Daily News

Delta Air Lines Inc. has signed a corporate-wide settlement agreement with OSHA to protect workers who operate baggage handling vehicles, a move that reflects the agency's new push for global corporate settlements. The agency is also taking steps to address similar hazards throughout the airline industry, recently sending a hazard alert letter to airlines across the nation reminding them that they are obligated to comply with applicable seat belt use requirements.

An advisory panel addressing workplace safety issues among federal workers will unveil new recommendations on ways to update OSHA permissible exposure limits (PELs) at a May 3 meeting in Washington, OSHA says. The tentative agenda for the Federal Advisory Council on Occupational Safety and Health (FACOSH) includes a review of revised recommendations on PELs from the FACOSH Emerging Issues -- Permissible Exposure Limits Work Group, proposed changes to the OSHA recordkeeping rule, and H1N1 recommendations the Labor Secretary recently approved.

Lawmakers are expected to introduce a bill later this month to reauthorize the Pesticide Registration Improvement Renewal Act (PRIA) that sets fees and a schedule for the registration of pesticide products, prompting pesticide industry groups and others to ramp up their lobbying efforts urging Congress to pass the widely-backed bill.

The Supreme Court has turned down a request from an industry trade group to decide whether the safety standard process in the OSH Act is constitutional. The court, in a list of orders released Monday, says it has denied the request to take up the case following a federal Appeals Court ruling on the matter.

A maritime industry trade group is asking the Supreme Court to decide if the occupational safety standard-setting process outlined in the OSH Act is constitutional, arguing that a “cloud” has hung over the act for decades because the courts have never clearly established whether Congress went too far in the act by delegating legislative power to the agency. Legal experts, however, tell Inside OSHA Online the petitioners have an uphill climb and it would be surprising if the court overturns the law's provisions or even hears the case.

A three-judge appeals court panel has shot down OSHA's stance that it has authority to issue recordkeeping citations up to five years after a violation occurred if employer logs remain inaccurate -- handing a major victory to industry and, according to sources closely watching the issue, forcing the agency to issue future recordkeeping citations within six months of when the actual violation occurred, in line with industry's position.

Health care worker advocates are generally praising OSHA's launch of a new National Emphasis Program (NEP) for nursing and residential care facilities, saying the program is a needed step to address issues such as ergonomics and workplace violence, but also lodging persistent concerns that the agency has not reached more broadly into the health care sector. Industry officials, however, are concerned that OSHA is using the directive to tackle issues for which there are no specific standards.

The Environmental Protection Agency has withdrawn its strict interim cleanup targets for dioxin-contaminated soils from White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) review, a fresh delay for the already-stalled goals that is likely to rile activists who urged OMB to complete its review in order to ensure adequate dioxin cleanups by states and federal agencies.

Key backers of NIOSH funding are launching a campaign against a pair of revived proposals in the Obama administration's budget request to zero out funding for education and training programs that advocates view as crucial to replenishing the labor pool in the occupational safety and health field. But simultaneously the Obama blueprint for fiscal 2013 to fund Labor and Health and Human Services (HHS) has come under increasing fire from Republicans for not tightening agency budgets further.

Republican critics of OSHA's planned injury and illness prevention program (I2P2) rule and Democratic supporters of the effort are both pointing to a sweeping report on the impact of such programs at workplaces in California to draw competing assessments of such initiatives. Congressional skeptics of federal OSHA's plan say the study, by the RAND Corp., points broadly to ineffectiveness of I2P2 efforts in California, but backers of the planned rule say the report shows the programs work if adequately enforced.

OSHA is struggling with how to handle the process for moving employers off of its Severe Violator Enforcement Program (SVEP) once they demonstrate willingness and continuous efforts to comply with OSHA standards, a key agency official says. The program was launched in 2010, and while the agency says it has been successfully ramped up by adding employers OSHA calls severe violators, right now there is no clear path to ending the SVEP designations. Sources suggest the agency's corporate-wide settlement policies may offer the best guide for moving employers off the list.

The Labor Department's Office of Inspector General (OIG) is launching an investigation of OSHA's Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) just as the agency prepares to release a recently completed internal review of the program. A source says the draft OSHA report is “critical” of the program's administration, however, a top OSHA official in a speech last week defended the agency's effort to manage the program and said VPP continues to garner strong support from OSHA's leadership.

A top OSHA official says the agency will soon produce a white paper on injury and illness prevention programs (I2P2) that focuses on enforcement, following shortly on the heels of a broader white paper on I2P2 concepts that OSHA published earlier this year. The official rejects two notions about OSHA's intent with regard to a proposed I2P2 rule, saying there are no plans to use it as a “second general duty clause” or double-cite for alleged violations.

OSHA's new hazard communication rule (hazcom) does not preempt state tort laws under which lawsuits over alleged hazardous chemical exposures are filed, conforming to the broad policy on federal preemption outlined early on by the Obama administration, the agency says. The agency resisted calls from some industry stakeholders to add language stating that OSHA is preempting state personal injury suits alleging that labels provided inadequate warnings.

The Environmental Protection Agency's proposed safety requirements for a series of carbon nanotubes are raising the ire of NIOSH officials who say EPA's rule falls short of protecting workers and are urging the agency to adopt more protective measures to prevent exposure until further risk assessment is completed.

Business interests and a House lawmaker are crying foul over a new OSHA enforcement memorandum targeting what the agency calls “employer safety incentive and disincentive policies and practices” that the agency contends in some cases could result in whistleblower statute or recordkeeping violations under the OSH Act and railroad safety laws. OSHA says the policy directly takes on procedures at companies that could violate employees' statutory rights.

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis told members of Congress that OSHA has no intention of using an eventual injury and illness prevention program (I2P2) rule to “double-cite” employers when OSHA inspectors identify hazards. Business interests have expressed concern that the agency, with an I2P2 regulation in place, would cite both a workplace hazard and a violation of the program rule for the same issue found at a work site.

OSHA shifted directions and decided to include disclosure of the voluntary threshold limit values (TLVs) developed by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists in its newly unveiled final rule aligning its hazard communication standard (hazcom) with the Globally Harmonized System of classifying and labeling chemicals (GHS), along with the compulsory OSHA permissible exposure limits (PELs).

OSHA, in a soon-to-be-published hazard communication rule, shifts its stance on how to refer to a category previously called “unclassified hazard” that had sparked protests from industry due to its apparent inclusion of combustible dust -- though the agency still says that combustible dust is covered by the rule, but as a “hazardous chemical.” The new hazcom rule, which the agency rolled out Tuesday, still requires disclosure of combustible dust under the “right to know” principle and OSHA's longtime stance that the hazard falls under hazcom requirements remains unchanged, agency officials

A group of orthopedic surgeons, patients and researchers pressed members of Congress and staff in recent days for a more intensive government effort to study musculoskeletal disorders (MSD), continuing a push for funding to study the issue, which is a key concern among OSHA stakeholders. MSD research advocates want continued resources set aside for National Institutes of Health (NIH) research projects on such disorders – though sources say an earlier legislative drive to mandate a NIOSH study has not picked up momentum in the current Congress.