Daily News

The industry coalition suing EPA over its controversial update to the risk management program (RMP) says it will ask a federal appellate court to scrap four aspects of the rule in particular -- those that mandate third-party audits, “safer technology” analyses, public transparency, and adoption of new “generally accepted” engineering practices.

California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board has approved -- as expected -- first-time indoor heat worker-protection standards, along with a petition from a labor union to begin work on a rule that would subject renewable fuel refineries to the same strict worker-safety standards that already apply at petroleum refineries.

Unions and a worker-protection group are signaling that their suit over EPA’s rule setting out requirements for chemical risk evaluations will target a single provision allowing the agency to consider data on companies’ use of protective equipment in its reviews -- a narrow focus despite the rule’s broad swath of policy changes.

The California Labor Commissioner’s Office is fining Amazon.com Services, LLC nearly $6 million for alleged violations of the state’s “Warehouse Quotas” law at two distribution facilities, saying the lapses threaten the health of workers and putting new focus on a raft of state and federal enforcement actions against the online retailer that began in 2022.

Sources with the chemicals industry say they are again looking for fresh legislative avenues to reauthorize the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program after an amendment that would have added it to the annual defense authorization bill failed to reach the House floor.

Six national and regional trade associations are suing the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) over its landmark rule tightening exposure standards for silica dust, with one of the petitioners vowing to target what its top official says was the final measure’s inclusion of several elements never mentioned in a 2023 proposal.

A broad coalition of unions, public-health groups and environmentalists is petitioning the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to recognize extreme heat and related wildfires as “major disasters” eligible for federal relief funding, arguing the move would help local authorities quickly ramp up protections for workers and vulnerable communities.

EPA has formally published its proposed TSCA risk management rule for the solvent n-methylpyrrolidone (NMP), starting a 45-day comment period that will close on July 29 as the agency seeks to finalize restrictions on the chemical’s use that it says are designed to protect industrial and commercial workers from chronic exposure.

A bipartisan amendment to the fiscal year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would have reauthorized the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) lapsed Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standard (CFATS) has failed to reach the House floor, cutting off another avenue to revive the program almost a year after it expired.

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has begun formal interagency review of OSHA’s long-awaited plan to set a nationwide heat illness and injury prevention standard, after years of development and repeated calls from worker-safety advocates for officials to quickly complete the rulemaking as global temperatures have spiked.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has quietly replaced the chairman of Cal/OSHA’s standards board and dismissed a vocal member of the panel who represented occupational health interests, in the aftermath of the members’ controversial decision to approve a new worker-safety standard for indoor heat despite opposition from the state finance department.

A federal judicial panel has chosen the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review EPA’s redone “framework” rule governing TSCA risk evaluations of existing chemicals -- a victory for labor groups that sought to challenge it there, and a loss for industry groups that favored the conservative 5th Circuit instead.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has appointed Debra Lee as the permanent head of Cal/OSHA, a role she has filled in an acting capacity since early this year -- tasking her with working through the agency’s backlog of worker-safety rulemakings amid a stubbornly high staff vacancy rate.

President Joe Biden is nominating a longtime labor and trade official to one of the two vacant seats on the Occupational Safety and Health Association Review Commission (OSHRC), after the Senate’s inaction on a prior nominee has left the panel with just a single active member, and thus unable to decide cases, for over a year.

On June 5, Biden announced that he is nominating Mark Eskenazi, who currently serves as Assistant General Counsel at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, to the OSHRC post previously held by James Sullivan before he resigned in early 2021.

EPA is proposing to ban the solvent n-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) in fertilizers, lubricants and a handful of other products while setting strict new requirements for its continued use in other sectors, including both workplace exposure limits and product restrictions designed to protect consumers in its latest TSCA chemical risk-management rule.

Members of the House Homeland Security Committee used a June 4 hearing on OSHA’s proposed updates to health and safety standards for “emergency responders” to raise concerns over their compliance costs for local fire departments and whether the new provisions would truly bolster protections for firefighters in particular.

California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) officials are scrambling to revise and resubmit their landmark but controversial new indoor heat worker-safety rules in time for the expanded requirements to take effect in late July, assuming the agency’s standards board will approve them at a June 20 meeting.

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has opened interagency review of EPA’s final TSCA rule governing perchloroethylene (PCE), setting up a renewed battle among stakeholders over the agency’s proposal to ban PCE in many sectors, while imposing strict exposure limits in others and a decade-long phaseout of the solvent for dry-cleaning.

Employer groups are lining up behind House Republicans’ Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution that would scrap OSHA’s controversial worker walkaround rule, renewing their arguments that it oversteps the agency’s statutory authority and threatens workplace security, although the measure is all but certain to fail since it is subject to a presidential veto.

A group representing occupational and environmental health specialists is raising doubts on key elements of EPA’s proposal to gather existing but unpublished “health and safety studies” on chemicals it floated last fall as candidates for TSCA prioritization, including the value of unpublished data and how occupational monitoring data aligns with EPA’s needs.