The number of industrial chemical accidents, explosions, and fires in the United States that resulted in chemical releases rose by 57 percent between 2021 and 2025, from 83 to 131, according to official statistics compiled by the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). Accidents involving injuries or fatalities rose from 60 to 89 over the same period, a 20 percent increase in the last year alone.
The data, obtained by the watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) through litigation, comes as the Trump administration pursues a two-pronged approach to chemical safety: rolling back federal accident prevention rules adopted in 2024, and eliminating the $14 million annual budget of the CSB, the only independent federal agency dedicated to investigating the root causes of chemical disasters.
“Like our public infrastructure, America’s industrial infrastructure is aging, making disastrous failures increasingly likely,” said Tim Whitehouse, PEER’s executive director and a former senior enforcement attorney at the EPA. “Serious chemical accidents are becoming an almost daily occurrence.”
Back-to-back disasters
The statistics are not abstract. In late May, a chemical storage tank containing nearly 26,500 liters (7,000 gallons) of methyl methacrylate, a highly toxic chemical used in plastics manufacturing, became unstable at a facility in Garden Grove, California, forcing the evacuation of more than 40,000 residents and triggering a state of emergency. Days earlier, a chemical storage tank collapsed at a Nippon Dynawave Packaging facility in Longview, Washington, killing 11 workers.
Both incidents occurred at facilities that were, in the EPA’s description, “highly regulated.” But critics argue that the existing regulatory framework has gaping holes, and that the administration’s proposed changes would widen them.
The proposed rollbacks
In February 2026, the EPA proposed revisions to the Safer Communities by Chemical Accident Prevention (SCCAP) rules, introduced by the Biden administration in 2024. The SCCAP rules required third-party audits after serious chemical incidents, mandated analysis of safer technologies and alternatives, and included worker-safety measures such as the authority to stop work in hazardous situations.
The Trump administration’s proposal would reverse all of these provisions. The EPA has argued that the Biden-era rules “disregarded warnings from national security experts that it would make chemical facilities and other sensitive sites more vulnerable to attack,” and that the revised approach “would preserve every core accident-prevention protection while removing duplicative, contradictory, or unproven requirements.”
Environmental and worker safety groups strongly disagree. “Once again, we’re seeing the Trump administration gamble with the health of entire communities, prioritizing the chemical industry’s profits, instead of doing its job to keep families safe,” said Emma Cheuse, senior attorney at Earthjustice.
The Chemical Safety Board on the chopping block
The administration has also proposed eliminating all funding for the CSB, describing it as an agency that “duplicates more than adequate capabilities in the Environmental Protection Agency and Occupational Safety and Health Administration” and “generates unprompted studies of the chemical industry.”
Supporters of the CSB argue the opposite: that its independence is precisely what makes it effective. The board investigates major chemical incidents, including the 2013 West Fertilizer explosion in Texas that killed 15 people, and issues safety recommendations. Industry adopts those recommendations at a rate approaching 90 percent.
“Penny-for-penny, the Chemical Safety Board is one of the most cost-effective agencies in government,” Whitehouse said. Its $14 million annual budget is roughly the cost of a single moderate chemical accident.
Aging infrastructure, growing risks
The PEER analysis notes that most U.S. refineries and chemical facilities currently operating were built before 1985. As infrastructure ages, the probability of catastrophic failures increases, a pattern familiar from the nation’s bridges, dams, and pipelines.
Approximately 124 million people, nearly 40 percent of the U.S. population, live within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of at least one of the more than 12,000 high-risk chemical facilities in the country. Historically underserved and overburdened populations, including people who identify as Black and Latino, are at greatest risk of exposure to an accidental release.
“The most recent emergencies have occurred at a chemical tank in Garden Grove which caused the evacuation of more than 40,000 residents, and the collapse of another tank in Longview which killed 11 workers,” PEER’s statement reads. “With each passing year the risk gets greater because the infrastructure continues to age.”
Source: Chemical accidents rise as Trump administration proposes weakening safety rules. Inside Climate News / Ars Technica (2026). https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/07/chemical-accidents-rise-as-trump-administration-proposes-weakening-safety-rules/