Daily News

The House Energy & Commerce Committee has approved bipartisan legislation to overhaul the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), a package of reforms that partly could affect how impacts on worker populations are considered in regulating chemicals, but members punted on how to resolve Democrats' emerging push to narrow the bill's preemption of state chemicals programs, an issue that has frustrated previous TSCA reform bills and risks doing so again.

OSHA fully expects before the Obama administration ends to finalize and enact new regulations aimed at reducing workplace hazards from crystalline silica dust, OSHA's top non-career deputy told safety and health activists at a Maryland conference Wednesday (June 3).

Advocates increasingly worry that Congress will pass language to prevent the agency from promulgating the rule under Obama, an official with National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH), the conference organizing body, tells Inside OSHA Online.

Protective measures in poultry handling operations are paramount in stopping potential transmission of a newly identified bird flu strain to workers through exposure to raw meat, NIOSH officials warn, as new highly pathogenic avian viruses emerge in numerous states, though none is known to have infected any people or caused human disease to date.

Avoiding contact with sick birds and employing full and proper use of personal protective equipment (PPE) are crucial in safely handling poultry, NIOSH says.

OSHA has opened a new policy front, possibly leading to clashes with some employers, by advising businesses to provide equal workplace protections for transgender employees by ensuring access to restrooms designated for their identified gender under the OSHA sanitation standard. Agency officials take the policy position only weeks after forming an agreement with a transgender equality group to make sure OSHA protections apply to all employees and as other federal agencies grapple with emerging transgender issues.

An environmental and worker rights advocacy group is urging OSHA to ramp up enforcement against health hazards, and has produced a new online database to help users track data on OSHA air sampling at sites around the country that could help pinpoint specific exposure risks.

OSHA has teamed up with the Wage & Hour Division to address rampant concerns about chemical exposure and other hazards in nail salons, as well as pay and overtime deficiencies -- marking a relatively unusual joint effort among OSHA and other Labor Department agencies to tackle a specific industry on a broad array of compliance issues.

OSHA has adopted a new enforcement policy to provide manufacturers and importers leeway to move any containers in existing stock that have already been labeled in compliance with the 1994 hazard communication rule and are prepared for shipment -- a move timed just as a key deadline for following the agency's 2012 update to labeling and data sheet requirements for hazardous chemicals took effect Monday.

Republican lawmakers blasted the Obama administration for rolling out a proposed Labor Department policy to screen employers for OSHA and other labor law citations and use the data as a basis for contracting decisions, charging the guidance to effectively “blacklist” employers is redundant with existing policies and unworkable, while worker safety and health activists lauded the department's move as long overdue.

Administration officials have signaled that an OSHA proposed rule clamping down on worker exposures to beryllium may be coming very soon, a knowledgeable Washington source tells Inside OSHA Online, despite OSHA acknowledging in a new regulatory blueprint that the rule has been pushed back several months.

OSHA's long-running effort to at the very least propose the new rule, if not finish it, has been stymied in recent months by a protracted review at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

A key building industry group in Texas is suing the Labor Department over provisions of OSHA's recently finalized rule aimed at reducing confined space risks in construction activities, potentially putting up a legal roadblock to full implementation of the rule.

OSHA may be only four months away from publishing a long-promised and highly controversial rule to compel employers to submit electronic records of work-related injuries and illnesses, with the September date for the rule inked in the latest regulatory agenda only a month slip from the agency's earlier target, leaving observers to speculate the Obama administration is determined to finish the rule but needs to iron out final technical details before publishing it. Issuance of a rule that closely resembles the proposed version would likely draw litigation from industry.

NIOSH has launched a joint effort with academia to study the potential safety and health impacts on workers from the rapidly growing nanotechnology industry, with one of its goals to eventually produce guidance that companies can use to reduce risks from exposure to engineered microscopic particles.

The Environmental Protection Agency is strengthening guidance and training for its regional staff in overseeing state enforcement of federal pesticide rules including the agency's farm worker protection standards (WPS) following an Inspector General (IG) report faulting inadequate oversight, though the agency disagrees with the IG that it is not holding states accountable.

A move by federal OSHA towards approving a state plan in Maine covering state and local employees represents an unusual bid to increase the number of states with delegated OSHA programs, and sources say the trend may continue in future years with political efforts under way in West Virginia to apply for state plan status.

Congress' investigative arm is urging OSHA and other Labor Department agencies to ensure consistent compliance with White House parameters for setting out new regulatory guidance, as concerns simultaneously arise on Capitol Hill that agencies may be circumventing the rulemaking process in some instances by issuing effectively binding policies.

Two key Senate Republicans on executive branch oversight are expressing worry that federal agencies -- including possibly OSHA and other branches of the Labor Department -- have repeatedly leveraged guidance documents to create effectively binding policies without going through rulemaking channels.

A recent report from NIOSH and a key occupational safety group concludes that young Hispanic immigrants working at small construction firms tend to face greater workplace hazards overall than the U.S. worker population in general, leading to calls from safety advocates to address “overlapping vulnerabilities” such as social and economic factors to decrease injury and illness risks.

Environmentalists are praising a federal proposal to regulate new uses of toluene diisocyanates (TDI) -- chemicals that have generated concern about possible harmful effects on exposed workers -- and are even seeking expansions of the proposed rule, but industry groups are calling for the Environmental Protection Agency to narrow its regulatory approach to TDI.

OSHA in concert with NIOSH is putting new pressure on health care employers to apply rigorous workplace controls to ensure proper selection and use of respiratory protections, as a key part of efforts to prevent the spread of airborne transmissible diseases -- adopting a California public health model that in some ways exceeds OSHA standards.

An OSHA advisory group plans in the coming months to recommend to the agency draft language on how to better protect temporary workers, material OSHA could then incorporate into guidance documents for employers to develop comprehensive injury and illness prevention programs.