&EPA
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of Solid Waste
and Emergency Response
(5104)
EPA 550-F-04-002
March 2004
www.epa.gov/emergencies
                     Changes to the Chemical Accident
                     Prevention Rule  (Risk Management
                     Program) in 2004
                     The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently published revisions to the reporting
                     requirements of the Chemical Accident Prevention Rule under Clean Air Act section 112(r).
                     Under the rule, covered facilities must submit risk management plans (RMPs) to EPA
                     describing their chemical accident prevention programs. The revised rule removes the
                     requirement for facilities to describe their offsite consequence analysis (OCA) in the executive
                     summary of RMPs, adds several new data elements to RMPs, and requires more timely
                     reporting of significant accidents and changes in emergency contact information. Thisfactsheet
                     provides a summary of these changes. It is important that owners, operators, plant managers,
                     and others responsible for RMP implementation review this information.
                     BACKGROUND

                     Section 112(r) of the Clean Air Act (CAA)
                     requires EPA to promulgate regulations
                     for the prevention and mitigation of
                     accidental releases of extremely
                     hazardous substances.  Under this
                     section, EPA established a list of
                     regulated substances and thresholds and
                     issued the Chemical Accident Prevention
                     regulations.  The goals of this program
                     are to prevent accidental releases of
                     chemicals that could cause serious harm
                     to human health or the environment and
                     to reduce the severity of releases that
                     may occur. Covered facilities are required
                     to develop and implement a risk
                     management program that includes a
                     five-year accident history, an offsite
                     consequence analysis, an accident
                     prevention program, and an emergency
                     response program. Companies must also
                     submit to EPA a risk management plan
                     (RMP) describing the source's risk
                     management program.  The original
                     deadline for submitting RMPs was June
                     21, 1999. Since then, approximately
                     15,000 RMPs have been submitted.

                     The chemical accident prevention
                     regulations also require  full updates and
                     resubmissions of RMPs at least once
                     every five years. Certain process and
                                           other changes as specified in the Update
                                           section of the Chemical Accident
                                           Prevention regulation (40 CFR68.190)
                                           may require a facility to fully update and
                                           resubmit its RMP prior to the five-year
                                           anniversary of an RMP. The five-year
                                           anniversary date is reset whenever
                                           companies fully  update and resubmit their
                                           RMPs.

                                           Most facilities submitted their initial RMPs
                                           by the original June 21, 1999 deadline
                                           and have not resubmitted their RMPs
                                           since. Therefore, the majority of facilities
                                           will need to fully update and resubmit
                                           their RMPs to EPA by June 21, 2004.

                                           All facilities are required to  include the
                                           new data elements in their  RMPs by June
                                           21, 2004, whether they are filing an
                                           updated  RMP by that date or not.
                                           Facilities filing a fully updated RMP by
                                           June 21, 2004 will be able to add the new
                                           information as part of their update.
                                           Facilities not filing a full update by that
                                           date will  add the information to their
                                           RMPs through a correction.

                                           This factsheet provides additional
                                           information about the reporting deadlines
                                           and the recent changes to the RMP
                                           reporting requirements.
 Chemical Emergency Preparedness and Prevention Program
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                                                  Page 2
OVERVIEW OF CHANGES TO RMP REPORTING

EPA recently amended the Chemical Accident
Prevention rule to:

(1) Require that information on reportable chemical
accidents be added to the RMP within six months of the
date of the accident;

(2) Require that changes to emergency contact
information be reported within one month;

(3) Remove the requirement to include a brief
description of the off-site consequence analysis (OCA)
in the RMP executive summary; and

(4) Add three RMP data elements.

EPA also amended the RMP*Submit format to expand
the list of possible accident causes to include
uncontrolled chemical reactions.

As part of this rulemaking, EPA also clarified that the
five-year deadline for updating RMPs that were
originally filed early (i.e., submitted before June 21,
1999), is June 21, 2004.  Facilities that filed early may
have received correspondence indicating an earlier due
date.  However, EPA's interpretation of the regulations
is that RMPs initially due on June 21, 1999 must be
updated by June 21, 2004, not before.

This clarification does not affect the five-year
anniversary for facilities that updated their RMPs as a
result of any process or other changes, as required
under the Updates section of the regulation (40 CFR
68.190). For companies that submitted their initial
RMPs after June 21, 1999, or have resubmitted since
their initial submission, the five-year anniversary date is
calculated as five years from the postmark date of their
latest submission.

The following sections discuss the recent changes to
RMP reporting  in more detail.

More Timely Accident Reporting

Previously, facilities that had an accident meeting the
criteria for inclusion in the five-year accident history
section of their RMPs (section 6) could wait until they
updated their RMPs to include information about that
accident. Since RMPs may be updated as infrequently
as every five years, EPA now requires facilities that
have a reportable accident to  revise section 6 of their
RMPs to include information about the accident within
six months of the accident's occurrence.  Facilities
reporting under Programs 2 and 3 must also revise the
incident investigation information in their RMPs
(reported as part of their Prevention  Program
Information, section 7 or 8 of the RMP). Specifically,
these facilities must revise: (1) the date of investigation
(40 CFR 68.1700) to reflect the date of the
investigation of the accident being included in the five-
year history; and (2) the expected date of completion of
any changes due to that accident investigation (40 CFR
68.175(1)), and submit a corrected RMP within six
months of the date of the accident.

The criteria for determining which accidents must be
included in the five-year accident history are found at 40
CFR 68.42. Guidance on the criteria and  the reportable
data elements for the five-year accident history are
found in the General Risk Management Program
Guidance, available on our website at:
(http://yosemite.epa.gov/oswer/ceppoweb.nsf/content/
EPAguidance.htm).

Emergency Contact Information Corrections

In order to ensure that the emergency contact
information is reasonably current, facilities are required
to correct their RMPs to reflect any change in their
emergency contact information within one month of the
change.

Description of OCA  No Longer Required in
Executive Summary

Facilities subject to the Chemical Accident Prevention
Rule are required to conduct an analysis  of the potential
off-site consequences of hypothetical worst-case and
alternative accidental releases.  Under the original rule,
facilities were required to include a  brief description of
this analysis in the executive summary of their RMPs.
EPA and federal law enforcement agencies have
become concerned that OCA descriptions in executive
summaries may pose a  security risk, so EPA has
revised the rule to remove this requirement.  In view of
security concerns, EPA  expects that facilities will not
include any OCA data in their executive summaries.

New Data Elements

In addition to those data elements already required in
the RMP, facilities must now also include:

       The emergency contact e-mail address (if an e-
        mail address  exists);
       The purpose  and type of any submission that
        revises or otherwise affects previously filed
        RMPs; and
       The name, address, and telephone number of
       the contractor/consultant who prepared the
        RMP (if any).
     Chemical Emergency Preparedness and Prevention Program
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                                                 Page 3
RMP*Submit Format Revision for Recording
Accident Causes

In RMP*Submit 2004, facilities will be able to indicate,
as part of their five-year accident history,  if an accident
involved an uncontrolled or runaway reaction. This
new option was added in response to renewed
concerns over these types of incidents.
 WHAT'S NEXT?

We anticipate that the new version of RMP*Submit
(known as RMP*Submit 2004) will be released shortly.
In addition, we expect that the internet-based tool for
correcting the administrative sections of the RMPs on-
line (known as RMP Web Registration Correction) will
be available in May 2004.
REPORTING DEADLINES

The five-year deadline for updating RMPs that were
submitted before or on June 21, 1999, is June 21, 2004.
Most facilities submitted their initial RMPs by the original
June 21, 1999 deadline and have not resubmitted their
RMPs since. Therefore, the majority of facilities will
need to fully update and resubmit their RMPs to EPA by
June 21, 2004.  Facilities that have updated their RMPs
as a result of any of the changes specified in 40 CFR
68.190 will have a different anniversary date.

All facilities are required to include the new data
elements in their RMPs by June 21, 2004, whether they
are filing an updated RMP by that date or not. For
facilities filing an updated RMP (also referred to as a
resubmission) by June 21, 2004, they will be able to add
the new information as part of their update. For
resubmissions, facilities will continue to be required to
submit their updated RMPs on diskettes/CDs with
certification letters.

For facilities not filing a full update by that date, they will
be able to add the new data elements to their RMPs
using a new Internet-based tool that EPA is developing.
This tool will allow facilities to make revisions and other
small changes to the administrative sections of the RMP
on-line, eliminating the need to mail diskettes and
certification letters for such corrections. This tool will
not allow corrections of the executive summary entry
within the administrative sections of the RMP, or of any
other data element outside the administrative sections
of the RMP.  For any needed changes to those
sections, facilities will continue to be  required to submit
their corrections on diskettes/CDs with certification
letters.

Companies should note that the rule revision removes
the requirement to include a brief description of OCA in
the executive summary.  Effective as of April 9, 2004
OCA data is no longer required in the executive summary.

April 9, 2004 is also the start date for the new
accident reporting requirement.  Any reportable
accident occurring on or after April 9, 2004 must
be included in the five-year accident history section of
the RMP within six months of the accident.
For up-to-date information on the status of these and
other products associated with the RMP program, visit
our "What's New" page. We plan to update this
information on the first of each month to reflect new
developments and product status.
Visit our "What's Next" page:
http://vosemite.epa.qov/oswer/ceppoweb.nsf/content/wh
atsnext.htm
           FOR MORE INFORMATION...
   Home page: www.epa.gov/emergencies
   RCRA, Superfund & EPCRA Call Center:
   Phone: (800) 424-9346 or (703) 412-9810
   TDD:   (800) 553-7672 or (703) 412-3323

                 Monday - Friday
           9:00 am - 5:00 pm Eastern Time
              Closed Federal Holidays
     Chemical Emergency Preparedness and Prevention Program
                       ©Printed on recycled paper

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