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. 3901 NW 115 th Avenue Miami, FL 33178 305-888-2623 office 305-885-4671 fax

3901 NW 115 Avenue Miami, Florida 33178
305-888-2623 9501 Rangeline Road Ft. Pierce, Florida 34987 772-464-6195 30 Neil Gunn Drive Ellisville, MS 39437 601-477-2550 5215 W. Tyson Avenue Tampa, Florida 33611
813-832-4868

8350 NW 93 rd

Street Miami, Florida 33166
305-888-2623 204 SCM Road Brunswick, GA 31525
912-267-9470 1405 Possum Hollow Road Ranger, GA 30734 706-334-7377 7160 Phillips Highway Jacksonville, FL 32256
904-438-4976 October 29, 2014 Via Electronic Submission

OSWER Docket EPA Docket Center, Mail Code 2822–1T Environmental Protection Agency 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20460

RE: Accidental Release Prevention Requirements: Ri sk Management Programs Under the Clean Air Act,

Section 112(r)(7); Request for information. Docket ID No.: EPA–HQ–OEM–2014–0328

To the Docket:

Allied Universal Corporation is pleased to respond to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) R equest for Information (RFI), Docket No., EPA–HQ–OEM–2014–0328 published in the Federal Register on July 31, 2014 at 79 Fed. Reg. 44604 – 44633.

Allied Universal Corporation, herein after “Allied” , has packaged, manufactured and distributed hazard ous and
non-hazardous chemicals for the sanitation of water , food, industrial and medical equipment throughout the
southeastern and central United States as well as t he Caribbean and central South America for sixty ye ars. Allied has several packaging, manufacturing and distributi on facilities throughout the southeastern United St ates. Allied
is a member of the Chlorine Institute and the Natio nal Association of Chemical Distributors. Under th e Responsible Distribution Program implemented compan y-wide, Allied is committed to protecting human hea lth and the environment as well as fostering the proper , safe and secure handling and transporting of our products.

Allied supports the goal of EPA’s RMP regulations w hich includes reducing chemical risk at the local l evel by providing information to help local fire, police, a nd emergency response personnel along with providin g information to the members of the public to help in understanding the chemical operations taking place in their community. However, it is unclear within the bread th of the RFI document which requests comments on a t least nineteen topics with a multitude of associated opti ons how the potential modifications will enhance ch emical facility safety.

Allied believes that compliance with the existing R MP standard is effective in reducing chemical risk at chemical facilities and that the process safety standards in the United States are strong and effective. As a member of the
Chlorine Institute and National Association of Chem ical Distributors, process safety and compliance wi th regulatory requirements is taken very seriously. Unfortunately , the examples of chemical facility safety concerns articulated byOctober 29 th , 2014 Allied Universal Corporation

Page 2 Comments Docket No. EPA–HQ–OEM–2014–0328

those speaking to this issue have actually been exa mples of facilities not complying with existing reg ulations (outlier facilities). There is no identified lack of or gap in existing requirements, the lack or gap in compl iance is a result of facilities either ignoring current existing regulat ions or not understanding them. Allied believes th at developing additional regulations does not address the problem of outlier operations that are either unfamiliar o r unwilling to comply with the significant and comprehensive chemi cal safety standards that are presently in place. We believe that resources could be better utilized through more awa reness and training efforts as well as more routine outreach and, in some cases, enforcement efforts in all States. Loo king at the number of citations that have been issu ed, it is concerning to see many similar citations across all facilities in the same subject area. The trend ma y indicate a failure to understand the requirements, and warrant an outr each intervention to correct. Establishing addition al regulatory requirements will not solve this problem.

Harmonization of the PSM and RMP Standard Additionally, Allied is concerned with the timeline presented by EPA in its RMP revision process. Ex ecutive Order (EO) 13650 was specifically created to encourage ag ency coordination and improve the exchange and shar ing of information. There is an EO 13650 Action Plan “requ irement” that EPA and OSHA “harmonize” their regula tions. However, EPA has committed, in the EO Working Group Action Plan, to releasing a proposal for the revis ed RMP in one year and finalizing the rule within two years. OSHA is on a seven-year rulemaking timeline for the ir PSM regulation while EPA is on a two-year track. Given the approach of both the EPA and OSHA, agency coord ination will be challenging which could significantly impac t the regulated community.

As a small business with five facilities that must comply with the EPA and OSHA standard, we strongly urge both agencies to work as closely together as possible to coordinate both of their review and rulemaking act ivities so that the regulated community will be able to effectively execute a strong, stable and consistent, chemical safety program which is the goal for all RMP stakeholders.

Updating the List of Regulated Substances - Adding Reactive Substances and Reactivity Hazards To respond to EPA’s specific question of listing ch emicals based on the hazards of their reaction bypr oducts, Allied does not believe this is a feasible approach. It i s virtually impossible for national listing decisio ns to take into account process-and site-specific factors, which can vary w idely due to the lack of a strong risk assessment m ethodology to
screen reactive hazards. The number of chemicals t hat can experience adverse reactions with others, o r with water or air, is very large, and the possible combinations o f these materials makes trying to designate which c hemicals represent reactive hazards and which do not is a ta sk and one which should not be taken without identi fying a valid and consistent methodology to identify threshold ha zard quantities or concentrations. Additionally, r eactivity hazards are already addressed throughout OSHA’s PSM Standar d. It is specifically required as part of the proce ss safety information element. It is also used as input to p rocess hazard analyses, pre-startup safety reviews, operating procedure development, pressure relief and flare sy stem design, mechanical integrity programs, and man agement of change. Finally it is utilized in developing traini ng and contractor programs, conducting incident inv estigations and planning for emergencies. We believe the creation of a list does not in any way solve the problem the Agency is attempting to address here and in many respects may introduce other unintended consequences (i.e. faci lities may think that if something is not on the list, there i s no hazard or risk).

TQs and Off-site Consequence Analysis Endpoints for Regulated Substances Based on Acute Exposure Guide line Level Toxicity Values In the RFI, EPA is considering the recalculation of RMP reporting thresholds and toxic endpoints for o ff-site consequence analyses (OCA) based on the use of Acut e Exposure Guideline Levels (AEGLs), which are deve lopedOctober 29 th , 2014 Allied Universal Corporation

Page 3 Comments Docket No. EPA–HQ–OEM–2014–0328

by the National Advisory Committee (NAC) for AEGLs for Hazardous Substances. Allied strongly disagree s with

EPA’s assertion that this method better reflects th e potential for adverse effects of an accidental re lease upon a community.

The current TQs are based on the Immediately Danger ous to Life and Health (IDLH) value developed by th e National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) . IDLH guidelines are acute exposure guidelines. Si nce the establishment of the IDLH values in the 1970s, NIOS H has continued to review available scientific data to improve the protocol used to derive acute exposure guidelin es, in addition to the chemical-specific IDLH value s. The IDLH methodology reflects the modern principles and unde rstanding in the fields of risk assessment, toxicol ogy, and occupational health and provides the scientific rat ionale for the derivation of IDLH values based on c ontemporary risk assessment practices. Accordingly, IDLH values are based on health effects considerations determined through a critical assessment of the toxicology and human hea lth effects data. This approach ensures that the ID LH values
reflect an airborne concentration of a substance th at represents a high-risk situation that may endang er workers’ lives
or health. AEGLs on the other hand are intended to be guideline levels used during rare events or sin gle once-in-alifetime exposures to airborne concentrations of ac utely toxic, high-priority chemicals [NAS 2001]. Th e threshold exposure limits are designed to protect the general population, including the elderly, children or oth er potentially sensitive groups. However, unlike the IDLH guidel ines the AEGLs approach applies a considerable amou nt of uncertainty factors and time extrapolations. The l ack of a systematic review of the current AEGLs and the use of uncertainty factors is not a reasonable approach to setting RMP OCA endpoints. Given the use of the O CA for community response planning and given there is a fi nite amount of available resources, it would be pru dent to
continue to utilize the IDLH values which are based on health effects considerations determined throug h a critical assessment of the toxicology and human health effec ts data.

Expanded Incident Investigation/Accident History Under the existing PSM and RMP requirements regulat ed facilities are required to investigate incidents that resulted in, or “could reasonably have resulted in, a catast rophic release of a hazardous chemical.” However, E PA is now considering an additional requirement to have facil ities report near misses in addition to reporting t heir five-year history of accidents from covered processes resulti ng in death, injury or significant property damage. EPA is also asking whether companies should be required to cond uct a root cause investigation, complete their inve stigations by certain deadlines and share information with the pu blic about incidents and near misses.

Allied supports the use of root cause investigation s where it is clear that an incident could have cou ld reasonably have resulted in a catastrophic release as is required p er the existing PSM Standard and RMP regulation. H owever, the

term “near miss incident” is difficult to define ac ross the board at a national level because what mig ht be considered a near miss incident at one location may not be a nea r miss at another location due to the specifics of the operation. Further, EPA has not provided any examples of facil ity incidents that we are aware of where the curren t incident investigation procedures were either inadequate or contributed to a chemical safety incident.

Third Party Compliance Audits Audits are an integral part of a strong process saf ety program. Implementing the current RMP requirem ent, Allied has conducted many RMP audits over the years using audi t forms established by the Agency, State of Florida and Chlorine Institute. However, we are unaware of any data that demonstrate or even strongly suggest tha t a third-party audit would provide the highest degree of audit obj ectivity or are more effective overall than any oth er form of audit, including the current one being implemented. We be lieve that the mandated use of third-party auditors would be overly burdensome and unjustified given the lack of reliable data in this area. We also believe there would beOctober 29 th , 2014 Allied Universal Corporation

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significant short comings as far as who is qualifie d to audit, their knowledge of our chemical and its processes and Allied being afforded the discretion to choose the audit method best suited to our unique operations. We have received offers from third parties to audit our cur rent RMP program, and it is always amazing when the proposal states a timeline of a couple of days (when our int ernal audit team takes many weeks). We also believ e company-led audits can be far more effective in actually addres sing issues uncovered during an audit, due to the c ompany auditor‘s intimate knowledge of the organization and how it f unctions.

Define and Require Evaluations of Updates to RAGAGE P Recognized and Generally Accepted Good Engineering Practices (RAGAGEPs) are engineering, operation, or maintenance activities based on established codes, standards, published technical reports or recommend ed practices or a similar document. RAGAGEPs detail generally appr oved ways to perform specific engineering, inspecti on or mechanical integrity activities, such as fabricatin g a vessel, inspecting a storage tank, or servicing a relief valve. RAGAGEP also recognizes that there is not one way t o solve a given problem that provides similar level s of risk reduction for a diverse set of chemical processes.

Allied currently utilizes consensus guidance to our specific situation in each individual workplace. T his would not be possible under the proposal here. It will also remo ves our technical experts and professionals from th eir current ability to analyze the specific conditions and concerns at a facility to decide what is recognized and general ly accepted good engineering practices as it is they who are the mos t familiar with the ongoing operations at that work place.

Given OSHA currently recognizes RAGAGEP in their re gulations, Allied believes the Agency working with OSHA to define for RAGAGEP could be useful to help owner s better understand requirements under the standard . A definition for RAGAGEP could also assist OSHA inspe ctors in understanding the correct standards that a re applicable to a given type of facility. However, the defin ition of RAGAGEP should not take away the ability o f a facility to identify which RAGAGEP is most appropriate to their operations.

Emergency Planning, Drills and Coordination with Lo cal Emergency Response Authorities A few decades after the passage the Emergency Plann ing Community Right to Know Act, this proposal is s urprising. Again, Allied feels this is currently adequately ad dressed not only under many of the Agency’s regulat ions, but OHSA’s 29 CFR 1910.38 and DHS’s Chemical Facility A nti-Terrorism Standard (CFATS) program. Prior to ad ding an additional facility regulatory requirement, DHS, EPA and OSHA should instead look to how it can bes t coordinate and harmonize the already established emergency res ponse planning information and requirements that ex ists within other regulatory agencies. All Agencies should sur vey the various State Emergency Response Programs, understanding why some are successful and some are not (in an effort to make this program successfully everywhere). Having facilities in different States, States vary greatly and not all programs are created equal. An d in even in the more successful States, rural areas still struggle with this.

Mechanical Integrity of Any Safety-Critical Equipme nt Allied believes that the existing six categories cu rrently listed in Paragraph (j) of the existing OSH A PSM standard sufficiently cover safety critical equipment involv ed in the handling of highly hazardous chemicals. A nd EPA has not provided any reasoning or examples in the RFI to ex plain how the existing standard is not adequately a ddressing safety critical equipment or how chemical safety wo uld be improved by the options presented by EPA in the RFI. Again, Allied can not understand why this is being proposed as we felt the current standard already re gulates this area.October 29 th , 2014 Allied Universal Corporation

Page 5 Comments Docket No. EPA–HQ–OEM–2014–0328

Promoting Inherently Safety Technology (IST) In its original RMP rulemaking EPA acknowledged tha t it did not believe that an IST requirement would produce additional benefits beyond those existing under the general program structure. EPA acknowledged that a ssessment of inherently safer design alternatives has the greate st benefit in the development of new processes. Ind ustry generally examines new process alternatives to avoid the addi tion of more costly administrative or engineering c ontrols in order to mitigate a design that may be more hazardous in nature. Although some existing processes may be mis conceived as being inherently less safe than other processes, EP A believed these processes could be safely operated through management and control of the hazards without spend ing resources searching for unavailable or unafford able new process technologies.

No circumstances have changed to alter the above ap proach to IST. Inherently safer approaches or safe r alternatives have been and will continue to be considered by fac ilities as a matter of course. Chemical facilities consider IST in preparing Process Hazard Analyses (PHAs) that are r equired for both the PSM and RMP standards. As EPA has acknowledged previously, PHA teams regularly sugges t viable, effective (and inherently safer) alternat ives for risk reduction which may include features such as invent ory reduction, material substitution and process co ntrol changes. These changes are made as opportunities arise, with out regulation or adoption of completely new and un proven process technologies.

Because there is no accepted methodology for object ively measuring whether certain process parameters are inherently safer than other it is not possible to d etermine whether certain particular measures are “i nherently safer” than others. Analyzing process changes requires co nsiderable judgment by facility personnel teams wit h expertise in process safety, operations, health, environmental i ssues and security because the benefits of potentia l risk reduction measures must be balanced against a host of other factors such as employee safety, public safety, env ironmental impact and ongoing operation and maintenance costs

.

Consequently, it is still the facility operator who is in the best position to have a comprehensive pi cture of what may or may not be feasible and how the facility environ ment will be impacted by process changes. Companies must be permitted to continue to use all risk management to ols and options at their disposal, and the consider ation of available options must be placed in the context of the comple xities of their unique operating environments. Beca use of these complexities, regulating the use of safer alternati ves is not practicable. No one regulatory program a ddresses the holistic safety and security environment of a given facility.

Safety Case A safety case regime requires companies to adopt a systematic hazard management framework. This means they must identify all major hazards and develop plans for ho w these hazards will be managed. In particular, the y must identify the controls that will be put in place to deal with the identified hazards, and the measures that will be taken to ensure
that controls continue to function as intended. Thi s part of the safety case framework is already in p lace for many

hazardous industries in the US. For instance for al l our processes, this is our OSHA PSM and EPA RMP p rograms.

While at first look the Safety Case may have appeal , there are many complexities in the implementatio n of them that could have unintended consequences or difficulties or cost, and which have not been evaluated much lik e the concerns with Inherently Safer Technology. Developing a saf ety case requires significant resources, not simply mapping the existing RMP document to a new format, for both the regulated community and the regulatory agencies at a time when resources are being pulled in many directions. For such a system to work, all facility operators and all regulators would need extensive knowledge about and would need to constantly keep current on the lates t safetyOctober 29 th , 2014 Allied Universal Corporation

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measures and trends. It is doubtful small to midsiz e facilities with a couple operators will be able t o satisfy these requirements. And it is even more doubtful that ou tliers, who are not complying with the current regu lations, would satisfy these requirements. This would be a monume ntal task, particularly for regulators, as best pra ctices vary depending on the segment of the extremely diverse i ndustries that handle and store chemicals. All thi s while there has not been a strong demonstration of how a “safety ca se” regime will result in a higher level of safety in actual operations over a fully functioning and properly ma naged safety and environment management system othe r than it is

used in a few other countries.

Conclusion As stated in the beginning of our comments Allied b elieves that compliance with the existing RMP stand ard already in place is effective in reducing chemical risk at chemical facilities. And compliance with already ex isting regulations is more likely to contribute to the reduction of pr ocess hazards and chemical incidents than the promu lgation of additional requirements for facilities. We recommen d that resources should be utilized in awareness an d training
efforts as well as enforcement activities where nec essary rather than by making changes to the existin g regulatory
system.

Additionally, Allied is concerned with the timeline presented by EPA in its RMP revision process. All ied recommends that EPA and OSHA work closely together to coordinate both their review and rulemaking acti vities so that the regulated community will be able to effect ively utilize existing resources while building a s trong, stable and consistent, chemical safety program which is the go al for all RMP stakeholders.

Allied respectfully requests that EPA take into car eful consideration the points provided in this corr espondence prior to moving forward with any changes to the RMP stand ard. The Institute stands ready to assist EPA in an y manner during its deliberations in this important matter.

Sincerely,

Jim Palmer

Chief Executive Officer Allied Universal Corporation Phone: 305-888-2623, extension 0109

Fax: 305-885-2671 E-Mail: JimP@AlliedUniversal.com

cc: Robin E. Bolte, Regulatory Affairs Manager