Process Safety Management, Union Style

If you’ve ever wondered what a process safety standard drafted by a union would look like, the State of Washington’s recent draft Process Safety Requirements for Petroleum Refineries provides a glimpse. Using California’s 2017 Process Safety Management for Petroleum Refineries as its baseline, Washington’s Department of Labor and Industries released a draft of a process safety management standard that would apply to the state’s 5 petroleum refineries. The Washington refineries, combined with California’s 17 active refineries, account for roughly 16 percent of U.S. refineries.

Washington’s draft standard, however, includes proposals that not even California adopted, making the draft the most pro-union and the most onerous of the various federal and state proposals to date.