Daily News

Public health groups are criticizing environmental regulators for selecting more industry speakers than others at recent and upcoming public meetings to discuss pending Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) chemical assessments, charging the selection will enhance industry influence -- concerns lodged as OSHA undertakes its own review of chemical exposure limits based on modern scientific risk assessments.

OSHA has renewed its emphasis on safe patient handling in nursing homes by publishing a new brochure aimed at curbing what it describes as a persistent problem of musculoskeletal injury incidence rates throughout the industry, leading to raised eyebrows in the business community about the possibility that OSHA intends to use its enforcement functions and the increased publicity to cite employers for alleged ergonomic hazards even though it lacks a specific federal standard on the issue.

OSHA has opened an investigation, officials confirmed, after a California-based animal rights group filed a lengthy complaint against Miami Seaquarium citing the general duty clause and making allegations similar those OSHA cited against SeaWorld in a controversial exercise of the general duty clause that was recently upheld in court -- drawing immediate backlash from industry advocates who called out what they consider “abuse” of the broad-encompassing section of law and a slippery slope established by the SeaWorld case.

A recent federal appeals court decision reinforces what experts say is the Labor Department's longstanding position, backed up in court, that OSHA should be given deference in interpreting its regulations if both OSHA and the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) offer competing but reasonable interpretations of the standard in question -- though there may be outstanding constitutional questions about fair notice, and it remains unclear whether the employer plans to appeal the case further.

The Obama administration is putting new pressure on Congress to increase OSHA penalties, leveraging a new federal interagency report on chemical safety and security to push in vague terms a highly controversial proposal earlier written into OSHA reform legislation, which gained tentative momentum early on in the Obama presidency but long since receded as a viable issue after Republicans seized control of the House in 2010. Federal officials write in the new report that OSHA penalties should be more aligned with environmental risk management law.

OSHA hopes to move forward with long-sought regulations to protect the safety and health of emergency responders -- including specifications for protective equipment -- by putting the issue back on its regulatory agenda in prerule stage and planning a stakeholder meeting next month to advance a proposed standard that was previously in the works, and that worker advocates contend is needed whether as a stand-alone rule or written into other standards.

OSHA as part of a federal interagency working group says it would consider an array of measures to strengthen the safety and security of industrial plants in the wake of recent disasters, including pushing facilities to use inherently safer technologies (IST), though agencies continue to oppose a requirement sought by activists for the Environmental Protection Agency to mandate specific IST.

Supporters of OSHA's Voluntary Protection Program (VPP), which is designed to recognize exemplary workplace safety and health efforts, are touting remarks by OSHA chief David Michaels at a recent Senate hearing that VPP participants represent “the best of the best” among employers in actually exceeding agency mandates – comments they suggest show the program should garner continued support as a matter of policy.

Health care worker advocates are deeply concerned about a caveat on respirator use the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention inserted into newly issued guidance to protect health employees from exposure to the emerging Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS) that has appeared in several spots in the United States, language they say gives health care employers a loophole to use face masks rather than NIOSH-certified respirators in environments of suspected MERS.

A hot metal spray that affected eight workers recently at a Wisconsin employer whose top executive sharply criticized, during the run-up to the 2012 presidential election, the Obama administration and OSHA specifically for allegedly overreaching in regulatory oversight of his metal foundry could lead to political implications if OSHA later issues any citations and strongly publicizes the case as it has in many other instances, sources say.

OSHA is forcefully pressing the issue of employer obligations to prevent worker falls in the construction sector, through a new iteration of its major initiative on the issue in which the agency sponsors a week-long national safety “stand-down” expected to involve tens of thousands of employers and more than 1 million workers at events to emphasize safety measures. The push takes place as OSHA officials lodge concern that economic growth is leading to more deaths in residential construction.

NIOSH chief John Howard is calling for the entire occupational health community to embrace the agency's concept of “Total Worker Health” that stretches far beyond the boundaries of compliance with OSHA standards, saying immense coming changes in work force demographics dictate an economic need to protect workers and the advent of new technology necessitates dramatic changes to the industrial hygiene profession.

A large contingent of organizations that strongly support funding for NIOSH – including for what they view as key education and agricultural, forestry and fishing programs – is exerting new pressure on congressional appropriators to reject the administration's proposal to cut back fiscal 2015 funding for the agency.

Environmental groups plan to ask the Environmental Protection Agency to expand its ongoing revision of its National Contingency Plan (NCP) oil spill regulations to address responses to both conventional oil spills that the agency was already examining as well as spills of unconventional fuels, such as tar sands oil and volatile shale oil – a push that occurs partly because of concerns about chemical-related health risks to workers in oil spill response.

An eight-month delay in OSHA efforts to initiate a small business review of its planned regulations to reduce combustible dust hazards in the workplace appears to show the agency's standards division has found the rule more complicated than at the outset of the rulemaking process, according to sources closely following the issue, who also note that the Obama administration at higher levels seems to have little appetite for pushing controversial OSHA rules such as combustible dust for the time being.

OSHA's decision to re-categorize an injury and illness prevention program rule as a “long-term action” on its new regulatory agenda sends strong signals that high-level Obama administration officials do not see the program rule as the high priority that current OSHA leadership has touted, and according to one union source the White House apparently “put the kibosh” on the rule. People closely following the issue now see the rulemaking as dying on the vine in the potential absence of a continued Democratic presidency and greater congressional support.

OSHA has unveiled a new spring regulatory agenda that punts OSHA's planned rule on injury and illness prevention programs to the “long-term actions” category – signaling the agency believes it will take an undetermined and protracted period to get a rule out – while also pushing back by roughly eight months the start of a small business review panel on an envisioned rule to protect workers from combustible dust hazards.

OSHA has signed an agreement with a key organization representing staffing providers that, according to the document, will lead to wider dissemination of data about OSHA's focused enforcement efforts around the country including National Emphasis Programs (NEPs) – a process that as it plays out could give employers much more information about OSHA's plans on both enforcement and regulatory fronts.

OSHA is pressing a longstanding position that employers must take protective measures to guard against worker heat illness hazards, again bringing up an issue that has companies on alert from compliance officers, and one that the bellwether Cal/OSHA program has long pressed although the extent of enforcement by that state has been questioned by the labor community.

A possible OSHA move to include construction in the scope of a new proposed rule tamping down on worker exposures to the toxic metal beryllium would not lengthen the time it takes to get the rule out, according to sources, who note that OSHA's key advisory panel on construction issues has urged regulators to include a lower exposure limit in construction operations, primarily composed of abrasive blasting work.