The number of serious chemical accidents across the United States has jumped dramatically, climbing at least 51% since 2021, even as the Trump administration moves to dismantle the federal protections meant to prevent them. Deaths and injuries from these incidents have risen by at least 20% over the same period.
A new analysis by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility found that industrial accidents resulting in chemical releases nearly doubled, growing from 83 incidents in 2021 to 131 in 2025. Accidents involving injuries or fatalities climbed from 60 to 89 during that stretch. The timing is striking: the Trump administration is actively pushing to gut the Environmental Protection Agency's Risk Management Program, the federal safeguard that has required more than 12,500 high-risk industrial facilities to develop emergency protocols since the Clean Air Act took effect.
Two recent catastrophes underscore the danger. A malfunctioning chemical tank in Garden Grove, California forced the evacuation of more than 40,000 residents. A separate tank collapse at a plant in Longview, Washington killed 11 workers.
The Biden administration had strengthened chemical safety rules in 2024, requiring facilities to install new detection technology, establish backup systems, and swap hazardous chemicals for safer alternatives. The regulations also mandated emergency protocols for workers and plans to handle disasters that strike when natural disasters like hurricanes or earthquakes hit chemical plants. But the Trump EPA has already begun reversing course, eliminating a public website that let communities and first responders know which chemicals are stored nearby and signaling it will scrap most of the 2024 updates.
The administration has also targeted the Chemical Safety Board, a non-regulatory agency that investigates accidents and recommends improvements. About 90% of the industry adopts its safety recommendations, yet the White House is pushing to eliminate its $14 million budget entirely.
Tim Whitehouse, executive director of the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and a former EPA enforcement attorney, called the administration's approach "simply appalling." He noted that aging industrial infrastructure makes catastrophic failures increasingly likely. "Serious chemical accidents are becoming an almost daily occurrence," Whitehouse said.
The data comes from a lawsuit the nonprofit filed in 2017 to force the government to track chemical accidents as the Clean Air Act requires. Jeff Ruch, senior counsel with the organization, cautioned that even these alarming numbers likely undercount the real problem, since they only include chemical releases into the atmosphere. Workers poisoned inside plants go uncounted. A separate estimate found the US experienced a chemical accident harming humans or the environment every other day on average between 2004 and 2025.
Marc Boom, a former EPA policy adviser now with the Environmental Protection Network, said the administration is shifting the risk of chemical disasters away from companies and onto the people living and working near facilities. "Many are preventable, but instead of strengthening safeguards, this EPA is trying to weaken the rules designed to stop them," Boom said.
About 40% of Americans live within three miles of at least one of the more than 12,000 high-risk chemical facilities in the country. The Trump EPA is proposing new rules through the standard rule-making process, which Ruch said will likely be finalized by fall. That leaves little opportunity for intervention in the near term.
Author James Rodriguez: "Gutting safety rules while chemical disasters spike is reckless, and the administration's argument that it's just cutting red tape doesn't hold water when workers are dying and entire neighborhoods are being evacuated."
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