Daily News

Chemical Safety Board (CSB) Chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso tells Inside OSHA Online he will defy vocal calls by a cluster of Republican lawmakers for President Obama to ask for his resignation just weeks after a House oversight committee hearing in which he took bipartisan fire over allegations of mismanagement and charges that he attempted to block an Office of Inspector General (OIG) probe of the board's operations -- with some going as far as to accuse him of trying to retaliate against a CSB whistleblower and deflect questions about the incident.

Cal/OSHA is pushing fall protection in construction as part of a broader campaign on building sector safety, in a possible bid to distinguish its own compliance activities as federal OSHA pursues its own high-profile effort to increase worker safety protections in the building sector especially in the hazardous and active summer months.

A new federally backed study showing an apparent a link between breast cancer risk and women's work exposure to solvents prior to first childbirth could compound longstanding worries by NIOSH and OSHA about the long-term health effects of occupational exposure to cleaning chemicals, an area the two agencies have worked as a co-branded initiative. NIOSH says it does not have its own longitudinal research making such direct linkages but has worked extensively on the broader issue of safe use of cleaning chemicals.

Industry consultants are preparing for publication an updated epidemiological study of hexavalent chromium's (Cr6) inhalation risks, with a goal of providing more information about the effects of exposure to the element at low levels Americans may encounter in the environment -- which could influence ongoing Cr6 risk assessments as OSHA continues tough enforcement on Cr6, most prominently in building inspections.

A potentially groundbreaking new study by National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists that finds an apparent link between breast cancer risk and workplace solvent exposures to women before birth of their first child could add further urgency to stakeholder calls for OSHA to update worker exposure limits to the chemicals, which are ubiquitous in a wide range of occupational settings. Researchers also urge women to be aware of chemical hazards at work and to wear personal protective equipment when appropriate.

OSHA's mid-Atlantic region has begun a new initiative in which compliance officers will fan out across the construction industry and look for possible violations in high-risk areas including falls, crushing, electrocution, and caught-between hazards, a program that closely follows one by the region two years ago in which the agency conducted more than 500 no-notice inspections and issued more than 200 citations.

A key advocacy group in Washington is calling on state and local entities to consider legislation mandating accident inquiries following worker deaths that would mirror coroner's inquests held in British countries when the circumstances surrounding fatalities are unclear -- changes the group says could lead to informed recommendations to occupational safety and health officials to increase protections based on individual case outcomes.

OSHA's chemical hazard experts are crafting a database that will cull data from published peer-reviewed research on potential effects of exposures to nanomaterials in order to give workers and employers “better information” for predicting possible hazards, according to OSHA -- a project that is emerging from the agency's participation in a government-wide task force that for years has been studying the impacts of nanotechnology.

OSHA standards officials have launched an effort to craft a new rule the agency hopes will reduce the soaring rates of injuries and fatalities in the risky communication tower construction and maintenance industry, with key aspects being to clamp down on what the agency views as a dangerous practice of hoisting employees with equipment mounted on trucks and to ensure fall protection.

The Environmental Protection Agency has clarified and strengthened its risk assessment for trichloroethylene (TCE), the first such assessment the agency had conducted as part of a novel effort to evaluate and possibly regulate "existing" chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), a move that comes as some stakeholders want OSHA to revisit the workplace permissible exposure limit for the substance. But EPA officials declined peer reviewers' calls to gather new data to strengthen the analysis.

OSHA has delayed by almost four months the compliance deadline for its new rule revising electrical power standards in general industry and construction, issuing a “temporary citation policy” pushing back the enforcement date to Oct. 31, 2014 in what reportedly is an effort to give industry more time to understand the complexities of the rule, as well as ensure that OSHA has the field resources more fully in place to enforce the new standards.

NIOSH experts are forging ahead with a “Prevention through Design” concept that they say would design out hazards from the outset of construction of buildings -- an initiative that stakeholders have long considered and that could form the basis of future recommendations on OSHA policy. NIOSH chief John Howard says the initiative will be continued for five more years.

OSHA has launched a national information campaign aimed at protecting workers in the tree care industry, saying data show a necessity for increased emphasis in the area, and in at least one region, based in Philadelphia, the agency has kicked off a targeted enforcement initiative related to the issue. Industry says it is carefully watching where the relatively new OSHA program is headed.

OSHA chief David Michaels emphasized in a conference call Monday his view that the OSH Act mandate to keep workplaces free of recognized hazards includes feasible measures to abate workplace violence, and said in the last four years OSHA has issued 18 citations under Section 5(a)1 related to the issue. OSHA is placing a strong emphasis on preventing workplace violence among teenagers, a specialized angle on the broader issue which the agency has increasingly tackled in recent years and that it has addressed both through targeted enforcement and training programs.

OSHA chief David Michaels says the agency last year issued 11 heat illness-related citations under the general duty clause, illuminating how forcefully OSHA is pushing its national initiative to address heat stress, particularly for vulnerable workers including temporary employees and those who have not been properly acclimated to extreme summertime temperatures. Michaels also says state plans are cooperating with the federal action on heat illness and notes that California has its own standard on the issue.

At least two Republican lawmakers including the head of the House oversight committee are strongly suggesting Chemical Safety Board Chair Rafael Moure-Eraso consider stepping down amid allegations of mismanagement, possible whistleblower reprisal and continuing rifts among current and former board members and staff that the congressmen view as rendering the investigative agency paralyzed.

OSHA is rolling out a new agreement with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in which the safety and health agency refers past-deadline whistleblower complaints under the OSH Act Section 11(c) to the labor board for potential filing as unfair labor practices complaints so that the matter can still be addressed -- a move lauded by whistleblower advocates but also raising some concern on the management side about whether NLRB houses the expertise to handle allegations of OSHA standards violations.

House Oversight and Government Reform Chair Darrell Issa (R-CA) has unleashed an attack on what the committee deems “management failures” at the U.S. Chemical Safety Board along with alleged reprisal against whistleblowers, with the congressional panel convening a hearing this week to put the investigative agency under a microscope, a move that occurs shortly after the board lost one of its three members to a controversy-laden resignation.

NIOSH has backed off its relatively aggressive call earlier this year for OSHA to consider two approaches -- one, called the “safety case” model, which has drawn apprehension in both management and labor circles, and the other known as “inherently safer design” -- as OSHA casts a wide net for information about possible future changes to its process safety management (PSM) and related regulations. A key NIOSH policy official tells Inside OSHA Online that stakeholders urged NIOSH to reconsider the earlier stance.

NIOSH chief John Howard is pushing as a front-and-center issue for employers both nationally and overseas that the safety and health of all employees is a key sustainable business practice, a notion that conforms with the agency head's broader view of a need for “Total Worker Health” that far exceeds the bounds of OSHA compliance and which he says is vital to the world's work force and economic performance.