Approximately one year ago, a small fire at the West Fertilizer Co. in Texas ignited ammonium nitrate stored at the facility, causing a huge blast that killed 15 people—including 12 first responders—and leveled nearby homes, apartments, a nursing home and a school. In response to concerns that federal and state regulators, local officials and the public were not adequately informed of the presence of ammonium nitrate at the plant and the explosion risks posed by its use, President Obama issued Executive Order 13650, which, among other things, directed the secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor to review its process safety management (PSM) standard and issue a request for information (RFI) “designed to identify issues related to modernization” of the standard.

Generally, the PSM standard requires affected facilities to implement a systematic and potentially complex program to identify, evaluate, prevent and respond to releases of hazardous chemicals in the workplace. The RFI issued by the secretary identified 17 topics related to possible changes to the PSM standard. Among the topics were questions related to expanding the role of PSM as applied to the rapidly growing domestic oil and gas industry. As described below, however, such an expansion may require revisions to the PSM standard, impose new detailed compliance burdens on the oil and gas industry, or both.

Current PSM Standard and Oil and Gas Operations

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