The Obama administration wants Congress to allow OSHA to inspect work sites with 10 or fewer employees that potentially fall under the agency's process safety management (PSM) standard or the Environmental Protection Agency's Risk Management Program (RMP), which would modify a longstanding congressional mandate that precludes OSHA from inspecting such small businesses.
OSHA has decided to extend by three weeks the comment period on its request for data from stakeholders on whether changes are needed to the process safety management (PSM) and related standards, agreeing to stringent industry requests that the original March 10 deadline be delayed to provide more time for research due to complexity of the proposal and supporting analyses.
The Obama administration has proposed a budget for fiscal 2015 that would essentially flatline the agency's funding as compared to levels two years ago before the advent of budget sequestration, with a proposed level of $565 million and an intensive focus on enhancing whistleblower protection program activities.
The Labor Department is suing AT&T over allegations that the telecom giant suspended without pay more than a dozen workers after they reported alleged workplace injuries from 2011 to 2013.
Worker safety and health policy experts tell Inside OSHA Online it is significant that OSHA has decided to integrate into its new Site-Specific Targeting (SST) program an initiative the agency recently launched to ensure compliance with stipulations made by employers engaged in so-called “strategic partnerships,” saying the new policy sets the stage for more rigorous enforcement of those agreements.
Federal chemical safety experts are blasting a major petrochemical company for allegedly blocking a crucial investigation of a sulfuric acid release at a California refinery that they say seriously injured two workers, but the company refutes the suggestion it is improperly preventing a probe and says the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) lacks jurisdiction in the matter.
OSHA officials and stakeholders are reacting to the death of Joseph Dear, whom as OSHA chief during the Clinton administration pushed key health and safety policies including willful violation penalties, personal protective equipment requirements and electrical and hazardous communication standards.
OSHA has reached a settlement with the petroleum industry and unions following 21 months of complex negotiations in a hazardous communication case challenging the agency's enforcement of its March 2012 Global Harmonization Standard amendment, according to sources and documents obtained by Inside OSHA Online.
OSHA is working with the Agriculture Department and farmer groups to craft new guidance balancing the agency's focus on preventing fatalities at grain handling facilities against congressional restrictions on small farm enforcement, after having pulled a contentious June 2011 memo that GOP lawmakers charged violated appropriators' ban on small farm enforcement.
The Environmental Protection Agency has denied a petition from public health advocates and labor unions that urged the agency to write a rule requiring contractors and building managers to submit data about their employees' lead exposures, data that the groups said would help EPA solidify the scientific basis for a rule that would limit lead paint exposures during construction at public and commercial (P&C) buildings.
Environmentalists and worker advocates say EPA's long-awaited proposal to protect farmworkers from pesticide exposures largely fails to protect pesticide applicators and they are vowing to push for additional protections, in a rule they say is needed because EPA's registrations do not adequately assess worker risks.
The Small Business Administration is urging OSHA to work with industry to craft a “safe harbor” provision in the silica rule for construction employers who follow certain silica-safe work practices.
The federal Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is faulting voluntary oil industry safety standards for failing to prevent fires at refineries that killed or endangered workers and is reiterating a call for the Environmental Protection Agency to require inherently safer technologies (IST), such as use of less-toxic chemicals or other engineering changes to curb such industrial incidents.
As OSHA is under fire from industry for allegedly downplaying the cost of its recent silica rulemaking, another federal agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, is asking its scientific advisors how the agency could better use "economy-wide" modeling to determine the costs and benefits of its regulations.
Key House and Senate lawmakers are choosing different laws under which to create a new environmental chemical response program to address gaps highlighted by the recent West Virginia spill, with the Senate bill proposing to use the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) and the House proposing to use the Clean Water Act (CWA).
OSHA is stressing a need for employers to be responsible for the health and safety conduct of their subcontractors as part of a new fall protection focus on cell phone tower workers, with the agency sending a letter Monday (Feb. 10) to communication tower employers urging them to strictly adhere to safety standards and common sense practices and make sure their subcontractors do as well.
More than a dozen chemical, petroleum and other industry groups are urging President Obama and other officials to drop consideration of a federal mandate requiring use of inherently safer technologies (IST), such as benign chemicals, in any upcoming proposal on facility security, saying it will create an impossible burden and derail the president's effort to improve safety at the nation's industrial plants.
Environmentalists and some labor unions are seeking to re-engage in the "BlueGreen" alliance amid acrimony between the two camps over coal plant closures and the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, ahead of a "green jobs" conference in Washington, D.C., Feb. 10 and 11.
Attorneys for industry groups are opposing a proposal by the California health hazard office to potentially add more chemicals to the Proposition 65 list through a newly created administrative route under the state Labor Code, arguing the health hazard office overreaches in its interpretation of federal health and safety regulations, sources say.
Farmworker advocates are urging White House officials to ensure the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed worker protection standards (WPS) include stronger training requirements so workers can protect themselves from pesticide exposures after stricter measures, such as medical monitoring, appear unlikely to be included in the draft rule expected in the spring.