Audit, Compliance and Risk Blog

The federal Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board – which usually refers to itself as the Chemical Safety Board or CSB -- has issued guidance on the hazards of explosive and combustible dust. The report is intended to identify the key barriers to improvement in the control and mitigation of combustible dust hazards. The report was developed by a contractor to CSB, after a fatal 2017 dust explosion at the Didion Milling facility in Cambria, Wisconsin. In October 2018, CSB issued a “Call to Action” to gather comments on the management, control and understanding of combustible dust (which I wrote about HERE). The objective of this project was to make sense of comments submitted in response to the Call to Action. CSB ultimately received 57 responses, which its contractor reviewed and supplemented with additional research. 

 

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The federal Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board – which usually refers to itself as the Chemical Safety Board or CSB – conducts independent investigations of major chemical accidents, issues accident-specific findings, and offers specific or general recommendations for improved chemical handling and regulation (I wrote about its first set of rules here). In May, CSB issued “Best Practice Guidance for Corporate Boards of Directors and Executives in the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry for Major Accident Prevention.” This Guidance represents CSB’s latest attempt to enhance organizational attention to safety culture issues.

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The federal Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board – which usually refers to itself as the Chemical Safety Board or CSB – began operations in 1998. CSB conducts independent investigations of major chemical accidents, issues accident-specific findings, and offers specific or general recommendations for improved chemical handling and regulation (I wrote about one set of proposals here). Since its authorization in the 1990 Clean Air Act (CAA) Amendments, CSB has also had authority to establish chemical accident reporting regulations.

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Among nearly one thousand pages of expansions to Clean Air Act (CAA) requirements, the 1990 CAA Amendments legislation provided for the creation of a national agency to conduct independent investigations of major chemical accidents, to issue accident-specific findings and specific or general recommendations for improved chemical handling and regulation, and to establish chemical accident reporting regulations.  This agency’s formal name is the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board – which usually refers to itself as the Chemical Safety Board or CSB. CSB was finally funded and began work in federal Fiscal Year (FY) 1997-1998.

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