Daily News

OSHA is touting a recent district court decision that found the United States Postal Service (USPS) unlawfully retaliated against a worker for reporting an on-the-job injury, but the ruling also rejected -- for now -- the agency’s bid for an order that would require USPS to strengthen its whistleblower protections nationwide.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is set to consider how strictly OSHA can apply its fall-protection standard in a construction company’s appeal of an enforcement case that has so far focused on how workers should apply the rule’s mandate to wear protective gear when crossing a height difference over 2 feet.

Unions representing workers at poultry slaughterhouses have voluntarily dropped their long-pending suit against the Department of Agriculture (USDA) over the safety impacts of line speed waivers for the sector, apparently in response to the beginning of a new Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) trial that replaced the Trump-era program they challenged.

OSHA has unveiled its latest warehouse-safety citation against Amazon, this time alleging that the retail giant failed to provide “adequate medical treatment” for employees with traumatic and chronic injuries at a fulfillment facility in Castleton, NY -- which the agency says is just one of 20 open investigations into the firm’s workplaces.

OSHA is beginning a new enforcement national emphasis program (NEP) aimed at preventing on-the-job falls -- which the agency notes is the leading cause of fatal workplace accidents -- and improving compliance with the fall protection standard.

The Department of Labor (DOL) announced the program May 1, saying it will focus on “reducing fall-related injuries and fatalities for people working at heights in all industries.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit has found that OSHA properly treated two subsidiaries of Universal Health Services (UHS) as a “single employer” in a citation for workplace violence at a Massachusetts facility, rejecting the firm’s claim that doing so would render the test “near-boundless” -- but also classifying its decision as non-precedential.

A National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (NACOSH) working group crafting advice for OSHA’s long-awaited heat-danger standard appears set to recommend that the rule avoid tying protections to specific temperatures and instead account for variability in working conditions and geographic areas.

California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board is divided over a pending proposal to substantially strengthen worker-safety rules for lead exposure in the construction sector and general industry, with several members agreeing with employers that the draft standard should be slowed and scaled back and others arguing it is far overdue.

A three-judge appellate panel appears skeptical of an Ohio contractor’s constitutional challenge to OSHA’s safety standard program, suggesting during recent oral arguments that the petitioner have a high bar to clear and questioning whether the case was intended only to challenge Supreme Court precedent on the so-called non-delegation doctrine.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could reverse -- or at least narrow -- the longstanding Chevron doctrine, which grants OSHA and other federal agencies discretion to reasonably interpret ambiguous statutory language.

The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is preparing to ask the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to renew its expiring information collection request (ICR) that allows industrial facilities to notify the board in the event of an “accidental release” that could be subject to investigation and prompt advice to EPA and OSHA on how to prevent such incidents.

The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is urging EPA to tighten its risk management program (RMP) to account for “reactive hazards” and extreme weather events driven by climate change, reiterating a swath of prior recommendations in its new report on a Gulf Coast chemical spill set off by 2020’s Hurricane Laura.

A scientist at EPA’s TSCA office says the agency’s collection of data on worker safety and chemical exposures differs in scope and purpose from industrial hygienists and employers’ methods, offering more insight into the program’s assessment process just as it is floating its first set of workplace safety standards in a newly proposed rule for methylene chloride.

OSHA’s enforcement chief has issued a letter of interpretation stating that the process safety management (PSM) standard allows host employers to train contract workers on requirements for handling hazardous chemicals, holding that host-led instruction satisfies the rule as long as the contractor’s direct employer ensures its adequacy and maintains records.

EPA chemicals chief Michal Freedhoff used the launch of the agency’s landmark TSCA risk-management proposal for methylene chloride to temper top officials’ prior statements that cast the rule and its worker-protection standards as a model for future chemical regulations under the law, saying key elements of the draft rest on case-specific factors.

An employer attorney says Amazon’s challenge to Washington State’s requirement for firms to abate alleged safety violations before administrative review of their citations is “ripe for an appeal” after a federal district court rejected the suit, holding out hope that further litigation could scrap the policy, though he warned that the retailer’s own arguments undercut its claims.

EPA’s newly proposed TSCA rule for methylene chloride would require a quick phaseout of most uses of the solvent but allows others to continue under a strict workplace exposure limit with monitoring and protective-gear mandates based on OSHA standards -- a line the agency’s chemicals chief says her office drew based on its “trust” in those sectors to adopt its safeguards.

The head of workplace safety practice at the law firm Conn Maciel Carey called OSHA’s severe violator enforcement program (SVEP) “unconstitutional” during a recent panel on the agency’s recent moves to strengthen it, arguing that it imposes penalties on employers before they can seek judicial review of pending citations, in violation of their due-process rights.

A new report from the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) claims the expansion of nitrogen fertilizer production since the 2013 West, TX, explosion is endangering public safety and the environment due in part to lax rules for the sector, urging EPA and OSHA to bolster facility-safety requirements for storing ammonium nitrate among other policy changes.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is floating a draft plan to overhaul its years-old chemical security program, seeking to break from EPA methods that were the basis for its 2007 rule for determining which chemicals and facilities to regulate, though the program’s future hinges on Congress reauthorizing it before it expires in July.