On May 13, AMWA submitted comments on EPA’s proposed regulatory changes to EPA’s Risk Management Program (RMP) Rule, as authorized by Section 112(r) of the Clean Air Act. Developed with input from AMWA’s Regulatory and Security Committees, the comments applaud EPA’s proposal to keep with long–standing precedent not to mandate inherently safer technology requirements for the water sector, a position long supported by AMWA. However, the comments also request additional evaluation of the expansion of regulatory requirements related to incident investigation and the sharing of sensitive information.
Overall, AMWA’s comments question the need for increased regulation under the RMP Rule with very little potential for additional risk reduction over the existing RMP requirements for the water sector. The water sector already has an extremely low incident level, and it is unclear whether additional RMP requirements will provide any benefit. The expense of the new requirements may even displace spending on higher priority public health and safety needs.
EPA is expected to release its final RMP Rule revisions before the end of the year.