Primatech

This PT Note provides an overview of compliance dates for EPA’s amended RMP rule.

Regulated sources are required to comply with new STAA, incident investigation root cause analysis, third-party compliance audit, employee participation, emergency response public notification, and exercise evaluation reports, and information availability provisions, unless otherwise stated, three years after the effective date of the final rule (i.e., three years after the Federal Register effective date).

Regulated sources are required to comply with the revised emergency response field exercise frequency provision by March 15, 2027, or within 10 years of the date of an emergency response field exercise conducted between March 15, 2017, and August 31, 2022.

Regulated sources are allowed one additional year (i.e., four years after the effective date of the final rule) to update and resubmit risk management plans to reflect new and revised data elements.

Regulated sources are also required to have standby or backup power for air monitoring and control equipment by three years after the effective date of the final rule (i.e., three years after the effective date of this action as provided in the Federal Register).

EPA Comments on 3-Year Compliance Date

EPA notes that the initial 1996 RMP rule required compliance per the statute within three years. EPA believes the provisions finalized in the amended rule are not as extensive as developing a full RMP program. Nevertheless, EPA believes time is needed for facility owners and operators to understand the revised rule; train facility personnel on the revised provisions; learn new investigation techniques, as appropriate; research safer technologies; arrange for emergency response resources; incorporate changes into their RMPs; and establish a strategy to notify the public that certain information is available upon request.

This time is necessary to achieve compliance with the new provisions because as a performance-based rule, EPA has not specified how facilities apply these provisions to manage and improve process safety at their facility, whether it involves conforming to minimum standards, such as codes, or trying to reduce risk to as low as reasonably practical, or whether qualitative or quantitative assessments are used.

EPA intends to publish guidance for certain provisions, such as STAA, root cause analysis, third-party audits, and employee participation, etc. Once these materials are complete, owners and operators will need time to familiarize themselves with the new materials and may need assistance in applying the provisions to improve process safety.

EPA expects to develop and release this information approximately one year after the final rule. However, most provisions for a source are a site-specific determination, so EPA expects all regulated RMP facilities to be successful in beginning to address the provisions immediately.

EPA Comments on Schedule for Safer Technologies and Alternatives Analysis (STAA)

EPA recognizes that, while PHA updates are normally done at five-year intervals, some sources may be far enough along with their PHAs that they will not be able to schedule their STAAs as part of their PHAs. Such sources have the option of not performing STAA as part of their PHA so long as they perform a STAA within 3 years of the effective date of the final rule.

EPA notes that considering updates or revalidations to the initial STAA activities will likely require less effort, and EPA expects many of these sources will later incorporate further STAA updates on their normal PHA update schedule.

With regard to the STAA safeguard implementation provision, since implementation (of at least one passive measure, or an inherently safer technology or design, or a combination of active and procedural measures equivalent to or greater than the risk reduction of a passive measure) is required each PHA cycle, EPA expects implementation to be commenced within that cycle and scheduled for completion as soon as practicable.

EPA Comments on Schedule for Emergency Response

Facility owners and operators are required to work with the local responders to ensure that, during a release, a notification system is in place that will notify the public of the impending situation. EPA expects the partnership to occur at least during annual coordination discussions required under the RMP rule.

Owners and operators are required to annually coordinate response needs with local emergency planning and response organizations to determine how the facility is addressed in the community emergency response plan, among other things. A component of the community emergency response plan is public notification of chemical releases. Therefore, EPA expects that this component will be discussed and documented by the facility owner or operator as part of the annual coordination obligations. Consequently, EPA is finalizing a 3-year compliance date, as reasonable.

EPA notes that requiring field exercises to be held more often than the specified frequency of every 10 years would significantly increase compliance costs for both regulated facilities and local responder agencies. EPA believes such an approach would discourage the participation of local emergency responders in field exercises, which is voluntary under the RMP rule.

Additionally, EPA notes that table-top exercises of the emergency plan have value for protecting the nearby community, and these occur every three years.

EPA Comments on Schedule for Information Availability

EPA is finalizing a three-year compliance date for the information availability provision. EPA states this means that three years after the effective date of the rule, the facility owner or operator must have notifications in place to inform the public that the required information is available upon request.

EPA believes that this timeframe is needed to allow facility staff an opportunity to determine the best method for providing notifications to the public, to assemble and format information, including securing appropriate language translation services, and to prepare to respond to information requests.

EPA Comments on Schedule for Hazard Review Amplifications and
Other Areas of Technical Clarification

EPA notes that components of the hazards evaluation amplifications and the other areas of technical clarification impose no new requirements on facilities because they codify existing industry practice and re-emphasize current RMP requirements and do not change the meaning of the RMP rule. Therefore, compliance for these provisions is already required and should be updated on their normal schedule. For example, an evaluation of natural hazards on a process should already be occurring as part of the hazard review or PHA and should be updated at least once every 5 years.

With regard to the compliance date for requiring standby or backup power for continuous operation of air monitoring equipment associated with prevention and detection of accidental releases from covered processes, EPA has adopted a three-year compliance date. EPA believes three years will allow time to evaluate and secure standby or backup power needs for air monitoring equipment and assure their safe operation.

EPA Comments on Schedule for Risk Management Plan Updates

EPA believes that a four-year timeframe will allow owners and operators an opportunity to begin to comply with the provisions of the amended rule prior to certifying compliance in the RMP.

Additionally, EPA will revise its online RMP submission system, RMP*eSubmit, to include the additional data elements, and sources will not be able to update RMPs with new or revised data elements until the submission system is ready. Also, once it is ready, allowing an additional year for sources to update RMPs will prevent potential problems with thousands of sources submitting updated RMPs on the same day.