What: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to amend its Risk Management Program (RMP) regulations by making several proposed changes to the 2024 Safer Communities by Chemical Accident Prevention rule.
Why: The proposed revisions include changes to:
- Provisions relating to safer technology and alternatives analyses.
- Information availability.
- Third-party audits.
- Employee participation.
- Community and emergency responder notification.
- Stationary source siting.
- Natural hazards.
- Power loss.
- Declined recommendations documentation
- Emergency response exercises
- Process safety information and recognized and generally accepted good engineering practices.
- Deregistration form information collection.
- Hot work permit retention.
- The retail facility definition.
These proposed amendments seek to improve chemical process safety by avoiding duplicative requirements and realigning RMP requirements with Occupational Safety and Health Administration requirements. The changes also eliminate unnecessary burdens placed on facilities where there is no specific data available to show that the current RMP standards would reduce or have reduced the number of accidental releases.
Action: Comments are due April 10, 2026.
Is your small business or entity being impacted by a proposed rule? If yes, write a comment letter to the proposing agency.