OSHA has issued a citation with $7,000 in proposed penalties that invokes the OSH Act general duty clause against Miami Seaquarium over the proximity of animal trainers to a killer whale, an enforcement action that closely resembles the contentious SeaWorld citations that landed the agency and employer in court where OSHA ultimately prevailed in exercising the often-disputed section of its enabling statute.
OSHA has sent a detailed memorandum to regional officials describing how OSHA field officers should handle investigations of possible hazards in temporary work arrangements and the determination of responsibility among host employers and staffing agencies for worker training and hazard abatement, pushing forward stringently on an issue that has been a top priority of agency chief David Michaels.
A recent report stemming from an internal investigation by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) into a June incident involving the “unintentional exposure” of personnel to potentially viable anthrax raises serious concerns about worker safety in laboratories, an issue that OSHA has long scrutinized and also addressed in guidance documents in recent years.
The Senate labor appropriations panel's spending bill would give OSHA several million more dollars than current funding levels in fiscal 2015, proposing to allow the agency to spend roughly $557 million next year -- but that's less than President Obama wants and unlikely to be embraced by House Republicans as the fall fiscal and electoral battles approach.
Federal chemical safety investigators are stepping up calls for regulatory action to tackle workplace combustible dust hazards after probing the causes of a deadly 2010 explosion in West Virginia, citing concern about purported holes in what they say should be universal industry adoption of consensus standards.
OSHA has come out with a new policy on fall protection in the cellular tower industry that comports with longtime industry requests that the agency clarify that its safety policies relating to a practice of hoisting workers from one elevated work station to another apply not only in construction but also maintenance activities.
OSHA has entered into its Severe Violator Enforcement Program (SVEP) an agriculture feed supplement employer whose storage bins collapsed in January, killing two people and devastating the facility -- and OSHA also called out the employer in a highly publicized statement, as industry while lamenting the tragedy questions the agency's approach to putting employers in such programs prior to completion of legal contest.
House Democrats are citing worker ergonomic concerns in urging the White House to direct the Agriculture Department to revisit a new rule aimed at “modernizing” poultry slaughter line speeds.
Several companies are challenging the Environmental Protection Agency Region IX's strict action levels and strengthened sampling strategies that California regulators have implemented at some waste cleanup sites to address vapor intrusion from trichloroethylene (TCE), arguing that the agency has formally adopted the novel approach – a policy that grows out of longtime EPA efforts to protect workers from exposures at cleanup sites.
A bill filed by Senate Democrats addressing corporate officer accountability for making users aware of defective products could, if someday enacted, address worker safety and health concerns by providing the government a new weapon to wield in ensuring that upstream manufacturers of plant equipment and other products warn of risks to employees in downstream work environments that use those goods in production, sources tell Inside OSHA Online.
OSHA has issued more than $816,000 in proposed fines against a manufacturing company that it has wrapped into its controversial Severe Violators Enforcement Program (SVEP) and issued a press release accusing the employer of “providing false documentation and making false representations claiming that previously cited hazards” related to hydraulic presses had been corrected.
A group of Democratic House and Senate lawmakers has filed legislation to ban the substance bisphenol A (BPA) from food and drink containers -- a major shift in container manufacturing that they argue would reduce exposure to chemicals for food processing workers along with the public.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) plans to come out Wednesday with findings and initial staff recommendations from its probe of the root causes of a 2010 fatal accident in New Cumberland, WV, blamed on combustible dust, potentially setting up yet another round of formal requests for OSHA to proceed on a rulemaking to tackle the complex issue of explosive dust.
OSHA has launched a broad compliance assistance effort keyed to reducing hazards in demolition operations, citing several recent high-profile deadly incidents and fast-growing building renovation activities as the economy shows signs of recovery. Industry embraced the initiative in some respects but one source cautions that it does not mean OSHA, by trying to work with employers, is backing off its stringent enforcement stance.
A key Democratic senator tracking worker health and safety policy has formally asked OSHA for details regarding its handling of a Pennsylvania case in which a temporary worker was buried alive in sugar, raising questions about the fine amounts issued after the employer's compliance with safety measures and potential broader issues about the agency's decisions on when to penalize employers and cite alleged “willful” violations.
OSHA standards officials recently met with communication tower industry representatives regarding details of the agency's plan to devise new regulations on safety in construction and maintenance of cellular towers that are rapidly sprouting up around the country to keep pace with mobile networks, but at the same time the industry is crafting its own consensus standard that is expected to come out long before OSHA even approaches a final rule, sources close to the issue tell Inside OSHA Online.
Chemical Safety Board (CSB) Chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso tells Inside OSHA Online he will defy vocal calls by a cluster of Republican lawmakers for President Obama to ask for his resignation just weeks after a House oversight committee hearing in which he took bipartisan fire over allegations of mismanagement and charges that he attempted to block an Office of Inspector General (OIG) probe of the board's operations -- with some going as far as to accuse him of trying to retaliate against a CSB whistleblower and deflect questions about the incident.
Cal/OSHA is pushing fall protection in construction as part of a broader campaign on building sector safety, in a possible bid to distinguish its own compliance activities as federal OSHA pursues its own high-profile effort to increase worker safety protections in the building sector especially in the hazardous and active summer months.
A new federally backed study showing an apparent a link between breast cancer risk and women's work exposure to solvents prior to first childbirth could compound longstanding worries by NIOSH and OSHA about the long-term health effects of occupational exposure to cleaning chemicals, an area the two agencies have worked as a co-branded initiative.
Industry consultants are preparing for publication an updated epidemiological study of hexavalent chromium's (Cr6) inhalation risks, with a goal of providing more information about the effects of exposure to the element at low levels Americans may encounter in the environment -- which could influence ongoing Cr6 risk assessments as OSHA continues tough enforcement on Cr6, most prominently in building inspections.