Daily News

OSHA and NIOSH are working jointly to address the potential for nicotine poisoning among tobacco workers, in another sign the agencies are ramping up their collaboration to tackle health effects in the workplace from exposures both to green tobacco and cigarette smoke and vapor, including concern about as-yet-unclear impacts from the emissions of electronic cigarettes.

OSHA is moving forward on the next steps toward a possible eventual rule that would address high rates of injuries and fatalities in the fast-growing communication tower industry, with the agency pointing to data showing 13 communication tower worker deaths in 2013, the deadliest year for tower workers since 2006.

OSHA's recent assertion in a published report that workplace injuries and illnesses, along with deficiencies in the workers' compensation system, are closely tied to U.S. income inequality has opened a new policy debate, with industry sharply criticizing the agency for not offering new recommendations to help remedy the economic costs of workplace accidents and for wading into state worker compensation issues that fall outside OSHA's jurisdiction.

House lawmakers are floating draft bipartisan legislation to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that significantly scales back preemption of state chemicals programs compared to an alternative pending Senate bill, opening a gap between the two chambers over the issue of preemption that has long hindered approval of a bill. The draft bill comes as OSHA reviews workplace chemical control policies.

NIOSH is pushing for a complete smoking ban across all U.S. workplaces, agency administrator John Howard tells Inside OSHA Online, citing recent data on the persistent prevalence of tobacco use in occupational settings and potential effects on workers. OSHA's policy in the area remains unclear particularly as the standard-setting agency attempted in the 1990s to issue an indoor air-quality standard that would have covered smoking but was unable to complete it. NIOSH recommends that all employers make tobacco cessation programs available to workers.

OSHA has gotten the green light from the White House to publish a new final rule aligning the general industry regulations that address confined spaces with the construction sector, moving the agency closer to attaining a long-sought goal to extend the rule's coverage to building activities.

OSHA has put the health care and social service sectors on notice that it intends to enforce against workplace violence risks through potential use of the OSH Act general duty clause, telling the industries in an updated guidance that they can stay in legal compliance by proactively addressing what the agency says are “serious” concerns about violent incidents.

A review of Cal/OSHA's oversight of oil refinery safety, called for by state lawmakers following work site accidents, finds that facilities generally are complying with six out of seven new elements of the Department of Industrial Relations' evolving process safety management (PSM) requirements.

OSHA, citing resource shortages for state-level cooperative programs, has partly rescinded a policy issued just last fall that would have enforced employment limits for participation in the small-business compliance program known as Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program (SHARP), with last year's policy move prompting area program directors to begin removing work sites that did not fit a 250-employee on-site or 500-worker corporate-wide limit.

Public interest groups are raising alarm about the global safety, health and environmental enforcement implications of a developing trade agreement and whether a controversial section of the accord could put the public at risk by allowing investors to skirt regulatory mandates in countries participating in the deal.

Northeastern states are urging the Environmental Protection Agency to grant petitions requesting that the agency add the replacement dry cleaning chemical n-propyl bromide (nPB) to its list of hazardous air pollutants (HAP) subject to Clean Air Act limits, with Rhode Island noting it has regulated nPB since 2008 due to concerns about human health that have also been addressed by OSHA and NIOSH.

OSHA has issued a new policy that adds oil and gas production sites to its Severe Violator Enforcement Program (SVEP), in what sources say is the first time the agency has used an industry classification code as an enforcement mechanism under the program, but that OSHA says should be used to address anomalous high rates of injuries and illnesses that are several times greater than suffered in general industry.

Construction stakeholders are applying new pressure on OSHA to take into account the long-term economic impact of the agency's proposed crystalline silica rule, sending new data to regulators that the sector argues show much deeper ripple effects than earlier estimated from the rule based on passed-along price increases for building materials. Industry argues that OSHA's proposal shows a misunderstanding of the sector and fails to take into account numerous factors that will affect companies and ultimately consumers if the rule goes through.

Chemical Safety Board Chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso resigned Thursday (March 26) at the direction of President Obama, cutting short a rocky, nearly five-year term just shy of its completion and clearing the way for his designated replacement who currently serves as the top lawyer at the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. However, Moure-Eraso will remain a board member until mid-April, an agency official says.

President Obama will ask Rafael Moure-Eraso, the beleaguered head of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, to resign, Washington sources confirmed Thursday, with less than three months left in the agency chair's term and a week after a bipartisan call in Congress for the agency chair to be ousted in the wake of allegations that he mismanaged the board, shut out differing views from other board members and retaliated against career staff at the agency.

A worldwide consensus standard well under development by safety experts would set out parameters for voluntary adoption of occupational health and safety (OHS) management systems, in what experts hope is the start of a policy dialogue on protecting workers across global supply chains and heading off safety risks such as those borne out by garment factory disasters in Bangladesh, where U.S. retail brands were found among the rubble. OSHA simultaneously continues to press employers to embrace the concept of broad management programs to prevent injuries and illnesses.

The Environmental Protection Agency's National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) is calling for the agency to strengthen proposed revisions to its worker protection standards (WPS) to better protect farmworkers, especially pesticide handlers, urging stronger requirements and backing advocates' claim that farmworkers face disproportionate chemical risks -- pressure on the Obama administration that comes amid a broad review at OSHA of chemical exposure risk policies.

OSHA has rejected a petition from a large group of worker advocacy organizations for the agency to begin crafting a new rule to address hazards associated with line speeds in meatpacking and poultry plants, but is strongly signaling that it could ramp up enforcement on alleged ergonomic dangers by exercising the OSH Act general duty clause.

House and Senate Democrats are circulating letters urging lawmakers to support increased OSHA funding and to shield NIOSH from the Obama administration's long-contemplated elimination of two research and education programs, with the advocacy effort driven by several safety and health professional organizations.

OSHA has won a key victory for policy favoring expansive use of the OSH Act general duty clause, with Walmart Stores Inc. on Wednesday (March 18) pulling its longstanding legal challenge of a $7,000 OSHA citation arising from the trampling death of a store employee during a Black Friday sales event in 2008, and the agency lauding the move.