The US Chemical Safety Board was never a flush-with-funds federal agency even before the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. The agency has a staff strength of just 40, and a laughably low budget of $10.6 million. Its resources were stretched thin to begin with. It was already overburdened with investigations into the ConAgra refinery explosion and the explosion of the Silver Eagle Refinery in Utah last year. Then came the Deepwater Horizon explosion in April, and the House Energy and Commerce Committee asked the Chemical Safety Board to investigate the explosion.
The Chemical Safety Board has now announced that it is so strapped of funds and resources that it will have to shut down some of its other investigations and delay new investigations to shift its resources to the BP probe. According to John Bresland ,the then Chairman of the Chemical Safety Board, the agency is overburdened with an extraordinary caseload, and will have to take some difficult steps in order to manage the BP investigation. The board will likely have to close down some of its ongoing investigations, including the one into the ConAgra explosion that killed four people and injured 79 workers, and the Kleen Energy Plant explosion in Connecticut that killed six people. The agency simply does not have the resources to handle all these investigations at the same time.
The Chemical Safety Board is to industrial safety, what the National Transportation Safety Board is to transportation safety. It has a huge role in investigating disasters, and recommending steps that can be taken to prevent future disasters. However, the NTSB has a staff strength of close to 400 employees and a budget of $80 million, compared to the CSB’s pitifully low resources.
People in Utah, Connecticut and the other areas where investigations will now be suspended indefinitely, are already concerned. These people have been waiting for answers to their questions, and now it seems like it’ll be a long wait till the Chemical Safety Board wraps up the BP investigation.
The Deepwater Horizon explosion should draw attention to the precarious financial position at the CSB. It hasn’t helped that the refinery and petrochemicals lobby has allegedly opposed increased funding for the CSB.
The Texas maritime lawyers at Schechter, Shaffer & Harris, L.L.P. represent injured victims of refinery accidents and explosions in Texas and nationwide and have represented injured seamen, longshore workers, and other maritime employees worldwide for over 45 years. Don’t settle for less experience, come to SMSH with your maritime law questions and we will help you.
