Federal OSHA recently updated its enforcement policy manual for Process Safety Management (PSM) of Highly Hazardous Chemicals, the first time the agency has done so since 1994.
What does that mean for employers? For starters, it means that OSHA inspectors have more detailed guidance when performing inspections that involve the PSM standard.
The new manual also gives employers insight into what OSHA is looking for during such an inspection and makes for a helpful resource regarding the PSM standard’s requirements.
Look-back review leads to changes
OSHA makes it clear that its new PSM enforcement manual is meant to be guidance for its inspectors when they’re out in the field inspecting PSM-covered processes. The manual specifically states that nothing in it “should be construed to require the regulated community to adopt any practices, means, methods, operations, or processes beyond those which are already required” by federal OSHA.
The agency also provides a reason for revising the manual: results from a look-back review’s suggestions indicated that changes were necessary. In response to the review’s suggestions, the agency cancelled its revised enforcement manual from Sept. 13, 1994 which has been replaced with the newly released manual.
Format changed from checklist to Q&A style
According to OSHA, the most significant change involves the removal of the 1994 audit checklist, which has been replaced by incorporating “existing OSHA PSM enforcement policies into a question and response format.
OSHA changed to the question and response format because “numerous questions have been submitted and compliance guidance provided to the industry on the application of the standard” since it was first introduced in 1992.
In short, much of the new enforcement guidance is based on prior OSHA Letters of Interpretation (LOI) or standard interpretations addressing specific questions that have come up in the past regarding the PSM standard.
Many of the questions are on whether or not specific chemicals or concentrations of chemicals fall under the standard including some about specific processes may or may not fall under the standard.
For example, one question asked, “Does the PSM standard apply to the coating process which involves mixing and blending of flammable liquid paints inside atmospheric tanks?”
OSHA responded, saying:
“Yes. The coating process consists of tanks, coating equipment and interconnected piping that when combined contain a TQ or greater amount of flammable liquids. Although the flammable liquid is in atmospheric tanks, the exemption in Section 1910.119(a)(1)(ii)(B) for storing flammable liquids in atmospheric tanks does not apply to tanks containing flammable liquids that involve mixing or blending. In this scenario, the atmospheric tanks are used for mixing and blending operations; therefore, the coating process is PSM covered.”
Following the question are links to the sources OSHA used to answer the question, in this case an LOI from 1993 and another from 2012.
Some questions provide scenarios as context
Some questions include scenarios that provide more context for both the question and the response.
One example, is a question involving a dock that is interconnected to tanks in a refinery tank farm. The question portion said:
“Flammable liquids are transferred from ships moored at the dock to the tank farm using dock side equipment. The tank farm tanks, which operate at atmospheric pressure, are interconnected to other PSM-covered process units within the refinery. Is the transfer equipment on the
dock part of the PSM-covered process?”
OSHA responded with an answer from a 1996 LOI that simply stated, “No. Assuming that the flammable liquid storage tanks are interconnected to conduct storage and transfer operations where no mixing or blending occurs, the transfer equipment is exempt from coverage in accordance with Section 1910.119(a)(ii)(B).
Manual collects several decades of OSHA Q&A in one document
The enforcement manual’s new format, while certainly helpful for OSHA inspectors, could also be helpful for employers and safety professionals who fall under the requirements of the PSM standard.
Bottom line: Because it collects several decades of questions and answers regarding the PSM standard into one document, this new manual has the potential to help employers and safety professionals stay compliant with OSHA requirements.
Further, if a particular response doesn’t fully answer a reader’s question, the manual makes it easy to find OSHA’s source material for a deeper dive.