Correction Appended
EPA’s newly final Risk Management Program (RMP) update is facing criticism from all sides over its cost-benefit calculations, especially for novel mandates to consider climate impacts and safer technologies -- provisions that industry says will be unworkably expensive but which pro-regulatory advocates say carry even greater benefits than the rule assumes.
EPA has finalized long-anticipated updates to the Risk Management Program (RMP), with several changes that aim to toughen the proposal issued in 2022 -- including a new mandate that a broader list of facilities now required to perform a safer technology alternatives analysis (STAA) adopt at least one of its recommendations, a win for environmentalists who argued that such upgrades should not be voluntary.
Environmental groups are arguing that EPA’s first draft TSCA risk evaluation since the Trump era fails to consider the “aggregate” risks workers and other vulnerable populations face from toxic chemicals, as they press the agency to instead assess -- and eventually regulate -- dangers from multiple sources at once.
Industry groups and unions are raising sharply contrasting arguments on OSHA’s pending final rule to allow worker representatives to take part in enforcement “walkaround” inspections even if they are not employed at the site, with employers calling the rule “unconstitutional” and demanding it be scrapped while labor groups are strongly backing it.
Employers’ attorneys are highlighting California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) newly released list of its most frequently cited standards in recent enforcement actions -- led by injury and illness prevention plans and outdoor heat exposure programs -- to show how the state agency’s enforcement priorities differ significantly from federal OSHA’s.
“There are some overlaps, but there are significant differences,” said Rachel Conn, a partner and chair of the California practice at the employer law firm Conn Maciel Carey, during a Feb. 21 webinar on Cal/OSHA’s most common violations for 2022.
California lawmakers have introduced several bills to bolster requirements in the state’s safety standards covering indoor and outdoor heat exposure and crystalline silica exposure in “engineered stone fabrication” businesses and add enforcement heft to the policies, continuing a trend of using legislation to toughen California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) rules.
OSHA’s proposed safety standard for emergency responders includes a call for information on claims that firefighters face health risks from toxic, long-lasting chemicals known as PFAS that are used as water- and oil-proofing agents in their protective gear -- the latest step in a long-running debate on that question.
Two conservative lawyers are expecting the Supreme Court will side with petitioners and expand the six-year statute of limitations to bring lawsuits challenging OSHA and other federal agencies’ actions under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) after the court heard oral arguments this week in a high-profile administrative law case.
Environmentalists are renewing their calls for EPA to “ban” vinyl chloride, one of five substances the agency is considering prioritizing for risk evaluation under TSCA, saying such a rule is needed to protect workers who use either the cancer-causing chemical or plastics made from it -- including the ubiquitous polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
Supreme Court justices appeared to offer little clarity during Feb. 20 oral arguments on how they will decide when the Administrative Procedure Act’s (APA) six-year statute of limitations starts to run, appearing torn between concern over fairness to regulated parties and fear of reopening decades-old policies from OSHA and other agencies.
California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board has approved tough new worker-safety rules for lead exposure in the construction and general industry sectors to take effect next year, codifying a proposal that had already been held up as a potential model for other states and federal OSHA, which is weighing updates to its own lead policies.
The panel voted 5-2 to pass the rule amendments at its Feb. 15 meeting, rejecting complaints by employer representatives that the new rules are far too costly, complicated and onerous.
Republicans on the House Workforce Committee are renewing their attacks on OSHA’s rulemaking to revive an Obama-era policy allowing worker representatives to take part in enforcement “walkaround” inspections even if they are not employed at the site, charging that the rule “interferes in labor-management relations” as the White House has begun reviewing the final policy.
Attorneys for an industry law firm used a recent webinar to highlight what they say are likely pitfalls for employers as OSHA’s electronic recordkeeping and reporting rule comes into effect this year, including a heightened need to track injuries as they happen and the threat of repeated citations if a company fails to implement the new program.
Democratic state attorneys general (AGs) are again petitioning OSHA for an emergency temporary standard (ETS) to protect workers in extreme heat exacerbated by climate change, arguing that the spike in heat-related injuries and illnesses during the summer of 2023 shows the need for immediate action ahead of the agency’s long-pending permanent rule.
The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has begun review of OSHA’s final rule expected to revive an Obama-era policy allowing worker representatives to take part in enforcement “walkaround” inspections even if they are not employed at the site, despite warnings from industry that the regulation is legally vulnerable.
OMB received the final walkaround rule on Feb. 9 -- less than six months after OSHA proposed the policy on Aug. 30, an unusually quick turnaround for an agency that often takes many years to complete its regulatory process.
The Supreme Court’s pending decision on the future of the Chevron doctrine could imperil thousands of rules from OSHA and other agencies that have relied on the doctrine since it was first articulated in 1984, experts say, though the scope of the decision, expected in June, and its precise effects, will depend on how it is written.
The federal district judge hearing litigation over an EPA formaldehyde assessment that employers fear could drive strict workplace limits lobbed skeptical questions at all attorneys involved at a hearing on the parties’ dueling requests to either dismiss the suit or immediately block all use of the contested document, showing few hints on his plans for the case overall.
Chemical-sector groups are urging the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to loosen a long-awaited update to OSHA’s hazard communication standard (HCS) governing safety labels for toxic, flammable and otherwise dangerous chemicals, focusing on claims that the 2021 proposal adds unneeded complexity and data-gathering burdens.
An employer seeking to overturn OSHA’s power to craft “necessary or appropriate” safety standards is asking the Supreme Court to take up its case, renewing its claims that the OSH Act’s language is too vague to survive under the “nondelegation” doctrine but adding for the first time that even a clear grant of such “major” authority would be unconstitutional.
EPA is telling a federal district court that its plan to defer to the National Academy of Sciences’ (NAS)’ peer review of a draft risk assessment of formaldehyde in its TSCA evaluation that could support new workplace limits on the chemical does not help industry’s suit over the NAS process, saying trade groups still have shown no harm to their members.