Note: See December 2019 Update.
Near the end of 2016, the Obama EPA published an updated RMP rule. It was officially entered into the CFR on January 13th, 2017. Since then, many things have happened:
- It was delayed until Mar. 17, 2017, at 82 FR 8499, on Jan. 26, 2017;
- It was further delayed until June 19, 2017, at 82 FR 13968, on Mar. 16, 2017;
- It was further delayed yet again until Feb. 19, 2019, at 82 FR 27133, on June 14, 2017;
- It was tentatively replaced on May 17, 2018;
- It was un-delayed and re-instated by the DC District Court on August 17, 2018;
- It was re-delayed by the SAME DC District Court on September 9, 2018; and
- It was AGAIN un-delayed and re-instated by the SAME DC District Court on September 21, 2018
After all that, the RMP rule as amended at the tail of the Obama administration is now surprisingly in effect, even though it is currently being replaced. That means every RMP facility in the country is suddenly out of compliance. This led the EPA to publish an un-signed, un-dated, Compliance Bulletin at the end of September, 2018.
Based on how we read it, that compliance bulletin essentially tells us that the EPA is DONE fighting the delay in the courts. They are going to implement and (to some degree) enforce the Obama-era rule and continue with their new rule-making process which should (eventually) reverse many of these changes.
In the interim, we are stuck with an updated, enforceable, RMP rule. This means that there are new/updated EPA RMP requirements that your program needs to be updated to address.
We have created two documents to assist you in making these changes:
- First, is a “clean” CFR. That is, a version of the RMP Rule that shows it as we believe it is right now. Note, there are minor errors in the actual RMP rule as filed in the Federal Register, so we’ll update this as the filing is fixed. 38 page “Clean” CFR link (here).
- We have also created a list of changes – arranged by PSM/RMP element – that need to be made to your RC&E PSM program to become compliant with the updated RMP rule. We’ve created a 10 page PDF with that information (here).
Feel free to Contact Us via if you would like assistance from RC&E in updating your program.
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