© 2024 Iowa Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Grassley Worried By Proposed Changes To Safety Rules For Nitrogen Storage

chuck grassley
Amy Mayer/IPR file photo
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), shown here in Nevada, Iowa on Oct. 30, 2015, has questions for the Labor Department about its proposed changes to chemical storage rules.

A Labor Department proposal could make some nitrogen fertilizer more expensive or harder to find. That has Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) asking the Labor Department some questions about its new guidance on chemical storage.

In response to a 2013 fertilizer plant explosion in Texas, the Labor Department has proposed tightening federal safety rules that until now exempted retailers, including those who sell anhydrous ammonia to farmers. Grassley says the cost of compliance may lead some smaller places to stop selling the liquid fertilizer.

"With anhydrous ammonia application being a seasonal occurrence," Grassley says, "it will be difficult for small retailers who supply farmers to absorb the cost."

Those who invest in compliance, Grassley says, will likely then pass the cost on to their customers.

"Safety measures are very important and should absolutely be a top priority," Grassley says, "but eliminating the retail exemption may be a knee-jerk reaction to a granular form of nitrogen, which is very different from the anhydrous ammonia used by farmers."

Ammonium nitrate, which exploded at the West Fertilizer Plant in Texas, is dry and granular.

Grassley has sent a letter to Labor Secretary Thomas Perez asking the department to explain its rationale for including retailers.

Amy Mayer is a reporter based in Ames