2 days Ago By Hiroko Tabuchi
The Trump administration has moved to rewrite rules designed to prevent disasters at thousands of chemical facilities across the country. The Environmental Protection Agency filed a motion in federal court on Thursday pulling back the safety regulations, introduced last year under former president Joe Biden. The rules, which took effect in May, require sites that handle hazardous chemicals to adopt new safeguards including explicit measures to prepare for storms, floods and other climate-related risks.
They also require some facilities to scrutinize their use of particularly dangerous chemicals and switch to safer alternatives as well as to share more information with neighbors and emergency responders. In addition, facilities that have suffered prior accidents also must undergo independent audits. President Trump’s E.
P.A. intends to rewrite those rules, the agency said in a filing with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
That essentially makes moot a legal challenge launched last year by a group of Republican Attorneys-General, as well as the chemicals industry, which argued that the rules imposed undue burdens on companies with little safety benefit. The American Chemistry Council, a main industry group and participant in the legal challenge, did not immediately provide comment. Earthjustice, a nonprofit law group that sued the first Trump organization more than 200 times in support of environmental rules, condemned the move.
“Chemical explosions force entire neighborhoods to evacuate. First responders have died rushing into disasters they weren’t warned about,” said Adam Kron, an attorney at the advocacy organization. “Workers have suffered burns, lung damage, and worse, all because companies cut corners to save money.
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