Inside the contentious Trump-Biden appointee fight on the chemical safety board 

The Trump-appointed head of the government’s chemical safety board is making her way to the exits amid high tensions with her colleagues, who were appointed by President Biden.  

The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, commonly known as the Chemical Safety Board (CSB), has been battling over a rule governing board operations that was approved by the exiting Chair Katherine Lemos, the Trump appointee.  

Lemos announced her resignation on June 10, but she’s not actually leaving office for weeks and the fight with her colleagues is growing increasingly contentious.  

The two sides are fighting over a rule known as Board Order 28. It was approved by Lemos when she served as the only member of the board in April 2021 — just months after Biden took office.  

The two Biden nominees that now sit with her on the board, Steve Owens and Sylvia Johnson, say the rule gives way too much power to the chair. They have voted to get rid of some of her changes to it, but Lemos is challenging that vote on procedural grounds, her colleagues said.

One of their criticisms of the order is that it took issues that used to be subject to board approval, like the agency’s budget and expenditures of more than $50,000, and made them solely the chair’s responsibility. 

“The extent to which the revisions that were made in April 2021 in Board Order 28 gave the chair … total authority over everything was unprecedented in the history of the board’s operations,” Owens said in a joint interview with The Hill alongside Johnson. 

He also raised the fact that the changes came shortly before they were nominated later that same month, saying, “I think that there was an expectation that President Biden would be appointing members of the board.”

‘Punitive’ rules

Another particular area of contention has been on a “misconduct” section of rules governing the board.  

The language includes provisions that would allow one board member to report another to authorities including the FBI, the White House or Congress for such offenses as an unauthorized disclosure of nonpublic information.  

Johnson described the order as “punitive.”  

“There is a laundry list of offenses that we could potentially be disciplined for — and that discipline includes, but [is] not limited to, being shut out of your email, being reported to the FBI, Congress, the White House — you name it,” Johnson said.  

“It was punitive, and certainly didn’t lend itself to any kind of collegial work environment among board members, who are highly professional people and pretty responsible,” she added.  

CSB spokesperson Shauna Lawhorne said via email that Lemos did not author the order. She said it was “primarily based” on work from the board’s general counsel’s office. Lawhorne also said the changes are “narrowly tailored to our enabling legislation and track the original intent of Congress.” 

Procedural fight

Johnson and Owens wanted to make their own changes, they said, and held a vote to do so, but got into a procedural dispute with Lemos about whether their vote was valid. 

The fight is still playing out, even as Lemos submitted her resignation on Friday — about halfway into her appointed five-year term. She’s expected to remain on the board for several more weeks.  

In a resignation letter obtained by Bloomberg, Lemos cited “eroded confidence” in the board’s ability to focus on its mission based on its “recent priorities.” 

Johnson and Owen said the resignation, to them at least, was abrupt.  

“It was very much a surprise, certainly to me,” Owens said. “We had no advance knowledge about it and didn’t actually learn about it until we had gotten a call from … a senior adviser to the chair on Friday.” 

The board is an independent agency charged with investigating industrial chemical accidents. Board members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.  

In their procedural dispute with Lemos, Owens and Johnson said they utilized an expedited procedure in which a majority vote could approve their changes to Board Order 28. But, since Lemos has insisted on tabling the issue for a public meeting, Owens said the board members have been trying to get one such meeting scheduled. 

Now that the chair is leaving, Owens said, it’s not clear whether or when a meeting would take place — though if it doesn’t occur while Lemos is there, the two are expected to alter the order after she departs.

Other controversies

The fight with the two board members is not the only controversy swirling around Lemos, who has come under criticism from outside groups for her spending on travel and other expenses.  

The organization Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) reported last year that between joining the board in 2020 and May 2021, Lemos spent $33,000 on travel, mainly from her home in California to Washington, based on documents the group received from a Freedom of Information Act request. PEER also reported that she spent nearly $20,000 in office renovations despite a $5,000 cap for government officials.  

A source who viewed a budget document separately told The Hill this week that for fiscal 2022, the CSB had budgeted $50,000 for Lemos’s “intercity travel” between her home in San Diego, which the agency recently designated as Lemos’s official base, and Washington.

When asked for more specifics about the use of this $50,000, including whether it was for travel overall or just between Washington and San Diego and why it was necessary, Lawhorne said: “The travel budgets for Board Members follow all Federal Travel Regulations and are accounted for in the normal course of business. This amount is for all travel.”

“Similar budgets are available to other Board Members as well and are in line with or lower than historic norms,” she added. 

In response to follow up questions, Lawhorne disputed the $50,000 figure, saying, “The $50,000 number proffered in your question is not substantiated by our budget submissions or expenditures.”

She declined, however, to say how much the agency spent on Lemos’s travel and refused to provide budget documents. 

A second source familiar with the situation confirmed that the agency is funding Lemos’s travel to and from San Diego, including airfare and hotels, but said they did not know how much was being spent.

Virginia Canter, chief ethics counsel for the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said that the alleged travel budget “probably raises issues.” 

“If she’s just flying back and forth to DC then maybe it doesn’t make sense. Maybe her duty station has to be in D.C. The taxpayers shouldn’t be paying any more than necessary for official travel,” she said.  

Meanwhile, on Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General, which also oversees the Chemical Safety Board, announced that it was launching a probe into the agency’s operations. 

Specifically, it said it will “​​review of the CSB’s capabilities to effectively administer its programs and operations” and will particularly look at “staffing levels, attrition, and leadership.”

Lawhorne said that the agency fully supports the inquiry. 

Amid the controversies, PEER is calling for Lemos’s immediate removal in a new letter to Biden that the group shared with The Hill.

“Allowing Ms. Lemos to remain as CSB chair for another six weeks will only prolong this utterly unproductive state of affairs and prevent the CSB from moving forward under new leadership,” wrote Tim Whitehouse, PEER’s executive director.