Chemical Industry Faces Less Federal Oversight After Deadly Blast
Just days after a chemical tank implosion killed 11 workers at a Washington state paper mill and a separate chemical crisis forced the evacuation of 60,000 people in Southern California, the Trump administration is moving forward with plans to significantly reduce federal oversight of the chemical industry. The juxtaposition of disaster and deregulation has intensified debate over whether the nation’s chemical safety framework is being weakened at precisely the wrong moment.
Two Crises, One Week
On May 26, a 900,000-gallon storage tank containing “white liquor” — a mixture of sodium hydroxide, sodium sulfide, and disodium carbonate — imploded at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging facility in Longview, Washington, around 7:15 a.m. during a shift change. Eleven workers are presumed dead; seven bodies have been recovered as of May 29, according to NBC News. The victims were gathered in a morning assembly area when the tank ruptured.
Gov. Bob Ferguson called it likely the deadliest industrial accident in modern Washington state history. The spill released a high-pH chemical mixture into a ditch system connected to an aquifer that supplies drinking water to Longview’s 37,000 residents. EPA and local officials have been pulling fresh water from the Cowlitz River to dilute the contamination.
Just days earlier and 1,000 miles south, a 7,000-gallon tank of methyl methacrylate at a GKN Aerospace facility in Garden Grove, California, began overheating after a refrigeration valve failed. Officials feared a boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion — a BLEVE — that would have been catastrophic. At its peak, the crisis forced approximately 60,000 people to evacuate. Fire crews applied 1,250 gallons of cooling water per minute and a crack in the tank helped relieve pressure, stabilizing the temperature at 92 degrees Fahrenheit by May 26.
A Regulatory Rollback in Motion
The back-to-back emergencies unfolded just weeks after the comment period closed on the EPA’s proposed “Common Sense Approach to Chemical Accident Prevention” rule, published February 24. The proposal would significantly scale back the 2024 Safer Communities by Chemical Accident Prevention (SCCAP) rule, which was finalized after 12 years of development under the Biden administration.
According to an EPA fact sheet, the proposed changes include rescinding requirements for high-risk facilities to evaluate safer technologies, eliminating or weakening independent third-party audit requirements, removing workers’ stop-work authority, and eliminating requirements for facilities to provide chemical hazard information to the public upon request. The EPA estimates the rollback would save industry $234.7 to $241.9 million annually.
Critics argue the timing could not be more stark. “These standards exist because catastrophic explosions and toxic releases are not theoretical risks — they are real events that devastate communities,” Marc Boom, a former EPA policy advisor with the Environmental Protection Network, told The Guardian.
Worker Protections Targeted
The proposed rollback specifically targets provisions that give workers a greater voice in safety decisions. The 2024 SCCAP rule had granted workers stop-work authority, required consultation on safety recommendations, and established mechanisms for reporting unaddressed hazards. The new proposal would eliminate most of those protections.
Rick Engler, a former Chemical Safety Board member, told the Guardian that the administration “fundamentally does not care about workers or that so many facilities have had catastrophic events that sometimes lead to mass layoffs and closures.”
The Chemical Safety Board Under Threat
Beyond the RMP rule changes, the White House has also targeted the Chemical Safety Board (CSB), the independent federal agency responsible for investigating the root causes of major chemical incidents. The CSB has faced funding cuts and potential elimination, raising concerns that future disasters may not receive thorough, independent investigations.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has removed a public data tool from the EPA website that showed the locations of hazardous facilities and the chemicals they use, moving the information to a reading room at an EPA office. Inside Climate News reported that advocates dismiss the administration’s national security justification as pretext.
What’s Next
The EPA’s proposed rule has drawn sharp opposition from labor unions, environmental groups, and public health organizations. The comment period closed on May 11, and the agency is expected to finalize the rule in the coming months. Whether the recent chemical disasters in Washington and California will influence the outcome remains an open question.
For the communities of Longview and Garden Grove, the immediate focus is on recovery and accountability. Garden Grove Mayor Stephanie Klopfenstein promised investigations at the city, state, and federal levels, saying, “Our community deserves to know what happened, why it happened and whether laws or regulations were violated.”