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Despite a threatened veto from the White House, the Senate appears slated to join the House in adopting legislation that would gut OSHA's plan for implementing President Obama's directive that the agency consider government contractors' records of workplace violations in granting contracts.

Industry groups are laying out a multi-part strategy aimed at stymieing -- and eventually rewriting -- OSHA's recently finalized electronic recordkeeping and reporting rule, signaling the measure will face significant opposition in Congress and the courts as the Obama administration prepares to leave office in the coming months.

EPA is defending its process for overhauling its risk management plan (RMP) facility safety program, rejecting Republican lawmakers' requests to extend the public comment period and downplaying claims that the policy will impose unfunded mandates on emergency responders.

In May 18 letters to lawmakers, waste chief Mathy Stanislaus says the agency conducted extensive public outreach on the Feb. 25 proposed update to the Clean Air Act RMP safety program.

House lawmakers appear poised to vote by wide margins May 24 to amend the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) for the first time in 40 years, after lawmakers made late changes to the legislation that won support from top Democrats, including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

In a joint statement May 23, Pelosi, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), the ranking Democrat on the Energy & Commerce Committee, announced their support for final compromise legislation.

OSHA is planning to advance several dozen rules and proposed rules in the coming year, ranging from measures to protect workers from slips, trips and falls, industrial facility accidents and exposure to numerous toxic chemicals, according to a federal rulemaking docket.

In the Spring 2016 update to the Unified Agenda (UA), OSHA says it plans to complete in August its decades-long effort to issue a final rule preventing slips, trips and falls, a leading cause of worker injuries and deaths.

Correction Appended

A top OSHA official is pushing back against industry plans to delay implementation of the agency's new rule limiting silica exposures in workplaces, calling recent industry appeals court challenges to the rule an “expected” consequence of any major OSHA rule, and saying the lawsuits are unlikely to stall OSHA's implementation of the new standards.

Democratic Senate supporters of a compromise bill to overhaul the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) are discussing potential further changes ahead of floor votes on the legislation to win over Democratic lawmakers that currently oppose the measure, including tweaks to provisions on when states' chemicals programs would be preempted.

Updated Story

OSHA's recent deal that ended petrochemical industry litigation over its controversial enforcement policy that requires companies to use defined “engineering practices” to comply with the agency's process safety management (PSM) standards may aid ongoing talks aimed at resolving a similar dispute over OSHA's policy for determining when company's concentrations of certain chemicals in mixtures subject them to PSM requirements, an industry lawyer says.

House lawmakers supporting the just-announced Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform bill say they have enough bipartisan backing to advance the bill to President Obama for his signature without having to make changes to appease some House Democrats who now oppose it and claim it is weaker than current law.

“We'll get some Democrats, we won't get as many as we would have liked,” said Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) in a May 18 interview with when asked about prospects for the House approving the bill.

Health and safety advocates are urging OSHA to issue new rules to protect workers from exposure to nanomaterials used to process food and agricultural chemicals, and to prioritize research on preventing worker exposures, arguing their report finding nanomaterials in baby formula also raises risks for workers who may inhale particles during production.

EPA and a government employee whistleblower group are asking a federal appeals court to hold in abeyance a lawsuit seeking a formal response from EPA on a petition the group filed to tighten federal hazardous waste handling and storage requirements for corrosive dust.

The parties say the court should stay the case until the agency makes a final determination on whether it will uphold its recently made tentative decision to reject the petition, though formalizing the decision would open the door to litigation on the merits.

OSHA's plan to codify its controversial enforcement policy that narrows a long-standing exemption from its process safety management (PSM) standard for retailers is prompting strong criticism from industry groups in Congress and the courts, suggesting continuing battles over the issue.

House Democrats are urging Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ), the ranking Democrat on the House energy committee, to resolve an apparent dispute over language suggested by senators for a compromise Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform bill that aims to limit toxicity testing on animals, the latest potential barrier to Congress advancing a final bill.

Chemical manufacturers and water utilities are urging the White House to reject EPA's data request to support its proposed rule to overhaul its facility safety program, which if successful could significantly delay the revisions by forcing the agency to undertake lengthy new work on revising the information request that will underpin the rule.

In recent comments, chemical manufacturers are calling on the administration to re-issue the data request in tandem with a similar request that OSHA is preparing to address its process safety management (PSM) standards.

Petrochemical industry groups have dropped their challenge to a controversial OSHA enforcement policy that required companies to use defined “recognized and generally accepted good engineering practices” (RAGAGEP) to comply with the agency's process safety management (PSM) standard after officials revised the policy.

Chemical and other industry officials say the Justice Department's (DOJ) finding that arson caused the fatal West, TX, fertilizer facility explosion undermines EPA's plan to force stricter risk prevention planning at chemical plants, because the agency justified the regulation in part on claiming inadequate accident controls at the West facility.

However, the industry representatives generally agree that it is unlikely that EPA will change course after learning the West fire has been ruled a crime.

Top House lawmakers are offering tentative support for a Senate-crafted deal that will give states an additional year to regulate some substances before EPA could preempt their efforts under a Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform bill.

Facing an almost certain legal challenge from industry groups, OSHA chief David Michaels is offering a broad legal and policy defense of the agency's new rule requiring facilities to report worker injury data, arguing the measure is legally justified and will encourage employers to provide safer workplaces, despite industry assertions that the publicizing such data will deter injury reporting.

As lawmakers near a potential final deal on legislation to overhaul the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), chemical industry sources say significant questions remain on how an agreement might affect a host of key policies in the bill including preemption of state chemical programs, the scope of EPA risk assessments, and more.

“I think they can smell the finish line but are not quite there yet,” one industry source says.

Labor and environmental groups are urging OSHA to withdraw a draft guidance for weighting scientific evidence in assessments of chemicals' workplace hazards, and instead provide chemical manufacturers and importers with clear, enforceable mandates for conducting such reviews when developing safety data sheets (SDS).