Daily News

A pro-industry leaning think tank came out with a report Thursday (Oct. 17) showing that the White House budget office's resources have not kept pace with its growing regulatory load, despite progressive complaints that the shop's regulatory review organ over the years has developed an outsize role in determining the feasibility of regulations, such as OSHA's hotly contested proposal to reduce silica exposures.

A new California law could help state authorities enforce measures designed to prevent worker heat illness by adding a provision to the books requiring employers to fork over an extra hour of pay if they do not provide rest breaks during a work day for certain employees. The new statute comes as Cal/OSHA tries to make strides against heat exhaustion and stroke, and as federal OSHA ratchets up initiatives to press the issue nationally.

A Washington pro-regulatory non-profit praises OSHA for offering an alternative way to look at the silica rule's impact on small businesses that encompasses employers with fewer than 20 workers, as industry clings onto the Small Business Administration's (SBA) much broader definition of small entities. Industry representatives are livid that OSHA included the alternative as part of its preliminary impact analysis of the rule and by doing so came up with small business costs dramatically lower than those estimated by SBA.

Two key House Republicans who oversee worker safety and health issues are urging Labor Secretary Tom Perez, in a letter obtained by Inside OSHA Online, to extend by 90 days the official comment period on OSHA's recently unveiled regulatory plan to reduce crystalline silica hazards. Their move dovetails with a raft of industry requests lodged with OSHA seeking a delay of the December deadline to respond to the proposed rule.

The building sector argues that the size of the scientific and analytical record that OSHA has amassed to back up the need for control measures in its proposed rule to cut crystalline silica exposures is so huge that it will take much longer than the current 90-day comment period to evaluate and offer feedback on the plan. Employers also say the government shutdown made it harder to review supporting materials at the Labor Department.

Worker safety and environmental advocates in New Jersey are voicing deep concerns about the effectiveness of the state government's rollout of rules intended to require so-called “inherently safer technology” (IST) in chemical plants across the densely populated state, echoing calls at the federal level for rules mandating employers seek alternatives to cut the risks involved in chemicals and processes currently in use.

OSHA, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Homeland Security are working toward a formal partnership in which data would be shared among the agencies regarding chemical plant safety and security, OSHA chief David Michaels recently said. The agency head suggested the cooperation is also part of a broader strategy to expand the use of data on employers beyond OSHA-mandated injury and illness logs.

OSHA appears to be ratcheting up its criminal enforcement efforts by attempting to refer more egregious cases to federal prosecutors, sources say, pointing to a recently reached deferred prosecution and civil settlement with a company that OSHA terms a “severe violator” as emblematic of the agency's increasingly aggressive posture. Sources also say the deal to defer the pursuit of criminal charges in exchange for seven figures' worth of fines and settlements by the company could represent the first deal of its kind for OSHA.

Political leaders in both parties made emphatic statements that more effective data sharing among OSHA and other federal agencies -- especially the Environmental Protection Agency -- could help head off chemical releases and explosions stemming from inadequate plant safety measures. The calls for greater inter-agency cooperation came as agencies struggled during the government shutdown to meet the deadlines of a presidential order demanding collaboration on the complex issue.

OSHA has cited the fertilizer company in West, TX, where a disastrous fire and explosion occurred in April with 24 “serious” safety violations centered around the company's storage and handling of two hazardous chemicals, ammonium nitrate and anhydrous ammonia -- though it was unclear Thursday (Oct. 10) whether any of the alleged violations center on the process safety management (PSM) standards.

The federal government shutdown means the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) cannot deploy investigators to the site of any industrial catastrophe that may occur during the lapse in funding, and the board has effectively halted one of its major probes, involving the recent fertilizer plant explosion in West, TX, the agency's top official said Tuesday (Oct. 8).

Federal OSHA and the Hawaii state government have agreed under an operating plan for the state OSHA program to allow the state's Department of Labor and Industrial Relations (DLIR) to re-assume coverage of Hawaii manufacturing industries, in what could signal an early, tentative step toward getting the state plan out from under concurrent OSH jurisdiction with the feds.

Injuries among health care workers are among the highest of any profession, according to a new comprehensive study of the issue published by a group of workplace safety engineers -- a finding that could bolster OSHA's recent efforts to focus attention on the issue and back up worker advocates' concerns that not enough is being done under the OSH Act to protect health care employees.

The involvement of a major hospital accrediting group in health care worker injury and illness prevention may bear out longstanding OSHA and NIOSH concerns about ergonomic hazards in hospital and nursing care settings, particularly when it comes to “safe patient handling,” sources say. The Joint Commission recently renewed its alliance with OSHA to reduce health worker incidents, and, though the agreement does not specifically mention ergonomics, the commission last year penned a monograph that raised major concerns with ergonomics-related injuries in health care settings.

A key manufacturing group has formally asked OSHA to extend by 90 days the public comment period on its planned rule to reduce exposures to crystalline silica, arguing that the nearly 800-page proposal warrants at least that much more time for industries to review and analyze it before OSHA can reasonably move ahead. The group also wants an associated delay in the public hearings currently scheduled for next March.

OSHA has told a Ventura, CA-based company to pay $1.9 million to its former chief financial officer to resolve a complaint that it illegally fired the official for bringing up concerns under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) -- again emphasizing the agency's determination to fully enforce whistleblower provisions of the financial reform law passed in the early 2000s after the Enron collapse. The company told the Securities and Exchange Commission Thursday (Oct. 3) that it will seek administrative law judge review as it believes the allegations lack merit.

Composites manufacturers are expressing concern that OSHA has not adequately assessed the economic and technological feasibility of its proposed new crystalline silica control measures as they would apply to the industry, and are asking the agency to conduct an industry-specific study -- followed by allowing 90 days for businesses to respond to the assessment -- before moving toward a final rule.

Business interests see little chance of OSHA promulgating a final rule tackling respirable crystalline silica exposures before the end of President Obama's second term. Regulatory experts in the business community say the breadth of the rulemaking will sap much of the agency's resources if OSHA tries to complete it before Obama leaves the White House.

OSHA is now dealing with work force cuts of roughly 90 percent because of the lapse in appropriations for fiscal 2014 that began Tuesday (Oct. 1), with the federal government shutting down all but essential services after the failure of lawmakers to reach a short-term spending deal. Sources say the shutdown is unlikely to last more than a week, but one also expressed concern about the funding lapse slowing what is viewed as an already glacial regulatory process on key safety and health issues like crystalline silica.

OSHA's work force would be decimated by a federal government shutdown that could occur tonight at midnight if lawmakers don't strike agreement on a short-term spending measure, according to a Labor Department memo, with the agency's staff facing cuts of roughly 90 percent in the event of a lapse in appropriations.