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+
+ - THE BP TEXAS CITY DISASTER AND WORKER SAFETY
+
+[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
+[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
+
+
+
+ THE BP TEXAS CITY DISASTER
+ AND WORKER SAFETY
+=======================================================================
+ HEARING
+
+ before the
+
+ COMMITTEE ON
+ EDUCATION AND LABOR
+
+ U.S. House of Representatives
+
+ ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
+
+ FIRST SESSION
+
+ __________
+
+ HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, MARCH 22, 2007
+
+ __________
+
+ Serial No. 110-12
+
+ __________
+
+ Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor
+
+
+ Available on the Internet:
+ http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/house/education/index.html
+
+ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
+
+33-902 PDF WASHINGTON DC: 2007
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
+Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866)512-1800
+DC area (202)512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2250 Mail Stop SSOP,
+Washington, DC 20402-0001
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR
+
+ GEORGE MILLER, California, Chairman
+
+Dale E. Kildee, Michigan, Vice Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon,
+ Chairman California,
+Donald M. Payne, New Jersey Ranking Minority Member
+Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin
+Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, Virginia Peter Hoekstra, Michigan
+Lynn C. Woolsey, California Michael N. Castle, Delaware
+Ruben Hinojosa, Texas Mark E. Souder, Indiana
+Carolyn McCarthy, New York Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan
+John F. Tierney, Massachusetts Judy Biggert, Illinois
+Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania
+David Wu, Oregon Ric Keller, Florida
+Rush D. Holt, New Jersey Joe Wilson, South Carolina
+Susan A. Davis, California John Kline, Minnesota
+Danny K. Davis, Illinois Bob Inglis, South Carolina
+Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington
+Timothy H. Bishop, New York Kenny Marchant, Texas
+Linda T. Sanchez, California Tom Price, Georgia
+John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Luis G. Fortuno, Puerto Rico
+Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania Charles W. Boustany, Jr.,
+David Loebsack, Iowa Louisiana
+Mazie Hirono, Hawaii Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
+Jason Altmire, Pennsylvania John R. ``Randy'' Kuhl, Jr., New
+John A. Yarmuth, Kentucky York
+Phil Hare, Illinois Rob Bishop, Utah
+Yvette D. Clarke, New York David Davis, Tennessee
+Joe Courtney, Connecticut Timothy Walberg, Michigan
+Carol Shea-Porter, New Hampshire
+
+ Mark Zuckerman, Staff Director
+ Vic Klatt, Minority Staff Director
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ C O N T E N T S
+
+ ----------
+ Page
+
+Hearing held on March 22, 2007................................... 1
+Statement of Members:
+ Marchant, Hon. Kenny, a Representative in Congress from the
+ State of Texas, prepared statement of...................... 53
+ McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ``Buck,'' Senior Republican Member,
+ Committee on Education and Labor........................... 3
+ Miller, Hon. George, Chairman, Committee on Education and
+ Labor...................................................... 1
+
+Statement of Witnesses:
+ Bowman, ADM Frank ``Skip'' (Retired), president, Nuclear
+ Safety Institute, Member, Baker Panel...................... 10
+ Prepared statement of.................................... 11
+ Cavaney, Red, president and CEO, American Petroleum Institute 23
+ Prepared statement of.................................... 24
+ Responses to questions submitted......................... 50
+ Merritt, Hon. Carolyn W., Chair, U.S. Chemical Safety and
+ Hazard Investigation Board................................. 6
+ Prepared statement of.................................... 7
+ Nibarger, Kim, health and safety specialist, health, safety
+ and environment department, United Steelworkers
+ International Union........................................ 30
+ Prepared statement of.................................... 32
+ Rowe, Eva, relative of BP Texas City disaster victims........ 21
+ Prepared statement of.................................... 22
+
+
+ THE BP TEXAS CITY DISASTER
+ AND WORKER SAFETY
+
+ ----------
+
+
+ Thursday, March 22, 2007
+
+ U.S. House of Representatives
+
+ Committee on Education and Labor
+
+ Washington, DC
+
+ ----------
+
+ The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in room
+2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. George Miller
+[chairman of the committee] presiding.
+ Present: Representatives Miller, Kildee, Kucinich, Wu,
+Holt, Davis of California, Bishop of New York, Sanchez,
+Sarbanes, Sestak, Loebsack, Hare, Shea-Porter, McKeon, Petri,
+Ehlers, Platt, Wilson, Boustany, Foxx, Bishop of Utah, and
+Walberg.
+ Staff Present: Aaron Albright, Press Secretary; Tylease
+Alli, Hearing Clerk; Jordan Barab, Health/Safety Professional;
+Michael Gaffin, Staff Assistant, Labor; Peter Galvin, Senior
+Labor Policy Advisor; Jeffrey Hancuff, Staff Assistant, Labor;
+Brian Kennedy, General Counsel; Thomas Kiley, Communications
+Director; Danielle Lee, Press/Outreach Assistant; Joe Novotny,
+Chief Clerk; Alex Nock, Deputy Staff Director; Megan O'Reilly,
+Labor Policy Advisor; Rachel Racusen, Deputy Communications
+Director; Michele Varnhagen, Labor Policy Director; Daniel
+Weiss, Special Assistant to the Chairman; Mark Zuckerman, Staff
+Director; Steve Forde, Minority Communications Director; Ed
+Gilroy, Minority Director of Workforce Policy; Rob Gregg,
+Minority Legislative Assistant; Victor Klatt, Minority Staff
+Director; Jim Paretti, Minority Workforce Policy Counsel; Molly
+McLaughlin Salmi, Minority Deputy Director of Workforce Policy;
+Linda Stevens, Minority Chief Clerk/Assistant to the General
+Counsel; and Loren Sweatt, Minority Professional Staff Member.
+ Chairman Miller. Good morning. The Committee on Education
+and Labor will come to order for the purposes of conducting a
+hearing on the British Petroleum Texas City Disaster and Worker
+Safety. Today's hearing is the first in a series of hearings to
+examine the safety of America's workplaces and to determine
+whether or not agencies assigned to oversee workplace safety,
+in this case the Occupational Safety and Health Administration,
+are doing the job that Congress gave it when it was created 35
+years ago. Over the next several months, we will be taking a
+look at OSHA's failure to issue important standards to protect
+American workers, the Bush administration's transformation of
+OSHA from a law enforcement organization into a so-called
+``voluntary compliance organization,'' the agency's inadequate
+efforts to protect immigrant workers who suffer from a high
+rate of workplace injuries and fatalities, the Nation's failure
+to protect public employees, the chronic underreporting of
+workplace injuries and illnesses and the agency's respective
+penalty structure. Of course, we will also continue to keep a
+close eye on the safety of this Nation's miners, including
+hearings on that topic next week.
+ Today's hearing focuses on the cause of the disaster that
+unfolded when the explosion ripped through British Petroleum's
+Texas City refinery 2 years ago tomorrow, killing 15 workers
+and injuring 180. The British Petroleum explosion was the
+biggest workplace disaster in 18 years, yet it has received
+very little Congressional scrutiny until today. Even more
+upsetting is that 2 years after this catastrophe we are seeing
+a disturbing pattern of major fires and explosions in U.S.
+refineries.
+ Responding to the 1984 Bhopal, India disaster as well as
+several catastrophic refinery and chemical plant explosions in
+the United States, in 1990, Congress required OSHA and the
+Environmental Protection Agency to publish new regulations to
+prevent such accidents. In 1992, OSHA issued its process safety
+management standard requirements for refineries and chemical
+facilities to implement management systems and identify and
+control hazards to prevent disasters like the one in Texas
+City.
+ Today, we will explore why, 15 years after OSHA issued its
+standards, we are still seeing disasters in this Nation's
+refineries and chemical facilities that threaten workers' lives
+and safety of the surrounding communities. The questions
+arising from these reports are:
+ What can be done to prevent such catastrophes in the
+future? Why are this Nation's refineries neglecting well-
+recognized safety practices? Has the Occupational Safety and
+Health Administration been fulfilling its mission to ensure the
+safety of this Nation's refineries and chemical plants?
+ Protecting the safety of refinery/chemical workers is
+reason enough to get this right, but the safety of our
+refineries and chemical facilities also has broader
+implications in the communities surrounding these plants.
+According to the Environmental Protection Agency, there are
+3,400 high priority chemical facilities in this country where a
+worst case release of toxic chemicals could sicken or kill more
+than 1,000 people in 272 sites and that could affect more than
+50,000 people. This hearing has added resonance considering all
+of the attention that has been placed since 9/11 on the
+scrutiny of this Nation's chemical plants.
+ Despite the attention and the focus on the terrorist threat
+of our Nation's plants, the fact is that the British Petroleum
+Texas City explosion and other fires and explosions since then
+show that preventable accidents can also kill, injure and
+sicken people in large numbers, and we all pay the cost; for
+example, the higher gas prices of these explosions and
+resulting disruptions in our energy supplies.
+ Let me say also that this is not a new issue for me, and in
+fact, for me this issue is personal. I remember well a fire at
+the Tosco Avon refinery in my district in 1999 that killed four
+men and seriously injured another. That followed an incident at
+the same refinery 2 years before that killed one worker.
+Recently again, California has suffered a major fire at the
+Chevron refinery, which has closed part of the plant and has
+caused gas prices to rise in California. Contra Costa County,
+my home county where the refinery is located, has issued its
+own industrial safety ordinance that requires an inspection
+every 3 years in accident prevention programs. In addition to
+annual inspections, one thing Contra Costa County does that
+OSHA does not do is collect information on near misses and the
+small incidents that can be used to predict the possibility of
+a major event. For example, from the information on the Contra
+Costa County's Web site, it shows that the Tesoro Golden Eagle
+refinery, formerly the Tosco refinery, where four were killed
+in 1999, has had 10 incidents--fires, explosions, chemical
+releases--in the past 3 years.
+ What we are doing at this hearing today is sadly an old
+story, but it is a story that must change. It is the story of a
+company that, despite a brilliant public relations effort,
+appears to have put profit before safety and has first sought
+to blame its workers for the systemic failures of its corporate
+safety system. It is a story of the failure of the Occupational
+Safety and Health Administration to ensure that these
+facilities are safe for the workers who work within them, but
+most of all, it is a story of loss, a story of children who
+have lost their parents, parents who have lost their sons and
+daughters, and men and women who have lost their husbands and
+wives.
+ The main reason that we have scheduled this hearing this
+week was due to the release of the Chemical Safety Board's
+report on the British Petroleum Texas City disaster 2 days ago.
+I want to commend the board for its excellent work and for its
+independence and for the work that it has done over the past
+several years and for the contributions this small agency has
+made to chemical plant safety. The lessons we have learned from
+the Chemical Safety Board's investigations are contributing to
+the savings of lives of workers and ensuring the safety of our
+communities.
+ While we have seen OSHA, the Mine Safety and Health
+Administration, and the EPA increasingly controlled by
+industries that they are supposed to be regulating, the
+Chemical Safety Board has been refreshingly unafraid to
+criticize and make recommendations to OSHA and to EPA. It is
+unfortunate, especially in the case of OSHA, that so many of
+these recommendations have gone unheeded.
+ With that, I would like to recognize the senior Republican
+of the committee, Mr. McKeon of California.
+ Mr. McKeon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ With the Chemical Safety Board's having made public its
+report earlier this week on BP's Texas City tragedy, I thank
+you for convening today's hearing. Likewise, I appreciate each
+of the witnesses for joining us today and, in particular Ms.
+Rowe, for providing us what I expect will be a moving and
+important personal testimony.
+ Refining is an inherently dangerous process, and industry
+has the responsibility to ensure that appropriate steps are
+taken to safeguard the men and women working in a refinery as
+in other workplaces around the country. For example, during the
+preparation for refinery maintenance or for a refinery restart,
+management of the facility has the obligation to follow the
+requirements of the process safety management standards.
+ In March of 2005 and, frankly, in the months and years
+leading up to it, independent reports, including that of the
+Chemical Safety Board, have found that BP fell short in this
+regard, and far too many families have paid dearly as a result.
+The repeated accidents and the number of citations at the Texas
+City facility should have alerted management to the potential
+for imminent danger, but that clearly was not the case. In the
+wake of this tragedy, BP cannot be and, indeed, has not been
+given a pass for its failings. It has agreed to pay the largest
+fines in OSHA's history, and it has taken independent
+recommendations to heart. Now the company must commit the time,
+the energy and, yes, the resources necessary to fulfilling
+those recommendations.
+ Mr. Cavaney, I was pleased to read in your prepared
+testimony that in the petroleum industry workplace safety is
+not just a matter of lip service. Rather, the industry is
+taking proactive and unprecedented steps to strengthen safety
+standards and recommended practices. I applaud your
+organization for taking the lead in keeping safety concerns at
+the forefront, and I am hopeful that, in the years to come, we
+will continue to see this type of forward thinking so we can
+prevent disasters instead of simply reacting to them.
+ As we move through today's hearing, I will be interested to
+hear the witnesses' perspectives on additional steps that can
+be taken within the industry to bolster workplace safety even
+more so that we can ensure that a disaster like the one that
+took place 2 years ago in Texas City will never happen again.
+For example, many of my colleagues and I have long proposed the
+concept of engaging third party consultants who specialize in
+specific industrial processes and who can provide enhanced
+safety inspections. Had such a third party audit been
+undertaken, it is not out of the realm of possibility that BP
+would have done more to rectify ongoing problems of which it
+had been made aware. Even so, the responsibility lies squarely
+at the feet of BP. As I noted earlier, that is why the company
+has been held to account under the Occupational Safety and
+Health Act by agreeing to pay the single largest fine in the
+law's history.
+ I know some have called for criminal investigation into
+this matter, and I believe OSHA's referral of this matter to
+the Department of Justice for a full criminal investigation is
+warranted. No corporation is above the law, and I believe the
+multi-pronged response to this tragedy has demonstrated just
+that.
+ Mr. Chairman, once again, I thank you for bringing this
+committee together today to review the findings of the Chemical
+Safety Board's report and to gather the testimony from our
+other witnesses. The subject of today's hearing could not be
+more unfortunate, but I believe the work we have seen at the
+Federal level and in the industry demonstrates our collective
+commitment to ensuring that the tragedy of this magnitude never
+occurs again.
+ Chairman Miller. Thank you very much.
+ We are joined this morning by a distinguished panel of
+witnesses who I think will help us to better understand not
+only what tragically took place in Texas City, but also what we
+might do about it with respect to policy changes that I think
+are necessary and that I think would be very helpful.
+ We will begin with the Chair of the Chemical Safety Board,
+Carolyn Merritt, who joined the board and became the Chair in
+August 2002. Chair Merritt's work on the Chemical Safety Board
+is involved in investigating process engineering and operations
+and management of environment and safety compliance systems in
+a wide range of manufacturing. Chairwoman Merritt was educated
+at Radford University with a degree in Analytical Chemistry.
+ Retired Admiral Frank L. ``Skip'' Bowman is a longtime
+naval officer and former Director of the Naval Nuclear
+Propulsion Program. He is currently President and Chief
+Executive Officer of the Nuclear Energy Institute. He is a
+graduate of Duke University in 1966, and in 1973, he completed
+a dual master's program in nuclear engineering, naval
+architecture and marine engineering at the Massachusetts
+Institute of Technology.
+ Eva Rowe is the daughter of James and Linda Rowe, contract
+workers who were killed in an explosion on March 23rd, 2005 at
+this British Petroleum refinery in Texas City, Texas. Ms. Rowe
+is working in Texas to spearhead the passage of the ``Remember
+the 15'' bill, which will improve worker health and safety
+standards in the petrochemical industry nationwide.
+ Ms. Rowe, I want to again thank you very much for being a
+witness, and I cannot tell you how sorry we are about the loss
+of your parents but how proud they must be of you in continuing
+this fight to make sure that those workers who are placed in
+the same circumstance have greater margins of safety and
+conscious awareness of the threats to them than your parents
+were afforded at that time, and thank you so very, very much
+for being here.
+ Red Cavaney is the President and Chief Executive Officer of
+the American Petroleum Institute. He served on the staff of
+U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon.
+He is a 1964 NROTC graduate of economics and history at the
+University of Southern California and has served three tours of
+combat duty in Vietnam and was honorably discharged with the
+rank of U.S. Navy Lieutenant in 1969.
+ Kim Nibarger is the Health and Safety Specialist for the
+United Steelworkers Health, Safety and the Environment
+Department. Mr. Nibarger is currently conducting an
+investigation of the BP Texas City accident for the United
+Steelworkers. He also serves as an accident investigator for
+the Steelworkers' Emergency Response Team. Mr. Nibarger has had
+17 years in refinery operations and has served as a member of
+the joint chair of the Steelworkers Joint Health and Safety
+Committee for 8 years. Mr. Nibarger is a graduate of Anacortes
+High School and attended the Lutheran Bible Institute and
+Western Washington University and Sky Valley College.
+ Welcome to all of you. We look forward to your testimony.
+Your written statements will be placed in the record in their
+entirety, and you may proceed for 5 minutes. There will be a
+green light when you start your testimony. About 4 or 5 minutes
+later, there will be an orange light, which suggests that you
+might want to begin wrapping up, and then a red light when your
+time has expired, but be assured that we will allow you to
+complete sentences and complete thoughts before we cut you off,
+but as you can see from the attendance, there is an interest,
+and we want to make sure that there is time for questions.
+ Chairwoman Merritt, welcome.
+
+STATEMENT OF THE HON. CAROLYN W. MERRITT, CHAIR, U.S. CHEMICAL
+ SAFETY AND HAZARD INVESTIGATION BOARD
+
+ Ms. Merritt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning, and
+thank you to the members of the committee.
+ Thank you for calling this important hearing. I am Carolyn
+Merritt, Chairman and CEO of the U.S. Chemical Safety and
+Hazard Investigation Board, an independent Federal agency that
+investigates major chemical accidents. My statements this
+morning are being made as an individual board member.
+ On Tuesday, the CSB completed its investigation of the BP
+Texas City accident and issued a number of significant safety
+recommendations. On the afternoon of March 23rd, 2005, during
+the start-up of the refinery's ISOM unit, which is used to
+boost the octane in gasoline, a tower was overfilled with
+flammable liquid, flooding an antiquated blow-down drum and
+stack that vented directly into the atmosphere. In the space of
+a few minutes, the equivalent of a nearly full tanker truck of
+gasoline erupted and fell to the ground, vaporized, and
+exploded. Fifteen workers were killed, including James and
+Linda Rowe, whose tireless and courageous daughter, Eva, is
+here today. I know they would be very proud of the work that
+she is now embarking on.
+ Mr. Chairman, the accident at BP was avoidable. In my view,
+it was the inevitable result of a series of actions by the
+company. Among other things, they cut budgets that affected
+training, staffing, maintenance, equipment modernization, and
+safety. They ignored the implications of previous incidents
+that were red warning flags. There was a broken safety culture
+at BP. Between 2002 and March 2005, an ominous series of
+internal reports, safety audits and surveys warned BP managers
+and executives about the deteriorating safety conditions at
+Texas City. However, their response was simply too little, too
+late.
+ Our findings about BP's culture were similar to those of
+the independent Baker panel, which the CSB recommended and BP
+created and funded, and I thank Admiral Bowman and all of the
+other panel members for their outstanding efforts. The CSB
+found that the operators at Texas City were likely fatigued,
+having worked at least 29 straight days of 12-hour shifts. We
+recommended that the American Petroleum Institute and the
+United Steelworkers work together to develop consensus
+guidelines on preventing operator fatigue. All of the deaths
+and many of the injuries at Texas City occurred in or near
+trailers that were placed too close to the unsafe blow-down
+drum.
+ In October of 2005, the CSB issued an urgent safety
+recommendation to the American Petroleum Institute to develop
+new trailer safety siting guidelines. Trailers, which are sited
+for convenience and can shatter during an explosion, simply
+have no place in harm's way within refineries and chemical
+facilities. We also issued recommendations to both API and
+OSHA, aimed at eliminating unsafe blow-down drums from U.S.
+refineries and chemical plants in favor of safer alternatives,
+such as flare systems. We urge API and OSHA to move quickly and
+aggressively on these issues and to take concrete steps right
+away to improve refinery safety.
+ Finally, the CSB found that regulatory oversight of this
+refinery was ineffective. In recent years, OSHA has focused its
+inspection on workplaces with high injury rates, but these
+rates do not predict the likelihood of a catastrophic process
+accident at a facility. Better measures than injury rates are
+necessary, and thus, we recommended that API collaborate with
+the steelworkers to develop new safety indicators.
+ Like thousands of other petrochemical plants, this refinery
+is regulated under OSHA's Process Safety Management standard
+issued in 1992. Rigorous implementation and enforcement of this
+rule, including its preventative maintenance and incident
+investigation requirements, would almost certainly have
+prevented this tragedy. However, despite 23 workers being
+killed at the Texas City refinery over the 30 years prior to
+this accident, OSHA did not conduct any comprehensive planned
+process safety inspections at this troubled facility. In fact,
+between 1985 and March of 2005, OSHA collected only $77,000 in
+fines from this refinery. Clearly, such penalties have little
+impact on huge corporations like Amoco and BP. Furthermore, our
+investigation found that in the 10 years from 1995 to 2005,
+Federal OSHA only conducted nine comprehensive safety
+inspections nationwide and none at all in the refinery sector.
+OSHA simply lacked enough trained inspectors to conduct these
+audits.
+ The CSB report called on OSHA to identify those facilities
+and the greatest risk of a catastrophic accident and then to
+conduct comprehensive inspections of those facilities. We also
+recommended that OSHA hire, develop and train specialized
+inspectors for the oil and chemical sectors.
+ Mr. Chairman, our vision is imminently achievable,
+particularly if OSHA receives appropriate support, resources
+and encouragement from Congress. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for
+the opportunity to testify this morning and for your
+longstanding support of our agency.
+ [The statement of Ms. Merritt follows:]
+
+ Prepared Statement of Hon. Carolyn W. Merritt, Chair, U.S. Chemical
+ Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
+
+ Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: thank you for convening
+this important hearing on the tragic explosion at BP Texas City in
+2005. I am Carolyn Merritt, Chairman of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board,
+an independent, non-regulatory federal agency patterned on the National
+Transportation Safety Board. We investigate the root causes of chemical
+accidents and develop new safety recommendations based on our findings.
+ On Tuesday, we completed our investigation of the BP Texas City
+accident and issued a number of new national safety recommendations. To
+conduct this investigation, we interviewed 370 witnesses, reviewed more
+than 30,000 documents, and did extensive equipment testing and computer
+modeling. BP cooperated with the investigation, furnished documents and
+interviews on a voluntary basis, and committed to widespread safety
+improvements and investments following the accident.
+ Mr. Chairman, two years ago tomorrow, the BP Texas City Refinery,
+the third largest in the United States, was the site of the worst
+workplace accident in this country since 1990. Fifteen people died,
+including James and Linda Rowe, whose courageous daughter is sitting
+here this morning at the witness table. One hundred and eighty others
+were hurt, many with severe and disabling injuries.
+ The explosion occurred during unit startup, one of the most
+hazardous periods in a refinery. A distillation tower was overfilled
+with liquid, flooding an antiquated blowdown drum and stack that vented
+directly to the atmosphere. Flammable liquid--nearly the equivalent of
+a full tanker truck of gasoline--erupted onto the plant grounds,
+vaporized, and exploded.
+ In our final report, we concluded that organizational and safety
+deficiencies at all levels of the BP Corporation caused this terrible
+accident. We found widespread safety culture deficiencies both at the
+Texas City Refinery and at higher levels of BP.
+ Over many years, a combination of corporate cost-cutting,
+production pressures, and a failure to invest had eroded process safety
+at this refinery. Between 2002 and March 2005, an ominous series of
+internal reports, surveys, and safety audits warned BP managers and
+executives about the deteriorating conditions in Texas City. However,
+their response was simply too little, too late. Some additional
+investments were made, but they did not address the core process safety
+and maintenance problems at the refinery. And further budget cuts were
+enacted, even as late as early 2005.
+ Budget considerations forced reductions in training, personnel, and
+the maintenance and modernization of critical equipment. These
+reductions had adverse effects on safety and set the stage for the
+March 2005 disaster.
+ Our investigation also revealed a variety of technical factors that
+were among the causes of the accident. Specifically, we examined the
+unsafe placement of trailers in the refinery, and the absence of a
+modern flare system for controlling flammable releases.
+ All the deaths and many injuries occurred in or near trailers that
+were as close as 121 feet from the unsafe blowdown drum. The
+investigation revealed that trailers are more vulnerable than predicted
+by available industry guidance. People inside trailers were injured as
+far as 479 feet away from the blowdown drum, and trailers nearly 1000
+feet away sustained damage. A human being is more likely to be injured
+or killed inside a trailer--which can shatter during an explosion--than
+if he is standing in the open air. For that reason, occupied trailers
+have no place near hazardous process areas of refineries and chemical
+plants.
+ In October 2005, we issued an urgent safety recommendation to the
+American Petroleum Institute, whose president is here today, to develop
+new safety guidance preventing trailers from being placed in harm's way
+in oil and chemical plants. Trailers are portable by definition and can
+easily be moved to safer locations.
+ We also issued recommendations in October 2006 to both API and OSHA
+aimed at eliminating unsafe blowdown drums from U.S. refineries and
+chemical plants in favor of safer alternatives, such as flare systems.
+A flare system could have prevented or greatly minimized the effects of
+the accident in Texas City.
+ We urge API and OSHA to move quickly and aggressively on these
+issues and to take steps that will improve process safety in concrete
+and measurable ways.
+ In addition, our investigation found that errors and procedural
+deviations occurred during the startup on March 23. We performed a
+human factors analysis to understand the causes for these mistakes and
+deviations. That analysis showed that unit operators in Texas City were
+likely fatigued, having worked at least 29 straight days of 12-hour
+shifts.
+ Fatigue prevention regulations have been developed for aviation and
+other transportation sectors, but there are no fatigue prevention
+guidelines that are widely used and accepted in the oil and chemical
+sector. Our report recommends that API and the United Steelworkers work
+together to develop such consensus guidelines.
+ We also found shortcomings with control panel design, staffing,
+supervision, training, and communication. Surprisingly, we found that
+abnormal startups were common in this particular unit, with 18 out of
+19 exhibiting abnormal levels and pressures. BP did not investigate
+these previous near-misses and did not install modern instrumentation
+on the distillation tower. Furthermore, much of the instrumentation
+that was present was not working due to flaws in preventative
+maintenance.
+ The BP Texas City Refinery is regulated under OSHA's Process Safety
+Management (PSM) standard, which was issued in 1992 as a result of
+chemical accident provisions included in the 1990 Clean Air Act
+Amendments. The PSM standard requires covered facilities to implement
+14 specific management elements to prevent catastrophic releases of
+hazardous substances.
+ Our investigation found numerous requirements of the standard were
+not being effectively performed in Texas City--such as incident
+investigation, preventative maintenance, management of change, and
+hazard analysis. Required safety studies were overlooked for years. For
+example, a required relief valve study that, if done, could have helped
+prevent the accident was 13 years overdue on the day of the explosion.
+ If the Process Safety Management standard had been thoroughly
+implemented at the refinery, as required by federal regulations, this
+accident likely would not have occurred.
+ BP, industry, and OSHA are now focused on measuring and controlling
+lost-time injuries, which are a fundamentally backward-looking
+indicator. Injury rates do not predict the likelihood of a catastrophic
+process accident at a facility.
+ I know from personal experience as an industry safety executive in
+the 1990's that when the PSM regulation was established, it received
+great attention and investment throughout much of industry. But today,
+CSB investigations as well as my discussions with industry managers
+indicate that many companies have reduced their focus on these critical
+safety requirements. Without strong OSHA enforcement, PSM will devolve
+into essentially a voluntary program. Almost invariably, when we
+conduct an investigation of a major chemical catastrophe, we find that
+both PSM implementation and PSM enforcement were lacking.
+ Federal regulators did not conduct any comprehensive, planned
+process safety inspections at the Texas City Refinery. In fact, our
+investigation found that in the ten years from 1995 to 2005, federal
+OSHA only conducted nine such inspections anywhere in the country, and
+none in the refining sector. And the Texas City Refinery was an
+extremely dangerous workplace by any objective standard. In the 30
+years prior to March 23, 2005, twenty-three workers had died there in
+workplace accidents. Counting the 15 workers who died on March 23 and
+another one who died there more recently, there have been a total of 39
+deaths in that one facility.
+ OSHA did conduct unplanned inspections of the Texas City Refinery
+in response to accidents, complaints, or referrals. But these unplanned
+inspections are typically narrower in scope and shorter than planned
+inspections. Proposed OSHA fines during the twenty years preceding the
+March 2005 disaster--a period when ten fatalities occurred at the
+refinery--totaled $270,255; net fines collected after negotiations
+totaled $77,860. Following the March 2005 explosion, OSHA issued the
+largest penalty in its history to BP, over $21 million for more than
+300 egregious and willful violations.
+ Our report concluded OSHA has focused its inspections for a number
+of years on facilities that have injury rates. While OSHA is to be
+commended for trying to reduce these rates, the Chemical Safety Board
+believes that OSHA should also pay increased attention to preventing
+less frequent, but catastrophic, process safety incidents such as the
+one at Texas City.
+ When the PSM standard was created, OSHA had envisioned a highly
+technical, complex, and lengthy inspection process for regulated
+facilities, called a Program Quality Verification or PQV inspection.
+The inspections would take weeks or months at each facility and would
+be conducted by a select, well-trained, and experienced team. Indeed,
+thoroughly inspecting a 1,200-acre chemical complex with 30 major
+process units--like the Texas City Refinery--is no small undertaking
+and requires at least that level of effort.
+ On Tuesday, our report called on OSHA to identify those facilities
+at the greatest risk of a catastrophic accident and then to conduct
+comprehensive inspections of those facilities. We also recommended that
+OSHA hire or develop new, specialized inspectors and expand the PSM
+training curriculum at its National Training Institute.
+ Mr. Chairman, our vision is eminently achievable, particularly if
+OSHA receives appropriate support, resources, and encouragement from
+Congress. Other safety authorities have managed to do what we are
+proposing. For example, the U.K. Health and Safety Executive, which
+oversees a much smaller oil and chemical industry than exists in the
+U.S., has 105 inspectors for high-hazard facilities; each covered
+facility in the U.K. is thoroughly inspected every five years.
+ In your own district of Contra Costa, Mr. Chairman, the county has
+its own industrial safety ordinance and inspects each covered oil and
+chemical facility every three years. A county staff of five engineers
+performs an average of 16 inspections each year. So this one county,
+which is particularly enlightened, seems to be outpacing the rest of
+the nation.
+ Mr. Chairman, rules already on the books would likely have
+prevented the tragedy in Texas City. But if a company is not following
+those rules, year-in and year-out, it is the ultimate responsibility of
+the federal government to enforce good safety practices before more
+lives are lost.
+ Congress showed tremendous vision in 1990 when it reauthorized the
+Clean Air Act and made major accident prevention one of its
+cornerstones. However, I am concerned that since 1990, there has not
+been sufficient attention and investment in these programs to fully
+realize that vision. The tragedy in Texas City should cause us all to
+reflect and to resolve to do better in the future.
+ Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to testify this
+morning and thank you also for your longstanding support of our agency
+and its mission.
+ ______
+
+ Chairman Miller. Thank you.
+ Admiral Bowman.
+
+ STATEMENT OF ADM FRANK ``SKIP'' BOWMAN (RET.), PRESIDENT,
+ NUCLEAR SAFETY INSTITUTE, MEMBER, BAKER PANEL
+
+ Admiral Bowman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and
+distinguished members of the panel, for allowing me the
+opportunity to testify today.
+ Mr. Chairman, as you noted, I was one of eleven members of
+the BP's U.S. refineries' independent safety review panel,
+which was chaired by former Secretary of State Jim Baker.
+First, let me say I regret the circumstances that spawned our
+panel, and that is the catastrophic accident that the chairman
+just discussed that occurred at the BP Texas City refinery on
+March 23rd, 2005. I wish to extend my personal sympathy to all
+of the families, colleagues and friends of those who perished
+in that accident, including Ms. Eva Rowe, who is here with us
+today. I also wish to extend my best wishes for continued
+recovery to those who were injured in that accident.
+ As you just heard, in August 2005, the Chemical Safety
+Board urgently recommended that BP establish and form an
+independent panel to, quote/unquote, ``assess and report on the
+effectiveness of BP North America's corporate oversight of
+safety management systems at its refineries and its corporate
+safety culture.'' That same urgent recommendation called for a
+panel with a diverse makeup, including experts in corporate
+culture organizational behavior and experts from other high-
+risk sectors such as nuclear energy and the undersea Navy.
+ I served on this panel, and I suspect I was selected to
+serve because of my career in the United States Navy and my
+current position associated with the commercial nuclear energy
+industry, and I suspect that Chairman Merritt included those
+two requests at least partly because of the significantly good
+and exemplary process safety record of those two organizations.
+ I served on this panel with 10 very distinguished,
+dedicated and hardworking members. Each member brought to the
+panel a unique set of skills and expertise, and together, we
+fulfilled the stated objective of the Chemical Safety Board.
+ I am hear today in my capacity as a member of that panel.
+In both my written statement and my oral testimony, I will rely
+very heavily on the executive summary from the panel's report,
+and I do not intend to interpret or add to that, to what the
+panel said in its report, which I think stands on its own.
+Instead, sir, I would highlight selected portions of it that
+may be of interest to you and to your committee.
+ Mr. Chairman, I ask for your approval to include in the
+record the panel's entire report along with my written
+statement.
+ Chairman Miller. Without objection. Thank you.
+ [The information follows:]
+
+ Prepared Statement of ADM Frank ``Skip'' Bowman (Retired), President,
+ Nuclear Safety Institute, Member, Baker Panel
+
+Introduction
+ Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the Committee, I am
+Admiral Frank L. ``Skip'' Bowman, U.S. Navy (retired). I serve as
+president and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Energy Institute.
+In addition, and of particular relevance to the hearings by the
+Committee, I also served as one of the 11 members on the BP U.S.
+Refineries Independent Safety Review Panel, which was chaired by former
+Secretary of State James A. Baker, III. In the remainder of this
+statement, I will refer to that panel as ``the Panel.''
+ First, let me say that I regret the circumstances that bring us
+here today--the catastrophic accident that occurred at the BP Texas
+City refinery on March 23, 2005. Tomorrow will be the second
+anniversary of that tragic event. I want to extend my sympathy to all
+the families, colleagues and friends of those who perished in that
+accident, including Eva Rowe, who is here today and who lost both of
+her parents in the accident. I also want to extend my best wishes for
+continued recovery to those who were injured in the accident.
+ In August 2005, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation
+Board, which I will refer to as the ``CSB,'' issued to the BP Global
+Executive Board of Directors an urgent recommendation to form an
+independent panel to ``assess and report on the effectiveness of BP
+North America's corporate oversight of safety management systems at its
+refineries and its corporate safety culture.'' That same urgent
+recommendation called for a panel with a diverse makeup, including
+experts in corporate culture, organizational behavior, and human
+factors; and experts from other high risk sectors such as nuclear
+energy and the undersea navy.
+ I was selected to serve on the Panel because of my background and
+experience with the nuclear navy. After graduating from Duke University
+in 1966, I immediately began my naval career, which spanned almost 39
+years. In 1973, I completed a dual masters program in nuclear
+engineering and naval architecture/marine engineering at Massachusetts
+Institute of Technology. During the course of my naval career, I served
+aboard six ships, five of which were nuclear submarines, and I
+commanded the submarine USS City of Corpus Christi and the tender USS
+Holland. A flag officer since 1991, I also served as Deputy Director of
+Operations, Joint Staff; Director for Political-Military Affairs, Joint
+Staff; and Chief of Naval Personnel. I served as Director, Naval
+Nuclear Propulsion from 1996 to 2004, during which time I held a joint
+appointment as Deputy Administrator for Naval Reactors in the National
+Nuclear Security Administration of the Department of Energy. In that
+position I was responsible for the operation of more than 100 nuclear
+reactors aboard Navy aircraft carriers and submarines and in its
+training and research facilities. Throughout its history--including
+during my tenure--the nuclear navy's safety record has been exemplary.
+Since 1953, U.S. nuclear warships have logged over 128 million miles in
+defense of our country.
+ In my role as Director, Naval Nuclear Propulsion, I testified
+before the House Science Committee investigating the Columbia Space
+Shuttle accident on the organizational culture of safety that has made
+Naval Reactors a safety success.
+ I served on the Panel with ten distinguished, dedicated, and hard-
+working members. Each member brought to the Panel a unique set of
+skills and expertise, and together I believe we fulfilled the stated
+objective of the CSB in having a diverse group with expertise in the
+different areas called for by the CSB's urgent recommendation. As
+called for by our charter, the Panel's review was thorough and
+independent. The Panel announced its final report in Houston on January
+16, 2007, approximately two months ago.
+ I am here today in my capacity as a former member of the Panel. In
+that capacity, I will highlight for the benefit of the Committee
+certain aspects of the Panel's report. In particular, I will rely
+heavily on the executive summary from the Panel report. In making my
+comments today, I do not intend to interpret or add to what the Panel
+said in its report, which stands on its own. Instead, I intend to
+highlight selected portions of the report that may be of interest to
+this Committee. Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I will submit a
+copy of the Panel's entire report for the record. The Panel's report
+can also be accessed at the Panel's website, which may be found at
+http://www.safetyreviewpanel.com.
+ Before highlighting certain aspects of the Panel's report, let me
+quote two portions from the Panel's statement that preceded its report:
+ First, the very first sentence: ``Process safety accidents can be
+prevented.''
+ Second, the following paragraph:
+ Preventing process accidents requires vigilance. The passing of
+time without a process accident is not necessarily an indication that
+all is well and may contribute to a dangerous and growing sense of
+complacency. When people lose an appreciation of how their safety
+systems were intended to work, safety systems and controls can
+deteriorate, lessons can be forgotten, and hazards and deviations from
+safe operating procedures can be accepted. Workers and supervisors can
+increasingly rely on how things were done before, rather than rely on
+sound engineering principles and other controls. People can forget to
+be afraid.
+ Let me move now to highlight selected aspects of the Panel's review
+and report.
+Background of the Panel's Review
+ On March 23, 2005, the BP Texas City refinery experienced one of
+the most serious U.S. workplace disasters of the past two decades,
+resulting in 15 deaths, more than 170 injuries, and significant
+economic losses. The CSB, an independent federal agency charged with
+investigating industrial chemical accidents, promptly began an accident
+investigation.
+ On August 17, 2005, the CSB issued an urgent safety recommendation
+to the BP Global Executive Board of Directors that it commission an
+independent panel to assess and report on the effectiveness of BP North
+America's corporate oversight of safety management systems at its
+refineries and its corporate safety culture. In making its urgent
+recommendation, the CSB noted that the BP Texas City refinery had
+experienced two other fatal safety incidents in 2004, a major process-
+related hydrogen fire on July 28, 2005, and another serious incident on
+August 10, 2005. Based on these incidents and the results of the first
+few months of its preliminary investigation, the CSB cited serious
+concerns about:
+ the effectiveness of the safety management system at the
+BP Texas City refinery,
+ the effectiveness of BP North America's corporate safety
+oversight of its refining facilities, and
+ a corporate safety culture that may have tolerated serious
+and longstanding deviations from good safety practice.
+ BP embraced the urgent recommendation of the CSB to form an
+independent panel. In a press release issued on August 17, 2005, the
+company noted that the Texas City explosion was the worst tragedy in
+BP's recent history and that it would ``do everything possible to
+ensure nothing like it happens again.''
+ On October 24, 2005, BP announced the formation of the BP U.S.
+Refineries Independent Safety Review Panel. Former Secretary of State
+James A. Baker, III chaired the Panel. In addition to Secretary Baker
+and myself, the Panel included the following members:
+ Glenn Erwin, who monitors refinery safety nationwide for
+the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy,
+Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union;
+ Slade Gorton, former U.S. Senator from Washington State
+and member of the 9/11 Commission;
+ Dennis C. Hendershot, Principal Process Safety Specialist
+at Chilworth Technologies, Inc., and a Staff Consultant to the American
+Institute of Chemical Engineers' Center for Chemical Process Safety;
+ Nancy G. Leveson, Professor of Aeronautics and
+Astronautics and Professor of Engineering Systems at the Massachusetts
+Institute of Technology;
+ Sharon Priest, former Arkansas Secretary of State and
+currently the Executive Director of the Downtown Partnership, a non-
+profit organization devoted to developing downtown Little Rock,
+Arkansas;
+ Isadore `Irv' Rosenthal, former board member of the CSB
+and current Senior Research Fellow at the Wharton Risk Management and
+Decision Processes Center;
+ Paul V. Tebo, former Vice President for Safety, Health,
+and the Environment of DuPont;
+ Douglas A. Wiegmann, Director of the Human Factors and
+Patient Safety Research Program within the Division of Cardiovascular
+Surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota; and
+ L. Duane Wilson, former Vice President, Refining,
+Marketing, Supply & Transportation--Fuels Technology of ConocoPhillips.
+The Panel's Review
+ Purposes and Limitations
+ It is important that the Committee understand the primary
+purposes--and also some of the primary limitations--of the Panel's
+work.
+ The Panel's charter directed it to make a thorough, independent,
+and credible assessment of the effectiveness of BP's corporate
+oversight of safety management systems at its five U.S. refineries and
+its corporate safety culture. The charter further directed the Panel to
+produce a report examining and recommending needed improvements to BP's
+corporate safety oversight, corporate safety culture, and corporate and
+site safety management systems. The charter did not contemplate that
+the Panel review environmental issues or general site security issues.
+ Significantly, the charter also provided that the Panel should not
+``seek to affix blame or apportion responsibility for any past event''
+and ``should avoid duplicating the efforts of the CSB to determine the
+specific root causes of the incident at Texas City on March 23, 2005.''
+Both the CSB and BP have investigated the March 23, 2005 accident at
+Texas City. BP issued its own investigation report on the Texas City
+accident in December 2005. The CSB issued the final report on its
+investigation on March 20, 2007, just two days ago.
+ Since the Panel was not charged to conduct an investigation into
+the causes of the Texas City accident and did not seek to affix blame
+or apportion responsibility for that accident, the Panel's focus and
+the scope of its review differed from that of the CSB and from the
+civil litigation relating to that accident. The Panel's review related
+to all five of BP's U.S. refineries, not just the Texas City refinery.
+The Panel examined BP's corporate safety oversight, corporate safety
+culture, and its process safety management systems and not the Texas
+City accident or any particular incident. The Panel's examination also
+was not limited to the period preceding the Texas City accident.
+ Rather than attempting to determine the root cause of, or
+culpability for, any particular incident, the Panel wanted to
+understand BP's values, beliefs, and underlying assumptions about
+process safety, corporate safety oversight, and safety management
+systems in relation to all of BP's U.S. refineries. The Panel focused
+on how these values, beliefs, and underlying assumptions interacted
+with the company's corporate structure, management philosophy, and
+other systems that operated within that structure to affect the control
+or management of process hazards in these refineries. The Panel sought
+to understand why observed deficiencies in process safety performance
+existed at BP's U.S. refineries so that the Panel could make
+recommendations that can enable BP to improve performance at all its
+refineries. In effect, the Panel's review looked back primarily as a
+basis for looking forward to improve future process safety performance
+and to reduce the likelihood of accidents such as the Texas City
+tragedy.
+ While the Panel necessarily directed to BP the Panel's
+recommendations contained in its report, the Panel believed that a
+broader audience including companies in refining, chemicals, and other
+process industries should carefully consider the Panel's
+recommendations.
+The Panel's Activities
+ The Panel developed and followed a multifaceted plan to accomplish
+the mandate of its charter and the CSB's urgent recommendation. The
+plan included visits by the Panel and its staff to BP's U.S.
+refineries; public meetings that the Panel conducted in the local
+communities where the refineries are located; interviews of refinery-
+level personnel and corporate-level managers; process safety reviews
+that technical consultants conducted at BP's U.S. refineries; a process
+safety culture survey conducted among the workforce at BP's U.S.
+refineries; frequent interaction with BP representatives, including
+periodic briefings by representatives of BP; a targeted document
+review; and meetings with other companies relating to their management
+of process safety.
+ Focus on Process Safety
+ The Panel's report focused on process safety. Not all refining
+hazards are caused by the same factors or involve the same degree of
+potential damage. Personal or occupational safety hazards give rise to
+incidents--such as slips, falls, and vehicle accidents--that primarily
+affect one individual worker for each occurrence. Process safety
+hazards can give rise to major accidents involving the release of
+potentially dangerous materials, the release of energy (such as fires
+and explosions), or both. Process safety incidents can have
+catastrophic effects and can result in multiple injuries and
+fatalities, as well as substantial economic, property, and
+environmental damage. Process safety refinery incidents can affect
+workers inside the refinery and members of the public who reside
+nearby. Process safety in a refinery involves the prevention of leaks,
+spills, equipment malfunctions, over-pressures, excessive temperatures,
+corrosion, metal fatigue, and other similar conditions. Process safety
+programs focus on the design and engineering of facilities, hazard
+assessments, management of change, inspection, testing, and maintenance
+of equipment, effective alarms, effective process control, procedures,
+training of personnel, and human factors. The Texas City tragedy in
+March 2005 was a process safety accident.
+ The Panel believed that its charter and the CSB's August 2005
+urgent recommendation required this focus on process safety.
+The Panel's Findings
+ The Panel focused on deficiencies relating to corporate safety
+culture, process safety management systems, and performance evaluation,
+corrective action, and corporate oversight.
+ Qualifications Relating to the Panel's Findings
+ The Panel's charter called for assessments of effectiveness and
+recommendations for improvement, not for findings related to legal
+compliance. In making its findings and recommendations, the Panel's
+objective was excellence in process safety performance, not legal
+compliance. As a result, the Panel's report and specifically the
+Panel's findings were not intended for use in legal proceedings to
+which BP is or may become a party. Rather, the Panel's findings
+provided a basis for recommendations to BP for making improvements in
+BP's corporate safety culture, process safety management systems, and
+corporate safety oversight. The Panel's report focused primarily on
+identified deficiencies that might be corrected through the
+implementation of its recommendations.
+ The Panel often based its findings and recommendations on general
+principles of industry best practices or other standards for reducing
+process risks. The Panel believed that observance of these standards
+should result in improved safety performance even though many of these
+standards do not necessarily have legal effect. The Panel's findings
+were based not only on the information developed during the course of
+the Panel's review, but also on the collective experience and expertise
+of the Panel members.
+ Finally, the Panel's findings were based on its assessment that
+occurred primarily during 2006. The Panel's report acknowledged that
+since the Texas City accident in March 2005, BP has undertaken or
+announced a number of measures, including dedicating significant
+resources and personnel, that are intended to improve the process
+safety performance at BP's five U.S. refineries. Taken at face value,
+these measures represent a major commitment to an improved process
+safety regime.
+Summary of the Panel's Findings
+ The findings of the Panel are summarized below under three
+headings: Corporate Safety Culture; Process Safety Management Systems;
+and Performance Evaluation, Corrective Action, and Corporate Oversight.
+ Corporate Safety Culture
+ A positive safety culture is important for good process safety
+performance. In its report, the Panel made findings about BP's process
+safety leadership, employee empowerment, resources and positioning of
+process safety capabilities, incorporation of process safety into
+management decision-making, and the process safety cultures at BP's
+five U.S. refineries.
+ Process safety leadership. The Panel believed that leadership from
+the top of the company, starting with the Board and going down, is
+essential. In the Panel's opinion, it is imperative that BP's
+leadership set the process safety ``tone at the top'' of the
+organization and establish appropriate expectations regarding process
+safety performance. Based on its review, the Panel believed that BP had
+not provided effective process safety leadership and had not adequately
+established process safety as a core value across all its five U.S.
+refineries. While BP had an aspirational goal of ``no accidents, no
+harm to people,'' BP had not provided effective leadership in making
+certain its management and U.S. refining workforce understood what was
+expected of them regarding process safety performance. BP has
+emphasized personal safety in recent years and has achieved significant
+improvement in personal safety performance, but BP did not emphasize
+process safety. BP mistakenly interpreted improving personal injury
+rates as an indication of acceptable process safety performance at its
+U.S. refineries. BP's reliance on this data, combined with an
+inadequate process safety understanding, created a false sense of
+confidence that BP was properly addressing process safety risks. The
+Panel further found that process safety leadership appeared to have
+suffered as a result of high turnover of refinery plant managers.
+ During the course of its review, the Panel observed a shift in BP's
+understanding of process safety. As discussed in the Panel report, BP
+has undertaken a number of measures intended to improve process safety
+performance. The Panel also recognized that BP executive management and
+corporate-level management have more visibly demonstrated their
+commitment to process safety in recent months.
+ Employee empowerment. A good process safety culture requires a
+positive, trusting, and open environment with effective lines of
+communication between management and the workforce, including employee
+representatives. The Panel found that BP's Cherry Point, Washington
+refinery has a very positive, open, and trusting environment. BP's
+Carson, California refinery appears to have a generally positive,
+trusting, and open environment with effective lines of communication
+between management and the workforce, including employee
+representatives. The Panel found that at BP's Texas City, Texas,
+Toledo, Ohio, and Whiting, Indiana refineries, BP had not established a
+positive, trusting, and open environment with effective lines of
+communication between management and the workforce, although the safety
+culture appeared to be improving at Texas City and Whiting.
+ Resources and positioning of process safety capabilities. BP has
+not always ensured that it identified and provided the resources
+required for strong process safety performance at its U.S. refineries.
+Despite having numerous staff at different levels of the organization
+that support process safety, the Panel found that BP did not have a
+designated, high-ranking leader for process safety dedicated to its
+refining business. During the course of its review, the Panel did not
+develop or identify sufficient information to conclude whether BP ever
+intentionally withheld resources on any safety-related assets or
+projects for budgetary or cost reasons. The Panel believed, however,
+that the company did not always ensure that adequate resources were
+effectively allocated to support or sustain a high level of process
+safety performance. In addition, BP's corporate management mandated
+numerous initiatives that applied to the U.S. refineries and that,
+while well-intentioned, overloaded personnel at BP's U.S. refineries.
+This ``initiative overload'' may have undermined process safety
+performance at the U.S. refineries. In addition, the Panel found that
+operations and maintenance personnel in BP's five U.S. refineries
+sometimes worked high rates of overtime, and this could impact their
+ability to perform their jobs safely and increases process safety risk.
+BP has announced plans to increase both funding and hiring at its U.S.
+refineries.
+ Incorporation of process safety into management decision-making.
+The Panel also found that BP did not effectively incorporate process
+safety into management decision-making. BP tended to have a short-term
+focus, and its decentralized management system and entrepreneurial
+culture have delegated substantial discretion to U.S. refinery plant
+managers without clearly defining process safety expectations,
+responsibilities, or accountabilities. In addition, while
+accountability is a core concept within BP for driving desired conduct,
+the Panel found that BP had not demonstrated that it had effectively
+held executive management and refining line managers and supervisors,
+both at the corporate level and at the refinery level, accountable for
+process safety performance at its five U.S. refineries. The Panel
+observed in its report that it appeared to the Panel that BP now
+recognizes the need to provide clearer process safety expectations.
+ Process safety cultures at BP's U.S. refineries. The Panel's report
+found that BP had not instilled a common, unifying process safety
+culture among its U.S. refineries. Each refinery had its own separate
+and distinct process safety culture. While some refineries were far
+more effective than others in promoting process safety, significant
+process safety culture issues existed at all five U.S. refineries, not
+just Texas City. Although the five refineries did not share a unified
+process safety culture, each exhibited some similar weaknesses. The
+Panel found instances of a lack of operating discipline, toleration of
+serious deviations from safe operating practices, and apparent
+complacency toward serious process safety risks at each refinery.
+ Process Safety Management Systems
+ The Panel's report also discussed findings relating to the
+effectiveness of process safety management systems that BP utilized for
+its five U.S. refineries. These findings related to BP's process risk
+assessment and analysis, compliance with internal process safety
+standards, implementation of external good engineering practices,
+process safety knowledge and competence, and general effectiveness of
+BP's corporate process safety management system.
+ Process risk assessment and analysis. While the Panel found that
+all of BP's U.S. refineries had active programs to analyze process
+hazards, the system as a whole did not ensure adequate identification
+and rigorous analysis of those hazards. The Panel's examination also
+indicated that the extent and recurring nature of this deficiency was
+not isolated, but systemic.
+ Compliance with internal process safety standards. The Panel's
+technical consultants and the Panel observed that BP does have internal
+standards and programs for managing process risks. However, the Panel's
+examination found that BP's corporate safety management system did not
+ensure timely compliance with internal process safety standards and
+programs at BP's five U.S. refineries. This finding related to several
+areas that were addressed by BP internal standards: rupture disks under
+relief valves; equipment inspections; critical alarms and emergency
+shut-down devices; area electrical classification; and near miss
+investigations.
+ Implementation of external good engineering practices. The Panel
+also found that BP's corporate safety management system did not ensure
+timely implementation of external good engineering practices that
+support and could improve process safety performance at BP's five U.S.
+refineries. The Panel believed that such practices play an important
+role in the management of process safety in refineries operating in the
+United States.
+ Process safety knowledge and competence. Although many members of
+BP's technical and process safety staff have the capabilities and
+expertise needed to support a sophisticated process safety effort, the
+Panel believed that BP's system for ensuring an appropriate level of
+process safety awareness, knowledge, and competence in the organization
+relating to its five U.S. refineries had not been effective in a number
+of respects. First, BP had not effectively defined the level of process
+safety knowledge or competency required of executive management, line
+management above the refinery level, and refinery managers. Second, BP
+had not adequately ensured that its U.S. refinery personnel and
+contractors have sufficient process safety knowledge and competence.
+The information that the Panel reviewed indicated that process safety
+education and training needed to be more rigorous, comprehensive, and
+integrated. Third, the Panel found that at most of BP's U.S.
+refineries, the implementation of and over-reliance on BP's computer-
+based training contributed to inadequate process safety training of
+refinery employees.
+ Effectiveness of BP's corporate process safety management system.
+BP has an aspirational goal and expectation of ``no accidents, no harm
+to people, and no damage to the environment,'' and is developing
+programs and practices aimed at addressing process risks. These
+programs and practices include the development of new standards,
+engineering technical practices, and other internal guidance, as well
+as the dedication of substantial resources. Despite these positive
+changes, the Panel's examination indicated that BP's corporate process
+safety management system did not effectively translate corporate
+expectations into measurable criteria for management of process risk or
+define the appropriate role of qualitative and quantitative risk
+management criteria.
+ The findings above, together with other information that the Panel
+obtained during its examination, lead the Panel to conclude that
+material deficiencies in process safety performance existed at BP's
+five U.S. refineries. Some of these deficiencies are common among
+multiple refineries, and some of the deficiencies appeared to relate to
+legacy systems in effect prior to BP's acquisition of the refineries.
+(BP acquired four of its five U.S. refineries through mergers with
+Amoco in 1998 and ARCO in 2000.)
+ BP appears to have established a relatively effective personal
+safety management system by embedding personal safety aspirations and
+expectations within the U.S. refining workforce. However, the Panel's
+report concluded that BP had not effectively implemented its corporate-
+level aspirational guidelines and expectations relating to process
+risk. Therefore, the Panel found that BP had not implemented an
+integrated, comprehensive, and effective process safety management
+system for its five U.S. refineries.
+ Panel observations relating to process safety management practices.
+The Panel observed several positive notable practices or, in the case
+of BP's process safety minimum expectation program, an excellent
+process safety management practice. The notable practices relate to
+creation of an engineering authority at each refinery and several other
+refinery-specific programs that are described in more detail in the
+Panel's report.
+ Performance Evaluation, Corrective Action, and Corporate
+ Oversight
+ Maintaining and improving a process safety management system
+requires the periodic evaluation of performance and the correction of
+identified deficiencies. As discussed in the Panel's report,
+significant deficiencies existed in BP's site and corporate systems for
+measuring process safety performance, investigating incidents and near
+misses, auditing system performance, addressing previously identified
+process safety-related action items, and ensuring sufficient management
+and board oversight. Many of the process safety deficiencies were not
+new but were identifiable to BP based upon lessons from previous
+process safety incidents, including process incidents that occurred at
+BP's facility in Grangemouth, Scotland in 2000.
+ Measuring process safety performance. BP primarily used injury
+rates to measure process safety performance at its U.S. refineries
+before the Texas City accident. Although BP was not alone in this
+practice, BP's reliance on injury rates significantly hindered its
+perception of process risk. BP tracked some metrics relevant to process
+safety at its U.S. refineries. Apparently, however, BP did not
+understand or accept what this data indicated about the risk of a major
+accident or the overall performance of its process safety management
+systems. As a result, BP's corporate safety management system for its
+U.S. refineries did not effectively measure and monitor process safety
+performance.
+ The Panel observed that the process safety performance metrics that
+BP was using were evolving. BP was monitoring at the corporate level
+several leading and lagging process safety metrics. BP also was working
+with external experts to review process safety performance indicators
+across the company and the industry.
+ Incident and near miss investigations. BP acknowledged the
+importance of incident and near miss investigations, and it employed
+multiple methods at different levels of the organization to distribute
+information regarding incidents and lessons learned. Although BP was
+improving aspects of its incident and near miss investigation process,
+BP had not instituted effective root cause analysis procedures to
+identify systemic causal factors that may contribute to future
+accidents. When true root or system causes are not identified,
+corrective actions may address immediate or superficial causes, but not
+likely the true root causes. The Panel also believed that BP had an
+incomplete picture of process safety performance at its U.S. refineries
+because BP's process safety management system likely resulted in
+underreporting of incidents and near misses.
+ Process safety audits. The Panel found that BP has not implemented
+an effective process safety audit system for its U.S. refineries based
+on the Panel's concerns about auditor qualifications, audit scope,
+reliance on internal auditors, and the limited review of audit
+findings.
+ The Panel also was concerned that the principal focus of the audits
+was on compliance and verifying that required management systems were
+in place to satisfy legal requirements. It did not appear, however,
+that BP used the audits to ensure that the management systems were
+delivering the desired safety performance or to assess a site's
+performance against industry best practices. BP is in the process of
+changing how it conducts audits of safety and operations management
+systems, including process safety audits.
+ Timely correction of identified process safety deficiencies. The
+Panel observed that BP expends significant efforts to identify
+deficiencies and to correct many identified deficiencies, which BP
+often does promptly. The Panel also found, however, that BP had
+sometimes failed to address promptly and track to completion process
+safety deficiencies identified during hazard assessments, audits,
+inspections, and incident investigations. The Panel's review, for
+example, found repeat audit findings at BP's U.S. refineries,
+suggesting that true root causes were not being identified and
+corrected. This problem was especially apparent with overdue mechanical
+integrity inspection and testing. Although BP regularly conducted
+various assessments, reviews, and audits within the company, the follow
+through after these reviews had fallen short repeatedly. This failure
+to follow through compromises the effectiveness of even the best audit
+program or incident investigation.
+ In addition, BP did not take full advantage of opportunities to
+improve process operations at its U.S. refineries and its process
+safety management systems. BP did not effectively use the results of
+its operating experiences, process hazard analyses, audits, near
+misses, or accident investigations to improve process operations and
+process safety management systems.
+ Corporate oversight. BP acknowledged the importance of ensuring
+that the company-wide safety management system functions as intended.
+The company's system for assuring process safety performance used a
+bottom-up reporting system that originates with each business unit,
+such as a refinery. As information was reported up, however, data was
+aggregated. By the time information was formally reported at higher
+levels of the organization, refinery-specific performance data was no
+longer presented separately.
+ The Panel's examination indicated that BP's executive management
+either did not receive refinery-specific information that suggested
+process safety deficiencies at some of the U.S. refineries or did not
+effectively respond to the information that it did receive. According
+to annual reports on health, safety, security, and environmental
+assurance that BP management provided to the Environment and Ethics
+Assurance Committee of BP's Board of Directors for 1999 through 2005,
+management was monitoring process safety matters, including plant and
+operational integrity issues. The reports identify safety and integrity
+management risks that various levels of the organization confronted and
+describe management actions proposed to address and mitigate those
+risks. From 2001 to 2003, for example, BP developed and implemented
+standards for process safety and major accident risk assessments and
+increased monitoring and reporting of action item closure, sharing of
+lessons learned, overdue planned inspections, and losses of
+containment. The reports and other documents that the Panel examined
+indicated, however, that issues persisted relating to assurance of
+effective implementation of BP's policies and expectations relating to
+safety and integrity management.
+ For these reasons, the Panel believed that BP's process safety
+management system was not effective in evaluating whether the steps
+that BP took were actually improving the company's process safety
+performance. The Panel found that neither BP's executive management nor
+its refining line management had ensured the implementation of an
+integrated, comprehensive, and effective process safety management
+system.
+ BP's Board of Directors had been monitoring process safety
+performance of BP's operations based on information that BP's corporate
+management presented to it. A substantial gulf appears to have existed,
+however, between the actual performance of BP's process safety
+management systems and the company's perception of that performance.
+Although BP's executive and refining line management was responsible
+for ensuring the implementation of an integrated, comprehensive, and
+effective process safety management system, BP's Board had not ensured,
+as a best practice, that management did so. In reviewing the conduct of
+the Board, the Panel was guided by its chartered purpose to examine and
+recommend any needed improvements. In the Panel's judgment, this
+purpose did not call for an examination of legal compliance, but called
+for excellence. It was in this context and in the context of best
+practices that the Panel believed that BP's Board can and should do
+more to improve its oversight of process safety at BP's five U.S.
+refineries.
+The Panel's Recommendations
+ The Panel was charged with making recommendations to improve BP's
+corporate safety culture; process safety management systems; and
+corporate oversight of process safety. For each recommendation below,
+the Panel developed commentary that is an integral part of the
+recommendation and that provides more specific guidance relating to
+implementation of the recommendation. Reference should be made to
+Section VII of the Panel's report for a discussion of the
+recommendations and the related commentary. Each recommendation below
+should be read in conjunction with the related commentary.
+ recommendation # 1--process safety leadership
+ The Board of Directors of BP p.l.c, BP's executive management
+(including its Group Chief Executive), and other members of BP's
+corporate management must provide effective leadership on and establish
+appropriate goals for process safety. Those individuals must
+demonstrate their commitment to process safety by articulating a clear
+message on the importance of process safety and matching that message
+both with the policies they adopt and the actions they take.
+ recommendation #2--integrated and comprehensive process safety
+ management system
+ BP should establish and implement an integrated and comprehensive
+process safety management system that systematically and continuously
+identifies, reduces, and manages process safety risks at its U.S.
+refineries.
+ recommendation #3--process safety knowledge and expertise
+ BP should develop and implement a system to ensure that its
+executive management, its refining line management above the refinery
+level, and all U.S. refining personnel, including managers,
+supervisors, workers, and contractors, possess an appropriate level of
+process safety knowledge and expertise.
+ recommendation #4--process safety culture
+ BP should involve the relevant stakeholders to develop a positive,
+trusting, and open process safety culture within each U.S. refinery.
+recommendation #5--clearly defined expectations and accountability for
+ process safety
+ BP should clearly define expectations and strengthen accountability
+for process safety performance at all levels in executive management
+and in the refining managerial and supervisory reporting line.
+ recommendation #6--support for line management
+ BP should provide more effective and better coordinated process
+safety support for the U.S. refining line organization.
+ recommendation #7--leading and lagging performance indicators for
+ process safety
+ BP should develop, implement, maintain, and periodically update an
+integrated set of leading and lagging performance indicators for more
+effectively monitoring the process safety performance of the U.S.
+refineries by BP's refining line management, executive management
+(including the Group Chief Executive), and Board of Directors. In
+addition, BP should work with the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard
+Investigation Board and with industry, labor organizations, other
+governmental agencies, and other organizations to develop a consensus
+set of leading and lagging indicators for process safety performance
+for use in the refining and chemical processing industries.
+ recommendation #8--process safety auditing
+ BP should establish and implement an effective system to audit
+process safety performance at its U.S. refineries.
+ recommendation #9--board monitoring
+ BP's Board should monitor the implementation of the recommendations
+of the Panel (including the related commentary) and the ongoing process
+safety performance of BP's U.S. refineries. The Board should, for a
+period of at least five calendar years, engage an independent monitor
+to report annually to the Board on BP's progress in implementing the
+Panel's recommendations (including the related commentary). The Board
+should also report publicly on the progress of such implementation and
+on BP's ongoing process safety performance.
+ recommendation #10--industry leader
+ BP should use the lessons learned from the Texas City tragedy and
+from the Panel's report to transform the company into a recognized
+industry leader in process safety management.
+ The Panel believes that these recommendations, together with the
+related commentary, can help bring about sustainable improvements in
+process safety performance at all BP U.S. refineries.
+ The Panel's recommendations were based on findings developed during
+2006. Since March 2005, BP has expressed a major commitment to a far
+better process safety regime, has committed significant resources and
+personnel to that end, and has undertaken or announced many measures
+that could impact process safety performance at BP's five U.S.
+refineries. In making its findings and recommendations, the Panel was
+not attempting to deny the beneficial effect on process safety that
+these measures may have. BP is a large corporation, and the Panel
+recognized that it is especially challenging to make dramatic and
+systemic changes in short time frames. However, whether measures
+already undertaken or announced will be effective remains to be seen.
+The ultimate effectiveness and sustainability of BP's intended
+improvements to its process safety performance can be determined only
+over time. The Panel believed that BP has much work remaining to
+improve the process safety performance at its U.S. refineries. The
+Panel's report also stated that BP should assess its future steps,
+including actions already planned as of the date of the Panel's report,
+against the Panel's findings and recommendations (and related
+commentary).
+ The Panel's recommendations and related commentary contain elements
+designed to ensure that measures taken will sustain improvement in
+process safety performance. The Panel believed this emphasis on
+sustainability was particularly important given BP's failure to fully
+and comprehensively implement across BP's U.S. refineries the lessons
+from previous serious accidents, including the process incidents that
+occurred at BP's facility in Grangemouth, Scotland in 2000. The Panel's
+recommendations, and the process safety excellence that those
+recommendations contemplate, should not be abandoned or neglected. They
+should not become lesser priorities as changes occur in the economic,
+business, or regulatory climate for the U.S. refining industry; as
+refinery margins decline from their current high levels; as changes
+occur at BP, including changes in management; or as mergers and
+acquisitions take place.
+ The Panel believed that the investments in BP's refining business
+and its refining workforce that its report suggested can benefit the
+company in many ways over time. Such investments should help reduce the
+economic or opportunity costs associated with a refinery operating at
+less than full capacity or not operating at all. Other potential
+benefits of investments in operations and process safety, such as
+improved workforce morale and increased productivity, may be difficult
+to measure but are no less important. The Panel believed that as
+process safety is embedded in all aspects of corporate culture,
+management systems, and operations relating to BP's U.S. refineries,
+BP's U.S. refining business will benefit.
+ The Panel recognized that the task ahead of BP is significant and
+will take a concerted and lasting effort. It will not be easy,
+especially as time passes and the collective recognition of the
+importance of the task begins to fade. The Panel believed, however,
+that the BP refining workforce was ready, willing, and able to
+participate in a sustained, corporate-wide effort to move BP towards
+excellence in process safety performance as called for in the Panel's
+report. During its review, the Panel interacted with a large number of
+BP employees, contractors, managers, and executives. The Panel
+generally came away with favorable impressions of these people. As a
+group, they appeared hardworking and conscientious. Most importantly,
+they appeared sincerely interested in improving BP's management of
+process safety to prevent future incidents like the Texas City tragedy.
+This was the case at the Carson, Cherry Point, Texas City, Toledo, and
+Whiting refineries and in BP's corporate offices in Chicago and London.
+ I note that on January 16, 2007, the same day that the Panel
+announced its report, BP stated that it would implement the Panel's
+recommendations.
+ Finally, the Panel believed that all companies in the refining,
+chemical, and other process industries should give serious
+consideration to its recommendations and related commentary. While the
+Panel made no findings about companies other than BP, the Panel was
+under no illusion that the deficiencies in process safety culture,
+management, or corporate oversight identified in the Panel's report
+were limited to BP. If other refining and chemical companies understand
+the Panel's recommendations and related commentary and apply them to
+their own safety cultures, process safety management systems, and
+corporate oversight mechanisms, the Panel sincerely believed that the
+safety of the world's refineries, chemical plants, and other process
+facilities will be improved and lives will be saved.
+ Thank you for allowing me to testify before you today.
+ ______
+
+ Admiral Bowman. It is significant to note that the panel
+was not charged with conducting an investigation into the
+causes of this tragic accident at Texas City. We did not seek
+to affix blame or apportion responsibility for that accident.
+Instead, the panel sought to understand if deficiencies in
+process safety performance existed at BP's U.S. refineries so
+that we could make recommendations that would enable the
+company to improve.
+ The panel did not develop sufficient information to
+conclude that BP intentionally withheld resources on any
+safety-related projects for any budgetary reasons. However, the
+panel did believe that BP did not always ensure that adequate
+resources were effectively allocated to sustain a high level of
+process safety performance. The panel found that BP did not
+implement an integrated, comprehensive and effective process
+safety management system. The panel found that neither BP's
+executive management nor its refining line management had
+ensured the implementation of such a management system, and the
+panel found that BP's board in the U.K. had not ensured as a
+best practice that management implement such a system. These
+findings relating to BP's board were based on U.K.'s guidance
+on the role of the board as to health and safety practices and
+not on the failure to comply with any legal duties.
+ Among other findings, the panel found material deficiencies
+in process safety performance at each of BP's five U.S.
+refineries and that BP had not instilled a common process
+safety culture among those refineries.
+ Prior to the Texas City accident, BP had emphasized
+personal safety in recent years and had achieved significant
+improvement in personal safety performance, but the company had
+not emphasized process safety. BP mistakenly interpreted
+improving personal injury rates as an indication of acceptable
+performance and process safety at its U.S. refineries. BP's
+reliance on this data combined with an inadequate process
+safety understanding created a false sense of confidence that
+it was properly addressing process safety risk. BP had not
+adequately established process safety as a core value across
+its five U.S. refineries. BP had not made certain that its line
+management and its U.S. refining workforce even understood what
+was expected of them in terms of process safety. The panel made
+specific and extensive recommendations organized under 10
+topics, which I would refer to the committee in the full
+report.
+ One recommendation calls for BP to engage an independent
+monitor to observe the implementation of the panel's
+recommendations for the next 5 years.
+ I would note that, on the same day that we issued our
+report, BP stated that it would implement the panel's
+recommendations. Our report notes that, since the Texas City
+refinery explosion, BP's executive management has expressed a
+major commitment to a far better process safety regime, has
+committed significant resources and personnel to that end and
+has undertaken or announced many measures that would
+beneficially impact process safety. However, the ultimate
+effectiveness and sustainability of the company's intended
+improvements can be determined only over time.
+ Let me finish with a very short paragraph that precedes our
+report, the main report.
+ ``Preventing process safety accidents requires vigilance.
+The passing of time without a process accident is not
+necessarily an indication that all is well and may well, in
+fact, contribute to a dangerous and growing sense of
+complacency. When people lose an appreciation of how their
+safety systems were intended to work, safety systems and
+controls can deteriorate. Lessons can be forgotten, and hazards
+and deviations from safe operating procedures can be accepted.
+Workers and supervisors can increasingly rely on how things
+were done before rather than rely on sound engineering
+principles and other controls. People can forget to be
+afraid.''
+ Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ Chairman Miller. Thank you.
+ Ms. Rowe.
+
+ STATEMENT OF EVA ROWE, RELATIVE OF BP TEXAS CITY DISASTER
+ VICTIMS
+
+ Ms. Rowe. Good morning. First, I would like to thank
+Chairman Miller and the entire committee for inviting me to
+speak today on the tragedy at the BP Texas City Oil refinery.
+For me and many others, tomorrow will be a solemn day in Texas
+City, Texas as it marks the second anniversary of the horrible
+blast that ripped apart my life and the lives of so many
+others. The explosion at BP's Oil refinery murdered 15 people,
+including my parents, James and Linda Rowe, and injured
+hundreds more. The true tragedy is that it was needless and
+completely avoidable.
+ At approximately 1:20 p.m. that day, BP initiated a
+dangerous procedure at the refinery, using outdated and faulty
+equipment that sent 7,600 gallons of highly flammable liquid
+hydrocarbons, the equivalent of a tanker truck full of
+gasoline, into the air. Dozens of workers were in trailers as
+close as 100 feet away. They were not warned of the imminent
+danger when an idling truck ignited the devastating chain-
+reaction explosion.
+ I, personally, believe that BP, with its corporate culture
+of greed over profits, murdered my parents, denying my brother
+Jeremy and me, along with the families of 13 others, the joy of
+the love of our fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters and the
+warmth of their smiles and embraces forever. It is of little
+comfort to us, but we hope through this legislation to ensure
+more stringent worker health and safety standards that their
+deaths will not be in vain.
+ Today, I ask Congress to carefully review the report issued
+this week by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board and act with great
+speed on its recommendations. I ask that you create an
+environment of safety for all workers who risk their lives each
+day in already dangerous jobs that contribute so much to our
+great country and its economy.
+ Today, I come to Congress, asking that you mandate by law a
+change in corporate culture by requiring that all corporations
+place workers' safety before profits.
+ Today, I come to Congress and ask that you require OSHA,
+the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, to increase
+safety and inspections of all oil refineries as the Chemical
+Safety Board has recommended.
+ In Austin tomorrow, we will gather on the steps of the
+state capital to announce the ``Remember the 15'' bill in the
+Texas State legislature. It is the first step in seeking to
+mandate that those running the petrochemical industry create a
+safe working environment for its workers.
+ Today, I come to Congress asking that you join with the
+great State of Texas and change the laws of our land so that no
+other family will have to feel the pain and sadness I have felt
+hearing of my parents' deaths.
+ Thank you all so very much for your time and for this
+opportunity.
+ [The statement of Ms. Rowe follows:]
+
+ Prepared Statement of Eva Rowe, Relative of BP Texas City Disaster
+ Victims
+
+ Good morning.
+ First I want to thank Representative Miller and the entire
+Committee for inviting me to speak today on the tragedy at the BP Texas
+City oil refinery.
+ For me and many others, tomorrow will be a solemn day in Texas
+City, Texas, as it marks the second anniversary of that horrible blast
+that ripped apart my life and the lives of so many others. The
+explosion at BP's oil refinery killed 15 people--including my parents,
+James and Linda Rowe--and injured hundreds more. The true tragedy is
+that it was a needless and completely avoidable explosion.
+ At approximately 1:20 p.m. that day, BP initiated a dangerous
+procedure at the refinery, using outdated and faulty equipment that
+sent 7,600 gallons of highly flammable liquid hydrocarbons--the
+equivalent of a tanker truck full of gasoline--into the air. Dozens of
+workers were in trailers as close as 100 feet away and were not warned
+of the imminent danger, when an idling truck ignited the devastating
+chain-reaction explosion.
+ I personally believe that BP, with its corporate culture of greed
+over profits, murdered my parents, denying my brother Jeremy and me,
+along with the families of the 13 others, the joy of the love of our
+fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, and the warmth of their smiles
+and embraces forever. It is of little comfort to us, but we hope that,
+through legislation to ensure more stringent worker health and safety
+standards, that their deaths won't be in vain.
+ Today, I ask Congress to carefully review the report issued this
+week by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board and act with great speed on its
+recommendations. I ask that you create an environment of safety for all
+workers who risk their lives each day, in already dangerous jobs that
+contribute so much to our great country and its economy.
+ Today I come to Congress asking that you mandate by law a change in
+corporate culture, by requiring that all corporations place worker
+safety before profits.
+ Today, I come to Congress to ask that you require OSHA, the
+Occupational Safety and Health Administration, to increase safety and
+inspections of all U.S. oil refineries, as the Chemical Safety Board
+has recommended.
+ In Austin tomorrow, we will gather on the steps of the state
+capital to announce the ``Remember the 15'' bill in the Texas State
+Legislature. It is a first step in seeking to mandate that those
+running the petrochemical industry create a safe working environment
+for its workers.
+ Today I come to Congress asking that you join with the great state
+of Texas and change the laws of our land so that no other family will
+have to feel the pain and sadness I felt hearing of my parents death.
+ Thank you all so very much for your time and for this opportunity.
+ ______
+
+ Chairman Miller. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Rowe.
+ Mr. Cavaney.
+
+ STATEMENT OF RED CAVANEY, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE
+ OFFICER, AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE
+
+ Mr. Cavaney. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
+McKeon and members of the committee.
+ I also want to express my personal sympathies toward Ms.
+Rowe and all of the other people who have suffered as a result
+of this accident. I am Red Cavaney, President and CEO of the
+American Petroleum Institute. API's 400 member companies
+represent all sectors of America's oil and natural gas
+industry. I am testifying today on behalf of API and the
+National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. NPRA has 450
+members, including virtually all U.S. refineries and
+petrochemical manufacturers.
+ Texas City has been a devastating tragedy to the facility's
+workers, their families, the community, and the company
+involved. It has also had a profound impact on the refining and
+petrochemical industry. Words are incapable of fully describing
+the deep sadness and sympathy that we have for all of those who
+have borne such a heavy burden.
+ Safety in the industry is a moral imperative with a top
+priority. Keeping employees, contractors and neighbors safe is
+and has been a goal we continually strive to achieve. It is the
+right thing to do, but it also happens to make good business
+sense. No accident is acceptable, and preventing the
+possibility of a fatal accident like what happened at Texas
+City is a goal toward which we all work day in and day out.
+ In light of the tragic accident and concerns raised by the
+Baker report, individual companies have been examining their
+safety procedures in search for improvements. In fact, a number
+of companies are using the Baker report in an audit in going
+through all of their refineries. Collectively, the industry is
+also taking action. At API, we are reviewing our standards on
+process equipment and operational safety. We are developing a
+new recommended practice on the siting of temporary structures
+that will become final later this spring. We will also be
+reviewing the Chemical Safety Board's more recent
+recommendation on safety standards in considering possible new
+guidance.
+ API is the industry standard-setting leader and an ANSI-
+accredited standards development organization. API standards
+reflect broad input from experts in and outside the industry
+and are regularly reviewed and revised. Among the 500
+standards, we now maintain some 110 process safety-related. In
+reinforcing OSHA process safety management rules, these
+standards cover worker and contractor safety, mechanical
+integrity of pressure vessels and tanks, fire prevention,
+protection, and suppression and the certification of refinery
+equipment safety inspectors. There are thousands of API-
+certified inspectors examining pressure vessels and other
+process equipment throughout the world.
+ In addition to the response from our standards program, API
+and NPRA members share best practices and evaluate what can be
+learned from incidents and potential incidents. We are working
+with OSHA and other groups on these issues. We are also
+encouraging higher levels of performance through process safety
+training and industry awards to encourage best in practice
+behavior, and we have formed a broad coalition of organizations
+and industry experts to evaluate ways that we can improve
+process safety. The Center for Chemical Process Safety, an
+organization supported by API and NPRA members, expects to
+publish a study this year, setting forth the lessons learned
+through process unit accidents, including the Texas City
+accident. We will closely review that information, seeking
+additional input into our standards process.
+ The devastation caused by the Texas City accident demands
+of us as an industry that we look anew at what we are doing and
+strive even further towards additional improvements. That is
+happening, and it will continue to happen. Texas City and its
+loss of colleagues and the pain and grief suffered by loved
+ones will not be forgotten. The lessons will remain with us for
+many, many years.
+ This concludes my statement, Mr. Chairman. I welcome the
+opportunity to answer questions that the committee may have.
+Thank you.
+ [The statement of Mr. Cavaney follows:]
+
+ Prepared Statement of Red Cavaney, President and CEO,
+ American Petroleum Institute
+
+ Good morning Chairman Miller, Ranking Member McKeon, and members of
+the committee.
+ I am Red Cavaney, President and CEO of the American Petroleum
+Institute (API). API's 400 member companies represent all sectors of
+America's oil and natural gas industry. I am testifying today on behalf
+of API and the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association (NPRA).
+NPRA has 450 members, including virtually all U.S. refiners and
+petrochemical manufacturers.
+ Texas City has been a devastating tragedy to the facility's
+workers, their families, the community, and the company involved. It
+has also had a profound impact on the refining and petrochemical
+industry. No words can fully describe the deep sadness and sympathy we
+all feel.
+ Safety in the industry is a moral imperative and a top priority.
+Keeping employees, contractors and neighbors safe is, and was, and is a
+goal we continually strive to achieve. It's the right thing to do. It
+also happens to be good business practice. No accident is acceptable.
+And, preventing the possibility of a fatal accident like what happened
+at Texas City is a goal we work towards day in and day out.
+Industry action: standards
+ Within API, we have a formal, comprehensive and rigorous approach
+to the development of industry standards and recommended practices,
+which we routinely update as new information and data become available.
+Following the Texas City incident, we did just that, and, as is our
+practice, we will continue to do so.
+ We have reviewed the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) recommendation on
+temporary facility siting and published a draft recommended practice in
+2006. API expects to publish a final version of this recommended
+practice later this spring. We are also working to identify areas where
+new guidance related to process safety is needed and will certainly
+consider developing additional standards as appropriate. We are
+reviewing all of CSB's recently issued recommendations on additional
+safety standards.
+ API is the industry standards setting leader and, as an American
+National Standards Institute (ANSI) accredited standards development
+organization, operates with approved standards development procedures
+and undergoes regular audits of its processes. API standards affect
+both industry equipment and operations. Standards serve both safety and
+business objectives. In developing our industry standards, API is in
+conformance with ANSI guidelines and employs a consensus process that
+often includes regulators and experts who are not API members.
+ Among the 500 standards we now maintain and regularly review and
+revise, many are focused on process safety and are consistent with OSHA
+process safety management rules. In fact, API Recommended Practice 750,
+Management of Process Hazards, was one of the primary resources used by
+OSHA in its development of process safety management regulations.
+ API's approximately 110 process safety-related standards cover
+worker and contractor safety; mechanical integrity of pressure vessels
+and tanks; fire prevention, protection and suppression; and
+certification of refinery equipment safety inspectors. These standards
+are consistent with and reinforce OSHA's process safety management
+rule. An addendum with specifics is attached.
+ As a specific example of the interrelationship between the API
+Standards and Certification Programs and the OSHA Process Safety
+Management Regulations, one only need refer to Section J of the
+regulations on Mechanical Integrity. This section applies to a broad
+range of process equipment including pressure vessels and storage
+tanks, controls, piping, valves, pumps and other key equipment used in
+refineries and chemical processing facilities. Each piece of equipment
+specified in Section J is also subject of an API standard or
+recommended practice. Further, the equipment inspection requirements of
+Section J are also backed by a series of API standards for inspection,
+which are also the basis of the API Individual Certification Program
+(ICP).
+ The ICP programs are designed to promote safety and health,
+improved inspection capabilities, and improved management control and
+environmental performance. Certified inspectors are recognized as
+working professionals who are fully knowledgeable on industry
+inspection codes, and who are performing their jobs in accordance with
+those requirements. ICP provides an essential springboard for
+inspectors to make even more valuable contributions to the safety and
+quality of industry operations. API's certification programs also
+reflect API's Environmental, Health and Safety Mission and Guiding
+Principles, which are part of API's bylaws.
+ API's inspector certifications are based on industry-developed
+standards that are recognized and used with confidence worldwide. These
+standards have also provided a uniform platform that serves as a model
+for many state and government regulations. These API programs emphasize
+professional credibility and process integrity. Certified inspectors
+are required to complete an eight-hour comprehensive, proctored exam
+and are recertified every three years.
+Industry action: sharing lessons learned and best practices
+ In addition to the comprehensive industry standards program, our
+industry has developed mechanisms to share valuable lessons-learned
+from incidents, potential incidents and best practices to improve
+safety at processing facilities. API holds an annual process safety
+management best practices workshop. NPRA holds an annual safety
+conference. API is working with OSHA, the National Fire Protection
+Association (NFPA), and the Steel Tank Institute (STI) to improve tank
+safety. There are also industry safety awards to heighten awareness and
+competition for best-in-class practices; process safety training; and
+industry conferences on incident root causes, learnings and mitigation
+measures. The Baker panel report and the CSB report provide additional
+opportunities to improve process safety.
+ Refiners and chemical plant operators have also formed a broad
+coalition of organizations and industry experts as part of our
+continuous improvement program, which includes all aspects of industry
+safety, including process safety. This coalition is evaluating ways to
+continue to improve process safety and to leverage the lessons learned
+among the coalition member organizations.
+ Also, the Center for Chemical Process Safety, an organization
+supported by API and NPRA members, expects to publish a study this year
+setting forth the lessons learned from process unit accidents,
+including the Texas City accident.
+ In addition, API has an educational program, API University, which
+includes more than 35 classroom and e-Learning courses and workshops on
+safety and safety-related issues. Through this collection of courses,
+API brings together and trains hundreds and hundreds of people annually
+in diverse safety subject matters. Examples of API University courses
+include Process Safety Management (PSM) for Refineries and Exploration
+and Production Operations, Performing Facility Siting Studies, and
+Improving Process Safety Management and Effectiveness. In the Process
+Management for Refineries and Exploration and Production Operations
+course, trainees study specific guidelines for developing written
+programs to meet PSM regulations, integrating PSM element requirements
+into other corporate programs, and evaluating program compliance
+throughout the implementation phase. Trainees in this course also get
+insight into the latest regulatory developments and receive summary
+documentation of key clarifications by OSHA and EPA.
+Conclusion
+ The devastation caused by the Texas City accident demands of us in
+industry to look anew at what we are doing and to strive toward
+continual improvement. That is happening, and it will continue. Texas
+City and its loss of colleagues, as well as the pain and grief suffered
+by loved ones, will not be forgotten. These lessons will remain with us
+for many years.
+ This concludes my statement, Mr. Chairman. I welcome the
+opportunity to answer any questions the committee might pose.
+
+ OSHA Process Safety Management of Highly Hazardous Chemicals,
+ 29CFR1910.119 and the API Standards Program
+
+ The purpose of the OSHA process safety management (PSM) regulations
+is as follows:
+ This section contains requirements for preventing or minimizing the
+consequences of catastrophic releases of toxic, reactive, flammable, or
+explosive chemicals. These releases may result in toxic, fire or
+explosion hazards.
+ The PSM Standard is also the required prevention program for the
+Environmental Protection Agency's ``Risk Management Program Rule'' for
+Program 2 (modified) or Program 3 processes.
+Overview
+ The PSM regulations are organized by the following subsections and
+lay out a prescribed set of rules for compliance. These rules require
+significant documentation to ensure safe work practices for employees
+and contractors, operational safety, equipment integrity, management of
+change and incident investigation. The regulatory language is simple
+and brief, but requires detailed documentation, and a thorough working
+knowledge of each of the subsections' applications.
+ (a) Application
+ (b) Blank
+ (c) Employee Participation
+ (d) Process Safety Information
+ (e) Process Hazard Analysis
+ (f) Operating Procedures
+ (g) Training
+ (h) Contractors
+ (i) Pre-Startup Safety Review
+ (j) Mechanical Integrity
+ (k) Hot-Work Permit
+ (l) Management of Change
+ (m) Incident Investigation
+ (n) Emergency Planning and Response
+ (o) Compliance Audits
+ (p) Trade Secrets
+ The purpose of this summary is to link the subsection areas with
+the API specifications, standards, recommended practices and codes
+(``standards'') that are relevant and applicable in documenting PSM
+compliance.
+Role of National Consensus Standards in PSM Compliance
+ In an interpretation provided to ISA in 2000, (http://www.osha-
+slc.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show--document?p--table=INTERPRETATIONS&p--
+id=23722) OSHA stated, in response to a query regarding the
+applicability of ANSI/ISA S84.01, that as a national consensus
+document, OSHA considers it to be a recognized and generally accepted
+good engineering practice. Further it states, ``Based on input from
+stakeholders, OSHA stated in the PSM final rule (see F.R., Volume 57,
+No. 36, pg 6390) that it did not intend to incorporate by reference
+into PSM all the codes and standards published by consensus groups.''
+ Further, in Appendix C to 1910.119, with regard to process safety
+information, OSHA states:
+ The information pertaining to process equipment design must be
+documented. In other words, what were the codes and standards relied on
+to establish good engineering practice. These codes and standards are
+published by such organizations as the * * * American Petroleum
+Institute. * * *
+ In the context of mechanical integrity and inspection, OSHA notes:
+ Meantime to failure of various instrumentation and equipment parts
+would be known from the manufacturers data or the employer's experience
+with the parts, which would then influence the inspection and testing
+frequency and associated procedures. Also, applicable codes and
+standards such as * * * those from the American Petroleum Institute * *
+* and other groups, provide information to help establish an effective
+testing and inspection frequency, as well as appropriate methodologies.
+ In these two citations, OSHA has asserted that compliance with OSHA
+PSM requirements, therefore, may be demonstrated and supported through
+the reliance on these national consensus documents developed under ANSI
+accredited procedures including numerous standards produced by API.
+Relationship Between API Standards and Certification Programs to OSHA
+ PSM Requirements
+ The relevant API standards and programs can be generally grouped
+into five categories:
+ a) Personnel and Contractor Safety
+ b) Fire Prevention, Protection and Suppression
+ c) Inspection of Equipment and Methodologies for In-Service
+Assessment
+ d) Equipment Design and Reliability
+ e) Technical Data on Petroleum Product Properties
+ f) Certification for Training Providers and Individuals
+ The following list by PSM Subsection shows the relevant API
+standards and programs that related to each section's subject area.
+ a) Application
+ b) Blank
+ c) Employee Participation----
+ 2220, Improving Owner and Contractor Safety Performance
+ 2221, Contractor and Owner Safety Program mplementation
+ d) Process Safety Information
+ Safe Limits/Process Chemistry
+ Technical Data Book--Petroleum Refining
+ Materials of Construction----
+ 600, Bolted Bonnet Steel Gate Valves for Petroleum and Natural Gas
+ Industries
+ 602, Steel Gate, Globe and Check Valves for Sizes DN 100 and
+Smaller for the Petroleum and Natural Gas Industries
+ 603, Corrosion-Resistant, Bolted Bonnet Gate Valves--Flanged and
+Butt-Welding Ends
+ 608, Metal Ball Valves--Flanged, Threaded and Butt-Welding Ends
+ 609, Butterfly Valves: Double Flanged, Lug- and Water-Type
+ 620, Design and Construction of Large, Welded, Low-pressure Storage
+Tanks
+ 650, Welded Steel Tanks for Oil Storage
+ 520, Sizing, Selection, and Installation of Pressure-relieving
+Devices in Refineries, Part I--Sizing and Selection
+ 6D, Specification for Pipeline Valves
+ Electrical Classification----
+ 500, Recommended Practice for Classification of Locations for
+Electrical Installations at Petroleum Facilities Classified as Class I,
+Division 1 and Division 2
+ 505, Recommended Practice for Classification of Locations for
+Electrical Installations at Petroleum Facilities Classified as Class l,
+Zone 0, Zone 1 and Zone 2
+ Relief System Design----
+ 520 Pt.1, Sizing, Selection, and Installation of Pressure-relieving
+Devices in Refineries, Part I--Sizing and Selection 521, Guide for
+Pressure-relieving and Depressuring Systems
+ Ventilation System Design----
+ 2015, Requirements for Safe Entry and Cleaning of Petroleum Storage
+Tanks
+ 2016, Guidelines and Procedures for Entering and Cleaning Petroleum
+Storage Tanks
+ 2217A, Guidelines for Work in Inert Confined Spaces in the
+Petroleum Industry
+ Safety Systems----
+ 2001, Fire Protection in Refineries
+ 2003, Protection Against Ignitions Arising Out of Static,
+Lightning, and Stray Currents
+ 2009, Safe Welding, Cutting and Hot Work Practices in the Petroleum
+and Petrochemical Industries
+ 2027, Ignition Hazards Involved in Abrasive Blasting of Atmospheric
+Storage Tanks in Hydrocarbon Service
+ 2028, Flame Arresters in Piping Systems
+ 2030, Application of Fixed Water Spray Systems for Fire
+ Protection in the Petroleum and Petrochemical Industries
+ 2201, Safe Hot Tapping Practices in the Petroleum &
+ Petrochemical Industries
+ 2210, Flame Arresters for Vents of Tanks Storing Petroleum
+ Products
+ 2214, Spark Ignition Properties of Hand Tools
+ 2216, Ignition Risk of Hydrocarbon Vapors by Hot Surfaces
+ in the Open Air
+ 2217A, Guidelines for Work in Inert Confined Spaces in the
+ Petroleum Industry
+ 2218, Fireproofing Practices in Petroleum and Petrochemical
+ Processing Plants
+ 2220, Improving Owner and Contractor Safety Performance
+ 2221, Contractor and Owner Safety Program Implementation
+ 2015, Requirements for Safe Entry and Cleaning of Petroleum Storage
+Tanks
+ 2016, Guidelines and Procedures for Entering and Cleaning Petroleum
+Storage Tanks
+ 2021, Management of Atmospheric Storage Tank Fires
+ 2026, Safe Access/Egress Involving Floating Roofs of Storage Tanks
+in Petroleum Service
+ 2350 Overfill Protection for Storage Tanks in Petroleum Facilities
+ Inspection----
+ 510, Pressure Vessel Inspection Code: In-Service Inspection,
+Rating, Repair, and Alteration
+ 570, Piping Inspection Code: Inspection, Repair, Alteration, and
+Rerating of In-service Piping Systems
+ 653, Tank Inspection, Repair, Alteration, and Reconstruction
+ 579, Fitness-For-Service
+ 572, Inspection of Pressure Vessels
+ 573, Inspection of Fired Boilers and Heaters
+ 574, Inspection Practices for Piping System Components
+ 575, Inspection of Atmospheric & Low Pressure Storage Tanks
+ 576, Inspection of Pressure Relieving Devices
+ 577, Welding Inspection and Metallurgy
+ 578, Material Verification Program for New and Existing Alloy
+Piping Systems
+ e) Process Hazard Analysis
+ Incident Data----
+ 2384, 2005 Survey on Petroleum Industry Occupational Injuries,
+Illnesses, and Fatalities Summary Report: Aggregate Data Only
+ 2383, 2004 Survey on Petroleum Industry Occupational Injuries,
+Illnesses, and Fatalities Summary Report: Aggregate Data Only
+ 2382, 2003 Survey on Petroleum Industry Occupational Injuries,
+Illnesses, and Fatalities Summary Report: Aggregate Data Only
+ 2381, 2002 Survey on Petroleum Industry Occupational Injuries,
+Illnesses and Fatalities Summary Report: Aggregate Data Only
+ Controls for Process Monitoring and Instrumentation----
+ 551, Process Measurement Instrumentation
+ 552, Transmission Systems
+ 553, Refinery Control Valves
+ 554, Process Instrumentation and Control
+ 555, Process Analyzers
+ 556, Fired Heaters & Steam Generators
+ 557, Guide to Advanced Control Systems
+ Consequences of Failure----
+ 580, Risk-Based Inspection
+ 581, Base Resource Document--Risk Based Inspection
+ f) Operating Procedures
+ g) Training
+ Initial and refresher training programs are supported by several
+API programs including the ``Training Provider Certification Program''
+(TPCP) which accredits trainers, the ``Individual Certification
+Program'' (ICP) which accredits individuals who have demonstrated
+competency in various inspection subject areas, and ``API University''
+which provides specific training on safety, maintenance, operations,
+and standards.
+ h) Contractors
+ 2220, Improving Owner and Contractor Safety Performance
+ 2221, Contractor and Owner Safety Program Implementation
+ i) Pre-Startup Safety Review
+ j) Mechanical Integrity
+ Application----
+ 579, Fitness-For-Service
+ Pressure Vessels and Storage Tanks----
+ 510, Pressure Vessel Inspection Code: In-Service Inspection,
+Rating, Repair, and Alteration
+ 653, Tank Inspection, Repair, Alteration, and Reconstruction
+ 572, Inspection of Pressure Vessels
+ 575, Inspection of Atmospheric & Low Pressure Storage Tanks
+ Piping Systems and Valves----
+ 570, Piping Inspection Code: Inspection, Repair, Alteration, and
+Rerating of In-service Piping Systems
+ 574, Inspection Practices for Piping System Components
+ 578, Material Verification Program for New and Existing Alloy
+Piping Systems
+ 598, Valve Inspection and Testing
+ 607, Testing of Valves--Fire Type-testing Requirements
+ 622, Type Testing of Process Valve Packing for Fugitive Emissions
+ Relief and Vent Systems and Devices----
+ 576, Inspection of Pressure Relieving Devices
+ 510, Pressure Vessel Inspection Code: In-Service Inspection,
+Rating, Repair, and Alteration
+ 537, Flare Details for General Refinery and Petrochemical Service
+ 2000, Venting Atmospheric and Low-pressure Storage Tanks:
+Nonrefrigerated and Refrigerated
+ Emergency Shutdown Systems----
+ 2350, Overfill Protection for Storage Tanks in Petroleum Facilities
+ Controls----
+ 551, Process Measurement Instrumentation
+ 552, Transmission Systems
+ 553, Refinery Control Valves
+ 554, Process Instrumentation and Control
+ 555, Process Analyzers
+ 556, Fired Heaters & Steam Generators
+ 557, Guide to Advanced Control Systems
+ Pumps----
+ 610, Centrifugal Pumps for Petroleum, Petrochemical and Natural Gas
+Industries
+ 614, Lubrication, Shaft-sealing, and Control-oil Systems and
+Auxiliaries for Petroleum, Chemical and Gas Industry Services
+ 674, Positive Displacement Pumps--Reciprocating
+ 675, Positive Displacement Pumps--Controlled Volume
+ 676, Positive Displacement Pumps--Rotary
+ 681, Liquid Ring Vacuum Pumps and Compressors
+ 682, Pumps--Shaft Sealing Systems for Centrifugal and Rotary Pumps
+ 685, Sealless Centrifugal Pumps for Petroleum, Heavy Duty Chemical,
+and Gas Industry Services
+ 686, Machinery Installation and Installation Design
+ 687, Rotor Repair
+ k) Hot-Work Permit----
+ 2201, Safe Hot Tapping Practices in the Petroleum & Petrochemical
+Industries
+ l) Management of Change
+ Inspections and Tests----
+ 510, Pressure Vessel Inspection Code: In-Service Inspection,
+Rating, Repair, and Alteration
+ 570, Piping Inspection Code: Inspection, Repair, Alteration, and
+Rerating of In-service Piping Systems
+ 653, Tank Inspection, Repair, Alteration, and Reconstruction
+ 579, Fitness-For-Service
+ 572, Inspection of Pressure Vessels
+ 573, Inspection of Fired Boilers and Heaters
+ 574, Inspection Practices for Piping System Components
+ 575, Inspection of Atmospheric & Low Pressure Storage Tanks
+ 576, Inspection of Pressure Relieving Devices
+ 577, Welding Inspection and Metallurgy
+ 578, Material Verification Program for New and Existing Alloy
+Piping Systems
+ 581, Base Resource Document--Risk Based Inspection
+ Suitability for Service----
+ (All Previously Standards Listed Above)
+ m) Incident Investigation
+ n) Emergency Planning and Response
+ o) Compliance Audits
+ p) Trade Secrets
+ ______
+
+ Chairman Miller. Thank you.
+ Mr. Nibarger.
+
+STATEMENT OF KIM NIBARGER, HEALTH AND SAFETY SPECIALIST, UNITED
+STEELWORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, SAFETY
+ AND THE ENVIRONMENT
+
+ Mr. Nibarger. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee,
+thank you for the opportunity to appear before you this
+morning. My name is Kim Nibarger. I am a member of the United
+Steelworkers, and I am also a Health and Safety Specialist for
+the union's Health, Safety and Environment Department. The USW
+has approximately 850,000 members in the United States and
+Canada. Notwithstanding our name, we represent workers in
+virtually every segment of the workforce--steel, of course, but
+also paper, mining, aluminum, and other nonferrous metals,
+chemicals, plastics, tires and rubber, glass, health care, and
+petrochemicals, which is the subject of today's hearing.
+ Our members work in very dangerous environments where
+worker safety is key. The Process Safety Management standard
+was developed to help ensure safe and helpful workplaces
+processing toxic, reactive, flammable gases and liquids or
+other highly hazardous chemicals. The implementation of PSM
+began in 1992, and all requirements of the program were to be
+in place by May 26, 1997.
+ There were a number of devastating accidents in the
+petrochemical industry that precipitated this legislation.
+Unfortunately, these accidents continue to take place.
+ The explosion at the BP facility in Texas City resulted in
+15 fatalities and in more than 170 injuries. This was but one
+of a handful of incidents that take the lives of workers in the
+petrochemical industry every month. The reason these go
+unnoticed is that they usually happen one or two fatalities at
+a time or the affected workers are contract employees who do
+not get connected with the proprietary employers.
+Unfortunately, it takes a major event like the one we saw in
+Texas City for these incidents to get any real notice. In fact,
+prior to the BP explosion, there was one worker fatality every
+16 months for 30 years at the Texas City facility.
+ The number of releases of highly hazardous chemicals, in
+particular hydrocarbons, that do not find an ignition source is
+estimated to be 98 percent. Again, you do not hear about these
+releases unless there is an explosion or a fire associated with
+the release. Any number of these releases, had they found an
+ignition source, could have resulted in consequences as tragic
+as Texas City.
+ The refinery that I worked for in Anacortes, Washington
+released approximately 27,000 pounds of propane and propylene
+as light hydrocarbons in April of 2006. They did not find an
+ignition source, and the release was contained. Had the ensuing
+vapor cloud ignited, the damage would have been extensive. The
+underlying cause was a pipe corrosion issue brought on by a
+seemingly small change in the process which was not considered
+significant enough to trigger a Management of Change review, or
+MOC.
+ The day before Thanksgiving in 1998 at this same facility,
+we experienced a situation with slightly different
+circumstances. Again, a Management of Change was not performed,
+and a decision was made to handle this abnormal event using
+normal procedures. The result was six fatalities. I was one
+member of a team tasked with the retrieval of the bodies of my
+six coworkers.
+ The fire at the Valero refinery in Sunray, Texas on
+February 16th of this year was also a release of light
+hydrocarbons, propane, but this release found an ignition
+source almost immediately that resulted in a serious fire but
+did minimal damage compared to the potential damage from a
+vapor cloud forming and then igniting. There could have easily
+been as many fatalities in any of these instances as there were
+in Texas City where the circumstances were slightly different.
+ Since the beginning of 2007, Valero has had a total of
+eight incidents, ranging from loss of utilities that resulted
+in production cutbacks and flaring to four incidents that
+caused fires. This is a pattern repeated all too often. In the
+U.S. from January 1st through February 16th of this year, there
+have been 43 incidents of pipeline leaks, chemical releases,
+plant upsets, and fires. This list is not inclusive, but I seek
+to focus on refinery and chemical plants as well as
+distribution facilities. In some instances, facilities or
+neighborhoods were evacuated without incident. Sadly, in others
+there were lives lost.
+ The United Steelworkers represents approximately half of
+the workers in the petrochemical industry in this country. We
+have an intimate concern with the well-being of the workers we
+represent as well as the industry.
+ One of the union's major goals is to work with the
+petrochemical industry to make it safer for our members and for
+the communities in which these facilities exist. In the case of
+BP, we are currently in negotiations with the company to
+institute a 10-point program to address several items brought
+forward through the Baker panel report.
+ Specifically, we are working to establish a pilot program
+in Texas City of the unions, a trial prevention program for a
+joint accident/near miss investigation. We are working on
+collectively developing safety and job training programs as
+well as procedure writing and a review process for all of BP's
+U.S. represented sites. The issue of adequate staffing and
+reasonable work hours is also being addressed.
+ This is the first step in our union's goal of realizing
+this type of involvement at all of the facilities we represent.
+Who knows better about the day-to-day activities and the best
+way to deal with them than the workers who perform these jobs
+on a daily basis?
+ For me, safety in the petrochemical industry is personal.
+My USW responsibilities involve me in the prevention and
+investigation of industrial fatalities on a daily basis. The
+focus of everything we do is to eliminate deaths in the
+workplace. When I no longer have to investigate workplace
+fatalities, I will be the happiest person alive.
+ Thank you again for the opportunity to testify this
+morning.
+ [The statement of Mr. Nibarger follows:]
+
+ Prepared Statement of Kim Nibarger, Health and Safety Specialist,
+ Health, Safety and Environment Department, United Steelworkers
+ International Union
+
+ Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for the
+opportunity to appear before you this morning. My name is Kim Nibarger.
+I am a member of the United Steelworkers (USW), and I am also a Health
+and Safety Specialist for our Union's Health, Safety and Environment
+Department. The USW has approximately 850,000 members in the United
+States and Canada. Notwithstanding our name, we represent workers in
+virtually every segment of the workforce--steel of course, but also,
+paper, mining, aluminum and other nonferrous metals, chemicals,
+plastics, tires and rubber, glass, health care, and petrochemicals,
+which is the subject of today's hearing.
+ Our members work in very dangerous environments where worker safety
+is key. The Process Safety Management (PSM) standard was developed to
+help insure safe and healthful workplaces processing toxic, reactive,
+flammable gasses and liquids or other highly hazardous chemicals.
+Implementation of PSM began in 1992 and all requirements of the program
+were to be in place by May 26, 1997.
+ There were a number of devastating accidents in the petrochemical
+industry that precipitated this legislation. Unfortunately, these
+accidents continue to take place.
+ The explosion at the BP facility in Texas City resulted in 15
+fatalities and more than 170 injuries. This was but one of a handful of
+incidents that take the lives of workers in the petrochemical industry
+every month. The reason these go unnoticed is that they usually happen
+one or two fatalities at a time, or the affected workers are contract
+employees who do not get connected with the proprietary employers.
+Unfortunately it takes a major event like the one we saw in Texas City
+for these incidents to get any real notice. In fact, prior to the BP
+explosion, there was one worker fatality every 16 months for 30 years
+at the Texas City facility.
+ The number of releases of highly hazardous chemicals, in particular
+hydrocarbons, that do not find an ignition source is estimated to be
+98%. Again, you do not hear about these releases unless there is an
+explosion or fire associated with the release. Any number of these
+releases--had they found an ignition source--could have resulted in
+consequences as tragic as Texas City.
+ The refinery I worked for in Anacortes, Washington, released
+approximately 27,000 pounds of propane and propylene as light
+hydrocarbons in April 2006. They did not find an ignition source, and
+the release was contained. Had the ensuing vapor cloud ignited, the
+damage would have been extensive. The underlying cause was a pipe
+corrosion issue, brought on by a seemingly small change in the process
+which was not significant enough to trigger a Management of Change
+review, or MOC.
+ The day before Thanksgiving in 1998 at this same facility, we
+experienced a situation with slightly different circumstances. Again, a
+Management of Change was not performed, and the decision was made to
+handle this abnormal event using normal procedures. The result was six
+fatalities. I was one member of a team tasked with the retrieval of the
+bodies of my six co-workers.
+ The fire at the Valero refinery in Sunray, Texas on February 16th
+of this year was also a release of light hydrocarbons, propane, but
+this release found an ignition source almost immediately that resulted
+in a serious fire, but did minimal damage compared to the potential
+damage from a vapor cloud forming and then igniting.
+ There could have easily been as many fatalities in any of these
+instances as there were in Texas City, but the circumstances were
+slightly different.
+ Since the beginning of 2007, Valero has had a total of eight
+incidents--ranging from loss of utilities that resulted in production
+cutbacks and flaring--to four incidents that caused fires.
+ This is a pattern repeated all too often. In the US, from January
+1st through February 16th of this year, there have been 43 incidents of
+pipeline leaks, chemical releases, plant upsets and fires. This list is
+not inclusive, but I seek to focus on refinery and chemical plants, as
+well as distribution facilities.
+ In some instances, facilities or neighborhoods were evacuated
+without incident, sadly in others, there were lives lost.
+ The United Steelworkers represents approximately half of the
+workers in the petrochemical industry in this country. We have an
+intimate concern with the well-being of the workers we represent as
+well as the industry.
+ One of Union's major goals is to work with the petrochemical
+industry to make it safer for our members and the communities in which
+these facilities exist. In the case of BP, we are currently in
+negotiations with the company to institute a ten point program to
+address several items brought forward through the Baker panel report.
+ Specifically we are working to establish a pilot program at Texas
+City of the Union's ``Triangle of Prevention'' program for joint
+accident/near miss investigation. We are working on collectively
+developing safety and job training programs as well as procedure
+writing and a review process for all of BP's U.S. represented sites.
+The issue of adequate staffing and reasonable work hours is also being
+addressed.
+ This is a first step in our Union's goal of realizing this type of
+involvement at all the facilities we represent. Who knows better about
+the day-to-day activities and the best way to deal with them then the
+workers who perform these job duties on a daily basis?
+ For me, safety in the petrochemical industry is personal. My USW
+responsibilities involve me in prevention and investigation of
+industrial fatalities on a daily basis. The focus of everything we do
+is to eliminate deaths in the workplace. When I no longer have to
+investigate workplace fatalities, I will be the happiest person alive.
+ Thank you again for the opportunity to testify this morning.
+ ______
+
+ Chairman Miller. Thank you very much. Thank you to all of
+the witnesses.
+ Let me just, at the outset, say that it is hard to grow up
+where I grew up and not be familiar with the oil and chemistry
+industry with the number of refineries that are in and around
+my home, and I worked as a student in high school and college
+for Chevron and Shell and what at that time was Phillips and
+Tosco and others, and I think I appreciate the nature of this
+industry and the hazards that are inherent when you are dealing
+around flammable chemicals and high temperatures and complex
+processes, but I am a little worried about the language in the
+hearing this morning.
+ Mr. Cavaney, you say that API is the industry standard
+setting leader, and the American National Standards Institute's
+accredited Standards Development Organization operates with
+approved standards, development procedures and undergoes
+regular audits process.
+ Having said all of that, this refinery was able to operate
+for more than 15 years essentially in violation of, I assume,
+all of those standards that were set in terms of looking at
+process safety standards, and so I assume that they are not
+mandatory. They are what the standards for the industry should
+be and would like to be, and you revise them all the time, but
+somehow they can also apparently be completely ignored without
+any repercussions to the company.
+ Admiral Bowman, you said that BP had mistakenly chosen to
+look at worker accidents and injury and illness rates as
+opposed to process. I would think that the report of the
+Chemical Safety Board said that they chose not to look at the
+process safety procedures and what indicators those might have,
+in fact, served in terms of raising cautionary flags, red
+flags, and process changes.
+ In fact, the Chair of the board, Ms. Merritt, says, quote,
+``In our final report, we concluded that organizational safety
+deficiencies at all levels of the British Petroleum Corporation
+caused this terrible accident. We found widespread safety/
+cultural deficiencies both at the Texas City refinery and at
+the higher levels of BP.''
+ In fact, Chairman Merritt, those reached all the way into
+the board of directors, if I understand your report correctly,
+in terms of the failures that you attribute to leading to this
+accident. Is that not so?
+ Ms. Merritt. Yes. We know that at least one member of the
+board of directors on the executive committee had information
+from internal reports that identified serious safety problems
+and operational deficiencies at the facility and culture gaps
+that were not addressed. As a matter of fact, following a
+presentation of those facts, they required another 25 percent
+cutback in cost.
+ Chairman Miller. So there were the cutbacks in terms of
+cost, in terms of safety and training and that, but also, let
+me ask you. It is my understanding again that this particular
+piece of equipment that was central to this accident had been
+identified back in the 1970s as equipment that was out of date
+and that there were more modern alternatives to this equipment
+and, in fact, that OSHA had warned British Petroleum about this
+some 13 years before the explosion; is that correct?
+ Ms. Merritt. Yes, that is correct, and we know that other
+companies in the refining industry have replaced this piece of
+equipment called a ``blow-down drum'' with flares and with
+remote knockout drums and flares that are outside the battery
+limits of operations, which is what is recommended. However,
+BP, even though it had a policy that when this equipment was
+replaced or significantly modified that they would replace it
+with flares--and we know that they had a number of
+opportunities to do that--that they did not, and we have
+evidence, at least in one case, where they did that due to
+budgetary reasons.
+ Chairman Miller. So they made a conscious choice not to
+follow those recommendations and not to replace that equipment
+with the procedure that had been identified as being safer?
+ Ms. Merritt. Yes, we know that is true.
+ Chairman Miller. The process safety procedures, I assume--
+well, correct me if I am wrong. As I look at them, they are
+really a way of giving you early indicators of the operations
+of a refinery or of a chemical facility that when taken
+together--and that may be taken together as three incidents or
+seven incidents or 10 incidents depending on the type of
+incident--that might tell you something about either the skills
+or the training or the operations of this facility that you
+might want to pay attention to because collectively they could
+lead to a catastrophe.
+ Is that a fair statement of the intent of these?
+ Ms. Merritt. Yes. The Process Safety Management rule
+requires that companies that are covered by this rule keep a
+record, a log of incidents, that are called ``near misses,''
+where a release could have caused a problem, a release of toxic
+or hazardous materials, and that that investigation is supposed
+to be kept in a record, and if OSHA were doing their program
+quality comprehensive audits of facilities prior to incidents
+they would have these records then to review.
+ However, what we have found at BP is that they were not
+doing incident investigations of even very, very serious
+incidents that I would not even call ``near misses.'' I would
+call them a catastrophe except for a spark, and they did not
+investigate those. We know that they were----
+ Chairman Miller. OSHA and BP?
+ Ms. Merritt. BP did not investigate those and did not use
+even that evidence of a hazard when they did their hazard and
+operability reviews every couple of years. They were not even
+reviewing incidents that were occurring in their own facility.
+So we know that that part of the standard--those incident
+investigations are not required to be submitted to OSHA. They
+are only required to be kept on property, but if no audits are
+being done that just is not happening in a lot of cases, and we
+find that in other investigations, too, not just this one, that
+incidents that were prewarning events that management could
+have used to have prevented a catastrophe were not investigated
+and OSHA was doing no preventative audits whatsoever, so this
+evidence was never used to prevent an accident.
+ Chairman Miller. Mr. Cavaney, how does the company, an
+international company, you know, a very successful company, how
+do they sink to this level given your standards and your
+constant review and the communications, I assume, that take
+place across all of your members? How do you sink to this level
+where for 15 years you ignore these recommendations, these
+signs, these incidents and still believe somehow you are in
+compliance with API standards?
+ Mr. Cavaney. Mr. Chairman, I cannot speak specifically to
+each of the refineries. I have not been involved in the
+investigations, nor am I aware of the details.
+ Chairman Miller. Would you disagree with the
+characterization that this has led to a culture, a widespread
+safety culture of deficiencies?
+ Mr. Cavaney. As I said, again, Mr. Chairman, I have not
+visited any of those facilities. I am not familiar with them.
+ Chairman Miller. How would you characterize what took place
+here?
+ Mr. Cavaney. A tragedy.
+ Chairman Miller. Have you read the report?
+ Mr. Cavaney. We have not received the report yet. It is
+supposed to be out within the next week to us. Mr. Chairman, I
+am aware of the public discussion about it, and obviously it is
+a tragedy, and as I mentioned in my remarks, we operate
+refineries in high temperature, high pressure environments with
+hazardous materials, and we are consistently looking to try and
+find an edge on how we can improve safety because at the end of
+the day protecting your employees----
+ Chairman Miller. Yes, but with all due respect, the API is
+not blowing up. The refineries are.
+ Mr. Cavaney. I understand.
+ Chairman Miller. Your constituent members are blowing up.
+You know, in my community you can get a telephone call at 3:00
+o'clock in the morning telling you you have to shelter in
+place. You know it can happen to you time and again in a number
+of my communities, and it in fact happens that way. So
+something is very wrong. I mean maybe this is what the
+administration believes is somehow voluntary compliance, the
+fact that you set these standards, but something is very wrong
+between these standards and what is happening on the ground.
+ Mr. Cavaney. Well, obviously, if you have an accident, it
+needs to be investigated, and----
+ Chairman Miller. But it is not.
+ Mr. Cavaney [continuing]. Steps need to be taken, but if
+you look at the industry's record over time in terms of
+nonfatal injuries and nonfatal accidents, we have continued to
+make improvement, and we are trying to----
+ Chairman Miller. I hope so.
+ Mr. Cavaney [continuing]. Prevent all accidents, is what we
+are trying to do here through this standards process and
+through our recommended practices. It is something you are
+vigilant with and you work on consistently.
+ Chairman Miller. But I think there are two problems here,
+with all due respect. One is the word ``voluntary,'' and the
+other is ``recommended'' because obviously this is a huge gap.
+This is a huge gap that the people of Texas City, you know,
+suffered, and BP for year after year after year drove their
+processes through that gap.
+ And I have been more than generous with myself on the time,
+and I will yield to my colleague, Mr. McKeon.
+ Mr. Cavaney. Mr. Chairman, may I just answer your last
+question? We are regulated by OSHA and a number of other
+Federal Government bodies as well as at the State level who
+conduct inspections to see whether or not compliance is going
+on. All we can do is certify what the best practices are.
+ Chairman Miller. With all due respect, Mr. Cavaney, that
+did not happen. That did not happen until this place blew up.
+ Mr. Cavaney. I understand.
+ Chairman Miller. Mr. McKeon.
+ Mr. McKeon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ You know, going back, looking at the report and how there
+were--of course the tragedy of the 15 deaths, but every 16
+months a death for many, many years before should have, I
+think, sent a much more serious warning signal and should have
+had a much more serious response.
+ There have been comments made about that the company had
+warnings. They knew about it. A board member knew about it, and
+because of financial reasons, budgetary reasons, it did not
+make the necessary corrections or follow the recommendations
+that were given. I guess most board members or maybe all board
+members--I guess their job is to see that the company runs and
+runs well and makes a profit. It seems like there was some
+shortsightedness, and in the terms of trying to turn a profit--
+and I am not against profit. I think that is what--you know,
+that is important. Nobody would have jobs. Nothing would move
+forward if a profit were not made, but by being shortsighted
+and saving on the short run, they ended up paying the largest
+fine ever. Maybe there are some things--I am hopeful that what
+comes out of this hearing and any prospective legislation or
+anything that comes from it for those 15 and all of the others
+who have died in serious accidents such as this is we,
+together, come together to try to resolve that this does not
+happen in the future, and we should come out of this hearing
+with some positive recommendations. If OSHA is not doing proper
+oversight, if your organization is not doing proper oversight,
+if the companies are not doing proper oversight, we should find
+those and find ways to make a correction.
+ I know that in the report one of the things, Admiral, that
+you recommended was that we have third party audits. That is
+something that Charlie Norwood, I know--our late friend--pushed
+for four years, and I am pleased to see that in your
+recommendation.
+ Can you explain how that would be beneficial in going
+forward?
+ Admiral Bowman. Yes, sir.
+ If I may, the entire system--in my personal view, the
+charter of our panel did not extend to looking at this
+regulatory aspect of this. We were specifically, by the urgent
+recommendation of the Chemical Safety Board, asked to look at
+the process safety management and the corporate culture of
+process safety at BP, but if I can offer my personal
+observation, to me it is incredible that what seems, to me, to
+be happening with the OSHA oversight of these refineries and of
+their responsibilities in this regard is that we are constantly
+shooting behind the duck; that is, after the accident occurs
+OSHA then comes in. There seems to be no or little preemptive
+investigation, third party evaluation of those preemptive
+investigations and evaluations.
+ I would point to the mere fact that our panel filled this
+book with what we consider to be very serious and material
+deficiencies on the part of these refineries in BP, and yet it
+was only after the accident that OSHA came, investigated, found
+300 very serious or over 300 very serious violations of their
+own standards. To me and in the culture that I have grown up in
+the nuclear Navy and in the commercial nuclear industry in this
+country, that is not the way you run the railroad. If they can
+find 300 serious violations after the explosion, it would seem
+to me that preemptively finding those violations may have
+prevented this tragedy, and I think that that is one of the
+main root causes of why we are here today.
+ Ms. Merritt. May I add to that?
+ Mr. McKeon. Yes.
+ Ms. Merritt. Under the process safety rule as it was
+implemented in 1992, there is a provision for OSHA to do
+comprehensive preemptive audits of facilities. That is part of
+the regulation already, and that part of the regulation was
+never implemented by OSHA. When they do an inspection--and we
+know that they have very few trained inspectors to be able to
+do process safety audits or preemptive audits, which are really
+quite complicated and very technical. They have done
+inspections of facilities, but they are usually after an event,
+and they are looking for things that are shop floor incidents
+and personal safety incidents such as slips, trips and falls or
+electrical connections. Whereas, if they had come in before
+this accident--I mean there were 10 fatalities in the period of
+a year preceding this one where, if they had come in and looked
+at the process for verification of implementation of process
+safety, they would have seen easily that this very important
+and very well done rule was not being implemented at the BP
+facility.
+ Mr. McKeon. So it sounds like we have a cultural problem
+within OSHA, because I come from a business background before I
+came to Congress, and there used to be all kinds of complaints
+about OSHA of all of the nitpicky things that they do, and
+maybe they should be looking at these very serious, more--where
+there are much more hazardous occupations, that they should be
+really focusing on those instead of some of the little nitpicky
+things that they do get involved with. You know, I am even
+wondering if this goes back to the boardroom. Maybe in the
+selection of the board there should be one person that is
+brought on the board just to oversee these kinds of things, and
+that should be a responsibility so that when everybody else is
+sitting around talking about ways we can save money that it
+would have to go through a member of the board who has that
+personal responsibility to oversee safety.
+ Ms. Merritt. And if I might speak to that. We did make that
+recommendation that the board see what a good idea it was. We
+did make that recommendation. And indeed, you know, I have
+reported to such boards in companies that have environment,
+health and safety committees and was asked very hard questions
+when there was downsizing or when we were in financial trouble
+whether or not things were being done correctly, and it was my
+responsibility to report to them on leading indicators such as
+audits, corrective findings, and what were the results of
+audits and whether funding was being spent on training and
+other things. So the indicators are there for boards to ask the
+questions if they are asking questions at all about this.
+ Mr. McKeon. Thank you, and the chairman was very gracious
+in letting me use extra time, too, so I appreciate that.
+ Chairman Miller. Thank you. I would also be interested in
+the qualifications of the board in the decision making process
+that when you double your profits from 2003 of $10.4 billion to
+$22.3 billion, this must have been the most expensive flaring
+system in the world if you decided
+ that you couldn't afford to make this change. I mean, I
+really want to know that process of thinking that you would use
+to make that decision given the history, again, and that
+somehow that would be a deferred expenditure of cost concerns.
+ Mr. Hare.
+ Mr. Hare. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I can't
+tell you how very sorry I am for you and for all of the
+families involved in that loss. I can't imagine the pain you
+are going through and how much courage it took for you to come
+here today and to talk to us.
+ I have to tell you I worked in a clothing factory for 13
+years, and there was, as I have said many times, there were 60
+of us and two of us got out with all 10 of our fingers. We had
+one OSHA inspection in the 13\1/2\ years we worked in that
+plant. I find it inexcusable that OSHA--if I heard correctly,
+10 years between inspections. And I would just like to know
+from maybe somebody on the panel--and I will have a couple of
+questions for another witness--what is the problem here? Is
+this because they don't have the inspectors? Is this because
+they don't have the money to do the enforcement? Is this
+because they just don't feel like coming out and investigating
+these possible complaints? I mean, what is the holdup here? I
+cannot fathom technically in this industry a 10-year law
+between inspections. I am wondering if anybody has an opinion
+on that.
+ Ms. Merritt. I would be glad to offer an opinion on it. The
+rule is there for these inspections to be done and it was
+envisioned by OSHA that they would inspect--plants would have
+comprehensive PSM inspections that could last weeks or months
+and that they would require highly trained and dedicated staff
+to do this. Unfortunately, and I can't tell you why that was
+never carried out. They have very few inspectors who are
+qualified to do process safety. Actually some of the States
+have done better. As a matter of fact, in Contra Costa County
+they have a PSM oversight group of five people that goes in and
+inspects each of their PSM covered operations every 3 years. So
+it is not a matter of difficulty. It is a matter of how are you
+going to resource it and then having the commitment to do it.
+ Mr. Hare. Mr. Cavaney, in your testimony you said that
+safety in the industry is a moral imperative and a top
+priority. And the CEO, BP former CEO said we never focused on
+profits above safety. Team safety has always come first. If you
+found that one of your members was putting profits above safety
+and not complying with the API standards, what would you do?
+Can you expel them from API, report them to OSHA or EPA, or
+where is the enforcement mechanism within API if there are
+companies that----
+ Mr. Cavaney. API is not a regulatory body nor do we have
+any regulatory authority. We are the experts and that is why we
+put out recommended practices and all, and then we provide them
+to the government who regulates us, and it is up to the
+government to develop either plans off of ours or develop their
+own on what needs to be done. And in the case of process
+safety, as Chairman Miller mentioned, we provided what is
+called Publication 750. We created the whole thing, put
+together the blueprint and handed it over to OSHA in order for
+them to bid on, to create their regulatory scheme.
+ But it is up to the government, the various agencies in our
+refineries to do the regulation and we will comply, and I will
+certainly agree that more frequent investigations, looking at
+these things, that is how you get your improvements and
+continue to move forward because things do change over time.
+ Mr. Hare. As you are aware, OSHA only requires companies to
+log the illnesses and injuries on the workers on the sites. But
+what about the contractors? I mean, if people who are not the
+employees, per se, of the refinery, how do you log those
+illnesses and injuries and are those people, if they are not
+included in the safety reports, isn't that--that is really an
+inconclusive report, it would seem to me, if the contractors
+aren't reported in safety inspections or included in illnesses
+or accidents.
+ Mr. Cavaney. If I could explain the process. The employees
+and contractors that are going to work on the refinery facility
+all go through the same training and briefings on safety.
+ The contractors who have an operational role in running the
+refinery, as an employee does, they are reported together. But
+the government regulations for reporting incidents says
+contractors who are not on operational mode; in other words,
+those who are looking at a turn-around and going through
+construction and all, they are reported in a different category
+and we have no control over that. That is what the government
+requires us to do. But they are all trained and exposed to the
+same sort of briefings and awareness regardless of whether they
+are an employee or a contractor.
+ Mr. Hare. The ranking member said, you know, what can we do
+here. And there are a number of questions. It would really
+appear to me that we are going to have to take a long look at
+OSHA and its effectiveness and the kinds of funds that we are
+willing to put into it to get the inspector out there
+periodically because, again, I go back to this and you know I
+see the pain on your face. I can't for the life of me
+understand why a governmental agency tasked with trying to keep
+people safe and making sure their workplace is safe has a 10-
+year break between the time they go out and investigate and
+that is really shameful, and I am hoping this committee will be
+able to take that up. And I will promise you this. I will do
+everything I can as a permanent member of this committee to
+kick some OSHA people in the kneecaps.
+ With that, I yield back.
+ Chairman Miller. Thank you. Mr. Platts.
+ Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you
+for, and the committee, for holding this important hearing and
+hearing from the tragic events that occurred 2 years ago
+tomorrow and that we work to ensure these events are never
+repeated and that we do better to ensure worker safety.
+ I also want to convey my sympathies to Ms. Rowe and her
+brothers and all of the family members who lost loved ones on
+that tragic day. I regret I am supposed to be in an oversight
+hearing on Iraq across the hall, and I am going to yield the
+balance of my time for purposes of questions to Mr. Boustany,
+please. Thank you.
+ Mr. Boustany. I thank my colleague.
+ Thank you for holding this hearing. It is a very important
+hearing. And I also convey my sympathies to you and the others
+who have lost loved ones in this.
+ Mr. Cavaney, how long has API been developing industry
+standards?
+ Mr. Cavaney. We developed the first one starting in 1924,
+and we have currently an inventory of about 500, and of those
+500, 110 of them relate specifically to the process of safety
+issue.
+ Mr. Boustany. Thank you. And are the API standards process
+an open process? How do you convey these industrywide?
+ Mr. Cavaney. Our standards process is ANSI, accredited
+American National Standard Institute. And under that process,
+you must conduct a fully transparent and open development of
+standards. So anybody who is a stakeholder in the industry; in
+other words, somebody that has the material interest in the
+industry is invited to participate in the development of those
+standards and recommended practices.
+ Every year at the beginning of the year through NIST, we
+issue all the recommended practices and standards that are
+going to be reviewed in the upcoming year so that people with
+an interest will have knowledge that they are going on and they
+are welcome. And as a matter of fact, that is the strength of
+the standard process, is you want experts and people outside
+the industry so we don't end up creating blind spots because we
+are not aware of something that is going on.
+ It does take a bit of time and it is a collaborative
+process, and the agreement that ultimately comes up is we end
+up turning out documents so that people can see how it is going
+forward, and as I mentioned here, a little later this spring we
+are going to produce the first standard recommended practice
+that comes out on trailers, which is a very specific finding
+that the Chemical Safety Board recommended that we review.
+ Mr. Boustany. Thank you. My understanding is that the CSB
+report recommends that API work with the United Steelworkers on
+some new standards. Is API willing to work with the
+Steelworkers?
+ Mr. Cavaney. Yes, we are. In order to develop standards, we
+have to be open and welcome anybody who is a stakeholder, and
+certainly our workforce is a stakeholder.
+ The points that they have raised, we have not had direct
+discussion but we have seen some of the press statements that
+they have made and those are exactly the kinds of things we
+factor in even though they are not at the table. So their
+feedback has been considered as they go forward, and I think
+talking earlier with Mr. Nibarger to have an opportunity now to
+directly engage I think will actually speed the process of
+assimilating some of this input into the process.
+ Mr. Boustany. Mr. Nibarger, are the Steelworkers willing to
+work with API on the development of future standards?
+ Mr. Nibarger. Yes, sir.
+ Mr. Boustany. Have you worked with them before?
+ Mr. Nibarger. No, sir. We have not.
+ Mr. Boustany. Why?
+ Mr. Nibarger. As far as I know, we have never been asked.
+ Mr. Boustany. Mr. Cavaney, it sounds like the process is
+open and you have tried to bring in all stakeholders. Can you
+respond to that?
+ Mr. Cavaney. It is an open process. We try to look forward.
+We can't change what happened in the past. I think this is an
+opportunity that we should all take advantage of.
+ Mr. Boustany. You share that sentiment, Mr. Nibarger?
+ Mr. Nibarger. Yes, sir, I do.
+ Mr. Boustany. Thank you. CSB and Baker both made statements
+extending their findings to the U.S. refining industry as a
+whole. On what ground do you base those judgments? I mean, is
+there anything official or scientific to extend those
+judgments?
+ Mr. Bowman. For our part, we base those judgments not on
+direct inspections of other companies but rather through the
+massive year-long process that we went through interviewing
+union workers, union officials, required officials from the
+refinery business, contract workers who go from plant to plant,
+company to company. And if the red light hadn't come on when it
+did, I was going to say that the panel reports that we are
+under no illusion that the deficiencies we found at BP are
+limited just to BP based on those observations.
+ Mr. Boustany. Mr. Merritt, would you like to respond to
+that?
+ Ms. Merritt. Our investigation was at the BP facility,
+Texas City, and it is a corporate link to this event.
+ We have had many conversations with others that indicate
+that this is not a unique situation. As a matter of fact, in
+the past several years, I have been doing numerous
+presentations to groups and invariably every time people come
+up to me and say this situation exists at our facility as well.
+So we felt that extending these two industries, not just the
+petroleum industry but the chemical industry and chemical use
+industry as well is well-founded, that these situations exist
+everywhere.
+ Mr. Boustany. Thank you.
+ Mr. Chairman, I see the time has expired here.
+ Can I claim my 5 minutes now to continue a few questions?
+ Chairman Miller. No. We are going to rotate to Mrs. Shea-
+Porter.
+ Ms. Shea-Porter. First, Ms. Rowe, let me express my deep
+pain on hearing what happened to you. I worked in a factory
+that dealt with some chemicals through the summers, and I know
+they did not adhere to safety standards then, and I am so
+deeply disappointed to hear that even now we have this struggle
+and I deeply apologize. And I don't understand either. I share
+the rage of this committee trying to figure out why we have
+OSHA and why we have oversight when we don't do it.
+ And I am wondering how many times we will have hearings
+like this on the next accident and the next until we tell the
+truth to the American people, which is that we need oversight
+for every industry, and heaven knows I believe in profit also,
+but for every single industry in this country that has a risky
+part of its business, we must have the oversight, the
+protection so that we don't sit here again and again. And so I
+apologize for the failure of OSHA and the failure of so many
+others that have left you in such pain.
+ I will say that I have been looking at your parents'
+picture the whole time. As you know, your mother is smiling and
+I am sure she is smiling because of the great courage that you
+are showing. So she obviously raised a very good daughter.
+ Having said that, I would like to address some comments,
+please, first of all to Mr. Cavaney.
+ Are you asking members to report near misses to you, to
+API? Apparently, they didn't feel the need to report to OSHA.
+Do you collect any data?
+ Mr. Cavaney. We don't collect the data. To say that our
+role in this is to set the standards and set out the framework.
+ Ms. Shea-Porter. I understand that, but do you have any
+kind of feedback. You have these people who are actually
+members of API, and I am sure you want it to look like you are
+really doing a good job setting the standards. Were you ever
+aware that data was not being collected for near misses?
+ Mr. Cavaney. One of the things that we tried to do is
+obviously look at the latest information, and I personally have
+not been aware of that kind of thing, but I will ask among the
+people in our organization who work the standards and get back
+to you.
+ Ms. Shea-Porter. If you don't collect the data, there is
+nothing to look at. It is easy to say that everything is going
+well if you don't ever open a book and have any indication at
+all that things aren't going well.
+ Let me ask you, did you ever complain as a group about OSHA
+standards being too tough or indeed maybe too easy? Was there
+ever any conversation about OSHA not showing up at plants or
+that you thought OSHA was, quote, breathing down the neck of
+the industry?
+ Mr. Cavaney. I am not aware of any complaints about them
+being too stringent or the frequency of their visits.
+ Ms. Shea-Porter. Okay. Also, could you tell me are there
+any improvements in current OSHA standards or new standards
+that you think would help that you would be endorsing right
+now?
+ Mr. Cavaney. Well, there is a group called the OSHA
+Alliance, which is they brought together many of the
+associations and organizations who have been involved broadly
+in the petrochemical and in the oil and gas industry. And what
+they are doing is looking at process safety and seeing how we
+can move it to the next level and what is the best practices
+efforts that are going on right now, and one of the key
+findings of that group is going to be when all of the reports
+are actually made available and reviewed is they will come out
+with a report and a finding about what we should do and which
+gets priority rankings so we can move forward from there.
+ Ms. Shea-Porter. And then what happens? I guess my concern
+here is that we collect reports after every accident, and they
+sit some place on a shelf, and then once again, we have an
+accident. What happens and what do you think your role could be
+to make sure that what you actually hear is disseminated to the
+groups that you represent and also that there is some kind of
+measurement that people cannot belong to your organization
+unless they are adhering to a certain standard. I mean, do you
+hold their feet to the fire or can you just automatically have
+membership because you are in the business?
+ Mr. Cavaney. Two points. The first answer is when we get
+new findings or we hear of something, we institute a review of
+the standards. We go back and look at it because it doesn't--
+there is actually--if you go back to our documents that we
+produced for OSHA in the early 1990s, it says that if you don't
+have contemporaneous and current regulations in place and
+guidance, that employees go on their own and come up with other
+systems and some of those systems may not be any more safer and
+could actually be worse. So we are very vigilant about getting
+the latest technical information and going through that
+process.
+ On the second point you made, we are a voluntary trade
+association, and if we prohibit people from participating we
+then run into antitrust problems and so we can only provide
+guidance. We are not a regulatory body. So people come to us
+and we give the government the guidance that we have.
+ Chairman Miller. Correct me if I am wrong on this. But as I
+understand, the Institute of Nuclear Power Operation audits the
+nuclear safety, and essentially, I guess, they ask companies to
+leave that don't comply.
+ Mr. Bowman. Yes, sir. That is correct.
+ Chairman Miller. They are paid for by the industry; is that
+correct?
+ Mr. Bowman. Yes, sir. That organization arose after the
+situation at Three Mile Island. It is a peer sponsored and peer
+paid for organization. They have that license. They have that
+license to ask people to leave who don't comply.
+ Chairman Miller. My assumption was what was at stake here
+in the future of the industry and all of those ramifications if
+these power plants were not operated to the state of the art
+and knowledge of the industry.
+ Mr. Bowman. Yes, sir.
+ Chairman Miller. So there is at least one example there
+where this is more than a voluntary or induced paying
+organization where you don't throw out anybody who pays you
+dues. You comply with what is supposedly the best
+recommendations from within the industry. You either do or you
+are out. It is very interesting to have all of this commotion
+going on. We have all of this commotion. We have got all of
+these experts, all of these outside people reviewing this, and
+they can simply lay on the table. Nobody has any obligation to
+pick up anything. There is no downside to not taking the best
+recommendations that the industry can demonstrate internally.
+ Mr. Bowman. Our panel report, sir, does recommend that the
+refinery industry consider modeling an organization after the
+Institute for Nuclear Power Operations because it has been so
+successful in helping the nuclear industry along with the
+Nuclear Regulatory Commission that performs a minimum of 2,500
+man-hours of preemptive inspection per year at each plant.
+ Chairman Miller. This is all doable. Thank you for
+yielding.
+ Ms. Shea-Porter. That is exactly my concern here is that by
+not holding your members to standards you are allowing them to
+get the credit of belonging to your organization without having
+any responsibility to it. And I just want to read the statement
+that you had on your Web site saying--you are talking about the
+gas and oil industry being increasingly a safer place to work.
+This is reflected by a declining rate of illnesses and
+injuries, a rate much lower than that for the private sector as
+a whole.
+ Well, obviously, this company did not deserve to have that
+kind of praise put upon them. Very clearly they didn't deserve
+this. And so I am deeply disturbed that they can be a member
+and that you actually don't have any teeth, and so therefore,
+the rest of us looking at this assumed that they are reaching a
+certain level of professionalism and a certain level of
+certification and, boy, were we all wrong.
+ So I just would like to say that I think that, you know, we
+need to hold them to some kind of a standard in order to be
+able to belong to your organization. And I hope, I deeply hope
+and pray that we are not going to be sitting here again in a
+few years because once again you did great research, and I
+thank all of you for what you did, but I think it will go
+nowhere until we have another accident.
+ Mr. Boustany. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am still not clear
+on the last question that I had asked about extrapolating your
+findings from BP to industrywide. Would you describe that
+information as anecdotal information or----
+ Ms. Merritt. More or less, but remember, we do audits. I
+mean, we do investigations at a lot of facilities throughout
+the industries that have had explosions, fires and releases,
+many of them that have impacted communities extensively.
+ And so we recognize that the patterns of behavior we saw in
+this investigation were not askew from what we find at almost
+every other investigation.
+ So with that connection, I think if the evidence--I mean we
+track evidence, our recommendations go where the evidence leads
+us. And in this particular case, although we didn't investigate
+all of those other facilities, we have done 40 or 45
+investigations in our short history and, unfortunately, we see
+the same pattern of behavior at facilities that blow up. So you
+begin to say maybe there needs to be something done to correct
+this behavior. And so that is why we have included other
+industries, not just BP's facilities, but the entire refining
+industry that should wake up to this and other industries that
+should----
+ Mr. Boustany. Have you addressed reports to Congress based
+on the information prior to the BP explosion?
+ Ms. Merritt. No, we haven't.
+ Mr. Boustany. Why?
+ Ms. Merritt. I don't know.
+ Mr. Boustany. Okay. Fair enough.
+ Another question. One finding in the Baker Panel was the
+Baker Panel found that, but didn't report, the fact that Cherry
+Point, a nonunion refinery, had the best safety culture of all
+of the BP refineries. Is that what you did find in fact?
+ Mr. Bowman. The report is accurate. We would draw no
+conclusions from that other than it is a fact.
+ Mr. Boustany. Okay. Thank you.
+ And again, Ms. Merritt, CSB has asked for a sizable budget
+increase next year. In the board's 2008 budget request, you
+specifically requested funds for addressing leading and lagging
+indicators. What are those indicators?
+ Ms. Merritt. There are a number of them that actually are
+well known in industry. The Health Safety Executive of England
+a number of years ago put out a book with lagging and leading
+indicators for industry to use. There was a very serious
+incident at a BP facility there in Grangemouth, and one of the
+things that was identified was that there were not prominent
+leading-lagging indicators for industry. So they did quite a
+bit of research. Unfortunately, although many people in
+industry are aware of those, they are not being used.
+ And so we think that a study here, including industry here
+in the United States, and experts that could come up with
+leading and lagging--or leading indicators, they have lots of
+lagging indicators--that they would be able then to accept them
+and use them in their own industry in identifying when risk is
+growing in their operations and their companies.
+ Mr. Boustany. What do you see your role to be with the
+recommendation that you gave to API that API and USW
+collaborate on the worker fatigue issue?
+ Ms. Merritt. I think that is a very important issue. There
+has been a lot of research done through the National
+Transportation Safety Board and others with regard to the role
+fatigue plays. And what we would do is that--because it is a
+recommendation, they would be submitting to us their results of
+their work together, and we would then have a board vote which
+would either accept it as acceptable results of that work or
+unacceptable results of that work. And that would be our work.
+ Mr. Boustany. Thank you. That is all I have, Mr. Chairman.
+I yield back.
+ Chairman Miller. Thank you. Ms. Sanchez.
+ Ms. Sanchez. Thank you. And I want thank you, all of our
+witnesses, for your testimony here today.
+ My first question is for Mr. Cavaney. We now know that BP
+cut the Texas City refinery's budget by 25 percent in 1999 even
+though previously Amoco had made deep budget cuts. Maintenance
+supervisors, control room operators, central training staff and
+training programs all went under the budget knife. Now in your
+testimony, you state that safety in the industry is a moral
+imperative and a top priority.
+ I think most people would agree, and there may be room for
+argument, that corporate executives in your industry, not just
+your industry but others as well, continually get rewarded for
+reducing costs and increasing stock prices. So my question to
+you is, is cooperation really enough? I mean, or do you think
+that it is imperative that your industry be closely watched by
+independent and strict regulators because my feeling is if you
+don't have nonvolunteer programs, strict auditors, strict
+inspections, how can you be sure that the profit motive isn't
+going to bind decision makers who are seeking short-term
+benefits to pump up stock prices, for example?
+ Mr. Cavaney. We do have one of the most complex regulatory
+oversights. There are six different Federal agencies who have
+oversight responsibility for regulating us. That is why we have
+such an extensive series of recommended practices in place and
+all.
+ But I want to underscore again, if you go to any refinery,
+almost the first thing you are going to see when you come in is
+a large sign that talks about the incident rate where they take
+great pride in trying to reduce those. It is a difficult
+operating environment, but we do all that we can. And our
+nonfatal incident rate is about--at only about 25 percent of
+all manufacturing industry average. So we have made some gains
+and we can do better.
+ And that is what we are trying to learn from these CSB
+reports, the Baker Commission, looking forward to the
+opportunity of working with the Steelworkers.
+ It is a continuous improvement process, and you keep
+working at it and the regulatory oversight, they should come in
+and be a participant. We provide these things to them and then
+it is in--it is their responsibility to set their regulatory
+framework and what they are going to do or tell us this is not
+correct and we look at it again.
+ Ms. Sanchez. I appreciate your answer. I think what I am
+trying to get at is the fact that OSHA inspections sort of
+moved in this area of voluntary compliance instead of the
+ongoing oversight that it--active oversight that it should have
+had.
+ So my next question is for Ms. Merritt. Considering that
+OSHA has only a limited amount of funding, would you recommend
+that they put more towards enforcement or towards these
+voluntary partnership programs?
+ Ms. Merritt. Well, the problem with voluntary programs is
+not everybody volunteers.
+ Ms. Sanchez. Very well said.
+ Ms. Merritt. I think OSHA does have a very prominent role
+in educating industry about hazards that exist when they are
+identified, and so for that I think they do have a very large
+role in that program.
+ But, you know, enforcement is necessary. Otherwise, if you
+have a voluntary compliance, then, you know, it sort of sets
+its own standards and you will have some companies, and I see
+this all the time, who go above and beyond what is required and
+they know it is good business. But you have a lot of companies
+who will only do what is required. And remember, regulation is
+a kind of an agreement that is settled at the lowest
+denominator that is acceptable. And then you have companies
+that won't do anything unless they are caught. And those
+companies are at risk. And their employees and their
+communities are at risk.
+ Voluntary standards work if there is good enforcement that
+is required for the rules that are required. PSM is required.
+It is not a voluntary standard. And to have voluntary alliances
+on implementing PSM is kind of an oxymoron because it is
+required. OSHA needs to be spending resources on making sure
+for the American public that PSM is implemented. I have said it
+before. It is a good rule when it first came out. I read it,
+and I went to my CEO and I said if we are not doing this
+already, shame on us. It is a good rule. And it will prevent
+these catastrophic accidents from happening if it is
+implemented. The problem is it is not being implemented
+everywhere.
+ Ms. Sanchez. I have no further questions.
+ Chairman Miller. Thank you. Mr. Sarbanes.
+ Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ I thank the panel for testimony, Ms. Rowe in particular. It
+is clear you are still in a lot of pain from this accident, and
+you showed tremendous courage being here today to testify.
+ Mr. Cavaney, I am curious as to the reaction of API to this
+tragedy. Was it one of saying--because you talked about how the
+audit has now stimulated the industry and API to develop new,
+more heightened standards. Are there--can you give me three
+examples of a standard that has been newly fashioned or
+articulated as a result of this? That if it had been in place
+it might have made a difference in that case? If it had been
+followed in that case?
+ Mr. Cavaney. I can give you, Congressman, some specific
+examples of things that we are doing, and if the intent of
+doing the new recommended practices is they will improve the
+safety of the environment, then theoretically you could argue
+that you would have fewer incidents from that. That is what the
+whole process is about.
+ The first of these I mentioned in my opening testimony
+could be--we heard earlier from the Chemical Safety Board about
+concerns with regard to trailers in refineries. And so we have
+been through a process and will this spring issue a final new
+recommended practice on trailers. So that is one aspect.
+ The second one, as was mentioned by the chairman, are
+concerns about these sort of ``blow down'' circumstances where
+they are dealing--their recommendation was where we look at a
+situation where they convert over to a closed system with
+flaring process. We also have that particular standard and
+recommended practice in review, being now out for circulation,
+comment and going through the regulating process and it will be
+coming out.
+ We have also got a task force working on what we call
+process safety performance metrics, and this goes to the point
+several of the people have mentioned, which is creating a
+methodology where you can capture specifically those possible
+early indicators that you ought to pay attention to those. So
+as soon as that task force work is done, we will then formally
+go into the ANSI process and anticipate that.
+ We are also anticipating the other recommendation that we
+haven't yet received, but we know it is going to be coming, is
+this situation about worker fatigue and what we can do in that
+regard. From my experience, though, I have looked and talked to
+a number of people, and usually the hours and things like this
+are agreed upon by the owner/operator and the workforce at the
+time the contracts are signed and so we will have to look at
+that from a number of ways, but it is going to go into that
+process.
+ So we do take this stuff seriously. It is an open process.
+Anybody who is a stakeholder can come and offer their inputs,
+their suggestions and see whether or not we are doing what we
+are asked to do.
+ Mr. Sarbanes. So the implication of now stepping into those
+higher standards or taking the three that you described is that
+they weren't there before, right?
+ Mr. Cavaney. No. That is not necessarily true.
+ In some cases the Chairman from CSB said some companies
+operate at a very high level, well beyond standards. Others
+have them in place. We had--a lot of this stuff is actually
+down but there were new things that were brought to light that
+we were not aware of as a result of the CSB investigation and
+those things now cause us to factor in a new review and take
+those under consideration.
+ That is the the thing I mentioned earlier, this is a
+continuous process. As technology changes, as new demands are
+put on industry, other necessary things come to light and you
+want to factor those in. We mentioned also if you don't operate
+your recommended practices and standards, the workforce knows
+they are not relevant to the circumstances and they create
+their own rules and do their own things, and that is not good
+for safety.
+ Mr. Sarbanes. I guess it raises a question of how much the
+standards that matter depend on an incident occurring in order
+to trigger them versus ahead of time preemptively doing the
+kind of review and study and enforcement that would put those
+standards in place so that these things wouldn't happen to
+begin with. So that was the nature of my question.
+ I am running out of time, but I wanted to say, Mr.
+Chairman, that we are talking about a combustible mix here that
+produced this tragedy in terms of the physics of it. But I am
+brought to a different kind of combustible mix, and that is
+that you hope that an individual company will enforce the kinds
+of standards that would avoid this kind of a tragedy but that
+doesn't always happen. You then hope that the industry will
+enforce standards in the absence of an individual company doing
+it. But where an industry doesn't do it, then you have the kind
+of regular oversight that OSHA represents and that is when you
+need the resources in place to make sure the inspections are
+there. So I think a terrific case has been made this morning
+for why we need some mandatory oversight with respect to OSHA
+and the resources to back that up.
+ Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ Chairman Miller. Thank you. Mr. Holt.
+ Mr. Holt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
+holding this hearing. Thanks to the witnesses and Ms. Rowe. We
+appreciate your coming knowing how difficult it is.
+ We are here not to just express sympathy though. We are
+supposed to take actions that make people's lives better. A
+historic example of that was when, under the leadership of the
+late Senator from New Jersey, Pete Williams, we created OSHA.
+It was so that workers could go to work without fear, perhaps
+with caution but without fear, and expect to come home at the
+end of the day and expect to come home with their fingers and
+their eyesight and their lungs intact.
+ Chairwoman Merritt, you spoke of your commission being
+absolutely terrified that such a culture could exist.
+ Now, I don't mean to demonize the industry, but the
+industries in many cases have demonized OSHA. Get the
+government out of our way, they say. Free us of the cost of
+compliance. Let us police ourselves. And in effect, over the
+years they have managed to turn OSHA into a starved lap dog.
+ In New Jersey here, we have from the New Jersey Work
+Environment Council a report with regard to process safety
+management, of the 21 facilities in New Jersey that could each
+potentially harm 15,000 or more people, only eight have been
+inspected by OSHA in the last 5\1/2\ years. Six have never had
+even one OSHA inspection.
+ It seems that we need catastrophic deaths to get an action.
+ Well, Mr. Cavaney, you and I have had really interesting
+and informed and rational discussions about a variety of
+matters, including alternatives to fossil fuels and other
+things. And, you know, but I have a question for you. It seems
+to me these findings would lead you and your organization to
+say things have to change at OSHA.
+ Would you support that OSHA increase staff, training and
+general resources, that OSHA require sites to report close
+calls and warning events, that injury reports be kept for each
+site, including contractors, everyone involved and the risky
+activities, that there be process review audits and that OSHA
+resources go for increased enforcement rather than voluntary
+programs and partnerships? And if not, why not?
+ Mr. Cavaney. Well, I think that OSHA, any regulatory
+oversight, has a proper role and it ought to do its function,
+whatever is deemed to be possible to fulfill its mission.
+ Mr. Holt. Would you support a requirement of process review
+audits?
+ Mr. Cavaney. I am sorry, I am not an expert on that. We
+would have to look at that--
+ Mr. Holt. Would you support that there be required reports
+of close calls and warning events at every OSHA covered site?
+ Mr. Cavaney. I would like to respond to the list that you
+gave of items after the hearing if I could and give you the
+exact answer.
+ Mr. Holt. And an injury report for each site, total site.
+ Mr. Cavaney. If that is appropriate. I just don't know. I
+will get it to you. And we do support----
+ [The information follows:]
+
+ American Petroleum Institute,
+ Washington, DC, April 12, 2007.
+Hon. George Miller,
+Chairman, House Committee on Education and Labor, House of
+ Representatives, Washington, DC.
+ Dear Chairman Miller: In response to your April 5, 2007 letter to
+me following up on my March 22 testimony at the House Education and
+Labor Committee hearing on ``The BP Texas City Disaster and Worker
+Safety,'' API offers the following responses to your questions:
+ Would you support a budget increase for OSHA that would increase
+staff, training, and general resources dedicated to enforcing the
+process safety management standards in our nation's refineries and
+chemical plants?
+ API Reply: As a matter of policy, API does not offer comments on
+government agency appropriations or the adequacy of agency budgets.
+However, it is important that OSHA be adequately resourced to
+accomplish its mission.
+ Would you support a requirement for refineries to report close
+calls and warning events to OSHA?
+ API Reply: The current OSHA regulations on ``Process Safety
+Management of Highly Hazardous Chemicals'' (29 CFR 1910.119) already
+requires that ``The employer shall investigate each incident which
+resulted in or could reasonably have resulted in a catastrophic release
+of a highly hazardous chemical in the workplace'', and requires
+employers to maintain these records for inspection by OSHA for five
+years. I would also note that Ms. Carolyn Merritt, Chairman of the U.S.
+Chemical Safety Board, remarked during the March 22nd hearing that this
+regulation, as currently written, is a ``very important and well done
+rule.''
+ Would you support that OSHA injury and illness reports be kept for
+all workers at the site, including contractors, rather than just the
+main employer?
+ API Reply: The PSM regulation already requires companies to
+maintain employee and contractor employee injury and illness logs on-
+site related to work in the process areas (29 CFR 1910.119 Section
+h(2)(vi)).
+ Do you believe that API should require regular third party process
+review audits as a condition for membership?
+ API Reply: API has a long and distinguished history of developing
+industry consensus standards. Due to antitrust concerns, API does not
+make its standards mandatory for membership, which is consistent with
+current practice. Therefore, API does not conduct audits or require
+third-party audits of its members' compliance with API standards.
+ Do you think that OSHA's resources should go for increased
+enforcement rather than voluntary programs and partnerships?
+ API Reply: Again, API's response is similar to that of the first
+question above. API believes it is the agency's role and responsibility
+to manage its resources with Congressional oversight; thus, it would
+not be appropriate for API to comment.
+ If there are any further questions, or if you would like any
+further briefings to any of the questions above, please contact me. API
+would be happy to arrange a meeting for you with the appropriate,
+qualified individuals.
+ Sincerely,
+ Red Cavaney,
+ President and Chief Executive Officer.
+ ______
+
+ Mr. Holt. This should be a wakeup call and OSHA--this is
+not what was intended when nearly 4 decades ago we passed OSHA.
+It made a huge difference. There are people who have their
+fingers, their eyesight, even their lives because of OSHA. But
+it is becoming less and less effective. And we have a
+responsibility, I think, to restore that effectiveness to OSHA.
+ Chairman Miller. Will, the gentleman yield?
+ I would hope that you, Mr. Cavaney, you and API would take
+the questions that Mr. Holt just asked you and give them very,
+very serious consideration because I think we are reaching a
+point here where API can become an enabler for very bad
+behavior and provide cover for very bad operators, and I don't
+think that is the intent of the organization, and I have had a
+long relationship with the organization and I have a great
+relationship with the refineries in my district. But I am
+worried here that you can say whatever OSHA does, OSHA does,
+and whatever is sufficient is sufficient and whatever happens,
+happens. At some point, you are enabling really bad behavior
+because they are hiding behind that they belong to an
+organization that is on the cutting edge. But if the cutting
+edge never cuts, I suspect that we have got a problem here. And
+we have lived with this notion for a long time, but I think you
+can hear from the members of this committee on both sides of
+the aisle that perhaps this voluntary compliance, on whatever
+level, happens, happens is not suitable. I don't know the
+answer yet, and I will work with my colleagues to determine
+that. But I would take those questions very seriously as an
+organization because someone is going to have to come out from
+behind this and start to recommend what should be done to
+protect and to save the lives like the parents of Ms. Rowe
+here. I think it is critical to that, and I thank the gentleman
+for yielding.
+ We are running out of time, and I want to give Mr. Sestak a
+moment here.
+ But before that, Ms. Rowe, I would like to ask you if you
+could tell us about the Remember the 15 bill that you will be
+talking to the State legislature tomorrow.
+ Ms. Rowe. Well, can I have my attorney? Brent can tell you.
+ Chairman Miller. Whatever is comfortable.
+ Mr. Coontz. Thank you. I paid----
+ Chairman Miller. Just identify yourself for the record.
+ Mr. Coontz. Brent Coontz from Texas. I am Eva's personal
+counsel. I have also had the pleasure of serving as liaison
+counsel for all of the plaintiffs in the litigation pending as
+a result of this tragedy. I am also general counsel----
+ Chairman Miller. Tell us about the bill.
+ Mr. Coontz. The bill is Remember the 15 bill, and basically
+what we have done from the investigation and the civil
+litigation is address many of the things that we thought all
+along were the root causes; that is, the trailer citing issues,
+ban the utilization of temporary trailers inside of facilities;
+the mandatory warning and evacuation of personnel, nonessential
+personnel; and the startup and shutdown of units which are well
+known to be the times of gravest risk in the industry;
+mandating proper training, proper tracking of near incidents,
+of near misses. It is those types of common sense issues.
+Removal of open ventilation systems. Obviously, the blow-down
+drums here are antiquated technology and those types of things
+should all be removed.
+ Most all of those are common sense protocols. We go before
+the Texas legislature tomorrow. We have sponsors of this bill
+in both the House and the Senate, and we are using tomorrow,
+the anniversary, as the platform to publicize that legislation.
+ Chairman Miller. Thank you.
+ Ms. Rowe, did you want the say something else?
+ Ms. Rowe. I think maybe you guys should consider making an
+OSHA for every State, not just one worldwide one, that every
+State has itself----
+ Chairman Miller. That was one of the plans.
+ Mr. Sestak.
+ Mr. Sestak. Thank you again, Ms. Rowe. Just 30 seconds.
+ The question I was going to ask was the same one Mr. Holt
+asked almost, although he always speaks better than I can.
+ But that is what I am interested in since in Marcus Hook we
+have Conoco and Sunoco, and I wasn't here for Admiral Bowman's
+comments, but I am sure that I have seen a system in the U.S.
+Navy that truly understood that no accident can be done. You
+have done it. And there is a system, and that type of attention
+to detail, you know, sometimes you get--you can expect what you
+inspect. And I am very interested in it because I have gone to
+both refineries.
+ And again, Admiral, I wasn't here for your portion of it.
+It was a great mentor to me. But that type of system I truly
+believe has to be done to walk and crawl through those spaces
+there and to watch what could be prevented. So I would just--
+and I need to conclude. I would be very interested in the
+answer that the chairman really looks forward to.
+ Chairman Miller. Thank you very much, Mr. Sestak. Let me
+thank you all for your testimony.
+ Mr. Nibarger, we didn't really get to you. I am going to
+ask if you can come back because I have a whole set of
+questions that I wanted to ask you about trying to put together
+what Mr. Cavaney has talked about in terms of finally getting
+these workers and employers together not in an adversarial--not
+related to contracts. And I was just visited by Kaiser, which I
+believe is the largest HMO in the country, and SEIU, and since
+they joined forces here over the last several years, we have
+seen accident rates go down, litigation rates go down, quality
+go up, death rates go down. And the fact of the matter is we
+can develop workplaces, as Admiral Sestak pointed out, we do it
+all of the time in the military where these are just
+unacceptable losses and to be avoided. But so my apologies that
+we didn't get a chance to ask you a question.
+ I have a whole series of additional questions, but we are
+going to be about 45 minutes on this vote. You have been very
+generous with your time, with your expertise. So I am going to
+adjourn the committee, but I would hope, you know, that we plan
+to follow up with each of you as we progress through this. I
+think you can tell this is a very, very serious matter for the
+members of this committee on both sides of the aisle.
+ But clearly the status quo is unacceptable and again my
+thanks to the Chemical Safety Board. I can't tell you the value
+of your independence and what it has meant to workers, and I
+hope to employers, across this country as you have led these
+investigations and to you and your staff and your persistence.
+Thank you so very, very much.
+ With that, the committee will stand adjourned.
+ Thank you.
+ [The prepared statement of Mr. Marchant follows:]
+
+Prepared Statement of Hon. Kenny Marchant, a Representative in Congress
+ From the State of Texas
+
+ Mr. Chairman, thank you for convening this hearing.
+ There is no doubt that BP's Texas City incident was tragic and
+inexcusable. I support the work of the Chairman and the CSB in
+examining this matter. However, I find it interesting that two of the
+subjects of this hearing--BP and OSHA--are not here to speak for
+themselves. I want to be very clear, I don't defend or condone the
+actions of either of these entities, but in the spirit of equal time,
+I'd like to submit for the record a copy of the statement that BP
+issued last evening stating:
+ ``BP accepted responsibility for the March 23, 2005 explosion and
+fire at the Texas City refinery. We have apologized to those harmed.
+While we cannot change the past or repair all the damage this incident
+caused, we have worked diligently to provide fair compensation, without
+the need for lengthy court proceedings, to those who were injured and
+to the families of those who died. On the recommendation of the U.S.
+Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), we created an
+Independent Panel, led by Former U.S. Secretary of State James A.
+Baker, III to assess process safety management and safety culture at
+our US refineries. The Independent Panel undertook extensive
+investigations, and issued their report in January of this year. BP is
+implementing the recommendations in full. We have completed and made
+public the results of our own investigation of the incident and, as CSB
+Chairman Merritt has publicly recognized, BP cooperated in an
+unprecedented way with the CSB investigation. BP voluntarily produced
+to CSB over 6,300,000 pages of documents, made over 300 witnesses
+available for CSB interviews, including some of its most senior
+executives and, importantly, agreed to form the Independent Panel.
+Notwithstanding the Company's strong disagreement with some of the
+content of the CSB report, particularly many of the findings and
+conclusions, BP will give full and careful consideration to CSB's
+recommendations, in conjunction with the many activities already
+underway to improve process safety management.''
+ Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ ______
+
+ [Whereupon, at 11:50 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]
+
+
+
+