Many industry leaders have stepped forward and reasoned that companies need more flexibility to make decisions about how to reduce chemical security risks and enhance chemical safety without the governments more prescriptive and regulatory approaches arguing more regulation without a cost/benefit justification is simply not a valid solution. Chemical-industry groups further believe the mandating of government selected ISTs could be exceptionally burdensome especially to smaller chemical facilities and actually take resources away from where they are most needed. They argue that federal efforts should concentrate on improving the operational efficiency and communication between existing regulatory programs rather than imposing new programs and are instead pushing for better education regarding workplace hazards as well as increased coordination among emergency officials to handle the aftermath of a disaster.
Final policy recommendations from the inter agency group consisting of the EPA, OSHA and the Department of Homeland Security are expected to be presented at the end of May. The options under consideration by the interagency group include voluntary and mandatory programming on inherently safer technologies, adding chemicals to existing regulatory programs and requiring agricultural operations and oil drilling operations to report chemicals of interest used at their facilities.