EPA Releases Compliance Guide for Recent Methylene Chloride Rule

A guide published recently by EPA is intended to help industry understand and comply with the agency’s new risk management rule for methylene chloride, which went into effect on July 8. The rule bans the manufacturing, processing, and distribution of methylene chloride for all consumer uses by July 2025 and most industrial and commercial uses within two years. Certain uses of methylene chloride are allowed to continue under the new rule, including its uses in the production of battery separators for electric vehicles, as a laboratory chemical, as a bonding agent for solvent welding, and some other specific uses that EPA describes as “highly industrialized and important to national security and the economy.” Such uses will continue with strict workplace controls, which are outlined in the new compliance guide.

 

One of the components of the rule described in EPA’s guide is the workplace chemical protection program, which is intended to help protect workers who are potentially exposed to methylene chloride during allowed uses. Provisions of the program include inhalation exposure limits, exposure monitoring, an exposure control plan, criteria for respirator selection, and other requirements. EPA’s exposure limits for methylene chloride include an EPA existing chemical exposure limit (ECEL), an EPA short term exposure limit (STEL), and an ECEL action level.

 

“The ECEL and EPA STEL identify the levels at or below which a potentially exposed person will be protected against unreasonable risk,” the compliance guide states. “The ECEL and EPA STEL are similar to the OSHA permissible exposure limit and STEL in that they are regulatory exposure limits, although OSHA PELs do not protect against unreasonable risk as defined under [the Toxic Substances Control Act].”

 

The EPA ECEL for methylene chloride is 2 ppm (8 mg/m3) as an eight-hour time-weighted average (TWA), and the EPA STEL is 16 ppm (57 mg/m3) as a 15-minute TWA. The ECEL action level, which the agency describes as a “trigger that indicates whether certain compliance activities (e.g., periodic monitoring) are required,” is 1 ppm (4 mg/m3) as an eight-hour TWA.

 

Additional topics discussed in the guide include compliance timeframes and requirements for recordkeeping and downstream notification to inform processors, distributors, and others about the restrictions on methylene chloride under TSCA.

 

The compliance guide is available as a PDF from the EPA website. The methylene chloride rule was published in the Federal Register in May. For more information, see the agency’s risk management page for methylene chloride.

While one of the nation’s largest manufacturers of commercial flooring and surfaces — including recycled rubber products used throughout the nation in playgrounds, fitness centers and sports fields — touts its products’ safety and environmental benefits, a U.S. Department of Labor investigation has found the company less committed to protecting its own employees.

 

An inspection of Ecore International Inc’s Mexia plant by the department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration in January 2024 found more than a dozen safety and health violations. Investigators discovered the company made employees stand on a forklift’s elevated tines to reach work areas; failed to prevent small fires fueled by improper buildup of combustible dust and permitted potentially explosive atmospheres to exist; lacked safe areas for welding; exposed employees to slip, trip and fall hazards; allowed untrained workers to operate forklifts; and failed to ensure machines had required safety guards.

 

“Ecore International must extend the innovation it credits for its company’s success to the safety and health of the people who help make and sell its products,” said OSHA Area Director Monica Camacho in Austin, Texas. “At the company’s Mexia facility, our inspectors found employees forced to climb atop forklifts to do their jobs, workers exposed to potential dangers of fire and explosion, and many unprotected from the risks of falls and unguarded machines, all of which provides a formula for serious or fatal injuries.”

 

OSHA issued Ecore International citations for one willful violation and 15 serious violations. The company faces $299,591 in proposed penalties.

 

In a separate investigation in May 2024 at a new Ecore facility in Ozark, Alabama, OSHA found similar machine guard hazards unchecked and employees exposed to potential electrocution and amputation dangers.

 

“A successful enterprise like Ecore International has the resources to establish and follow a comprehensive safety and health program and to address hazards proactively before disaster strikes,” Camacho added.

 

Founded in 1871 and based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Ecore International Inc. consists of the ECOsurfaces, Surface America, A-Turf and SpectraTurf companies, serving customers in more than 75 countries in the healthcare, hospitality, education, retail, wellness, sports and fitness industries. Ecore’s U.S. customers include daycare centers, dance studios, high schools and universities in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

 

 

he EPA announced a settlement with Lupton Petroleum Products, Inc., and its affiliate Brad Hall Associates, Inc., for violations of the Clean Air Act’s conventional and renewable fuel requirements. Under this settlement, Lupton Petroleum and Brad Hall Associates will pay a civil penalty of just over $1 million. Additionally, the companies must implement several compliance measures that include maintaining equipment to monitor blendstocks and fuel volumes, implementing a facility practices plan to ensure compliance, and hiring an independent auditor to oversee compliance actions.

 

During settlement negotiations, Lupton Petroleum also initiated compliance by installing refinery infrastructure to facilitate fuel sampling and laboratory equipment to test fuel according to the regulatory requirements, estimated to cost approximately $200,000.

 

“Lupton failed to comply with gasoline and diesel fuel standards that are critical to protecting communities from harmful pollution from cars and trucks,” said Assistant Administrator David M. Uhlmann of the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “At a time when climate change and increased heat make it more difficult to maintain air quality, EPA cannot allow any companies to disregard our national clean air standards.”

 

The EPA’s conventional fuels requirements include quality standards for gasoline and diesel fuel, as well as requirements relating to compliance demonstrations, including sampling and testing, reporting and recordkeeping. The requirements under EPA’s Renewable Fuel Standard program obligate refiners and importers of non-renewable fuels to acquire and retire renewable fuel credits, known as Renewable Identification Numbers or RINs, to meet their renewable volume obligations each year.

 

Between 2015 and 2019, Lupton Petroleum and Brad Hall Associates produced and distributed, respectively, gasoline and diesel fuel for retail without complying with any of the EPA’s fuels regulations applicable to refiners and distributors. In particular, Lupton Petroleum and Brad Hall Associates failed to comply with various regulatory requirements such as registering, taking fuel samples, testing fuel for compliance, maintaining records, submitting reports, ensuring that the diesel fuel produced and distributed met the applicable sulfur standard, and obtaining and retiring RINs.

 

Lupton Petroleum and Brad Hall Associates’ actions resulted in high sulfur diesel fuel being dispensed to vehicles, potentially poisoning diesel exhaust catalysts and causing excess emissions. Additionally, Lupton’s failure to purchase and retire RINs undermined the goals of the EPA’s Renewable Fuel Standard program, which is designed to reduce the United States’ reliance on fossil fuels.

 

Lupton Petroleum operates a refinery in Lupton, Arizona, where it separates transmix – a combination of gasoline, diesel fuel, and other petroleum products that have mixed in a pipeline and no longer meet fuel specifications – back into gasoline and diesel fuel. Brad Hall Associates, a distributor of petroleum products, delivered transmix to the Lupton refinery and then transported the noncompliant gasoline and diesel fuel from the Lupton refinery to retail stations.

 

The proposed settlement, filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona on July 17, 2024, is subject to a 30-day public comment period and final court approval.

 

 

The U.S. Department of Labor has obtained a consent judgement from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Tacoma that includes a landmark injunction that permanently prevents the U.S. Postal Service from retaliating against employees at up to 59 locations in the State of Washington.

 

Issued July 3, 2024, the consent judgment follows an investigation by OSHA which found that the USPS had again violated the provision in the Occupational Safety and Health Act that protects employees against retaliation for reporting workplace injuries.

 

After three separate investigations, OSHA concluded the USPS improperly fired three probationary workers in East Vancouver, Seattle and Tacoma after they reported workplace injuries. In turn, the department's Office of the Solicitor filed suit against the agency, alleging violations of the OSH Act's anti-retaliation provision.

 

"By issuing the broadest permanent anti-retaliation injunction to date, the U.S. District Court has recognized the U.S. Postal Service's pattern of ignoring its own policies and unlawfully firing probationary workers who report injuries," explained Regional Solicitor of Labor Marc Pilotin in San Francisco. "The agency's repeated and unlawful disregard of federal laws against employee retaliation has caused financial and emotional harm to workers and their families. This retaliatory conduct must stop at once."

 

In addition to the permanent injunction to prevent future retaliation, the consent judgment requires the USPS to pay $183,732 in lost wages, interest and damages to the three unlawfully fired employees. Since 2020, the department has sued the USPS to protect probationary employees in California, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington who faced similar retaliation after reporting injuries.

 

The consent judgement is a significant victory in OSHA's effort to ensure employees' right to a safe workplace and their right to report or raise concerns about unsafe working conditions without fear of retaliation. The court's decision also has broader implications, including changing USPS processes when probationary employees report work-related injuries.

 

The court's order requires the USPS to implement unprecedented measures, including the following:

 

"This landmark injunction sends a clear signal to employers that retaliation — in any form — against employees who report workplace injuries will not be tolerated. The U.S. Department of Labor will continue to enforce federal protections of workers' rights rigorously and combat retaliation," Pilotin added. "With this action, the USPS' unlawful firings of probationary employees must come to an end. Immediate changes must be made to prevent these kinds of baseless, hurtful and unlawful terminations."

 

 

The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) released a safety video on an acetic acid release that fatally injured two contract workers at the LyondellBasell LaPorte Complex in LaPorte, Texas, on July 27, 2021. Titled “Designed to Fail: Chemical Release at LyondellBasell,” the video features animations depicting the circumstances that led to the incident. Voice-over narration and commentary from CSB Board Member Sylvia Johnson, PhD, and investigator Benjamin Schrader, PE, explain the agency’s findings and safety recommendations to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the American Petroleum Institute (API), and LyondellBasell.

 

The acetic acid release occurred after three contracted workers employed by Turn2 Specialty Companies inadvertently removed the bolts that secured the cover of a pressure-retaining valve, or actuator, when attempting to repair a leaking pipe. The valve cover and plug ejected, and all three Turn2 workers were sprayed with about 164,000 pounds of acetic acid mixture at a temperature of 238 F. In addition to the two contractors who were killed by chemical burns and inhalation of the mixture, a third contractor and a LyondellBasell employee were seriously injured. Twenty-nine other workers received medical evaluation and treatment.

 

The CSB safety video outlines two major safety issues that contributed to the incident’s severity. First, the valve was not designed in a way that prevented human error. CSB’s investigation identified four other incidents in which workers were killed or seriously injured after inadvertently removing pressure-retaining components from plug valves during maintenance. According to the safety video narration, “CSB believes that the recurrence of these types of incidents points to the need to redesign plug valves so that it is very difficult to accidentally remove pressure-retaining components.”

 

Investigator Schrader added that “the best way to address this type of incident would be by prevention through design of new plug valves.” CSB recommends that ASME and API revise their standards to require that all pressure-retaining components be clearly marked on existing plug valves and that new plug valves be designed to prevent the inadvertent removal of these components. In the meantime, Schrader advised employers to use color-coded paint and warning signs to label pressure-retaining components.

 

The second safety issue was LyondellBasell’s failure to develop a procedure for safely removing plug valve actuators or ensure that contractors were capable of doing the work. “Had LyondellBasell performed a risk assessment to ensure safeguards were in place during the actuator removal,” Schrader said, “as well as provided the Turn2 work crew with written procedures, proper training, and oversight, this incident could have been prevented.”

 

 

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