Daily News

Health and safety advocates are pushing OSHA to toughen its newly proposed crystalline silica standards, even as industry complains that aspects of the planned rule are too strict. The worker advocates say OSHA's proposed industry-wide permissible exposure limit (PEL) is insufficient and the OSH Act is designed to force innovation in such areas, despite industry's contention the planned standard is technologically infeasible. The advocates also urge the agency to add medical removal standards to the standard.

Worker safety advocates are concerned that it may be difficult to get worker protections addressed before the Agriculture Department implements a final poultry line rule, with the agency already rolling out a pilot program on poultry inspections that effectively increases worker line speeds. Advocates have been rigorously fighting the rule for months, saying it will result in vastly increased ergonomic, laceration, amputation and chemical hazards (see related story).

OSHA is ramping up both its educational campaign and enforcement initiatives in grain bin handling safety, with the agency coming out with a recent lengthy blog delving into the safety issues involved and how to prevent engulfments. An industry attorney who closely tracks the issue says the broad information campaign could be used to bolster citations.

A government shutdown likely would cause the majority of OSHA staff to be furloughed, according to a 2011 Department of Labor contingency plan that offers insight into how the agency would deal with a shutdown next Tuesday (Oct. 1) in the event Congress fails to pass a short-term funding measure.

Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) professionals are re-emphasizing their stance that employers' so-called incentive programs that OSHA claims could discourage workers from reporting incidents do not result in such a phenomenon at VPP sites. OSHA chief David Michaels recently participated in a VPP conference where the issue came up again.

A major group of occupational health and safety professionals is backing House Democratic legislation to advance safe patient handling by mandating that OSHA confront the issue, a push that comes as worker advocates ramp up demands that the Labor Department address the area, which is closely tied to controversial ergonomic policy issues.

The full Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) will review an administrative law judge's decision that mostly favors BP in a process safety management (PSM) case with potentially far-reaching implications on whether companies can use their own internal standards to comply with agency standards. The commission, which was asked by OSHA to review the decision, states that it will explain soon the precise questions it plans to review.

Several construction industry trade groups are banding together to seek key changes to OSHA's newly released proposed rule tackling crystalline silica exposures, and hope to discuss with OSHA its scientific rationale for the proposed exposure level as well as the construction-specific control measures. One industry official calls the planned rule “a good starting point” but says there are several provisions of the rule that industry finds unnecessary for worker protection and likely infeasible for many companies.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Nov. 4 in a case involving whether workers should be compensated for the amount of time spent “changing clothes,” delving into policy issues related to compensation for personal protective equipment (PPE) that have been disputed for years. Workers at U.S. Steel Corp. asked the high court to overturn a lower court ruling that certain items would not be considered clothes for worker compensation purposes.

MGM Resorts International tells Inside OSHA Online it will lodge formal objections with OSHA and ask an administrative law judge to overturn the agency's call for the company to reinstate an alleged whistleblower and to pay $325,000 for alleged Sarbanes-Oxley Act violations. The company calls OSHA's action an “atrocious error.”

OSHA's budget is expected to remain stable at post-sequester levels in the near term as Congress continues to debate short-term spending measures. House lawmakers are fighting over how to fund the government -- with health reform hanging in the balance as the central issue -- and agencies including OSHA are waiting to see how the outcome affects their funding. Fissures in the GOP ranks also make it unclear whether the government may soon face a temporary shutdown.

OSHA has filed legal documents seeking review of an administrative law judge's decision throwing out a host of citations and fines against BP North America and an Ohio unit regarding allegations that the company violated the agency's process safety management standards. The case is significant as it addresses whether a company can establish its own safety practices in lieu of following OSHA's specific PSM requirements.

Industry stakeholders affected by OSHA's proposed rule tackling crystalline silica exposures will almost certainly seek an extension of the 90-day comment period set out under the rulemaking, sources tell Inside OSHA Online. That three-month clock starts ticking Thursday (Sept. 12), when the proposed rule is officially published in the Federal Register.

Environmentalists are concerned that language in the bipartisan Senate bill reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) could overturn the agency's strict policy for assessing chemicals' cancer risks, which assumes that some chemicals have no safe exposure level and subjects them to conservative risk assessment methods and regulatory limits. The legislation, if it moves forward, potentially also could have ramifications for OSHA as it struggles to update its decades' old permissible exposure limits.

The Environmental Protection Agency withdrew from White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) review two long-delayed proposed rules intended to more strictly enforce the agency's existing Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) authorities but which industry groups and some lawmakers have strongly opposed. The move, drawing strong protests from environmentalists, comes as worker safety advocates blame protracted OMB reviews as a main reason for OSHA's slow regulatory pace.

Ellen Widess, the chief of Cal/OSHA who sources say has had a turbulent relationship with industry, has abruptly resigned, leaving surprised observers speculating as to whether there are political implications to the resignation. Widess, who will stay on at the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) as a special advisor to the agency director, has been replaced by former DIR special advisor Juliann Sum, who now takes on the role of acting chief of Cal/OSHA. Sum brings union ties to the job, having previously worked for International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245.

The staffing industry views educating staffing firms and their clients about the shared concerns and responsibilities related to temporary worker safety and health as the central priority in OSHA successfully carrying out its newly launched temp worker initiative. A legal counsel for the industry tells Inside OSHA Online that ensuring each party is responsible for factors within their control is the most important principle.

OSHA is moving forward with an enforcement initiative in the mid-Atlantic that focuses partly on safe patient handling, an effort that is being lauded by health care industry worker advocates. The issue is generating concern among some business officials who see it as an agency push to enforce ergonomics in the health care sector even though Congress shot down OSHA's ergonomics rulemaking many years ago.

Agricultural retail industry officials are detailing options for EPA to update its 1997 warning on ammonium nitrate's explosive dangers by crafting new recommendations on storage and crediting existing industry and other programs that aim to reduce plant safety risks from the fertilizer, as the agency weighs whether to revise the policy.

A new report from a Washington think tank blames the cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act as well as looming reductions in spending bills for scaled-back OSHA enforcement at a time when it says the agency is already stretched thin. Industry pushed back against the premises in the study, however, arguing that carefully targeted inspections are more effective in the long run than the broad approach advocated by the report.