But despite a spate of similar incidents over the last year, the Trump Administration is planning to roll back federal regulations designed to prevent similar disasters. Experts and environmental groups have warned that such a move would make chemical accidents far more common.
Read More: The Conservative Case for Protecting the Environment
The two incidents follow several other chemical plant disasters in the last year, including last month, when two workers died and another was critically injured after a chemical release at a plant in West Virginia.
The incidents have drawn fresh scrutiny to plans by the Trump Administration to repeal regulations designed to prevent and investigate catastrophic industrial chemical releases, fires, and explosions.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is led by Trump appointee Lee Zeldin and oversees the chemical industry, has sought to loosen reforms introduced in 2024 that were designed to “further protect vulnerable communities from chemical accidents, especially those living near facilities in industry sectors with high accident rates.” The 2024 Safer Communities by Chemical Accident Prevention (SCCAP) changes implemented by the Biden Administration included additional safeguards, third-party audits for facilities with prior accidents, and employee participation in facility accident prevention.
If implemented, the changes would affect the approximately 12,000 facilities nationwide covered by the 2024 regulations.
Environmental justice groups broadly condemned the Trump Administration’s proposed rollbacks when they were announced in February this year, arguing that the new proposal would increase the risk of catastrophic chemical accidents.
“This proposal to end and weaken protections from chemical fires, explosions, releases, and other safety incidents would take away solutions that are needed to help save lives, prevent injuries, and protect families and children from toxic chemical exposure.”
The spokesperson said both the California and Washington facilities “are highly regulated and these regulations are largely overseen by the states — not EPA.” “It’s clear that these far-left activists have no idea how to actually prevent chemical disasters. Nor do they seem to have any grasp about how EPA regulations actually work,” the spokesperson said, referring to criticisms from environmental justice groups.
The White House has also proposed eliminating funding for the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), a watchdog tasked with investigating major chemical incidents, claiming it “duplicates more than adequate capabilities in the Environmental Protection Agency and Occupational Safety and Health Administration” and “generates unprompted studies of the chemical industry and proposes regulations they have no authority to create or enforce.”
Nippon Dynawave did not respond to a request for comment from TIME. GKN Aerospace, the owner of the facility in Garden Grove, California, said in a statement shared with TIME that it is “committed to understanding what occurred and identifying ways we can support those affected.”
The EPA has pursued similar regulatory rollbacks across the board. It announced earlier this month that it would repeal limits and delay regulations on several different types of PFAS, or “forever chemicals” in drinking water. The Biden Administration had implemented the country’s first limits on the chemicals after it determined the chemicals were linked to a host of health risks, including decreased fertility, hypertension in pregnant people, and increased risk of certain cancers.
EPA officials and the chemical industry
The drive to eliminate regulations comes as watchdog groups have raised concerns about close ties between EPA officials and the chemical industry. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a progressive nonprofit organization, analyzed the financial disclosures of several agency officials. The nonprofit found, in an analysis published in May, that 16 Trump-appointed EPA officials "were paid more than $2.8 million by chemical companies and trade groups" before they joined the agency.
Nineteen of those companies faced enforcement actions by the EPA in the past for alleged violations of federal environmental laws.
An EPA spokesperson said that “Trump EPA political appointees have followed ethical requirements to the letter.”
“A federal employee’s ‘previous lobbying efforts’ do not constitute any conflict of interest as defined by existing federal ethics laws or regulations,” they added.
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