Daily News

The non-profit outlet ProPublica is reporting chlor-alkali firms have long exposed workers to high chrysotile asbestos levels, including violations of OSHA’s permissible exposure limit (PEL), potentially undercutting the industry’s argument that it should be exempt from a proposed EPA rule banning use of the notorious carcinogen.

California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) has released its potential final COVID-19 worker-protection rules, including revisions to the prior draft’s controversial definition of “close contact” but maintaining the removal of mandatory “exclusion pay” for employees -- a move already drawing fire from labor unions that urged officials to reinstate the provision.

A federal appeals court has overturned a district judge’s ruling that invoked OSHA’s “primary jurisdiction” over workplace protections from COVID-19 to preempt Amazon warehouse workers’ suit accusing the retailer of violating New York pandemic safeguards, setting a narrow precedent for using that doctrine to limit suits over state policies.

California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) officials are advancing stringent new lead-exposure safety rules for the construction and general industry sectors, including a dramatically stricter exposure “action level” that triggers a suite of required actions by employers to protect workers, just as federal OSHA is eyeing the state rule as a possible model, sources say.

Labor groups and employers used a recent hearing on OSHA’s plans for a long-promised update to the process safety management (PSM) standard to set out competing demands for the rulemaking, while officials from the agency itself vowed to ensure the new policy will still be “compatible” with EPA’s pending revisions to its own facility safety rule.

EPA is asking the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for advice on whether and how to incorporate controversial analyses linking formaldehyde exposure to leukemia into its risk assessment of the ubiquitous chemical -- a decision one agency scientist said could increase the draft cancer estimate by a factor of four, prompting far stricter worker protections.

The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is renewing its calls for EPA to strengthen its oversight of refiners’ use of hydrofluoric acid (HF), in a report on a 2019 refinery incident that urges officials to prioritize HF for risk evaluation under TSCA and to require a safer-alternatives review under the risk management plan (RMP) program.

OSHA is ordering ExxonMobil to reinstate two former employees who the agency says were illegally fired in retaliation for potentially leaking information to the press, and to pay them over $800,000 in back wages, compensatory damages and interest, in its second high-profile whistleblower enforcement action of recent months.

A Texas construction firm is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to narrow OSHA’s reading of its safety standard for assembling or disassembling cranes and other large equipment, arguing in a new brief that the agency was wrong to cite it under that rule for an accident involving preparatory steps before the disassembly process.

South Carolina is defending its lawsuit seeking to block OSHA’s mandate that state plans match federal maximum penalties for OSH Act violations, saying that the agency has shown scant justification for the requirement in either statutory text or its own rules and offered “no response” to arguments that the law explicitly gives states “flexibility” on penalties.

A federal appeals court has overturned a 2020 Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) decision that took a narrow reading of OSHA’s safety standard for goods “stored in tiers,” holding that Walmart violated the rule in a 2017 accident even though the items in question were held in shelves rather than stacked directly atop one another.

A coalition of chemical firms is warning EPA that its novel “whole chemical” approach to TSCA risk determinations could “functionally disable” the law’s restrictions on using workplace risks from chemical exposures to justify rules limiting manufacture, import or use of finished articles, just as officials are preparing to step up their use of that power.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has signed legislation to strengthen California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) worker-safety standards for heat and wildfire smoke, despite strong opposition by a coalition of employer and industry groups that argued the bill improperly sidesteps the normal rulemaking process.

The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board’s (CSB) new report on a 2016 fire and explosion at a crude oil terminal emphasizes findings that the ultimate cause of the incident was a failure to follow OSHA’s standard for safeguarding “hot work,” and urges industry to prioritize those practices to avoid future disasters.

Industry groups appear to be conceding that EPA will finalize a new risk management plan (RMP) regulation despite their early calls to retain a 2019 rule that rolled back Obama-era changes to the program, while renewing arguments for a lenient approach based on accident data they say shows there is no need for “prescriptive” new facility-safety mandates.

EPA’s draft changes to TSCA risk findings for the solvent carbon tetrachloride (CCl4 or CTC) have drawn renewed calls from industry to narrow its conclusions on the chemical’s risks to workers, in light of both a long-pending petition alleging flaws in the agency’s analyses and the recent Senate vote to phase out climate-warming hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in favor of substitutes made with CCl4.

OSHA is asking a federal district court to reject South Carolina’s suit that would block the agency’s years-old requirement for states to match its annual increases to maximum OSH Act penalties, saying that the Palmetto State’s claims are both legally flawed and premature because it has made no formal move to enforce the rule.

A top official in EPA’s waste office is making the case for the agency to finalize a risk management plan (RMP) rule he said would be “improved” from the Trump administration’s, rejecting industry claims that the current policy is adequate even as environmentalists charge that the pending proposal needs to be significantly strengthened.

A pair of environmental groups is touting a new report that it says shows that EPA’s proposed risk management program (RMP) rule would not have prevented several recent, high-profile incidents, renewing their push for the agency to tighten key provisions just days before a series of public hearings on the rulemaking.

An Ohio construction company is preparing to ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit to hold much of OSHA’s regulatory program unconstitutional under the non-delegation doctrine that limits Congress’ ability to give agencies rulemaking discretion, after a district court rejected its claims as lacking any “binding or persuasive authority."