A little past 4 a.m. on June 21, 2019, workers at the Philadelphia Energy Solutions oil refinery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, noticed a leak from a corroded pipe, and were immediately on high alert. The leak had originated in Unit 433, known among workers as the “bogeyman” because it contained the highly explosive chemical hydrofluoric acid, or HF. When released in large quantities, the chemical can form a dense, toxic vapor cloud that hugs the ground and can travel many miles. Contact with this cloud can be deadly; if it ignites, it could cause a massive explosion.
Sure enough, a vapor cloud materialized and ignited, causing three large explosions and a massive fire that sent smoke “pouring into the sky.” Pieces of equipment the size of cars flew through the air, miraculously landing in the Schuylkill River without hitting any homes. The force of the explosions threw workers back, injuring five, but ultimately did not cause any fatalities. Workers remembering the incident years later agreed that it could have been much worse.
“You figure you ain’t going home,” one former worker told Grist of the moment he saw the fire in Unit 433. “You figure this is it.”
Shortly after the incident, the company filed for bankruptcy and shut down, leaving around 1,000 workers jobless and without severance pay.
Refineries that use HF are regulated under the EPA’s Risk Management Program, or RMP, a regulation designed to improve chemical accident prevention at large petrochemical facilities — but for reasons that have little to do with knowhow and capacity, RMP regulations have been glaringly ineffective. Indeed, few regulations have been subject to the yo-yo of successive presidential administrations, and their political whims, like the RMP.
The RMP program was established in 1990 following a series of infamous chemical disasters in the 1980s, most notably the chemical leak at Union Carbide’s plant in Bhopal, India which poisoned roughly 500,000 people, around 20,000 of whom died in the hours and years afterwards due to health complications from the exposure. Another leak at a Union Carbide facility in West Virginia the following year caused eye, throat, and lung irritation for at least 135 residents.
The first iteration of the rule came into effect in 1994, during the Clinton administration, but lacked several important protections such as independent auditing for regulated facilities, public information provisions, and the requirement that companies complete a “safer technology and alternatives analysis” to determine whether there are any safer ways to conduct their operation. A series of chemical disasters in 2013 — including a massive explosion at the West Fertilizer Company in West, Texas that killed 15 people and damaged 350 homes — brought these deficiencies to the attention of regulators.
In January 2017, the Obama EPA finalized amendments to the Accidental Release Prevention Requirements of the RMP, which included measures to enhance emergency preparedness requirements and ensure that local emergency response officials and residents had access to information to better prepare for potential chemical disasters. But the provisions never went into full effect: In May 2018, the Trump EPA proposed amendments to remove third-party audits and incident investigations, among other protections. The Trump rule was finalized in December of 2019 — six months before the explosion at the Pennsylvania refinery.
When Biden took office, in 2021, the EPA began working on a new set of amendments for the RMP rule. Unions like U.S. Steelworkers and advocates at organizations like the Union of Concerned Scientists pushed for better public disclosure provisions, the inclusion of more types of facilities in the safer technologies alternatives assessment requirements, and the freedom for workers to stop work that they deem unsafe.
“Many communities that are vulnerable to chemical accidents are in overburdened and underserved areas of the country,” said former EPA Administrator Michael Regan in a statement announcing the final rule last March. It was slated to go into effect in 2027.
In the past few years, several chemical disasters have disrupted life in the country’s industrial corridors. In August 2023, a large fire at Marathon Petroleum’s refinery in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana in August 2023 burned for seven hours, causing residents to flee for safety. But in the days following the incident, neither the company nor state and federal environmental regulators responded to locals’ questions about what chemicals the air was being tested for. And in 2024, a hydrogen sulfide leak at Pemex’s refinery in Deer Park, Texas several months killed two contract workers and injured 35 others.
In January, a group of industry trade associations sent Lee Zeldin a letter congratulating him on his appointment to the position of EPA Administrator and asking him to take swift action against the “misguided and illegal new requirements” of Biden’s RMP rule. In their letter, the trade groups argued that the new rule represents an overextension of the EPA’s authority and fails to provide a durable solution to facility safety, though they did not explain how the rule falls short in this regard. They singled out an interactive map that the agency published last year separate from the rulemaking process showing where RMP facilities are located around the country, along with other basic public information such as compliance history and the types of chemicals stored onsite.
In a statement announcing the EPA’s decision to revisit the RMP rule earlier this month, Zeldin seemed to buy industry’s argument.
“The Biden EPA’s costly Risk Management Plan rule ignored recommendations from national security experts on how their rule makes chemical and other sensitive facilities in America more vulnerable to attack,” Zeldin said. The press release also notes that Biden’s RMP rule makes domestic oil refineries and chemical facilities less competitive.
“It took years to come to the rule that was finalized last year,” said Darya Minovi, a senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “To see that rolled back simply because of a letter sent by industry trade associations is really frustrating and shows what little regard this administration has for communities they say they care about.”
Minovi told Grist that the rhetoric about national security is overblown. The public data tool does not contain sensitive information, she said, and when the Department of Homeland Security reviewed the rule last year, they flagged no concerns with the public information disclosure requirements.
“We’re not happy about it,” the U.S. Steelworkers representative told Grist about the Trump administration’s reconsideration of the RMP rule. As for Zeldin’s concerns about making domestic oil and gas companies competitive, “I think that putting workers and communities at greater risk of catastrophic injuries is not good for the economy.”
This article originally appeared in Grist.
Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org.
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