Daily News

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California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) is preparing to implement its first-time indoor heat worker-protection standards -- which generally require employers to implement new employee-safety measures when indoor temperatures reach 82 degrees -- after they formally took effect July 23, following an expedited review by the state’s Office of Administrative Law (OAL).

South Carolina is preparing to resume its challenge to OSHA’s mandate for state plans to match federal OSH Act penalty levels, after the Supreme Court eased the Administrative Procedure Act’s (APA) six-year deadline for suits against the federal government that the agency previously touted in a bid to dismiss the case.

Two Democratic committee chairs are floating an amendment to the chamber’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to reauthorize the lapsed Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standard (CFATS) program for two years, after a parallel measure in the House failed to reach a floor vote.

House lawmakers are planning a hearing next week to evaluate their options in the wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision overruling the longstanding Chevron deference doctrine, with some seeking to bolster Congress’ resources and oversight to provide more-detailed legislation though many conservatives are pushing deregulatory measures to limit ISHA and other agencies’ authorities.

OSHA’s updated hazard communication standard (HCS) appears set to reach a July 19 deadline for legal challenges with no known industry suits that might seek to reverse its newly tightened chemical-labeling mandates -- a move that one industry attorney says appears to be driven by manufacturers’ focus on litigating EPA’s TSCA rules instead.

“I believe industry will regret not challenging HCS 2024 once its ramifications become clear,” Lawrence Halprin, a partner with the firm Keller and Heckman, told Inside OSHA by email on July 17.

OSHA is seeking nominees to its National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (NACOSH) to replace the four members on the 12-seat panel whose terms are slated to end in January.

A broad coalition of employers is arguing that OSHA’s rule allowing employee representatives to participate in enforcement “walkarounds” outside of their own work sites violates multiple statutes and Constitutional doctrines, in their first formal bid for a federal court to overturn the policy.

Top officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agency that was responsible for the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program before Congress allowed it to expire last year say facilities previously subject to the program are now facing “increasing” physical and cyber threats from a variety of hostile actors.

OSHA and Dollar General have agreed to settle a years-long enforcement suit over claims of widespread unsafe conditions such as faulty emergency exits at the discount retail chain, including a $12 million monetary penalty and commitments from the company to improve worker protections across its stores.

“Dollar General agreed to pay $12 million in penalties and implement corporate-wide changes that make the safety of its employees a priority,” reads a July 12 OSHA release announcing the deal.

A bill that would require California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) to amend its hospital violence-prevention rules to require that facilities maintain metal detectors at certain entrances and implement a number of supporting security measures cleared a key committee vote last week, after lawmakers approved amendments allowing small and rural hospitals to use metal-detecting “wands” instead.

Legal experts are warning that the Supreme Court’s recent decision holding that defendants are entitled to jury trials when contesting Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) administrative enforcement actions seeking civil penalties could tee up challenges to many agencies’ programs, and potentially make them less aggressive even if those suits do not succeed.

Chemical-sector groups suing EPA over its rule overhauling the requirements for TSCA risk evaluations of existing chemicals are previewing broad arguments that the rule is unlawful or even unconstitutional, though they are not yet naming specific provisions they will seek to overturn.

The Biden administration has released its latest Unified Agenda of regulatory actions, detailing updated timelines for a host of long-pending OSHA policies along with a single newly announced rulemaking process where the agency says it plans to consider whether to approve a new fit-testing protocol for respiratory protective gear.

An employer attorney says the Supreme Court’s reversal of its long-standing Chevron deference doctrine bolsters the odds that a court will reverse OSHA’s new rule governing employee representatives’ roles in inspection walkarounds and will encourage the targets of enforcement actions to challenge whatever standards the agency cites them for violating.

The Supreme Court will not take up an employer’s suit that claimed OSH Act provisions giving OSHA authority to craft long-term safety standards as “appropriate” are unconstitutional, denying a bid to drastically expand the “nondelegation” doctrine limiting Congress’ ability to grant agencies rulemaking discretion.

However, the rejection comes over a dissent from Justice Clarence Thomas saying the current standard is much too lenient, signaling that he could push to take up a similar challenge in the future.

OSHA has released its proposed nationwide heat illness and injury prevention standard after years of development, closely following the outline it previewed to agency advisors earlier this year that mandates written safety plans at both indoor and outdoor work sites, with triggers for action based on either heat index or wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) measurements.

The agency posted regulatory text for the proposal online July 2, ahead of formal publication in the Federal Register.

The Supreme Court has held that the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) does not require lawsuits over OSHA and other agencies’ rules and “final agency action” to begin within six years of their promulgation but rather within six years of when a party was first injured by a particular policy -- a precedent that could open the door for a “tsunami” of wide-ranging challenges to long-settled policies.

The Supreme Court has overruled its 40-year-old Chevron doctrine granting deference to OSHA and other agencies’ interpretations of ambiguous statutory language, scrapping a principle that was the basis for countless decisions on the lawfulness of agency rules, guidance and other actions.

The Supreme Court has adopted a new, stringent standard for regulatory agencies to justify sending enforcement actions to administrative law judges (ALJs) for review rather than federal courts, but the majority appears to hold up the OSH Act as an example of a law that passes its test, signaling that OSHA could avoid major impacts from the precedent.