Paul Hill Resigns as Chair, but Intends to Keep Board Position


		AcuSafe -> January 2000 Newsletter
		CSB: Paul Hill Resigns as Chair, But Intends to Keep Board Position

Last month AcuSafe News™ reported that there were other press reports of internal growing pains as the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board leaders deal with their roles, responsibilities, and authority. We reported on December 17th, that Dr. Paul Hill had announced his resignation as Chair of the Board before the CSB Staff and his intention to maintain his position as a member of the Board. That was made formal in an announcement by the CSB on January 13th. Dr. Hill was absent from the December 10th open Board Meeting. At the last open Board Meeting held on January 10th, Dr. Hill was in attendance.

Budget is Submitted

The budget submission, which presented one of the first appearances of the internal struggle, was finally submitted to Congress for $9 Million. Originally submitted for $12 Million, it was scaled back to represent essentially no growth vs. current activities.

Although progress has slowed on resolving open issues with active investigations, the detailed protocol for incident investigations will soon be posted and comments from the entire Chemical Safety Community are welcome. Instructions for commenting are found on the CSB site.

Web Site Still A Highlight

The CSB’s Web Site continues to be “wildly popular” according to Phil Cogan, Director of External Relations. Hits have doubled in the past year. The Chemical Incident Reports Center continues to be one of the main entry points into the CSB’s Web Site, which was recently named one of the sixteen best federal web sites by GovExec.com. You may want to bookmark this reports center, which is out of “Beta Testing” at this point. Mr. Cogan indicates that the raw incident input from electronic news sources and the National Response Center is reviewed several times a day for relevance to Chemical and Process Safety and then posted immediately.

The end product does represent “your tax dollars at work” by giving you the latest news on chemical accidents.