Daily News

Industry groups are urging White House officials to ensure that pending Environmental Protection Agency rules on nanoscale materials include a “clear definition” of what constitutes a nanomaterial, with some citing a recent European Commission (EC) definition that critics say included “no bright lines” about what would and would not be covered by forthcoming regulations.

A key OSHA advisory panel may recommend that the Labor secretary seek a presidential executive order to effectively tighten chemical exposure limits in federal workplaces, but has stalled over how two related proposals should be worded so as to avoid legal ambiguity, especially for federal contractors. Meanwhile OSHA's top official called the push for tougher federal exposure limits potentially a “breakthrough” that could set a national trend.

An OSHA advisory panel may call for federal agencies to take the lead in addressing outdated chemical exposure limits in the workplace by adopting exposure caps for federal workers that are lower than OSHA's permissible exposure limits (PELs), which many view as outdated, a source familiar with the issue says. The proposal will be taken up this week by a task force under a panel advising OSHA on safety and health protections for federal employees. One source said the effort, if successful, could also set an example for private companies to reduce exposures.

Environmental and farmworker groups are warning the Environmental Protection Agency they will sue if they agency does not follow through with plans to propose an update to its 20-year-old worker protection standards (WPS), arguing that the revised rule is needed because the agency's pesticide registration process does not adequately account for risks to workers and applicators.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is taking steps to improve health and safety in the use of needles and other sharps, by launching a new web page explaining safe disposal of the medical devices, but doesn't plan formal regulatory action, an agency official says. The move buttresses a longstanding effort by OSHA to prevent bloodborne pathogen hazards in the health care sector, though a union advocate for health workers criticized FDA for not taking a regulatory approach.

OSHA, in what observers call an unusual move, has reached a formal agency Alliance with a worker advocacy group that represents employees in the restaurant industry. Experts in both business and organized labor say OSHA in recent years has shown less inclination to enter into alliances with worker advocacy-focused groups, and instead has focused on forging formal relationships with employers.

The treated wood sector, including companies that use wood products as a fuel source, is urging the Environmental Protection Agency to ensure that it defines treated wood as a “fuel” subject to EPA's boiler air toxics rule rather than a “waste” subject to stricter incinerator emissions limits. Meanwhile the United Steelworkers suggest EPA's plan to revise the non-hazardous secondary materials (NHSM) rule to clarify that biomass, wood debris and other products are considered fuel obviates the need for legislation to change the rule.

Harvard University researchers are in talks with the California State Compensation Insurance Fund (SCIF) about establishing an academic detailing program to improve the prescribing habits of opioid medicines and painkillers for injured workers to help them return to work sooner, with the effort likely representing the first iteration of such an activity that could also serve as a template for other states. Meanwhile, a parallel initiative to create the first U.S. insurance industry-funded academic detailing program is making headway, according to the organizer of the payor consortium.

A hotly contested regulation by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has dozens of House Republicans signing onto a friend of the court brief arguing that the rule, mandating that employers post notices of workers' labor rights, is unlawful and, among other legal issues, undermines workplace safety notices directed under the OSH Act.

A major workplace health group, in a rare move, took its case directly to the White House in urging the Office of Management and Budget to release OSHA's long-awaited regulatory plan to tackle crystalline silica exposures. The American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) says the public needs an opportunity to view the proposal, and expressed worry that OMB might cave to industry's call to remove the construction sector from the rule.

Industrial hygienists are floating a position paper that debunks as “misperception” the notion that ergonomics is not a science, pointing to a large body of scientific research on the subject. The American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) argues that programs to tackle ergo-related issues save money in the long run through productivity and reduced workers' compensation costs, and also asserts that ergonomic injuries can be diagnosed.

As OSHA prepares to roll out a new National Emphasis Program (NEP) focused on nursing homes and residential care, organized labor is pressuring the agency to further tamp down on health care-related injuries and illnesses by also toughening its inspections of hospitals. An industry source says the nursing home and residential care industries have already expressed concerns about two key aspects of the planned NEP -- health care worker back injuries and exposure to workplace violence, which are contentious areas due to the lack of specific federal standards.

A top OSHA official on Nov. 3 refuted as “misinformation” reports floating around the occupational safety and health field that the agency may tighten its noise exposure limit after having scrapped a controversial plan to re-interpret the meaning of feasibility in its noise standards early this year. The agency denies speculation that it is trying to reduce the eight-hour time-weighted average exposure limit to below the current 90-dBA threshold, and says it wants to work cooperatively with employers to abate high noise levels.

A public interest group that keeps close tabs on OSHA enforcement activity sharply called into question the agency's citation and penalty practices, saying “lax” procedures have allowed safety problems to run rampant without holding employers fully responsible, in the wake of a grain elevator blast in Kansas that killed six workers in late October. But OSHA -- which currently has a grain elevator emphasis program under way -- has not yet released details of its probe of the incident, nor made public any plans to cite the Kansas employer.

University research funded through a NIOSH program has found that workers on so-called “green” construction projects face greater exposure to hazards as well as new potential dangers, a conclusion that researchers say could provide the impetus for further studies. OSHA recently took steps to pursue the larger issue of green jobs, offering information to the public about possible work site risks.

A key public interest group is pressuring OSHA to use the general duty clause of the OSH Act to enforce limits on resident physician work hours to battle fatigue and related hazards, after the agency denied the group's petition for formal regulatory action on the issue for the second time in a decade and deferred to an outside accrediting group. The organization, Public Citizen, also wants OSHA to ramp up enforcement of whistleblower laws to counter retaliation against doctors who lodge safety and health concerns over lengthy work periods.

OSHA chief David Michaels says the agency will unveil “as soon as possible” a new directive that implements a years-old pledge to extend its 2002 revised fall protection requirements on communications tower construction to also cover tower maintenance, responding to new pressure from House Republicans to bring the enforcement policies in line, according to documents obtained by Inside OSHA Online. The tower erectors industry has urged OSHA for years to allow hoisting during tower maintenance operations, as the 2002 directive allowed for new communications tower construction.

Key stakeholders watching OSHA's longtime effort to bring permissible exposure limits (PELs) in line with current scientific evidence told Inside OSHA Online that they expect little or no progress on updating the limits before the end of this presidential term, though using the general duty clause as a stopgap continues to be discussed.

OSHA has sent its draft final rule on hazard communication to the White House for review, the last internal step leading to possible issuance of the long-awaited rule that will align U.S. labeling and reporting requirements with the globally harmonized system of chemical classification and labeling (GHS). OSHA observers say the effort to align the U.S.

OSHA has invoked what sources call a rarely used provision of its Field Operations Manual (FOM) in a bid to collect data from all of its regional offices and state plans on ergonomics-related claims. The move follows a string of worker complaints against Hyatt hotels around the country, the agency response to which may be unprecedented, sources say.