Daily News

Employers’ attorneys are alerting their clients that OSHA is drafting guidance on monkeypox virus (MPV) workplace safety and could release it as soon as early September, even while reiterating that the OSH Act’s General Duty clause requires workplaces to be “free from recognized serious health hazards” like MPV even without specific guides.

Despite EPA’s proposal of a facility safety rule that goes beyond the provisions of an Obama-era regulation, environmentalists are pressing the agency to require more actions, saying provisions in the proposed risk management program (RMP) rule do not go far enough to protect overburdened communities and prevent chemical spills.

The proposed rule is a “step in the right direction,” the New Jersey Work Environmental Council said following its release Aug. 19, noting the proposal seeks to advance “greater worker and union participation in facility accident prevention programs.”

EPA Administrator Michael Regan has signed a proposed Risk Management Program (RMP) rule that would reinstate controversial provisions contained in an Obama-era regulation, but removed by the Trump administration, as well require new actions aimed at “empowering workers” in facility safety considerations.

OSHA finalized a “complete overhaul” of its handbook for investigating whistleblower retaliation complaints, incorporating a long list of previously separate guidance into the core manual and setting new procedural requirements for various steps of the process, triggering a mandate for state plans to adopt their own version of the new document.

An industry attorney says employers are facing a “big change” in the worker safeguards required by EPA’s significant new use rules (SNURs) for chemical safety after that agency adopted a new policy tightening several elements of the rules, including adoption of a hierarchy of controls model long favored by OSHA.

The American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) has scheduled a series of workshops that will seek in part to address industry concerns over differences in how EPA’s occupational risk analyses under TSCA differ from practices at agencies like OSHA or the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and those of industrial hygienists.

AIHA announced Aug. 10 that it will host a workshop titled “The Many Aspects of Occupational Risk Assessment: Understanding Differing Approaches and Goals” on Aug. 25.

South Carolina is asking a federal district court to block what it says is an unlawful campaign by OSHA to require states to increase their maximum work-safety penalties to at least the federal maximum, claiming that the agency is going far beyond what Congress allowed under the OSH Act mandate for state plans to be “at least as effective” as its program.

California’s plan to list nail products containing toluene as a “priority product” under its green chemistry program is drawing fire from labor and health groups, who charge its use of an industry-backed “alternatives analysis threshold” (AAT) will expose too many salon employees to unsafe levels of the chemical.

OSHA is seeking a massive $1.2 million penalty from the discount retail chain Family Dollar over alleged violations at two Ohio stores that the agency says are the latest in “a long and disturbing history” of similar safety hazards at the company’s facilities, underscoring the Biden administration’s efforts to step up the agency’s enforcement program.

OSHA is seeking $110,630 in penalties for an ammonia leak at a Georgia poultry plant that the agency says hospitalized two workers and forced dozens more to evacuate, as the agency prepares to pursue an update to the process safety management (PSM) standard at the heart of the case, in parallel with EPA’s reforms to its own facility-safety rule.

Oil sector groups are joining industry attacks on EPA’s decision to drop an assumption that workers will use personal protective equipment (PPE) from Trump-era TSCA evaluations, echoing claims that the new policy is unlawful and irrational while also asserting it is impossible to fit with the existing risk reviews and requires a new, multi-year process.

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has provisionally selected the panel that will peer review the Biden administration’s draft assessment of the risks of workplace and other exposures to formaldehyde, despite calls from GOP lawmakers who had sought additional scrutiny on whether the panel selection process and staff are impartial.

Two groups representing employers and industry are laying out detailed objections to California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) proposed workplace violence standard for “all industries,” including over a perceived lack of input from law enforcement, incident-logging requirements, employee privacy, enforcement and definitions of key terms -- including violence.

OSHA is seeking nominees to fill four seats on its National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (NACOSH) that are slated to become vacant in January, just as the panel is ramping up its work to provide the agency with advice on a heat danger standard long sought by labor advocates and Democrats.

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is praising a recent set of draft Significant New Use Rules (SNURs) that they say appears to include EPA’s first-ever use of worker exposure protection levels, known as New Chemical Exposure Limits (NCEL), in TSCA regulations governing specific new chemical uses.

The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) has upheld a General Duty Clause citation that OSHA filed against a Pennsylvania construction firm in the wake of a fatal equipment collapse, holding that the citation for failure to perform required maintenance is valid regardless of whether that failure caused the accident.

Former EPA chemicals chief Steve Owens used his first public meeting as acting chief of the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) to announce a slate of transparency initiatives for the independent agency, including publication of accidental-release reporting data it has been gathering since 2020.

During the July 29 meeting -- the first since former CSB Chair Katherine Lemos stepped down -- Owens said the agency would be “making public” data from its 2020 accidental-release reporting rule, as part of an overall effort to increase transparency.

California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board plans to address concerns among board members, employers and others about “ambiguous” definitions in the agency’s draft long-term COVID-19 worker-safety regulation -- primarily what will be considered a “close contact” in “shared indoor airspace” -- even after officials released new guidance on the subject.

Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee are proposing a $68 million fiscal year 2023 funding increase for OSHA in hopes of restarting long-stalled talks with the GOP on spending legislation, just as the chamber’s leaders are embracing a deal with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) on a reconciliation bill that appears to exclude long-sought boosts to OSH Act penalties.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced it is directly investigating workplace safety concerns and “related issues” at multiple Amazon warehouses, in the wake of a worker death at one of the company’s New Jersey facilities -- a step one Democratic lawmaker says is “exceptionally rare” and justifies a strict OSHA response as well.