers in lieu of bringing extra chemicals under mandatory rules

: such as the unions petitioned for.

:

: But even that moderate path was abandoned. On December 3, 2001, a new

: regulatory agenda posted in the Federal Register contained a terse

: item saying the reactive chemicals initiative was being dropped

: because of " resource constraints and other priorities. " The notice

: said the proposal had been withdrawn from consideration on September

: 24, 2001.

:

: Mark Dudzic, president of a Rahway, New Jersey local of the Paper,

: Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union was

: quoted in the Center's report saying, " OSHA has been very ineffective,

: because [existing] regulations just don't cover these issues. "

:

: The union local represented workers at the now closed Morton

: International facility in Paterson, New Jersey, where a runaway

: reaction in 1998 injured nine employees, released hazardous chemicals

: into the community and damaged the plant. This incident occurred 10

: miles from the Napp facility where five workers died, and some people

: worked at both places.

:

: The reactive chemicals issue is " particularly heart- rending " in

: densely populated New Jersey, Dudzic said in the Center's report.

: " They could have made some progress here, " he said of the abandoned

: OSHA proposal. Reactive chemicals, he said, " are killing people, and

: they're going to kill more people. "

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