After Longview implosion, deal restores Chemical Safety Board funding
WASHINGTON - Members of Congress struck an eleventh-hour deal to preserve funding for the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, the independent agency charged with determining what caused the catastrophic implosion at the Longview paper mill.
A House budget bill had proposed slashing the Chemical Safety Board's funding by more than 40% - a cut that The Seattle Times reported would have severely limited the agency's ability to probe last week's disaster and future industrial catastrophes across the nation.
On Wednesday, members on the Appropriations Committee moved to restore the board's funding to its current $14 million level, amending the proposal before debating the sweeping spending bill.
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Washougal, who represents Longview's district in Congress, spearheaded the deal: a flurry of texts and phone calls with fellow committee members that ultimately resulted in an agreement reached around 9 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday, the night before the appropriation committee's scheduled debate on the bill.
Literally everyone, I'm calling everyone," Gluesenkamp Perez recalled.
That included Republican Rep. Dan Newhouse, of Yakima, who said Gluesenkamp Perez texted him seeking support to maintain the funding.
"She didn't have to go into a lot of background on the issue. Everyone knows about it," Newhouse said. "And so it was just a, 'hey can you help me with this?' Being in the minority, reaching across the aisle to the majority - that's the right way to do to it."
"This is a tragedy that touched a big part of the community, and so I said 'absolutely, I'll do whatever I can to help,'" Newhouse added. Newhouse alerted his staff, who reached out to the office of Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, who heads the appropriations subcommittee overseeing the CSB.
"We got immediate, positive response," Newhouse said. "It's one of those things, it's not a partisan issue by any means."
The proposed cut was steep for an agency of the CSB's size.
Simpson said the reason was simple: "Cause we're trying to save money."
But when Gluesenkamp Perez's request for further CSB funding reached his desk, the path forward was simple as well. "Yesterday is when I found out about it," Simpson said on Wednesday. "She made a good case: lost 11 people in her district and eight more (injured). So we found a way we can increase it back up."
On Tuesday, officials clarified that seven employees were injured in the implosion.
Federal investigators landed in Longview a day after the disaster at Nippon Dynawave Packaging. Their task of determining what led to the implosion, which may stretch years, is one only the CSB undertakes after a chemical tragedy: What went wrong and how can it be prevented from happening again?
But the independent - and already slim - federal agency has spent much of the last decade fighting for its own survival.
President Donald Trump has sought to eliminate the board since his first term. His latest budget proposal for fiscal 2027 says dismantling the board aligns with broader "plans to streamline functions across government."
Congress has so far resisted Trump's efforts. The CSB has operated with a roughly $14 million budget since 2023 - a budget that former board members say has still left the agency stretched thin.
The House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday debated the broader spending bill that initially proposed reducing the CSB's budget to about $8.2 million. After coming to an agreement Tuesday night, lawmakers adopted an amendment that allocated $14 million to the agency.
The massive bill, which funds the Interior Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies, cleared the Appropriations Committee Wednesday evening and now heads to the House floor.
Lawmakers will have to reconcile the proposal with the Senate's spending plan, where Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a top appropriator, has pledged to oppose attempts to defund the agency.
Congress created the agency in the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, and it became operational in 1998. Its sole mission is to investigate the causes of catastrophes and make recommendations to prevent similar disasters. The resulting technical reports often become road maps for industrywide safety reforms.
The same could prove true in Longview, experts have said, where investigators must determine why a 900,000-gallon tank containing "white liquor," a caustic chemical used in paper manufacturing, failed so horrifically.
Longstanding problems have plagued the board, though, its former board members told The Times: It functions with a small budget and staff, forced to prioritize cases that involve the highest death tolls or the broadest impact across the industry. The politicization of its work has made it difficult to maintain consistent leadership as well, at times delaying investigations and recommendations.
Gluesenkamp Perez said she intends to advocate to install more CSB board members. The five-member board, appointed by the president, has three vacant seats. At its peak, it had about 50 employees.
"I don't know that we'll get to five," she said, adding that she aims to ensure any appointment considers practical industry experience, particularly at a mill: "The urgency of somebody who knows people's lives are at risk and whose lives have been impacted by mill conditions."
Gluesenkamp Perez has not had such discussions with the White House. "This is still very much laying groundwork," she said.
Like the former board members, investigators and engineers who spoke to The Times this week, Gluesenkamp Perez stressed the critical nature of the small agency's work.
"We have to be able to have domestic cardboard and paper. It's imperative that we are being more aggressive about protecting domestic cardboard and paper, and that means that we have to have the Chemical Safety Board," she said. "Eleven men are never coming home to their families … This is not an acceptable level of risk.
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This story was originally published June 3, 2026 at 11:32 PM.