Daily News

The Obama administration has proposed a slight increase in OSHA funding for fiscal year 2013 with the extra resources going to areas including whistleblower protection programs, modernizing data collection and regulatory support. But the agency also hopes to save money in other areas, including by consolidating regional offices. The administration has requested $680,000 more for OSHA than fiscal year 2012 enacted levels for a funding total of nearly $565.5 million.

OSHA plans to maintain funding for Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP) under the Obama administration's budget plan for the agency heading into the next fiscal year, but reduce federal compliance assistance costs overall to ensure state consultation funds are preserved, agency officials say. Among upcoming changes, OSHA says it will no longer offer the Corporate and Merit VPP program to new sites in fiscal 2013.

A key advisory group to the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) on national vaccination issues is urging the department to encourage the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to continue efforts to standardize the methodology used to measure health care personnel (HCP) influenza vaccination rates across settings. But the panel, in a Feb. 8 vote, stopped short of recommending that HHS impose new penalties to make sure hospitals comply.

A major union representing metal workers has joined with the only U.S. producer of pure beryllium to propose a draft standard to OSHA that would, if the agency adopts the model, cut the permissible exposure limit (PEL) for the metal by 90 percent, as well as require feasible engineering controls to protect workers where beryllium dust or fume are generated, even if exposure levels are at or below the new PEL.

An advisory panel to federal health officials has approved a controversial recommendation that health care employers consider a mandatory approach to influenza shots for their workers if necessary to achieve higher vaccination rate goals. The move comes amid heated debate on the issue and over organized labor's objections to the idea of HHS providing what they consider a license to health care facilities to fire workers who decline such vaccinations.

The Environmental Protection Agency, in a bid to coordinate its requirements with an upcoming OSHA rule, appears to be taking its first steps toward implementing the United Nations' (U.N.) Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS), a system intended to standardize chemicals' labels and safety sheets and warn workers of their potential hazards, but the warnings may conflict with some existing American standards.

A federal advisory panel is discussing whether to recommend that the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) urge the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to step up their efforts to standardize methods of reporting health care worker influenza vaccination rates to a government-run database and impose stiff enough penalties to ensure hospitals comply.

Unions and public health activists are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to strengthen worker protection provisions in a recently proposed rule governing nanomaterials, arguing that protections fall short of best practices. The effort comes as OSHA and NIOSH continue to study potential emerging workplace safety issues presented by nanotechnology.

House Republicans are stepping up their attacks on President Obama's controversial recess appointments of three members to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which has been a lightning rod for GOP attacks over recent policy decisions that critics say are tilted toward organized labor. Meanwhile, the compliance deadline for a new NLRB workplace notice rule -- which Republicans argue would undermine other notices required by labor laws including the OSH Act -- has been extended as the legal process plays out.

OSHA will release the draft regulatory text of its planned injury and illness prevention program (I2P2) rule in the second half of February, as part of the formal small business review process, an agency official told Inside OSHA Online, and in advance of that the agency is spelling out six basic tenets of what it envisions for I2P2.

The basic elements of I2P2, according to OSHA, are: management leadership; worker participation; hazard identification and assessment; hazard prevention and control; education and training; and program evaluation and improvement.

OSHA will direct field offices to investigate whether coal slag abrasive manufacturers are complying with the hazard communication standard, due to concerns relayed to OSHA that beryllium in coal slag products is not being disclosed to end users, an agency official told Inside OSHA Online. The move follows a formal demand by a public interest group for the agency to step up enforcement of the standard.

White House officials have decided they need more time to review OSHA's plan to update its hazard communication standard to cohere with the Globally Harmonized System (GHS) of classifying and labeling chemicals, extending their review beyond the standard three-month time frame as industry officials continue to voice concerns with OSHA's draft final rule. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) is among the latest industry groups to sit down with White House Office of Management and Budget officials to express concerns over the rule's scope, having met with the office Jan.

A key occupational health group will reconstitute a work group of some dozen experts on OSHA permissible exposure limits (PELs) to help identify potential approaches to updating the regulatory caps, an official familiar with the issue told Inside OSHA Online. OSHA's planned request for information (RFI) on PEL updates, which the agency says in its new regulatory agenda could be issued by August, has reinvigorated a years-old stakeholder push for coordinated efforts to address the problem, the official says.

OSHA appears to have pulled back on formal attempts to advance two key regulatory initiatives that have caused political controversy -- new standards to address diacetyl and combustible dust -- though an OSHA official said the agency is still working on them as long-term actions. At the same time OSHA is taking preliminary steps to address the need to update chemical exposure limits, observers say. The agency came out with its new regulatory agenda Friday (Jan. 20) as part of the Labor Department's list of rulemaking priorities for the near future.

The Environmental Protection Agency is defending itself against allegations by its Inspector General (IG) that EPA authorized controversial demolition practices that might cause asbestos exposures, and that EPA may have violated OSHA rules for personal protective equipment.

The IG on Dec. 14 issued an “early warning report” on allegations that EPA may have authorized use of the so-called “wet method” of demolishing asbestos-contaminated buildings at various sites, including the Hanford Superfund Site near Richland, WA and a gaseous diffusion plant in Paducah, KY.

A top OSHA official conveyed “serious policy concerns” to the Health and Human Services Department about HHS promoting a mandatory approach to health care worker vaccination for influenza, saying OSHA strongly supports efforts to increase the vaccination rates but does not believe the evidence is sufficient to back requirements that could result in workers being fired.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board's (CSB) top official jumped into an ongoing dispute over the inclusion of an “unclassified hazards” category under OSHA's upcoming final rule to amend its hazard communication (hazcom) standard, telling White House officials the category should be included to ensure combustible dust is addressed. The CSB official complained to the White House that industry is trying to get the category removed, but an industry source told Inside OSHA Online that CSB's view is “not relevant” as the board is not a regulated entity.

Washington state's OSHA plan has rolled out new regulations governing the safe handling of hazardous drugs in health care settings, following the mandate of a state law enacted last year and prompting worker advocates to call for similar policies at the federal and state levels. Sources also said action by the states could help spur more stringent requirements by health care providers across their operations.

OSHA plans to convene a small business review panel on its closely watched injury and illness prevention program (I2P2) rulemaking by early March, Washington sources say.

The Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy (SBA) sent to small business representatives a notice, obtained by Inside OSHA Online, that OSHA on Jan. 6 provided notice to SBA and the Office of Management and Budget's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) that the agency intends to convene the panel within 60 days.

OSHA has unveiled a new white paper that recommends U.S. businesses roll out comprehensive injury and illness prevention programs (I2P2), and while the recommendations are voluntary, employer interests are digging in their heels against the agency's stance that I2P2 should eventually be mandatory. An industry source latched onto OSHA's references about states' differing I2P2 approaches to raise concern the agency may be contemplating a regulation that imposes more stringent enforcement.