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Public Citizen has launched a nationwide campaign to raise awareness of what it estimates are the total costs of on-the-job injuries to the public coffers. The campaign has opened with a report on Maryland's construction industry, in which the group says injuries cost $712.8 million between 2008 and 2010. Sources say the group is trying to make a broader issue of alleged bad actors receiving public contracts.

California's Department of Toxic Substances Control's recently released final draft “green chemistry” regulations are drawing mixed reviews from environmentalists and have failed to quell industry concerns over the costs of the program and how it will be enforced. The draft comes out as OSHA continues exploring ways to tackle what it considers outdated permissible exposure limits for many chemicals.

Two key safety and health organizations are urging the federal government to adopt a set of recommendations from OSHA's federal worker advisory council to upgrade the qualifications for its occupational safety and health (OSH) job series, arguing that the existing requirements are outdated. A source familiar with the process tells Inside OSHA Online that the next steps in evaluating the recommendations include reaching out to agencies to determine the need for a change and the potential impact.

Hawaii's state OSHA plan and federal OSHA have agreed on a tentative plan for concurrent jurisdiction until the state's budget woes subside and the state plan can maintain higher staffing levels. The change to the state plan's status -- on which the feds are seeking public comment as a proposed rule -- backtracks on an informal agreement the agencies reached more than a year ago to head off concurrent jurisdiction. But a source familiar with the issue says the move does not signal broader intent by OSHA to expand its jurisdiction in the states.

Six companies engaged in manufacturing coal slag products have agreed to disclose the content of beryllium contained in the slag on hazard communication data sheets, bowing to Public Citizen's demand for disclosure of the substance, the public interest group says. OSHA, facing pressure from Public Citizen, told Inside OSHA Online earlier this year that it would direct field offices to probe if coal slag manufacturers were complying with the hazcom standard, and one of the six companies says it decided to disclose the data after receiving a request from Minnesota OSHA.

OSHA and other agencies will have to test their data collection forms before releasing them to the public, according to a new requirement from the White House Office of Information & Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). Among the types of forms that OMB lists as examples are forms for obtaining grants, and the new requirement also likely includes information collection requests (ICRs), which are data collection efforts that NIOSH routinely sends to industries.

Chemical manufacturers and industrial consumers of flame retardant chemicals are at odds over the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed test rule and significant new use rule (SNUR) for the class of substances known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), a package intended to curtail most uses of decabrominated diphenyl ether (deca), particularly in products.

A key safety organization is calling on Congress to support OSHA's efforts to promulgate an injury and illness prevention program (I2P2) rule while also backing voluntary protection programs (VPP), arguing that OSHA should require all employers to adopt health and safety programs as required of VPP participants. The group's push for a systemic adoption of I2P2 comes as the House work force protections panel studies both the successes and weaknesses of VPP. The group also says it backs codification of VPP to make it a “permanent and unassailable” part of OSHA.

The Labor Department spending measure that recently cleared the House Appropriations Committee contains a cluster of policy riders that would stall several OSHA efforts: an injury and illness prevention program (I2P2) rule still in the early stages of development; enforcement of an OSHA standard related to worker proximity to machinery in grain storage operations; and the applicability to residential roofers of its recent controversial tightening of fall protection requirements.

The White House Office of Management and Budget will begin meeting with federal agencies to discuss plans for implementing cuts mandated by sequestration and identifying programs that could be exempt from the automatic cuts set to take effect Jan. 2, the Obama Administration states in a memo to agency heads July 31, while also pressing Congress to “redouble its efforts” to reduce the deficit and avoid sequestration.

Public Citizen says OSHA's recent denial of its petition for a heat illness standard will result in increased pressure on the federal agency as well as stepped-up activity on the issue in state plan states. But the group is highly unlikely to sue OSHA over the petition denial, as it has not typically done so in cases where a petition was denied outright, as opposed to unanswered, an official with the group says.

The Environmental Protection Agency is rejecting calls from its Inspector General (IG) to review its “limited” data underpinning a rule setting lead paint renovation requirements, with the agency arguing its analysis was “appropriate” despite the IG's recommendation for EPA to review the rule's costs and benefits to determine whether it should amend or even scrap the policy. OSHA's lead standard has come up as a key concern of stakeholders in discussions on updating the agency's permissible exposure limits.

NIOSH is working towards issuing the draft of a new policy on classification of carcinogens by December, an agency source says. The agency is looking at whether to adopt a new tiered classification system that would create different levels of identified risk, like systems used by other organizations such as the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

Oil industry groups are warning that the Environmental Protection Agency's plan to tighten a general discharge permit for offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico may hinder companies' ability to meet new safety policies initiated in the wake of the BP oil spill, saying the permit could boost pollution from increased vessel traffic to handle liquids that would be barred from discharge. Meanwhile the U.S.

OSHA's revised recordkeeping National Emphasis Program (NEP) found less under-reporting of recordkeeping violations per inspection than was the case under the first version of the effort that the agency had put on hold after the results were lower than expected, reveals an agency report to Congress, obtained by Inside OSHA Online. The initial version of the NEP, which focused on establishments with low rates of days away from work in high-rate industries, found recordkeeping violations at around half of the facilities.

NIOSH chief John Howard says the World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program will eventually provide OSHA with useful epidemiological data on workers' long-term health effects from chemical and physical agent exposures. The program, which provides medical evaluation and treatment to eligible 9/11 responders and survivors, is now up and running within the research agency, with its own statutorily dedicated funding stream.

A progressive advocacy group is floating a wide-ranging blueprint for reforms it says would make OSHA more effective, including some changes that would require legislation but others that could be done administratively, such as a tougher approach to criminal penalties through broader agency use of the “responsible corporate officer” doctrine.

The Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) and parties intervening on its behalf in a case where industry challenges styrene's listing in the 12th Report on Carcinogens (RoC) are asking a federal judge to grant a summary judgment upholding the listing while denying industry's own recent request for a summary judgment overturning it.

A top OSHA official says the agency is closely analyzing data gathered from recently wrapped-up inspections under its refinery National Emphasis Program (NEP), and has inspected many refineries throughout the country under the special inspection program.

OSHA has sent its final rule for electric power transmission and distribution and electrical protective equipment to the White House for review, moving closer to publishing what is one of only a handful of major new rules expected to come out of the agency this year. Electrical contractors are anxiously awaiting to see how the the rulemaking, which has been in the works since 2003, handles such issues as requirements for supplying personal protective equipment (PPE) and hazard communication.