For a quarter-century, OSHA's process safety management (PSM) standard has promoted proper management of hazardous chemicals in the workplace to protect employee health and safety. But recently, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has extended the regulation without a cost-benefit analysis or the opportunity for public comment. This new OSHA policy imposes for the first time the PSM standard on loading processes, loading equipment and tanker trucks used to transport gasoline safely. This action will impose a significant regulatory burden on hundreds of gasoline terminals nationwide. Ultimately, American consumers will bear the burden of these regulations through higher gas prices.
Many chemical and petroleum product storage facilities are covered to some extent by PSM requirements, and these facility operators are strongly committed to fulfilling their responsibilities under the program. While processes involving gasoline itself do not trigger inclusion in the PSM program, some processes involving certain components blended into gasoline are covered. Butane is one example. OSHA's longstanding determination has been that the small concentrations of butane typical of gasoline blends do not require additional worker safety precautions or PSM standards, meaning PSM requirements have long applied to terminal facility workers at the point of butane injection into above-ground storage tanks. But processes related to gasoline blended with that butane, including storage and circulation of the gasoline blend in storage tanks and pipelines, were not covered by PSM.
Innovation has allowed terminal operators to adopt a newer method that allows butane to be blended into a gasoline stream at any point along a petroleum pipeline. Now, terminal operators have the choice of blending butane either into gasoline within an atmospheric storage tank or into the gasoline stream leading from the tank to tanker truck loading equipment. For several years, OSHA applied the same established logic to this newer injection process as had been in place for atmospheric storage tank blending. Specifically, processes involving high concentrations of butane were covered by PSM, but processes involving the gasoline blend downstream were not.
The recent reversal of this longstanding policy has meant the imposition of PSM requirements on gasoline flows downstream of the point of butane injection, even as far as the truck loading rack itself. Moreover, OSHA is applying this new requirement unevenly, by including processes downstream from in-line pipeline injection, but not processes downstream of injection into a storage tank. With this sort of reasoning, OSHA should demand PSM standards on the public pumping gasoline. There is no difference in the butane makeup of gasoline at the terminal's truck rack or at the local neighborhood fueling station. Such a requirement would obviously be an unreasonable and highly burdensome interpretation of the PSM requirements. Gasoline blends downstream of butane injection are the same, wherever the injection occurs. OSHA should be required to commit to consistent treatment for all butane blending methods.
OSHA's action also runs counter to Trump administration deregulatory efforts that the White House estimates have already reduced costs by nearly $50 billion, with savings expected to rise to $220 billion once major actions are fully implemented. President Trump has underscored his administration's commitment to deregulatory actions in two important executive orders issued Oct. 9, 2019. The first advises agencies against using guidance documents to impose regulations without following the rulemaking procedures of the Administrative Procedures Act. The second requires agencies to ensure "regulated parties ⦠know in advance the rules by which the federal government will judge their actions." These White House executive orders directly relate to our current issue, since the in-line butane injection process has been in use in terminal operations for the past several years.
Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia has pledged to carry out regulatory reform policies at all DOL agencies, including OSHA. In doing so, he should review OSHA's decision extending the regulations and seek an outcome more consistent with administration policy.
For more information, visit www.whitehouse.gov or www.ilta.org.
