Daily News

Groups representing sheriffs and other first responders are again urging lawmakers to reauthorize the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program, warning that allowing it to lapse has increased terrorism risks and limited collaboration between local emergency services.

OSHA is clashing with the Labor Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) after it found the agency needs to do more to mitigate high injury and illness rates among warehouse workers, refusing to directly respond to recommendations and slamming OIG’s methodologies for the audit instead.

Major unions are asking EPA to reconsider its proposed TSCA rule that would allow employers to continue active uses of carbon tetrachloride (CTC) with stricter worker protections, arguing both that the agency has overlooked some applications of the solvent entirely and that it should ban those where it “lacks evidence” firms can meet a strict exposure limit.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has vetoed a bill that would have required household domestic service employers to comply with all California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) rules beginning in 2025, citing potentially exorbitant costs and the general unfairness of subjecting households and families to regulations intended for conventional businesses.

OSHA is launching a new initiative to bolster enforcement and compliance with its rules governing respirable crystalline silica (RCS) to protect workers in the engineered stone fabrication and installation industries by prioritizing federal inspections of worksites where workers are exposed to high levels of silica dust.

OSHA chief Doug Parker used a Sept. 27 House hearing to warn lawmakers against an increasingly-likely government shutdown, arguing that a lapse in appropriations will hamstring the agency’s enforcement work including a new silica initiative, while also seeking to defend its regulatory agenda against attacks by Republican panel members.

California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) officials have released a revised emergency temporary standard (ETS) for crystalline silica exposure in “engineered stone fabrication shops,” aiming to approve the rule in December amid what they say is a “crisis” in which a growing number of workers are developing advanced silicosis, a serious lung disease.

EPA has sent its final rule overhauling the risk management program (RMP) to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for interagency review, setting the stage for what is expected to be a slew of changes to facility-safety requirements addressing emergency preparedness, regulatory definitions and extreme weather planning, among others.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su can continue in her position because provisions in federal law establishing Department of Labor (DOL) positions preempt time limitations in the Federal Vacancies Reform Act on how long a federal official can serve in an acting capacity.

Two attorneys are warning that both employers and OSHA itself face an “incredible burden” from the agency’s proposal that would allow third parties to accompany compliance officers on inspections even when they do not work for the company -- particularly when deciding who qualifies as an “authorized representative” of non-union employees.

The Justice Department is urging the Supreme Court to preserve the Chevron doctrine, which grants OSHA and other agencies discretion to reasonably interpret ambiguous statutory language, warning that such a rollback would send a “convulsive shock” to the legal system and create “cascading uncertainty” for agency decisions.

Trade groups and companies say EPA’s proposed TSCA rule for carbon tetrachloride (CTC) rests on an illegally strict workplace exposure limit, and improperly cuts OSHA out of the rulemaking process despite a statutory mandate to consult with peer agencies before treading into areas they regulate, among a host of other attacks.

An employer attorney says companies, especially small businesses, are likely to push OSHA for greater flexibility in its upcoming heat-danger standard after the agency quietly released a lengthy list of “potential options” for its proposal including a range of possible heat-control requirements, temperature thresholds and training mandates.

A prominent industry attorney says OSHA is likely to include mandates for facilities to plan for extreme weather like hurricanes in any overhaul of the process safety management (PSM) standard, building on what is already a broad push by several other program offices and agencies to incorporate weather resiliency into regulatory programs.

The California Legislature has passed a scaled-back bill requiring employers to implement workplace violence-prevention plans on a faster timeline than a pending rule at California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) would impose, and sources say Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is expected to sign it into law before an Oct. 14 deadline.

A broad coalition of industry trade associations is again pressing the Senate to reauthorize the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program by quickly passing a two-year bill that has already cleared the House, teeing up the issue again after lawmakers returned from their August recess.

Lawmakers and witnesses at a recent Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee (EPW) hearing on extreme heat appeared open to a union official’s arguments that this summer’s record temperatures show the need for stronger worker protections, though several also expressed opposition to a “one-size-fits-all” nationwide policy.

OSHA is taking a broad view of when a worker’s injury can be considered “work-related” in a new guidance letter holding that an unprovoked car crash and shooting on public roads still meets the test, and rejecting an employer’s suggestion that such “unforeseeable third-party criminal acts” can overcome the general presumption that any on-the-job incident falls under the agency’s recordkeeping mandates.

OSHA has agreed to reform how it handles reimbursements to state plans for emergency supplemental funding following a report from the Office of Inspector General (OIG) faulting several aspects of the process, though the agency is maintaining that some of the problems that report found with fund allocation were out of its control.

Echoing chemical industry groups, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) and J.D. Vance (R-OH) are pressing EPA to rework its proposed TSCA rule regulating methylene chloride to allow all uses of the solvent to continue as long as companies meet worker-protection mandates.