> The President’s Budget proposes $0 for CSB’s FY 2026 budget with the expectation that CSB begins closing down during FY 2025. CSB’s emergency fund of $844,145 will be appropriated to cover costs associated with closing down the agency. Exact closing costs will be determined upon consultation with OMB and Congress.
> The Senate legislative history states: "The principal role of the new chemical safety board is to investigate accidents to determine the conditions and circumstances which led up to the event and to identify the cause or causes so that similar events might be prevented." Congress gave the CSB a unique statutory mission and provided in law that no other agency or executive branch official may direct the activities of the board.
They basically do NTSB aircraft crash investigations for large scale chemical accidents. Critically they don’t assign fines or act proactively like EPA or OSHA, it’s a neutral investigation.
> The President’s Budget proposes $0 for CSB’s FY 2026 budget
https://themortgagepoint.com/2025/06/23/senate-parliamentari...
Increase safety?: X
Make more money?: YES
The USCSB makes life safer for everyone in this country, especially people that work around potentially dangerous chemicals and pressurized equipment.
Today we have a fully deployed modern infrastructure and slow to negative population growth. Cutting regulation won't change that.
There are some areas where you could uncap growth by cutting regulation, but they're not this. The #1 one I'm aware of is housing construction in high cost metros.
The best way to infer causality is through experimentation. If regulation does go away, we’ll measure and learn if it actually worked.
I don't believe that will happen, and I base that belief on all my decades of watching American politics. Bureaucrats may do this (I personally work with ones who do), but politicians generally do not. And the current administration definitely does not care about actual numbers.
I assume that is due to larger trends. Population growth has slowed considerably and there's more competition than ever. Worldwide fertility rates have dropped from 4.7 to 2.3 in the last 75 years, and in that time the U.S. share of world GDP dropped from about 50% to 25%.
My two cents: We may be already be in uncharted economic territory with regards to shrinking workforces, retirees, pollution, etc. How much of our economy is dependent on growth? We may find out. Places like Japan, Korea and Europe are leading the way. Ponzi schemes won't work forever. The world is getting smaller and older. And evening out. There's less room for arbitrage. Innovation is coming from all directions. Technology can still increase productivity. But it could also put masses of people out of work, leaving not enough demand for the latest and greatest. That, and a pie that is no longer growing, could cause a lot of social friction.
I blame much of the current US economy on the shenanigans of baby boomers and their parents. Who after having a booming economy for 3 decades, needed to quickly financial engineer themselves out of their infinite growth pension hole.
So what did they do? They started offshoring to compensate for the big mismatch in domestic debt financing and actual domestic wealth creation.
While they were doing they, they put the pedal to the metal on wealth inequality as those already with excessive wealth could leverage themselves to the tits to buy up the competition.
The problem is, alot of this is the net result at the macro scale and there were many independent decisions that led to everything.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Galloway_(professor)#Bib...
And mind you that China isn't unique in bootstrapping its industrial revolution by mass theft of IP. If I were you, I'd look into the stunts us Americans pulled during our industrialization. The sad fact of the matter is that the government of this country no longer works for its own people, and that's why so many things are far below par. For many things, we _could_, but simply _don't_.
Definitely plays an interesting role in combating/moderating NIMBYism.
Don't worry, they're counting on us all being so desperate we'll take those jobs, anyway.
The reality: the company makes a new company (that's identical to the old company in assets and operations) and says "we had nothing to do with the old company" and they're left off with zero consequences while the old company (that has no assets but holds legal liability) goes bankrupt and pays nothing.
There's also a new and improved method that avoids even this small amount of effort. Alex Jones introduced it. When you're found liable for a billion dollars in damages, just say, "I won't pay it. Fuck you." And there's absolutely nothing they can do.
The legal system means absolutely nothing now.
That's the beauty of our system: companies are at fault, not people, and companies can be destroyed and remade at will.
Libs love breathable air and not dying in a factory explosion, don't they?
It's like the NTSB but for industries that use hazardous chemicals.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/boeing-punished-by-ntsb-fo...
Did I say I want the NTSB to have teeth?
> Without official investigations, companies can assert their own interpretations of events.
They can do this with investigations too. Just as Boeing did. NTSB can't do anything about it. The "punishment" was a referral to DOJ who can.
We've watched it become socially acceptable to not keep your biases unchecked and there is a multi-billion dollar media apparatus that pumps 24/7 propaganda into people's minds.
In the past, the stuff we've seen mainstreamed today stayed relatively niche on AM radio and in klan meetings.
First, generally when people lives are good, they tend to blow the small problems out of proportion. This is pretty much how US got to where it is.
Secondly, if you look at the history of politics, conservatives have always been the ones to weaponize politics as a form of moral judgement. So nothing is really new.
They're 50 employees with an annual budget of $14.4 million. The cost/benefit ratio here is very good.
I can't think of another use of my tax dollars that I get as much direct pleasure from.
I know a lot of people who lived through that era and did not regret it at all.
If that were the case, the US would be dumping trillions into spinning up manufacturing like China did.
The US has the power to do this, they did it during WWII, and like it or not, this current era requires heavy strategic investments that may not produce returns for decades, if at all. It's what China is doing and if the US were trying to compete, they'd do the same. We were getting somewhat close to this with the CHIPS Act, but that's on the chopping block[1], too.
Truth is US capital is happy to sell off manufacturing capability to cash in on cheap labor, and there is no monetary incentive to re-shore manufacturing capacity unless the government provides serious incentives or does it themselves.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIPS_and_Science_Act#Subseque...
Bringing manufacturing back is a stated goal of this administration.
Nevermind that you're not going to convince an American to work for Chinese wages in a sweatshop. Ignore that.
But the intended outcome of everything Dump is doing is to de-emphasize advanced education, bring back all basic manufacturing, and restore the "traditional" American values (white, straight, Christian). It's an absolutely stupid idea, but he's been pretty clear about it.
I'm no expert, but even if they somehow managed to get manufacturing back, slashing your competitive advantages and just taking the market position of "China 2: This time it's more expensive" doesn't strike me as a winner for exports.
> Please note that the CSB is not an enforcement agency - they don’t assign fault or levee fines or bring any charges or write any regulation.
Do CSB recommendations inform policy? Do CSB recommendations get implemented? Do CSB recommendations when implemented increase safety?
Someone who is against regulation might still support the work of CSB because it assists the operations of any de-regulated industries.
An alternative source with different incentives and culture, not an objective one.
I don’t know any group who intentionally acts against their interests.
Economics tends to use model where every agent is a total egoistic rationalist, and likely it is one of the reasons why the society tolerate totally egoistic corporations. You claimed in other comment that you believe that everything is biased? Don't you think that economics biased you toward egoism?
Yes. Economists and critics often do not recognize intangible rewards and incentives.
> Altruism is very real thing, with very real examples of behavior influenced by altruism.
Now do second order reasoning. I didn’t say nobody ever does anything for anybody else. I said organizations do not generally act and support information which is not in their interests.
Additionally, by stating that the CSB provides an ‘alternative source’ of truth, as a correction to an originally described objective one, you are (possibly inadvertently) claiming that the company is also providing a different source of truth, rhetorically raising the value of the information the company provides while lowering the value of the CSB information.
Don’t be the person who adds nuance for the sake of nuance.
Yes I don’t believe in unbiased sources. I believe in multiple perspectives revealing aspects of the truth.
> you are (possibly inadvertently) claiming that the company is also providing a different source of truth
Correct. And I don’t buy the dichotomy you are framing of biased companies vs unbiased government.
> Don’t be the person who adds nuance for the sake of nuance.
The term “objective truth” was just thrown around. Might as well just say it’s an “absolutely good”. The level of discourse in these threads is science = good, agency with science in name = science. Cuts against agency = bad.
What are the costs and benefits to this organization? It appears some sub threads have identified a possible overlap with other agency’s responsibility. It would be interesting to know the extent that is true.
It is just metaphysics. I like it also, but it is impractical. I find it useful to train my mind to see things from different angles, but it is useless to talk about concrete things.
Can you find examples of a biased reports on CSB's youtube channel? If not, it is a good example of uselessness of metaphysics. If you are declaring all their reports biased, while being unable to show the bias, it is just empty words.
I would call it having a baseline understanding of organizations and media.
> Can you find examples of a biased reports on CSB's youtube channel?
Yes? Can you not?
The top video in this thread, “safety pays off“ highlights their successes and does not discuss their failures or costs. So yes that video was designed to make their organization appear in the best light possible.
Sure, I agree with what you’ve stated here.
> Correct. And I don’t buy the dichotomy you are framing of biased companies vs unbiased government.
I reread what I wrote and still don’t see that I framed the conversation in this way. What I did frame was the motivation of the company (which I implied to be profit) versus the motive of the government (that of public interest). These are both biased and the effect of the bias could be anticipated: companies would slant their published information with a focus on the effects of profits, whereas the government’s overt bias would slant its information output towards safety (in the case of the CSB) without much concern for profit.
> The term “objective truth” was just thrown around. Might as well just say it’s an “absolutely good”. The level of discourse in these threads is science = good, agency with science in name = science. Cuts against agency = bad.
Sure, we both agree the author is biased towards the government, but you’ve missed the thrust of what I wrote entirely: your nuance added absolutely no value to the discussion, it didn’t make a point or refute anything the author said.
Do you believe in priors? Or do you evaluate each perspective at its face value?
> Correct. And I don’t buy the dichotomy you are framing of biased companies vs unbiased government.
That's not the dichotomy here. It's a biased government acting on behalf of biased companies.
> The term “objective truth” was just thrown around. Might as well just say it’s an “absolutely good”. The level of discourse in these threads is science = good, agency with science in name = science. Cuts against agency = bad.
The only discourse you personally have contributed is "both sides."
> What are the costs and benefits to this organization? It appears some sub threads have identified a possible overlap with other agency’s responsibility. It would be interesting to know the extent that is true.
Sounds like you are intentionally giving benefit of doubt to well-known bad faith actors. This makes you incredibly naive at best, or biased sealioner at worst.
Sounds like you are reasoning with emotional labels and not information.
So you would prefer that only one agency speak with one voice on a subject? Sounds very counter to the "multiple perspectives revealing aspects of the truth" principle you espoused. In practice, government agencies often have disagreements in areas of overlap and hash it out before making a public recommendation, or settling on a course of action.
It’s generally better to know what each groups bias is and compensate than to pretend there are unbiased groups. That rhetorical move tends to be the most malicious and deceiving.
I regret my imprecise use of language which has taken us down this tiresome metaphysical subthread. I should have merely emphasized that the CSB presents an alternative point of view to that of the company. It was not essential to my point that the CSB be unassailable.
Going this way we'll risk to end up in a world, where there is no truth and no falsehoods. All we'll have is something in between. It would take just one small step to say that any two opinions are equal in their utility.
You know, it is like Kremlin propaganda targets idea of "independent media", pointing out that any media is not truly independent, it depends on someone or something. It gets its funding from somewhere, it is subject of some laws and of abuses of law. It needs to take into an account interests of sponsors and from those who wield power. The core message for Russians is: Kremlin propaganda can be bad, but no worse than anything else. Or it can be reworded as: anything is propaganda. Therefore you can relax and just watch news of state television, because you'll never know the truth no matter how hard you tried.
It seems to me, that you are going in the same rough direction by rejecting objectiveness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-truth_politics
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/informed-societies/post...
You and everybody else buddy.
That’s a good observation. Generally when talking about humans in a political context and organizations in general it’s a misnomer.
There are other contexts where it’s not.
So, by that analogy, I think the NTSB is amazing and has done crucial, instrumental work that makes flying safer (as the saying goes, aviation regulations are written in blood). So I think getting rid of the CSB sounds colossally stupid, and I think it's elimination could lead to a willingness by companies to be more careless when it comes to chemical safety.
And that's the point, is it not? Create a wider space for companies to "innovate" within, at the expense of those harmed by company actions but without the resources to seek redress.
Safety operationally is regulated by OSHA, based on the MSDS among other things. It isn’t entirely clear where the CSB fits in. There aren’t many surprises in chemistry and OSHA is aggressive.
The safety protocols are pretty straightforward forward and strict, there isn’t much novelty in chemical disasters. Chemical disasters are virtually always for stupid reasons covered by other regulatory organizations.
The examples you mention about MSDS sounds relevant to a large building/warehouse, but we’re talking about massive industrial complexes nearly equal to the area encompassing all of Seattle+Bellevue+Redmond+Renton+Tukwila.
At that scale, there are still plenty of surprises. Like, “oh shit, I didn’t realize the new version of the lubricating oil the manufacturer recommends for our massive pumps have a different additive that reacts with an impurity in our process stream which catalyzes an exothermic reaction”.
I highly recommend a very short book named “What Went Wrong” by Trevor Kletz. It’s surprisingly entertaining and walks you through basic things that have caused disasters at countless chemical plants over and over again.
The effects are functionally the same, but I think the ideology and rhetoric behind then and now have changed.
There really isn't a purportedly "principled" system of logic behind these decisions, in the past these decisions would be dressed in principled rhetoric no matter how heinous they realistically were.
They aren't even bothering to dress it up in rhetoric that says there is something noble behind these decisions.
In the past, a mountain of ideology and rhetoric would justify these decisions to the common person in an effort manufacture consent. They aren't even bothering to do that.
Those most responsible are either betting they won't be around long enough to deal with the smouldering wreckage or planning to ditch before the country hits rock bottom.
In closing, I do not think it is like the 1950s in that basic science has identified and amplified many fundamental advances since then, materials science is sci-fi now compared to then, but it is similar in the economic-first and actively thumbing the nose at all things green and eco regarding the market.
Why is it that no one is pointing out the contribution of these institutions to the US and the world?
The US, has a society, has grown so materialistic, that they fail to see anything beyond money.
Somethings cannot be measured by money. In fact, when it comes to public governance, money is the least useful thing.
A case of the baby getting thrown out with the bathwater, I suppose. And make no mistake: there was enough dirty bathwater to go around.
However, where is the critical thinking and debate on what actually the institution does, what can be improved and what can be changed?
Its all become X uses Y billion USD a year, so we have to make ti Y/2 to save the universe.
Any evidence to share?
After 50+ years of budget cuts, what makes us think that the solution is more budget cuts?
It isn't the narrative. It's what a small band of institutional hackers want to do to the country. If anything the narrative is to not care about anything.
Not just in the US but all over the world. The fight now is anybody with some critical thought ability vs willfully and violently ignorant. The former is getting fewer in the numbers and the latter is out for blood. We need to be very efficient to disarm and passivize the violent ignorants otherwise they will slowly kill us and the humanity.
Not in India. Here, there is no concept of Big Govt. The concept is "What is this govt. going to give me for free for me to vote for it"
Its the other end of the complimentary spectrum.
> "What is this govt. going to give me for free for me to vote for it"
The exact line of thinking has caused its own Trump case in Turkey. It is similar for the Eastern Europe. Many voted for Trump for petty small interests and very short term gains too. For all of them, social media was a huge boost to explode small gains into bigger narratives.
In US, the bureaucracy lives off entirely on State. That is why it feels less corrupt.
$36 Trillion in debt but fights are on one million dollar budgets.
Are you being sarcastic? To say India doesn't have violent ignorance in the same breath of... The obscene wealth inequality, social castes, sexual inequality, etc of that country...
And which society are you contrasting this with?
A lot of the worlds govts spend a lot through public institutions.
I can only assume Trump administration is incompetent, corrupt and negligent.
Just say why it’s a good idea.
Chesterton fence says "stop! think".
If you a programmer more than 2yoe you intuitively know this
In reality, the CSB is a small organization with 43 employees and a $14M budget that studies root causes of chemical accidents.
EPA and OSHA will continue their regulatory work. EPA alone has a budget of $13700M.
Everyone gets hung up on money and they don't pay attention to value. The CSB annual budget is less than some of the contracts I work on, automating fuel farms on military bases. They're good value for money.
We should, of course, be efficient with our money. Any dollar we can save is a good thing but until I hear someone talk about raising taxes and cutting social spending I'm not going to take serious the idea that we're trying to balance the budget.
Going one level of abstraction higher: there is no evidence that demand/supply dynamics alone will regulate a society over larger populations and time scales. Even the phrase "invisible hand" appears only once in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, somewhere around page 500, and that refers not to the market at large, but to the emergence of protectionist behaviours among suppliers within a country.
Laws and regulations are part of the free market system. As rules approach zero, competition approaches war.
Waiting for all of the people who said that doge would lead to increased efficiency (or at the very least a smaller deficit) to say they're wrong.
"The CSB is an independent federal agency charged with investigating chemical incidents to determine the cause or probable cause."
Out of curiosity, I looked up the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment in 2023 and can't find their investigation on their site in either the active or completed investigation sections. Looking elsewhere, I'm only finding FEMA's concerns about cancer clusters, nothing from the CSB. Can anyone else find it?
CSB is for manufacturing / processing incidents.
z991•5h ago
nerdsniper•4h ago
I think a huge, huge amount of the government is wasteful but the CSB is doing incredible work. Some of the smartest chemical engineers go on to work there later in their career. Due to the average age of the knowledge-holders, this isn’t an agency that you can shut down and easily restart. Young engineers don’t make good investigators - you need a super keen sense of industry to walk into a place where you don’t know anyone and put all the clues together correctly.
The CSB produces very neutral but incredibly detailed reports. Please note that the CSB is not an enforcement agency - they don’t assign fault or levee fines or bring any charges or write any regulation.
All they do is figure out why every major industrial disaster occurred and communicate that to other companies so that they have the know-how to prevent if from happening again if they so choose. The CSB’s reports are invaluable to the operations of so many companies and plants.
Some of the top comments on a 1-year old video with 3.5 million views:
> I can't believe that a government agency makes some of my favorite YouTube videos. I've been watching these for years now
> Finally, a good use of my taxes
> I work in the petrochemical industry, with polymerizable substances that are quite similar to butadiene. The findings hit home. I will share this video tomorrow with all my colleagues in the plant management, who I am sure will appreciate it.
> An amazing service, thank you. When I worked at a copper mine in Yukon I would always replay your videos when it was my turn to give the safety brief and they were ALWAYS well received. Your videos save lives
> USCSB is the only US government agency I have subscription notifications on for. You all have done fantastic work for these 25 years.
> CONGRATULATIONS on 25 years to the CSB! A quarter century of excellence in safety education and investigations. I have learned so much about industrial processes and the safety measures utilized (sometimes not successfully) by industry thanks to the brilliant videos produced by the CSB. Thank you for your hard work, CSB!
> This is hands down the most positive comment section on YouTube. I, and everyone else it seems, love this channel. I’ve learned so much
> Thank you CSB for all that you do. As an engineer and new supervisor at a production facility, I utilize your videos all the time to help teach the operators the dangers that we have lurking. You improve and save lives all over due to your work. Please, keep it up.
> Love the analysis and insights to these industrial disasters that the USCSB provides. Hope you stay well funded to continue commissioning these mini documentaries.
supplied_demand•4h ago
It feels like there is some type of reverse Gell-Mann Amnesia that goes on with government spending and programs.
Those close to the subject matter typically view government spending in their area of expertise as necessary, even “incredible” as you state. When it comes to spending in an area they are not an expert, it suddenly becomes “wasteful.”
nerdsniper•3h ago
pstuart•3h ago
PostOnce•4h ago