Daily News

Arizona's two Republican senators led by John McCain are demanding that federal OSHA back off a threat to take jurisdiction of construction standards enforcement from the state's OSHA plan, after a new state law kicked in that replaces federally issued mandates on residential fall protection with less stringent requirements, particularly over the contentious issue of how best to guard workers from building falls between 6 and 15 feet. McCain says further revisions pending in the state legislature should assuage OSHA's concerns, but the agency disagrees.

A Republican lawmaker from Alabama has launched a full-bore assault on OSHA over an agency inspection program targeted at auto parts plants in OSHA's Southeast region, telling the Obama administration the enforcement activity has the appearance of a pro-union bias and at least looks like an attempt to help labor organize workers in southern states -- especially when coupled with an earlier controversial enforcement memo saying union representatives are authorized to participate in OSHA walkarounds.

OSHA issued a final rule Tuesday aimed at improving worker safety in electric power generation, transmission and distribution, bringing to a close what one union official entrenched in the issue calls a lengthy regulatory process in producing a “very comprehensive” rule. Revisions to the standards have long been on OSHA's regulatory agenda, with an initial proposal first made in the Bush administration back in 2005.

A plastics industry group charges OSHA's proposed rule to mandate electronic filing of injury and illness records quarterly at large firms -- information that would later be disseminated on the Internet -- fails to qualify for an exemption from Privacy Act provisions that bar agencies from publicly distributing data concerning individuals. An industry source further suggests OSHA, by saying one purpose of the data use would be to expose risky employers, is actually trying to qualify for an exemption in the law without stating so explicitly.

A company that is challenging the reach of the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reporting rules is seeking to push back against agency claims that chemical producers have a broad duty to disclose results of health and safety studies and is alleging the claims are at odds with EPA guidance on the issue, with worker risks from exposure to hexavalent chromium at the center of the dispute.

President Obama's regulatory czar said Monday he feels no “particular pressure” to put an eventual final OSHA silica rule on a fast track for completion before the swiftly approaching end of the administration, and does not take that view toward any other rule despite a generally recognized 90-day window for the White House budget office to review agency standards -- a period often extended for lengthy stretches to the ire of pro-regulation groups.

The national paving industry, with key union backing, is urging OSHA officials to reexamine a mandate for respirator use under some exposure conditions that the agency included in a proposed new standard for silica control measures in construction activities, saying a requirement triggered by more than four hours of possible exposure actually creates new and greater hazards for road workers.

Construction industry trade groups are mounting an informal challenge to OSHA's crystalline silica rulemaking that hinges on an argument that agency officials did not adequately consult with their construction advisory panel on details of the planned regulations as required by OSHA procedures before issuing the proposal last year. An industry source knowledgeable about the complaint tells Inside OSHA Online that the argument could be used in court during any future legal brawls over the planned rule.

A national group of occupational hygiene experts wants OSHA to craft a formal regulatory definition of “recognized and generally accepted good engineering practices” (RAGAGEP) as it explores a range of options for potential revisions to its process safety management (PSM) standard designed to protect workers from chemical disasters, urging OSHA to help clarify an issue that has become the subject of enforcement disputes.

Organized labor has launched an assault backed by economic expertise against the business community's assertion OSHA's planned rule on respirable silica would cost countless U.S. jobs, with unions arguing the regulatory scheme would actually yield more economic benefits and result in less costs than even OSHA estimates. The worker groups also say when those predicted outcomes are later realized OSHA could explore an even tighter standard.

Administration officials working to implement President Obama's executive order on improving safety and security at industrial plants are considering strengthening local emergency planning committees (LEPCs) overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency but are not addressing calls to require controversial new safety requirements at facilities.

Labor Department lawyers are fighting back against industry complaints that OSHA set aside too short a time at its public hearings on silica to respond to stakeholder questions about the rule, citing procedures that govern the hearings and declaring that while OSHA will accept written queries as suggested by an administrative law judge (ALJ), the agency has not agreed to respond to any of them. The brewing controversy could partly form the basis of future legal wrangling over the silica rulemaking.

Congressional investigators are urging OSHA to work more closely with the Transportation Department (DOT) to enforce anti-retaliation laws designed to protect auto industry workers. OSHA's top official responded that the agency believes it has adhered to so-called “key practices” in whistleblower agreements with the transportation agency, but GAO says in a report released Wednesday (March 19) that it still thinks such inter-agency deals can be strengthened.

Worker health activists want to know why OSHA proposes that employers offer medical surveillance to workers when silica exposure levels reach the permissible exposure limit of 50 micrograms per cubic meter, TWA, rather than triggering such surveillance when exposures reach the action level, which is half the PEL's level. The activists point out the agency's earlier draft proposed rule used the action level as the trigger and asked OSHA at a public hearing Tuesday whether the change was made by the White House budget office.

Employer-side groups are in an uproar that OSHA allotted only two and a half hours for stakeholders to question agency officials at the opening of a roughly three-week series of hearings on agency's hotly contested crystalline silica rulemaking before moving on to testimony from various stakeholders, saying they had several more hours' worth of inquiries for regulators and pleading for a whole day to be set aside to interrogate OSHA.

OSHA has released a new advisory document on temporary worker injury and illness recordkeeping that some OSHA experts say could implicitly suggest an obligation for staffing providers to communicate more thoroughly with host employers, though one staffing industry group generally lauded the guidance and OSHA makes clear that the recordkeeping requirements apply to the host employer in most situations.

Business advocates intend to make the privacy of employees and OSHA's logistical ability to scrub employer injury and illness reports of any worker-identifying information part of the backbone of their vigorous effort to thwart OSHA's planned rulemaking to mandate electronic submission of records which would then be disseminated on the Internet.

The Senate confirmed an industry-side attorney on Wednesday (March 12) to serve on the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) -- filling out the body with an Obama nominee who would not likely generate controversy with Republicans, and making it easier, sources say, for the review board to move ahead to clear its increasingly clogged docket. A former commission chairman for whom the appointee served as counsel tells Inside OSHA Online the new member will likely be judicially moderate and eager to work toward consensus decisions.

An OSHA letter of interpretation might be enough to assuage worker advocates' concerns over industry use of a “weight of evidence” standard in the classification and labeling of potentially cancer-causing agents under OSHA's 2012 hazard communication rule, and sidestep a contentious rulemaking, some experts following the issue tell Inside OSHA Online. But a union official suggests that major litigation could still result if workers are harmed as a result of industries relying on their own evidence assessments in deciding how to comply with the standard.

OSHA's proposal to mandate electronic submission and online posting of injury and illness data has ignited a dispute among worker and industry advocates over the precedence of federal agencies collecting data in that manner and over OSHA's statutory authority to issue the planned regulations, sources told Inside OSHA Online as comments flowed into the regulatory docket to meet a Monday (March 10) deadline for feedback on the contentious rule proposed last fall.