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The explosion in Beirut was a reminder that chemicals essential to life and the economy must be stored, handled and processed safely. Chemical accidents in the United States also occur often resulting in the loss of life. The U. S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, the small federal agency that investigates chemical accidents and makes recommendations, at the moment, has only one of five statutory members. Joining the Federal Drive with Tom Temin with why this needs to be rectified, the President and CEO of the American Chemistry Council, Chris Jahn.

Interview transcript:

Tom Temin: Mr. Jahn, good to have you on.

Chris Jahn: Thanks for having me, Tom.

Tom Temin: Now, you represent chemical manufacturers, and ordinarily, you would say, “Well, they are probably indifferent to whether there’s a board investigating chemical accidents.” What’s your take on the lack of not only a quorum, but a lack of even all but one member, who is the chair?

Chris Jahn: The American Chemistry Council and its members believe that the Chemical Safety Board has a very important job to do, and we find considerable value in the CSB’s work, especially the reports, the videos and other materials generated by the board as part of its investigations. So, you know, we take every incident seriously, and we seek to learn from each one by sharing information on the factors that led to the incident, and identifying excellent practices to prevent similar incidents from the future. And that’s why we worked with the CSB to ensure that there’s a broad awareness of their recommendations within our industry.

Tom Temin: Now in one of the blog posts that are at the board’s own website, they cite a 2013 Texas explosion. And I guess that was a pretty serious one. Just walk us through what happens when a chemical facility has an accident. And there was loss of life and quite a bit of property damage. What happens? How does it all work?

Chris Jahn: So the Chemical Safety Board, I think, one thing that would make some sense to your listeners is that it’s very analogous to the National Transportation Safety Board. So for example, if there’s a plane crash or a major transportation incident, the NTSB sends investigators out immediately to launch an investigation. Very similarly, the Chemical Safety Board, there’s a major chemical incident, they send investigators to the site immediately and launch an investigation into what happened, the root causes, and as I said earlier, then produce reports, videos and other materials so that we can prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.

Tom Temin: So it’s not really a regulatory body but rather an investigative one. And do you find or have you experienced that the industry has changed practices or procedures as a result of what the board has discovered?

Chris Jahn: You are correct. It is a investigatory body. It does not have regulatory authority. So we as I said, we do take their recommendations very seriously. And we engage with them on a regular basis to disseminate that information to our members. And it’s part of the ethic we have in the chemical industry and our responsible care program, which is a mandatory, third party-audited program for all of our members and is required for membership. And we have regional networks within our membership and we share CSB information with all the safety professionals among our membership.

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Tom Temin: So in other words, the findings of the board can also help the industry in its self-regulation activities?

Chris Jahn: Absolutely.

Tom Temin: And recently you, I guess, well, not so recently–it was back in February–that you testified on this before Congress, and what did you tell members?

Chris Jahn: So we, we told the members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, where I testified, that we supported the White House’s nomination of Dr. Katherine Lemos to the CSB. And recent fact–I recently met her, because the Senate did confirm her, and we talked about how we work together with the CSB to safeguard chemical facilities, the public and the environment. We also told them that we believe the board needs to have the resources necessary to hire qualified investigators and have a full complement of five board members in order to be most effective. So we’ve encouraged the White House to nominate additional, well-qualified industry and process safety experts to serve on the board and ask the Senate to confirm those nominees as soon as possible.

Tom Temin: We’re speaking with Chris Jahn. He’s president and CEO of the American chemistry Council. As a practical matter, though, the board members don’t do the investigations themselves. There’s a standing staff of experts, I guess that understand chemistry and how chemicals react in different situations. So what’s the practical effect of not having a full quorum on the board if something should occur?

Chris Jahn: Now, in all honesty, that’s probably a better question for CSB and Dr. Lemos. And their I’m not an expert on how fully staffed they are and their investigators right now. But I will say, in terms of–they do have to deal with multiple investigations at the same time, and historically, they’ve done a really good job of managing that. And without a full complement of investigators or full complement of board members, that can only create additional burdens on the people who are there and delay, perhaps, the timeliness of their reports and other materials that come out of those investigations.

Tom Temin: The reports have to go through the board before they can be publicly released and the recommendations kind of endorsed?

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Chris Jahn: Yeah, and before the recommendations can be shared, particularly among the industry.

Tom Temin: Got it. Have there been any incidents since the board disappeared, as it were, that need investigation and need reporting and recommendations to come out and get full buy-in?

Chris Jahn: There have not been major incidents among our members since we’ve gone down to one board member. But I think it is important to note though, however, that the board still is operating. So Dr. Lemos does have have the authority to move ahead and release reports. And they are continuing to do that. But it’s a less-than-ideal situation. And we would reiterate our desire to have the administration nominate and the Senate confirm, qualified process safety experts to be on the board as soon as possible.

Tom Temin: And have you made this? No, not just to Congress, but also people in the administration? Have you gotten any kind of response from the administration?

Chris Jahn: We have, in fact, indicated to the administration that we would like to see people nominated. And we have, in fact, given them names of people that we believe they should talk to who have expressed interest and who have the specific expertise necessary to be effective board members.

Tom Temin: Yeah. What are the specific expertises is that someone would need? What kind of person can do this?

Chris Jahn: As you said, that there’s a specific kind of technical expertise and from our perspective, it’s really important to have somebody who is familiar with commercial chemical facilities and process safety risks and the steps that can be taken to mitigate those risks.

Tom Temin: Chris Jahn is president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council. Thanks so much for joining me.

Chris Jahn: Thank you, Tom.