CSB Publishes NPRM on Board Administrative Procedures

Today the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) published a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register (80 FR 27276-27278) for proposed changes to the administrative procedures of the Board outlined in 40 CFR Part 1600.

Notation Voting

Current Board rules {§1600.5(b)} authorize the use of notation voting on some matters considered by the Board. This rulemaking would formalize the current practice of having a ‘calendaring’ option on notation votes; effectively requiring that the matter would be considered at a public meeting. Further it would provide that any action that was ‘calendared’ would be put on either a regularly scheduled public meeting agenda or require the Chair to schedule a special public meeting if the next scheduled meeting was not within 90-days of the date on which the item was calendared.

Public Meetings

The NPRM would also add a new paragraph (c) to §1600.5 dealing with public meetings. It would require a minimum of four public meetings to be held each year in January, April, July and October. It sets the requirement for publishing agendas for each meeting and requires that the following items appear on those agendas {§1600.5(c)(1)}:

∙ Consideration and vote on any notation items calendared since the date of the last public meeting;

∙ A review by the Board of the schedule for completion of all open investigations, studies, and other important work of the Board; and

∙ A review and discussion by the Board of the progress in meeting the CSB's Annual Action Plan.

Public Comments

The Board is soliciting public comments on this proposed rulemaking. Comments may be emailed to the Board (kara.wenzel@csb.gov). Comments should be submitted by June 12^th, 2015.