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A key NIOSH scientific advisory board is asking the research agency for a detailed update on its work in the area of ergonomics and musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), a move that could fuel the industry/union debate over ergo and how to approach the hotly contested issue through research. NIOSH has an extensive cross-sector program in place studying the issue, and the agency's Board Of Scientific Counselors (BSC) plans to take up the subject at its meeting next spring, sources knowledgeable about the issue tell Inside OSHA Online.

Lessons learned from the disaster response to the World Trade Center attack have helped NIOSH and other agencies, including OSHA, in their responses to large-scale events such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster, NIOSH chief John Howard tells Inside OSHA Online in an exclusive interview. A key lesson, he says, is the need to prospectively develop a roster of workers, which he notes was done for the Deepwater oil spill response.

The Obama administration estimates that OSHA's budget would be cut by $46 million early next year under the automatic, government-wide sequestration triggered by the failure of the congressional “super committee” to come up with a deficit reduction plan under the Budget Control Act, the compromise reached during the showdown over raising the debt ceiling in 2011. The $46 million cut, if carried out, would be part of an 8.2 percent hit to non-defense discretionary spending.

Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP) participants are largely against a concept floated within OSHA of “graduating” employers from the recognition program after a period of time, sources closely watching the issue say. The idea -- which opponents say creates a disincentive for employers to make the effort required to join VPP -- emerged from a comprehensive internal review of VPP that came up with a variety of suggestions to improve the program.

In an effort to get “ahead of the curve” of federal and state regulators' increasing attention to consumer products and their ingredients, the soap and detergent industry is creating an inventory of chemicals in its products with the aim of providing more information to regulators, particularly state agencies. The industry move comes as an environmental and union group launches a new database of industrial chemicals for worker use.

A six-month continuing resolution introduced in the House on Monday would keep OSHA at just over current funding levels for six months. A source said the House may take up the measure this week followed by the Senate next week, with the possibility that lawmakers in the upper chamber could include additional provisions.

House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) said the CR “is a good-faith effort to provide limited, yet fair and adequate funding for government programs and services until March 27, or until final Appropriations legislation can be approved.”

Stakeholders from both industry and worker advocacy groups say OSHA's recent release of data from its National Emphasis Program (NEP) on recordkeeping lacks the level of specificity about the inspection results that would be needed to judge whether it was a worthwhile use of agency resources. One worker health advocate says that with OSHA enforcement resources tight, it would also be useful to provide recordkeeping training and outreach to employers and workers to improve incident recording practices.

Advocates for Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP) employers take issue with OSHA's broad stance that company incentive programs have “the potential to” inhibit incident reporting and as a result, discourage adequate recordkeeping. A key organization representing VPP employers disputes OSHA's earlier assertions that the group harbors the same concerns and tells lawmakers the agency “stabbed us in the back” in its handling of the issue.

An environmental consultant who helped industry gain a review from an alliance of risk assessment experts of the Environmental Protection Agency's policy decisions regarding the ubiquitous solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) is arguing in a new paper that the non-cancer risk level in the agency's TCE risk assessment will become a driving factor in many cleanups despite a lack of EPA guidance on the issue. A source familiar with the issue has suggested industry concerns might be driven partly by fears the proposed limit could bolster future worker protection claims.

OSHA officials are pressing forward on a plan, laid out in the agency's fiscal 2013 budget request, to remove the Merit and Corporate levels of participation from Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP), following an internal work group's report last year that called for OSHA to consider discontinuing the special levels. An OSHA official says the agency already has or will move ahead with changes sought by the work group, which was spearheaded by a group of regional administrators and area directors studying the effectiveness of VPP.

Democrats vow to continue adopting and enforcing comprehensive OSHA safety standards as part of a 2013 platform unveiled late Monday that contrasts sharply with Republicans' pledge last week to rein in OSHA's regulatory agenda.

A top OSHA official says the agency will ramp up its use of so-called Special Government Employees (SGEs) in the approval and re-approval process for sites that participate in Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP). The move toward increased use of company employees on-site to monitor the voluntary programs follows a special report, spearheaded by OSHA regional administrators, on ways to improve the effectiveness of VPP.

OSHA is making its position clear to two key Senate backers of the agency's Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP) that the agency does not target or give preferential treatment to any VPP participants, while defending a policy change last year that made it harder for employers to use injury rate-based incentive programs that OSHA says could discourage injury reporting. The assurances come on the heels of concerns expressed by VPP advocates and a pair of senators over the change regarding how OSHA weighs the use of incentive programs by VPP employers.

The American Chemistry Council (ACC) is asking a federal district court to order the Health & Human Services Department (HHS) to hand over documents concerning the listing of formaldehyde in the Report on Carcinogens (RoC) that the group alleges HHS has failed to produce in violation of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and other laws.

OSHA officials and representatives of the groups that have filed suit over the agency's recently finalized hazard communication (hazcom) standard have met several times since the litigation began in hopes of coming up with a resolution out of court, a source familiar with the issue tells Inside OSHA Online.

Texas officials have issued a rare inhalation risk assessment of arsenic for use in air monitoring and permit decisions, using the Environmental Protection Agency's conservative “linear” approach for assessing risks that has drawn attacks from industry because the approach -- which EPA is using in its stalled study of arsenic's oral risks -- assumes no safe exposure level. Arsenic has come up as a chemical of concern in OSHA consultations with stakeholders on updating permissible exposure limits.

Republicans are setting their sights on what they call OSHA's “overreaching” regulatory agenda as a key target for policy change as they put together a broad platform for the party's national convention in Tampa, FL. OSHA comes up as an example of what the GOP characterizes as a heavy regulatory burden by the Obama administration, though the draft does not name any specific items on the agency's agenda. The Republicans take a shot at OSHA along with Obama's Environmental Protection Agency and health care and financial services reforms.

OSHA has decided that employers who are labeled as severe violators must keep that status for three years and if they don't meet strict criteria for exiting the controversial monitoring program at that point they must stay in for an additional three years before getting a second evaluation. The newly unveiled exit strategy responds to persistent questions from both inside and outside the agency over how employers could demonstrate adequate compliance to be removed from the stepped-up enforcement effort.

OSHA is rolling out a major reorganization of its Directorate of Enforcement Programs (DEP) that includes a new office to provide technical assistance to the field concerning high-risk occupational chemical hazards, according to internal agency documents obtained by Inside OSHA Online. The new branch of enforcement, called the Office of Chemical Process Safety and Enforcement Initiatives (OCPSEI), will develop a comprehensive program for safety inspections and investigations related to chemical safety and health, the documents say.

Agencies across the federal government have taken steps to protect their workers against an influenza pandemic, but agencies have reported uneven status in some key areas, suggesting further oversight is needed, a recent report by the investigative arm of Congress concludes. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) coincides with the Department of Health and Human Services efforts to increase flu vaccinations rates in the health care sector, including the controversial issue of mandatory inoculation.