Daily News

A bill that would make significant changes to the Cal/OSHA Appeals Board process -- the bulk of them strongly opposed by industry -- is being held in committee until next year to give the panel time to consider a range of amendments, but has enough momentum to pass the legislature eventually, sources closely watching the process say.

A key public health organization is preparing to come out shortly with guidelines for state public health agencies to provide referrals to OSHA, sources say, as part of increased collaboration among the agency and states to boost targeting of safety and health hazards across the states.

Regulatory reform bills are likely to be a prime focus of Congress' attention following the August recess in light of the United States' credit downgrading, sources say, but questions remain about whether proposals to boost economic reviews of health and safety rules can win the support of the Senate or President Obama.

OSHA's decision to take the Office of Whistleblower Protection Programs (OWPP) out from under the enforcement directorate, establish a whistleblower programmatic identity and make a host of OWP administrative changes have drawn mixed reviews, with interest groups still concerned about bureaucratic inefficiency, and industry questioning the agency's failure to consult with management representatives during its exhaustive review of the program.

NIOSH continues to develop a list of what it says are hazardous drugs in health care settings, with the agency saying in a new article that the effort could help workers minimize exposure and reduce health risks. The effort comes as OSHA, NIOSH and the Joint Commission have begun warning employers about the risk to health care workers who deal with such drugs (see related blog) .

A recent study sponsored by a major manufacturer of disposable industrial wipes finds that workers who use reusable shop towels may be exposed to heavy metals at levels above state and federal risk limits, findings that come as the Environmental Protection Agency is facing pressure to finalize by the middle of next year a long-delayed rule on the disposal of industrial wipes and towels, although the wipes manufacturer says the timing of the study is coincidental.

Findings from a massive health survey recently launched by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry (ATSDR) to identify potential health impacts from decades of historic water supply contamination at a Marine Corps base are expected to have broad application to contaminated sites throughout the country, particularly for the ubiquitous solvent trichloroethylene (TCE), ATSDR's top official said in a July 8 interview.

OSHA is in the final stages of drafting a rule on potential changes to its inspections policies for Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program (SHARP) sites, and still hopes to publish the final rule in September, an agency official told Inside OSHA Online. Stakeholders have been anxiously awaiting to see if OSHA will back off its controversial proposal to make it easier to inspect such sites, a proposed shift strongly opposed by industry.

OSHA's training grant program would be slashed under plans floated by some in Congress as lawmakers face pressure to cut federal spending as a result of the debt limit deal signed by the president Tuesday afternoon. Organized labor and public interest groups are slamming the training grant proposal, pushed by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) as part of a recent budget-cutting blueprint and expected to resurface as lawmakers scramble to implement spending caps mandated by the debt ceiling law.

OSHA has contacted state plans to seek information about injury and illness prevention programs (I2P2), ahead of the federal agency's effort to promulgate a nationwide standard requiring employers to develop such programs, sources told Inside OSHA Online. Among those contacted was Cal/OSHA, a source from California who is knowledgeable about the situation said, adding that at least one contact was made several months ago. The federal agency expressed interest in contacting “people who would talk about the state I2P2 and its impact on the workplace,” the source said.

OSHA is telling stakeholders it would most likely explore a vertical rule model in a potential rulemaking to control infectious disease hazards faced by health care workers, meaning that such regulations would address not just infectious agents but specific industry settings, such as hospitals or long-term care facilities.

OSHA has moved ahead with a project to identify what it characterizes as “emerging issues” that could require regulatory or enforcement attention based on known hazards and recognized risks, categorizing them on an internal wiki site called OSHAPedia for reference and data collection by agency officials. Among the leading hazards are areas such as worker fatigue, as well as more specific issues such as formaldehyde.

OSHA is leaning toward a “performance-based” model for its planned injury and illness prevention program (I2P2) rule and, at least for now, intends to include construction and maritime industries in the proposal, an OSHA regulatory official said Wednesday.

Still, there are as yet “no decisions made on the content or the scope,” William Perry, deputy director of the directorate of standards and guidance, told members of OSHA’s Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health during an I2P2 work group meeting in Washington.

OSHA's key advisory panel on construction safety and health plans to tackle two major subjects -- preventing backover injuries and fatalities, and safety around reinforcing steel -- as new items in meetings this week in Washington. The agency says it brought the issues to the panel's attention because they were recently added to the regulatory agenda, and OSHA wants the committee to provide recommendations on them. Both are in prerule stages.

An OSHA official says construction will likely be covered by its planned injury and illness prevention program rule (I2P2), clarifying an issue the agency has left as an open question though stakeholders have long anticipated the inclusion of builders along with general industry. But it still remains unclear if the agency will also attempt to develop a construction-specific rule, as it has done with other standards.

OSHA plans to issue soon a compliance directive that would provide instruction to field operations on how to enforce OSH Act requirements to deal with workplace violence, sources told Inside OSHA Online, but details about the content of the draft document are not yet available. An OSHA spokesperson confirmed that the directive is in final clearance and said there is not a definite date on when it will be issued.

OSHA and the European Union should work together more to advance global occupational safety and health goals, agency chief David Michaels told international leaders during a visit to Brussels in mid-July. Such collaborative approaches could help OSHA make headway in several areas, including updates to permissible exposure limits (PELs), one of Michaels' regulatory priorities, sources say.

A major occupational safety group commended calls from a federal agency for Florida leaders to establish a state OSHA plan that covers public sector employees, following years of lobbying by the group to gain coverage for the state's government employees across the state, county and municipal levels.

House Democrats renewed their pressure on the company that took over West Virginia's Upper Big Branch coal mine to get behind mine safety reform legislation, taking full advantage of a written exchange between lawmakers and the company's top executive to urge support for the long-sought measures.

A simultaneous effort by hotel housekeepers in five states calling attention to alleged ergonomic hazards and seeking enforcement of federal and state occupational safety requirements to address the complaints has not yet resulted in any ergonomic citations against the hotels, sources say, but Cal/OSHA hinted at possible future enforcement. Cal/OSHA, which has a repetitive motion injury (RMI) standard, has issued warnings to two properties suggesting that if two or more qualifying injuries are reported within a year, they could be cited under state OSHA regulations.