In 2018, physicist Ronald Koopman showed up at a Southern California Air District meeting to talk hydrofluoric acid. It sounds niche. It’s not.
Hydrofluoric acid — also called hydrogen fluoride or HF — is used to make refrigerants, gasoline, pesticides, and Teflon. It’s also one of the most dangerous chemicals on the planet. Koopman ran experiments on it back in the 1980s. His warning: facilities using this stuff could see deadly accidents.
Now the Trump administration wants to roll back chemical safety rules. A new analysis from PEER shows chemical accidents are rising, not falling.
The data came out because PEER and other groups sued to force the Chemical Safety Board to disclose releases. A federal judge ruled in 2019 that communities have a right to know what’s in their backyard. But Trump’s EPA removed a public data tool designed to inform communities of risks last year. The president also tried to defund the Chemical Safety Board entirely. Congress kept funding it.
The administration proposed weakening the Risk Management Program rules the Biden EPA finalized in 2024. They say it’s about reducing “regulatory burden.” The EPA claims accidents declined between 2014 and 2023, meaning existing prevention programs worked before the 2024 rules.
PEER’s Karthik Ruch disagrees. He says the EPA is using the same data Biden used — and coming to the opposite conclusion. Plus there’s no evidence the decline came from industry prevention plans.
Meanwhile, accidents causing evacuations, injuries, or multiple casualties keep happening at least once a week. Old infrastructure. Shrinking federal response. It’s a bad combo.
This story originally appeared on Inside Climate News.
