Led by Oklahoma, twelve State Attorneys General submitted their written comment to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed Safer Communities by Chemical Accident Prevention (SCCAP) rule. The SCCAP proposes revisions to the Risk Management Program (RMP), which sets out the chemical accident prevention requirements for qualifying stationary sources under the Clean Air Act. EPA’s proposed rule adds new requirements for facilities under the RMP, including (among others): (1) additional considerations for hazard evaluations; (2) an analysis by some facilities of safer technologies and alternatives; (3) conducting a specified root cause analysis during an incident investigation; (4) requiring employee participation in process safety related decisions; (5) expanding the recordkeeping and implementation requirements for notifying the public of an indecent; and (6) making risk management plan information more easily accessible to the public.

According to EPA, the proposed RMP changes are “expected to make communities safer by reducing the frequency of chemical releases and their adverse effects.” However, the signatory State Attorneys General argue in their comment that the proposed changes to the RMP would impose burdensome new regulatory requirements and would not lead to improvements in preventing accidental releases or minimizing the consequences of such releases. In addition, they contend that making sensitive chemical information more broadly available would present a high risk of misuse by “nefarious actors.” In conclusion, the State Attorneys General argue that “EPA seeks to impose additional Risk Management plan requirements that incorporate ‘climate change risks’ and impacts into the regulations and expand the application of so called ‘environmental justice,’ neither of which is an appropriate basis for regulating under the statutory provisions at issue in this proposed rule.” The comment period for the proposed rule ended on October 31 and all public comments are currently under EPA review.

This statement by the signatory State Attorneys General appears to be part of a larger campaign by “Red State” Attorneys General to push back on environmental justice (“EJ”) and ESG initiatives. We can expect a response by “Blue State” Attorneys General on these and other EJ and ESG initiatives. Companies in the middle of these competing initiatives would be well advised to closely monitor developments in these areas.