Workers Rally Against EPA Rollbacks of Chemical Safety Rules

Labor and community activists, including United Steelworkers (USW) members, rallied in Washington, D.C. on March 25 to oppose an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposal to weaken industrial safety regulations for roughly 11,000 chemical facilities. The event came shortly after an explosion at a Valero refinery in Port Arthur, Texas.

The EPA is specifically seeking to kill most of the 2024 Safer Communities by Chemical Accident Prevention (SCCAP) rule. This rule aimed to strengthen accident prevention and emergency response, and expand community protection. It also required facilities to address risks from natural disasters and power failures.

USW Local 13-228 process safety specialist Phil Stagg criticized the rollbacks as prioritizing cost-cutting over worker safety, warning they ignore hard-won lessons from past industrial disasters.

“It’s profits over safety, period,” said Stagg.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH USW MEMBERS’ VIDEO TESTIMONY.

For workers like Dawn Andreoli, an 18-year Monroe Energy employee from Pennsylvania and member of USW Local 10-234, the stakes feel deeply personal.

She warned that eliminating stop-work authority — the right to halt dangerous operations immediately — removes a critical safeguard. “Hesitation is how explosions happen,” she said, adding that the EPA is not cutting red tape, but cutting the lifeline workers depend on.

The urgency of these concerns is reflected in a sobering statistic. Between 2004 and 2025, the United States experienced a chemical accident that harmed humans or the environment on average every other day.