Archive for the ‘Regulations’ Category
Tuesday, February 1st, 2011
California senators introduced a new bill on pipeline safety - The Strengthening Pipeline Safety and Enforcement Act of 2011.
A few key elements in the proposed legislature are:
Double the number of federal pipeline safety inspectors.
Deployment of electronic or remote-control valves capable of automatically shutting off the gas in a fire or other ...
Posted in Natural Gas Pipelines, Pipelines, Regulations | 1 Comment »
Saturday, January 29th, 2011
The UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) reported the following offshore safety statistics on for 2009-10 period.
Zero fatalities
50 major injuries
85 major and significant hydrocarbon releases (HCRs)
Here a link to the UK HSE bulletin:
http://www.hse.gov.uk/offshore/statistics/stat0910.htm
Posted in Incidents, Offshore, Regulations, Risk Management | No Comments »
Thursday, October 7th, 2010
EPA announced that the promulgation of National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) for industrial, commercial, and institutional boilers and process heaters is postponed to January 16, 2011. The regulation, commonly referred to as Boiler MACT, will affect approx. 13,500 boilers at various facilities deemed to be major sources of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs).
The ...
Posted in Health, Regulations, Toxicity | 1 Comment »
Monday, August 23rd, 2010
OSHA is asking stakeholders to identify hazardous chemicals they believe are most in need of action.
Why?
"OSHA realizes the inadequacy of many of its Permissible Exposure Limits (PELs) and is seeking creative solutions, both long term and short term, to address this inadequacy."
For the benefit of the readers of the ...
Posted in HSE, Industrial Hygiene, Regulations, Toxicity | 1 Comment »
Thursday, July 29th, 2010
A few weeks ago, I had written a post comparing threshold exposure values for SO2 and H2S. After that post, Lee Pharis, one of the blog readers, forwarded me an email describing the new EPA standard for SO2 exposure.
EPA has set the one-hour SO2 health standard at 75 parts per ...
Posted in Regulations, Toxicity | 1 Comment »
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
OSHA Process Safety Management (PSM) program is nearly two decades old and I believe that the 14 PSM elements provide a good basic framework for facilities to create a safety program.
What OSHA PSM lacks is quality metric.
Let me explain further.
For example, one of the elements of the OSHA PSM is emergency planning. As a part of ...
Posted in Emergency Response Plan, OSHA PSM, Process Safety, Regulations | 1 Comment »
Monday, July 12th, 2010
Risk is a perception.
Our perception of risks is mainly affected by two factors:
(a) whether we are voluntarily accepting the risk.
A good example is a refinery worker considers the risks at workplace lower than his cousin who has only read about chemical plants; and
(b) potential consequences of event or act or decision.
For a layman, ...
Posted in Regulations, Risk Communication, Risk Perception, Security | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010
When you are driving on a highway, usually there is a speed limit. If you exceed this limit, a cop can give you a ticket.
In Houston, most highways have a speed limit of 65-70 miles per hour…although most drivers appear to assume it implies “90-mph is okay”.
Let us say the ...
Posted in EPA RMP, OSHA PSM, Process Safety, Regulations | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
About a year ago, the Minerals Management Services (MMS) proposed a new rule that would require operators of oil and gas operations in the US Outer Continental Shelf to develop and implement Safety and Environmental Management System (SEMS).
It is expected that the rule will be promulgated sometime this year.
Based on ...
Posted in Offshore, Process Safety, Regulations | 5 Comments »
Thursday, January 28th, 2010
Stakeholder Comments on OSHA Combustible Rulemaking from John Astad's blog.
Posted in Dust Explosions, OSHA PSM, Regulations | 2 Comments »
