The Chemical Safety Board investigates major chemical industrial accidents like BP’s Deepwater Horizon and issues safety recommendations to avoid such accidents in the future. Donald Trump wants the Chemical Safety Board gone. Trump’s proposed 2019 budget will end funding for the agency beyond what it would take to shut it down. The objection:
“While CSB has done some outstanding work on its investigations, more often than not, its overlap with other agency investigative authorities has generated unhelpful friction,” the White House said in its previous budget proposal. “In recent years, CSB’s recommendations have also been focused on the need for greater regulation of industry, which has frustrated both regulators and industry.”
Let’s take it as given that it’s the “focused on the need for greater regulation of industry” part that’s the real problem here. So they don’t want dedicated experts like mechanical and chemical engineers looking into what happened in cases like the recent Oklahoma gas well explosion that killed five people, because the conclusion might be that we need more regulations.
“The U.S. averages more than 1,000 major industrial chemical accidents every year,” Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said in an email. “Eliminating any federal capacity to learn the causes of potentially catastrophic industrial accidents would be unwise in the extreme.”
The Chemical Safety Board’s entire budget, by the way, is $11 million. The White House previously proposed eliminating it but was blocked by Congress, including Republicans.