Tuesday, June 9, 2009

The US Chemical Safety Board is one of the governmental agencies that will respond to a major accident. Properly coordinating the response to the CSB's preliminary assessment is a company's best opportunity to avoid a full CSB incident investigation.

In June 2007, OSHA implemented a National Emphasis Program (NEP) to reduce or eliminate the workplace hazards associated with the catastrophic release of highly hazardous chemicals at petroleum refineries.  Mark Briggs, the area director for the OSHA Houston South office will provide an update on the NEP program based on his experiences.

The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is an independent, scientific investigatory agency, created by the United States Congress in 1990. The mission of the Board is to promote the prevention of major chemical accidents at fixed facilities e.g. chemical plants, oil refineries and other facilities that process chemicals. The principal role of CSB is to investigate accidents to determine the conditions and circumstances which led up to the event and to identify the cause or causes so that similar events might be prevented. Subjects covered will include: the background of the Chemical Safety Board and who we are; recent chemical plant accidents; lessons learned from our investigations of root causes of accidents; and some case histories involving community response. The Board conducts public meetings, hearings, or boards of inquiry in connection with accident investigations. In practice, the conduct of investigations and the preparation of reports are largely delegated to the Board's professional staff, which includes engineers, safety specialists, and attorneys. However, the Board itself is responsible for the content of those reports, including findings of cause and recommendations for regulatory or other changes to improve safety.

This presentation will address OSHA's on-going Refinery National Emphasis imitative including findings, thoughts and inspection data up to and including the second year of the program. Additionally, the presenter will provide information on the proposed OSHA NEP enforcement imitative which will cover chemical facilities.

OSHA Instruction CPL-03-004 "Petroleum Refinery Process Safety Management National Emphasis Program" (effective June 7, 2007) requires OSHA to inspect virtually all refineries in SIC -2911 or NAICS – 324110 to verify employer’s compliance with the PSM standard (29 CFR 1910.119). This session will give attendees:

• An understanding of the scope and application of OSHA’s CPL-03-004
• A brief review of the incidents that led to the issuing of OSHA’s CPL-03-004
• An overview of the specific auditing techniques to be used by the OSHA compliance officers during their inspections of refineries
• A review of inspection findings