Daily News

A key steelworkers union is putting rigorous pressure on OSHA to send to the White House for review a rule that would tighten controls on worker exposures to the toxic metal beryllium, long after the union teamed with the only U.S. producer of pure beryllium to propose the agency cut the permissible exposure limit (PEL) for the metal by 90 percent. A former OSHA official says the concept has been floated for OSHA to issue a direct final rule – though that could draw objections from other stakeholders – to expedite the process of updating the standard.

Environmental Protection Agency waste chief Mathy Stanislaus declined at a March 6 Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) hearing to commit the agency to mandating the use of inherently safer technologies (IST) to prevent or reduce the consequences of accidents or attacks at industrial facilities, despite strong urging from several Democratic senators. OSHA at the same time is pressing for the use of IST to protect workers, though it is unclear whether the agency intends to make an attempt at mandating the sweeping measures (see related story).

Senate environment committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has agreed to a GOP request to postpone a planned markup on legislation creating a new Environmental Protection Agency program governing chemical releases from above-ground storage tanks, a delay that senators hope will allow them time to resolve concerns from states and others as they respond to the recent West Virginia chemical spill. Worker safety advocates say the spill, though an environmental disaster, could easily have become a danger to workers under certain conditions, making it an OSHA concern as well.

The petrochemical corporation that the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) earlier accused of obstructing its probe into a sulfuric acid leak at a California refinery that reportedly injured two workers is now starting to cooperate with the investigative agency, a CSB source tells Inside OSHA Online. The probe is being closely watched because CSB rarely charges companies with impeding investigations, and the petrochemical company involved initially argued that federal chemical experts were usurping the authority of Cal/OSHA regulators.

The Obama administration wants Congress to allow OSHA to inspect work sites with 10 or fewer employees that potentially fall under the agency's process safety management (PSM) standard or the Environmental Protection Agency's Risk Management Program (RMP), which would modify a longstanding congressional mandate that precludes OSHA from inspecting such small businesses. The president included the proposal in his just-released Labor Department budget request for fiscal year 2015.

OSHA has decided to extend by three weeks the comment period on its request for data from stakeholders on whether changes are needed to the process safety management (PSM) and related standards, agreeing to stringent industry requests that the original March 10 deadline be delayed to provide more time for research due to complexity of the proposal and supporting analyses. The new deadline to respond to the request for information (RFI) is March 31.

The Obama administration has proposed a budget for fiscal 2015 that would essentially flatline the agency's funding as compared to levels two years ago before the advent of budget sequestration, with a proposed level of $565 million and an intensive focus on enhancing whistleblower protection program activities.

The Labor Department is suing AT&T over allegations that the telecom giant suspended without pay more than a dozen workers after they reported alleged workplace injuries from 2011 to 2013. The company says the lawsuit -- which comes as OSHA makes a concerted effort to improve the effectiveness of its whistleblower protection program -- is without merit, but has not directly indicated how it will handle the litigation.

Worker safety and health policy experts tell Inside OSHA Online it is significant that OSHA has decided to integrate into its new Site-Specific Targeting (SST) program an initiative the agency recently launched to ensure compliance with stipulations made by employers engaged in so-called “strategic partnerships,” saying the new policy sets the stage for more rigorous enforcement of those agreements.

Federal chemical safety experts are blasting a major petrochemical company for allegedly blocking a crucial investigation of a sulfuric acid release at a California refinery that they say seriously injured two workers, but the company refutes the suggestion it is improperly preventing a probe and says the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) lacks jurisdiction in the matter. The issue arises as the government steps up efforts to address chemical safety concerns.

OSHA officials and stakeholders are reacting to the death of Joseph Dear, whom as OSHA chief during the Clinton administration pushed key health and safety policies including willful violation penalties, personal protective equipment requirements and electrical and hazardous communication standards. Dear, who had been on leave from the California Public Employees' Retirement System, died Wednesday (Feb. 26) in Sacramento, CA, at the age of 62. Current OSHA chief David Michaels praised what he called Dear's “forward-thinking” health and safety efforts when he headed the agency.

OSHA has reached a settlement with the petroleum industry and unions following 21 months of complex negotiations in a hazardous communication case challenging the agency's enforcement of its March 2012 Global Harmonization Standard amendment, according to sources and documents obtained by Inside OSHA Online. The settlement, which includes an umbrella agreement with a separate letter covering four key enforcement issues, resolves the American Petroleum Institute's pre-enforcement challenge of the revised standard.

OSHA is working with the Agriculture Department and farmer groups to craft new guidance balancing the agency's focus on preventing fatalities at grain handling facilities against congressional restrictions on small farm enforcement, after having pulled a contentious June 2011 memo that GOP lawmakers charged violated appropriators' ban on small farm enforcement. In the meantime, OSHA has asked its field offices to consult with federal OSHA on when farming operations are exempt from enforcement, Labor Department officials recently told lawmakers.

The Environmental Protection Agency has denied a petition from public health advocates and labor unions that urged the agency to write a rule requiring contractors and building managers to submit data about their employees' lead exposures, data that the groups said would help EPA solidify the scientific basis for a rule that would limit lead paint exposures during construction at public and commercial (P&C) buildings.

Environmentalists and worker advocates say EPA's long-awaited proposal to protect farmworkers from pesticide exposures largely fails to protect pesticide applicators and they are vowing to push for additional protections, in a rule they say is needed because EPA's registrations do not adequately assess worker risks. Worker advocates have long expressed concerns that the nation's mostly-Latino farmworkers whom EPA is required to protect under its pesticide law don't receive the same treatment given industrial workers protected by OSHA.

The Small Business Administration is urging OSHA to work with industry to craft a “safe harbor” provision in the silica rule for construction employers who follow certain silica-safe work practices. The SBA Office of Advocacy praises the agency for taking some steps to address construction industry concerns by laying out a separate approach for construction in its proposed silica rule, but says more needs to be done.

The federal Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is faulting voluntary oil industry safety standards for failing to prevent fires at refineries that killed or endangered workers and is reiterating a call for the Environmental Protection Agency  to require inherently safer technologies (IST), such as use of less-toxic chemicals or other engineering changes to curb such industrial incidents.

As OSHA is under fire from industry for allegedly downplaying the cost of its recent silica rulemaking, another federal agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, is asking its scientific advisors how the agency could better use "economy-wide" modeling to determine the costs and benefits of its regulations. EPA's move is part of an effort to resolve GOP and industry criticism that the agency routinely understates the economic costs of its rules.

Key House and Senate lawmakers are choosing different laws under which to create a new environmental chemical response program to address gaps highlighted by the recent West Virginia spill, with the Senate bill proposing to use the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) and the House proposing to use the Clean Water Act (CWA). The move comes as OSHA explores as part of a federal working group the federal government's regulatory options for making chemical facilities more secure.

OSHA is stressing a need for employers to be responsible for the health and safety conduct of their  subcontractors as part of a new fall protection focus on cell phone tower workers, with the agency sending a letter Monday (Feb. 10) to communication tower employers urging them to strictly adhere to safety standards and common sense practices and make sure their subcontractors do as well.