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At the end of 2023, the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) eliminated a backlog of 17 unfinished accident reports, an obstacle that had plagued the organization for years. One of the incidents occurred 7 years ago. The CSB's chair, Steve Owens, is now seeking to avoid the problems that created the backlog. He says he hopes to reshape the agency to better fulfill its mission of determining the root causes of chemical accidents and recommending changes to keep them from happening again. The CSB is a unique government agency that Congress created in 1990 after US industrial regulators—the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration—failed to issue timely accident reports. Eight years slipped by before the CSB was funded—and only then because of pressure from an influential New Jersey senator when a chemical plant blew up near his home and an investigation was
special to C EN Jeff Johnson (Mon,) studied this question.