Daily News

A top OSHA official said last week that the agency eventually agreed with lawmakers that it had put “confusing” language in a controversial enforcement directive aimed at allowing compliance officers to enforce regulations at post-harvest operations located on the same sites as small farms, the latter of which is restricted by a longstanding 1970s-era congressional policy rider restraining the agency on small farm enforcement.

Industry experts engaged in advanced-design textiles are urging health care providers and policymakers to support the use of fluid-repellant laboratory coats as a “first line of defense” against disease pathogen transmission in health care settings, saying such apparel amounts to an engineering control against the biological health hazards that are ubiquitous in hospitals and other facilities -- a push that occurs as OSHA reportedly moves forward internally on a rule to address infectious diseases across numerous types of work sites.

A new executive order from President Obama intended to clamp down on the hiring of federal contractors with allegedly questionable health and safety records and OSHA compliance histories opened a new rift Thursday (July 31) with the business community and congressional Republicans who blasted it as a giveaway to trial lawyers and an example of executive overreach, in the face of many worker safety advocates lauding the move.

Congressional investigators have commenced a study partly on whether OSHA should attempt to issue a specific standard tackling workplace violence in the health care sector, following on a request late last year from House Democrats to look into the issue, Washington sources tell Inside OSHA Online. The eventual report -- expected to be complete by next summer at the latest -- could at the very least bolster regulatory efforts already underway in California and Maryland, one source points out.

OSHA has issued a citation with $7,000 in proposed penalties that invokes the OSH Act general duty clause against Miami Seaquarium over the proximity of animal trainers to a killer whale, an enforcement action that closely resembles the contentious SeaWorld citations that landed the agency and employer in court where OSHA ultimately prevailed in exercising the often-disputed section of its enabling statute.

OSHA has sent a detailed memorandum to regional officials describing how OSHA field officers should handle investigations of possible hazards in temporary work arrangements and the determination of responsibility among host employers and staffing agencies for worker training and hazard abatement, pushing forward stringently on an issue that has been a top priority of agency chief David Michaels.

A recent report stemming from an internal investigation by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) into a June incident involving the “unintentional exposure” of personnel to potentially viable anthrax raises serious concerns about worker safety in laboratories, an issue that OSHA has long scrutinized and also addressed in guidance documents in recent years. The report blames the lack of a written plan and operating procedures as the cause of the potential worker exposures, and CDC has set up internal and external working groups to address lab safety issues going forward.

The Senate labor appropriations panel's spending bill would give OSHA several million more dollars than current funding levels in fiscal 2015, proposing to allow the agency to spend roughly $557 million next year -- but that's less than President Obama wants and unlikely to be embraced by House Republicans as the fall fiscal and electoral battles approach.

Federal chemical safety investigators are stepping up calls for regulatory action to tackle workplace combustible dust hazards after probing the causes of a deadly 2010 explosion in West Virginia, citing concern about purported holes in what they say should be universal industry adoption of consensus standards.

OSHA has come out with a new policy on fall protection in the cellular tower industry that comports with longtime industry requests that the agency clarify that its safety policies relating to a practice of hoisting workers from one elevated work station to another apply not only in construction but also maintenance activities. Industry representatives have long collaborated with OSHA on the changes, which appeared in a new directive issued this month.

OSHA has entered into its Severe Violator Enforcement Program (SVEP) an agriculture feed supplement employer whose storage bins collapsed in January, killing two people and devastating the facility -- and OSHA also called out the employer in a highly publicized statement, as industry while lamenting the tragedy questions the agency's approach to putting employers in such programs prior to completion of legal contest.

House Democrats are citing worker ergonomic concerns in urging the White House to direct the Agriculture Department to revisit a new rule aimed at “modernizing” poultry slaughter line speeds. Worker safety advocates contend the rule would harm workers by exposing them to ergonomic injuries, lacerations and other possible safety dangers (see related story).

Several companies are challenging the Environmental Protection Agency Region IX's strict action levels and strengthened sampling strategies that California regulators have implemented at some waste cleanup sites to address vapor intrusion from trichloroethylene (TCE), arguing that the agency has formally adopted the novel approach – a policy that grows out of longtime EPA efforts to protect workers from exposures at cleanup sites.

A bill filed by Senate Democrats addressing corporate officer accountability for making users aware of defective products could, if someday enacted, address worker safety and health concerns by providing the government a new weapon to wield in ensuring that upstream manufacturers of plant equipment and other products warn of risks to employees in downstream work environments that use those goods in production, sources tell Inside OSHA Online.

OSHA has issued more than $816,000 in proposed fines against a manufacturing company that it has wrapped into its controversial Severe Violators Enforcement Program (SVEP) and issued a press release accusing the employer of “providing false documentation and making false representations claiming that previously cited hazards” related to hydraulic presses had been corrected.

A group of Democratic House and Senate lawmakers has filed legislation to ban the substance bisphenol A (BPA) from food and drink containers -- a major shift in container manufacturing that they argue would reduce exposure to chemicals for food processing workers along with the public. The legislation addresses an area for which sources say there has been little OSHA-related activity over the years, though it has come up as a chemical of possible concern.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) plans to come out Wednesday with findings and initial staff recommendations from its probe of the root causes of a 2010 fatal accident in New Cumberland, WV, blamed on combustible dust, potentially setting up yet another round of formal requests for OSHA to proceed on a rulemaking to tackle the complex issue of explosive dust.

OSHA has launched a broad compliance assistance effort keyed to reducing hazards in demolition operations, citing several recent high-profile deadly incidents and fast-growing building renovation activities as the economy shows signs of recovery. Industry embraced the initiative in some respects but one source cautions that it does not mean OSHA, by trying to work with employers, is backing off its stringent enforcement stance.

A key Democratic senator tracking worker health and safety policy has formally asked OSHA for details regarding its handling of a Pennsylvania case in which a temporary worker was buried alive in sugar, raising questions about the fine amounts issued after the employer's compliance with safety measures and potential broader issues about the agency's decisions on when to penalize employers and cite alleged “willful” violations.

OSHA standards officials recently met with communication tower industry representatives regarding details of the agency's plan to devise new regulations on safety in construction and maintenance of cellular towers that are rapidly sprouting up around the country to keep pace with mobile networks, but at the same time the industry is crafting its own consensus standard that is expected to come out long before OSHA even approaches a final rule, sources close to the issue tell Inside OSHA Online.