Daily News

At least six key projects under way and some near completion -- including reports on the West, TX, fertilizer plant disaster and the Deepwater Horizon oil platform explosion -- are central factors in Chemical Safety Board (CSB) Chair Rafael Moure-Eraso's decision not to quit office early, an agency source says, even in the face of a blunt, bipartisan call by House lawmakers Wednesday (March 18) for President Obama to fire him and two senior CSB officials over recent controversies involving Moure-Eraso's use of his position and management of the investigative board.

OSHA has formally extended by six months the deadline for stakeholders to submit information pertinent to the agency's exploration of ways to lower permissible exposure limits (PELs), agreeing to both industry and union calls for more time to submit data on the closely watched effort but also likely delaying any regulatory update of exposure levels under the Obama administration.

OSHA has proposed a rule that would update eye and face protection standards by incorporating newer voluntary and industry consensus standards that have far outpaced OSHA regulations, in a move sources say signals agency interest in updating rules based on widely embraced industry practices.

OSHA is offering some enforcement leeway for companies that show good-faith efforts to meet an upcoming June 1 deadline for updating safety data sheets (SDS) and labeling mixtures of chemicals with known hazards under a 2012 worker right-to-know standard, though some in industry believe the agency's new compliance directive demonstrates that industry should have challenged the rule as infeasible when it came out three years ago.

Two key Senate Republicans on safety and environmental issues are demanding President Obama immediately call for the resignation of Rafael Moure-Eraso, the chair of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) who has been roiled with controversy on Capitol Hill and in interactions with the agency’s inspector general (IG) over allegations of mismanagement, power abuse and whistleblower retaliation.

Senate Democrats and Republicans are floating a revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform bill that they say addresses a host of controversial issues that have led to a stalemate on moving reform legislation, with a section in the bill defining worker populations emerging as a key concern for how the bill would affect occupational health law. The lawmakers' move comes as OSHA and its stakeholder simultaneously grapple with issues surrounding chemical permissible exposure limits in the workplace.

A bipartisan group of senators has banded together to form a “Whistleblower Protection Caucus” in the upper chamber, elevating to a degree of congressional prominence numerous issues related to enforcement of anti-retaliation statutes that OSHA has been working for years to address on the administrative front.

The organization of lawmakers aims to raise awareness for the need to ensure adequate protections against retaliation to whistleblowers, according to a recent statement from the office of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who chairs the new caucus.

BALTIMORE -- Federal environmental officials are mulling the possibility of initiating a rare ban of the paint-stripping solvent methylene chloride -- a chemical that some OSHA stakeholders believe has too high of a workplace permissible exposure limit. The Environmental Protection Agency policy move indicates a continued focus on regulating “existing” chemicals on the heels of EPA's plans to explore similar restrictions on the common degreasing solvent trichloroethylene (TCE).

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has freed up investigative resources by completing phases of two major investigations and is now in a position to probe last month's explosion at the ExxonMobil refinery in Torrance, CA, which could eventually lead to safety recommendations to federal and California OSHA.

Congressional oversight members, in a rare bipartisan consensus regarding the future leadership of a federal agency, have reached apparently universal agreement that the head of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) should quit or be removed from office immediately, despite just 15 weeks left in his appointed term, over alleged serious management problems ranging from internal whistleblower allegations, to alleged records law violations, to what critics are calling a surprise power grab to consolidate executive authority within the agency chair.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is coming under fresh attack from congressional oversight members who allege actions by the agency and its chief amounted to abuse of power and federal records violations, with lawmakers lobbing a new round of allegations that CSB violated whistleblower rights and created a workplace rife with fear of retaliation, low morale and high turnover.

A new policy rolled out last fall enforcing strict limits on the maximum numbers of on-site employees for an employer to qualify for OSHA's small business compliance recognition program has effectively forced 220 work sites nationally out of the assistance effort and pushed them instead toward voluntary programs designed for larger companies, according to internal agency data obtained by Inside OSHA Online.

OSHA is commencing a public push for a newly devised regulatory plan for safety certification of crane operators on construction sites, potentially resolving one of the controversies that has plagued the agency's nearly five-year-old rule to update safety standards for use of cranes and derricks.

OSHA is expressing deep concern about workers dropping from rooftops during snow clearing activities and urges employers to use fall arrest systems and personal protective equipment (PPE) where warranted, citing several recent incidents, including a fatality, involving snow removal. OSHA's effort to educate employers and workers about hazards associated with snow removal dovetails with a similar initiative to warn them about winter weather hazards in general.

OSHA and NIOSH are voicing concern about exposures to respirable silica dust in stone countertop manufacturing, as OSHA continues analyzing data toward a potential final rule on silica before the end of the Obama administration. Safety and health advocates worry, however, that OSHA is running out of time to complete the rulemaking, which has been under way for more than a decade.

The Obama administration is trying to reassure congressional appropriators of OSHA's intent to exhaustively review the wide array of data it has collected over the years as it attempts to move forward with a crystalline silica rulemaking, but the move is also generating deep concern among organized labor officials that detailed analysis could derail the rulemaking once Obama leaves office.

The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is pointing to a California plan for strict process safety measures for oil refineries, saying the state's proposed requirements for analysis and use of safer technologies could serve as model for to improve facility safety, as OSHA and the Environmental Protection Agency explore the concept under a presidential executive order.

OSHA continues to strongly emphasize fall protection in the building industry and said Wednesday (Feb 18) it would again hold a national safety “stand-down” to provide information to employers and workers on the issue, in concert with NIOSH and other expert partners.

The agency has expressed concern in recent years about rising rates of construction worker accidents as the economy has moved further into recovery and building activity has picked up across the country (see related story).

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), through a new report from NIOSH scientists, cites continuing rates of silicosis in urging “primary prevention” and medical monitoring of workplace silica exposures through a range of measures recommended by federal health agencies, perhaps adding further data OSHA could use in the agency's recently accelerated effort on a rulemaking to reduce silica risks.

Contractors carrying out publicly funded projects with the state -- or early bidders on those jobs -- would be subject to occupational safety and health licensing or qualifying requirements under bills being pushed in several states in a national effort set in motion by Public Citizen, with Maryland possibly on the verge of enacting such legislation.