Chemical accidents with injuries, deaths rise as EPA weakens rules
Chemical-release accidents jumped from 83 to 131, and injuries or deaths rose from 60 to 89, just as EPA moved to unwind stronger safety rules.
Industrial accidents involving chemical releases climbed from 83 in 2021 to 131 in 2025, and chemical accidents that injured or killed people rose from 60 to 89 in the same period, even as the Environmental Protection Agency moved to loosen the federal rules meant to prevent them.
The EPA published its Common Sense Approach to Chemical Accident Prevention proposal on Feb. 24, 2026. The proposal is intended to reduce regulatory burden and avoid duplicative requirements. The rule would revise the Risk Management Program for about 11,500 facilities, including chemical manufacturers, refineries, water and wastewater treatment plants, agricultural supply companies, food and beverage makers, and distributors.
The proposed changes would scale back requirements for safer technology and alternatives analyses, third-party audits, employee participation, community and emergency responder notification, stationary source siting, natural hazards, power-loss planning, accident-investigation documentation, emergency response exercises, process safety information and other safeguards. EPA held a virtual public hearing on March 10, 2026.
The EPA’s 2024 Safer Communities by Chemical Accident Prevention final rule restored many requirements from the 2017 version of the program, including safer technologies analyses, stronger investigations, employee participation, third-party audits and improved emergency planning and public disclosure. The 2017 amendments were partly paused, then the 2019 reconsideration rule rescinded or modified some of those measures before the 2024 rule put many of them back in place.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and other advocates link the rollback to rising accidents and an aging industrial infrastructure. Jeff Ruch of PEER sees no concerted federal effort to help industry or monitor what is happening.
The Chemical Safety Board is the independent federal agency created under the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 to investigate the root causes of major chemical incidents.
A CSB tally compiled after a lawsuit by PEER and allies helped force mandatory reporting of industrial chemical disasters shows at least 1,463 hazardous chemical incidents since January 2021, an average of about five a week. That number likely understates the problem because the board’s reporting captures only certain events and does not require later updates.
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