Daily News

A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a new bill to reform the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) governing how OSHA and other agencies craft their rules, which activists fear would create a cost-benefit analysis “super-mandate” that overrides statutes limiting economic considerations in developing regulations.

Several key industry groups with a stake in OSHA's silica controls recently met privately with White House officials to raise concerns with the agency's plan to tighten its silica exposure standard, with the industrial sand industry suggesting OSHA instead step up monitoring of workers under the current permissible exposure limit, which the group said is frequently not met. But organized labor decried the industry push and continues to criticize what it views as the Office of Management and Budget's lengthy review of OSHA's draft proposal.

OSHA's effort to enforce whistleblower provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) could test in the Ninth Circuit the agency's stance on back pay and reinstatement of complainants pending final court order, legal issues on which the Labor Department has already suffered losses in three other circuits, a legal source told Inside OSHA Online.

OSHA's recent high-profile activity to enforce anti-retaliation provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) are being praised by whistleblower advocates who say the agency is showing anecdotal signs of ramped-up enforcement as it takes administrative steps to restructure its whistleblower program. Further, they say OSHA appears to be welcoming the advice of outside experts on ways to better train whistleblower investigators.

GOP and Democratic members of the House panel with jurisdiction over OSHA issues both have asked Congress' investigative arm to assess the agency's effectiveness, but from different standpoints -- Republicans want the Government Accountability Office to weigh the effectiveness of OSHA's enforcement program using the same criteria the agency has applied to scrutinize state plans, and Democrats want GAO to gauge OSHA's effectiveness in issuing health and safety standards. Congressional sources confirmed that GAO has begun studies in response to lawmaker requests from both sides.

Business interests are concerned about the broad scope of OSHA's newly issued directive that calls for reliance on the OSH Act's general duty clause to enforce workplace violence protections, arguing that it is still unclear what measures employers must take to fully comply. They also cite unresolved legal issues surrounding the actions of third parties outside an employer's control. But OSHA and organized labor say a broad policy is needed because of the rampant nature of violence across many industries.

OSHA is making two key changes to inspections under its Site-Specific Targeting (SST) program, one of which effectively puts a stronger emphasis on inspecting smaller workplaces in high-hazard industries. Only workplaces in the selected industries with 40 or more employees were subject to SST inspections under last year's plan; that number is reduced to 20 or more under the newly issued plan.

OSHA revised an earlier version of its newly issued workplace violence directive just days after state plans expressed concerns about the federal agency's bid to require that states carry out the instruction using the general duty clause, a state source told Inside OSHA Online. The concerns expressed to OSHA, and the agency's subsequent change in stance, are the latest developments in a longstanding tug-of-war over the imposition of federal requirements on the states.

NIOSH faces intense pressure from a cluster of lawmakers from New York – as well as several groups representing first responders and survivors – to look into covering cancers as the agency administers the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, designed to provide medical treatment to those suffering health effects from the 9/11 attacks. A source who supports such coverage said one possible difficulty in addressing the issue is the length of time, possibly decades, that it takes for the epidemiological science to provide enough data for the agency.

Job-related fatalities last calendar year remained close to the numbers from the prior year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said, and that points in some experts' views to a statistical plateau with respect to injury and illness data.

Environmentalists fear the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) recent approval of a Department of Energy (DOE) plan to relax storage requirements at the country's only nuclear waste repository could ultimately lead to commercial power plant waste coming to the New Mexico facility, which is currently only permitted to accept defense-related waste.

A public interest group involved in health and safety issues has petitioned OSHA to draft a permanent standard to protect workers from heat illness, as well as an emergency temporary standard to offer immediate protections as the permanent rule is drafted. But sources say it is unclear whether the agency has the resources to undertake such an intensive rulemaking at this time, given its limited standard-setting resources.

Industry attorneys are expressing concern about several aspects of OSHA's recently issued revisions to its policy on reaching corporate-wide settlement agreements (CSAs), especially a provision that mandates a sunset of such arrangements within two years of the final order date. But worker safety advocates say the previous policy was outdated and that OSHA staff needs new direction on settlement talks to keep up with newer regulatory requirements.

The GOP-led House panel that has jurisdiction over occupational safety and health issues says it will continue scrutinizing federal OSHA’s oversight of state plan effectiveness, as well examining the level of stakeholder input on regulatory efforts, particularly from small businesses. GOP lawmakers are also touting steps they have already taken to address industry’s concerns with OSHA’s regulatory efforts.

Democrats, meanwhile, are slamming what they say is the GOP majority's lack of jobs legislation and the impact of other aspects of the committee's agenda.

The laundered industrial towel industry is blasting a recent study by a manufacturer of disposable shop towels that found workers who use reusable shop towels may be exposed to heavy metals at levels above federal limits by questioning the study sponsor's impartiality and the researchers' methodology and conclusions.

A key occupational safety group is floating the idea of  OSHA using the negotiated rulemaking process to draft its planned regulations to address infectious diseases in health care settings, though the organization has not staked out a position on whether OSHA should proceed with such a rule.

Industry sources are criticizing OSHA's contribution to the Labor Department's final plan for regulatory review that the White House mandated earlier this year, saying the agency's proposals do little to ease OSHA's regulatory burden and associated costs, and that the hazard communication (hazcom) rulemaking touted by the plan has been in the works for years. Organized labor is unhappy with the use of OSHA resources for the regulatory review effort.

OSHA and NIOSH are working on several prevention through design (PTD) fact sheets developed by a stakeholder construction alliance, with plans to issue the material as official agency documents, safety advocates say. Sources note that the documents would not be compulsory on their own, and legal barriers remain with respect to OSHA's jurisdiction over building design. Organized labor has expressed interest in exploring changes to the OSH Act to address the issue.

Occupational health and environmental activists are calling for more stringent waste export restrictions on used lead acid batteries (ULABs), citing a new study that suggests the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) tightening of lead air quality standards in 2008 resulted in a surge of U.S. shipments of batteries to Mexico for recycling due to weaker environmental and worker health requirements there.

NIOSH's reassessment of carcinogen policy could affect the research agency's plans to update hazard classification and recommended exposure limits (RELs) not only to address cancer but a wider variety of areas, a NIOSH official says. Meanwhile OSHA is in the midst of trying to update permissible exposure limits, and evolving REL policies could have an impact on the science that many stakeholders say is needed to improve OSHA standards.