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House GOP plans to make deep cuts to the OSHA budget and scale back the agency's regulatory reach – as part of the party's proposed sweeping reduction in federal spending over the rest of fiscal year 2011 and government-wide regulatory reforms – have union officials and worker safety advocates galvanized in their opposition. OSHA supporters were bolstered, however by the Obama administration's decision to seek a budget increase for the agency in fiscal 2012, and are gearing up for a possible funding battle between the Democratic controlled Senate and GOP House on the issue.

President Barack Obama’s budget blueprint for the Labor Department includes a $6.4 million hike to beef up OSHA’s standards and guidance in fiscal year 2012, as part of nearly $25 million in total increases proposed for the agency -- with the top OSHA regulatory item, injury and illness prevention programs, a key beneficiary. Other top priorities for the increased regulatory activity are combustible dust, infectious diseases, walking and working surfaces, hazard communication and silica, OSHA chief David Michaels stated in a Web chat.

OSHA appears to have renewed its commitment to voluntary protection programs (VPP) and taxpayer funding for the efforts, at least for the time being, stakeholders say, as the White House unveiled plans Monday to restore voluntary program funds in a proposed budget that increases total OSHA spending by nearly $25 million in fiscal year 2012, hiking agency funds to $583 million.

Industry groups strongly back a House GOP proposal to broaden the scope of federal agencies' small business regulatory review procedures to analyze potential economic ripple effects on small entities not necessarily covered by the standards being analyzed, in what would amount to a substantial change in how OSHA and other agencies evaluate the impact of their regulations.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), the ranking Republican on the Senate environment committee, says Congress may need to consider a piecemeal approach to reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) if upcoming bipartisan talks on broadly reforming the law are unable to lead to a deal that can pass both chambers. TSCA reform has also been considered by some as a vehicle for OSHA reform.

A Republican-backed bill that would greatly expand congressional power to block economically high-stakes regulations by the executive branch -- and which critics say threatens the ability of agencies such as OSHA to issue health and safety rules independently -- has growing momentum on Capitol Hill, observers say.

A key organization of safety experts bolstered the general concept of OSHA's proposed rulemaking to mandate workplace injury and illness prevention programs (I2P2) in a direct appeal to Capitol Hill, responding to numerous concerns industry groups brought to the new Republican-dominated House on the scope and implications of the agency's plan to move ahead with the effort.

House Republicans are ready to take a big swing with the spending ax to Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS) and Education funds for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, setting a target to cut 4 percent from current spending levels and 8 percent from the president's request as part of yet another continuing resolution (CR) – with the impact on the relatively small OSHA budget within Labor still unclear.

Industry is strongly pushing a renewed effort among policy makers on Capitol Hill to reaffirm the mission and funding of OSHA voluntary protection programs (VPP), with sources predicting a Senate bill to protect the program from Obama budget cuts is almost certainly going to be filed again this year. Proponents argue chances for passage of such legislation have increased because of the mid-term elections.

Organized labor officials are expressing disappointment but not much surprise after the state's newly elected Republican governor scrapped an ergonomics rulemaking effort that was years in the making and could have made the state OSHA plan one of the few to tackle enforcement of the contentious issue.

House GOP lawmakers plan to explore a wide range of OSHA issues – including ergonomics enforcement, injury and illness prevention programs and noise control – as they exercise their oversight role, and hope to develop a “working relationship” with the agency that keeps them in the loop on regulatory and policy plans, the new chair of the House workforce protections subcommittee told Inside OSHA Online in an exclusive interview.

The House workforce protections subcommittee will likely hold a hearing on OSHA’s plans, now temporarily pulled, to restore a column for musculoskeletal disorders to injury and illness recordkeeping logs, the panel’s new chairman told Inside OSHA Online in an exclusive interview Wednesday. The hearing could be combined with an inquiry into OSHA's noise control plans, the lawmaker said.

OSHA has decided to temporarily withdraw its controversial plan to restore an MSD column to employer injury and illness logs in its second major policy retreat in the past week, the agency revealed late Tuesday. The surprise move comes just days after the agency backed off its contentious plan to require stricter hearing loss prevention measures and the White House ordered federal agencies to root out overly burdensome regulations.

OSHA is making clear that it continues to see the problem of worker hearing loss as a high priority to tackle even as it scraps plans to re-interpret its noise control policy, signaling that at the least it would use voluntary programs to keep pushing for implementation of engineering controls.

OSHA intensified its efforts to take enforcement action countering the food industry's controversial use of the food flavoring diacetyl and numerous substitute chemicals, broadening the agency's National Emphasis Program (NEP) targeting microwave popcorn processing facilities to include chemicals now used in place of the buttery flavoring, which has been blamed for worker respiratory ailments commonly called “popcorn lung.”

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OSHA should expand its pilot National Emphasis Program (NEP) on high-hazard chemical industry facilities to all 10 agency regions, federal chemical hazard investigators are urging as one of a slew of recommendations to federal, state and local authorities after a more than two-year probe into the 2008 Bayer CropScience explosion in Institute, WV, that resulted in two worker deaths and raised concerns about use of the toxic chemical methyl isocyanate (MIC).

OSHA chief David Michaels told an agency advisory panel Wednesday morning that OSHA will scrap plans to reinterpret its noise control policy, responding to concerns from the Senate task force on manufacturing and employers that the new policy would be costly to industry. The move came a day after the White House issued an executive order requiring federal agencies to root out federal regulations that are overly burdensome to industry.

Administration officials have decided not to give the green light to a plan under consideration in the Labor Department to break up OSHA's whistleblower protection program and move some of the functions to the department's Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS), but will instead keep the program housed within OSHA and try to direct more resources to the effort, Washington sources told Inside OSHA Online.

California's state OSHA plan has been looking at how to adjust a longstanding policy of required on-site inspections at every employer where a formal complaint has been lodged as part of an effort to free up inspectors and budget resources for the more serious, higher-priority inspections, Cal/OSHA chief Len Welsh said in a recent interview with  Inside OSHA Online. The agency would still open some type of investigation in response to all formal complaints, but would limit on-site inspections to the more serious alleged hazards, he said.

OSHA chief David Michaels says the agency will soon announce plans regarding its contentious proposal unveiled last year to re-interpret language in its occupational noise control standards so as to increase reliance on administrative or engineering controls and less on personal protective equipment, telling a public interest group in Washington on Tuesday that the agency plans to move toward a resolution shortly, but without elaborating.