On March 1, 2024, EPA announced it had finalized amendments to the Risk Management Program (RMP). According to EPA’s news release, the amendment “covers all 11,740 regulated RMP facilities across the country and contains more rigorous requirements for a subgroup of facilities that are more accident-prone and pose the greatest risk to communities.”

Specific Regulated Community Requirements
The amendment “includes revisions to improve chemical process safety, to assist in planning, preparing for, and responding to accidents, and to increase public awareness of chemical hazards at regulated sources.” The amendment has these specific regulated community requirements:

• Natural hazards and power loss must be addressed in Program 2 hazard reviews and Program 3 process hazard analyses, with back-up power for release monitoring equipment.
• The facility siting requirement for Program 2 hazard reviews and Program 3 process hazard analyses are explicitly defined.
• Safer technologies and alternative analysis will be required for all Program 3 NAICS 324 and 325 processes.
• Formal root cause analysis incident investigations are required when facilities have had an RMP-reportable accident.
• The next scheduled compliance audit must be by a third party when a facility has had an RMP-reportable accident.
• Employee participation must include policies for stop work procedures in Program 3 employee participation plans, opportunities for employees to anonymously report RMP-reportable accidents or other related RMP non-compliance issues, and training on employee participation plans.

The news release, which includes a link to EPA’s Risk Management Program rule website to access the final rule, the “Fact Sheet for Regulated Facilities,” and other resources, is at https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-finalizes-stronger-safety-standards-protect-risk-communities-chemical-accidents