Daily News

OSHA is set to publish its long-anticipated proposal setting health and safety standards for “emergency responders” in the Feb. 5 Federal Register, kicking off a 90-day public comment period more than a month after the agency posted the rule online.

Chemical-sector and other industry groups are urging EPA to loosen a host of new worker-safety requirements in its proposed reworking of Trump-era TSCA rules governing two persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) chemicals that they say would be too restrictive, saying the agency should instead defer to occupational-safety “professionals” on what protections are needed.

Attorneys are urging employers to begin preparing to comply with California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) landmark indoor heat worker-safety rules expected to take effect July 1, saying the agency is likely to make the standards an immediate area of “emphasis” for enforcement despite their complex and lengthy suite of requirements.

Without a public announcement, OSHA has updated its nearly 30-year-old enforcement handbook for the process safety management (PSM) standard, adding dozens of interpretations the agency previously set out in responses to stakeholders’ letters questioning various aspects of the rule’s meaning or application.

Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su used a Jan. 26 event to back Democrats’ latest iteration of a bill that would set a strict deadline for OSHA to enact its long-delayed workplace violence standard for the healthcare sector, despite the agency’s failure to even set a target for a proposal some eight years after beginning the rulemaking process.

As the Supreme Court moves to require clearer congressional authorization for OSHA and other agencies to regulate, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers is considering options for expanding Congress’ oversight of administrative rulemakings, including creating a new Congressional Office of Regulatory Review.

EPA chemicals chief Michal Freedhoff told GOP senators during a Jan. 24 hearing that the agency will ease its approach to calculating workplace existing chemical exposure limits (ECELs) when risk evaluations would support limits below “background” levels -- a move that could partly address employers’ arguments that its proposals so far have been unachievably strict.

Republican leaders for the House Energy and Commerce Committee are urging EPA to withdraw and repropose its upcoming Risk Management Program (RMP) rule update, charging that the proposed version conflicts with OSHA and other agencies’ responsibilities, goes beyond Congress’ explicit mandates, and raises security concerns among things.

In the aftermath of a series of fires at renewable fuel refineries that led to at least one worker suffering critical burns, the United Steelworkers (USW) is petitioning California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) to develop an emergency temporary standard (ETS) that would subject those facilities to the same tough worker-safety rules the state applies to petroleum refineries.

The Supreme Court’s upcoming decision on the fate of OSHA and other agencies’ deference under the Chevron doctrine is almost certain to drive reams of new litigation and result in conflicting circuit decisions, legal observers say, given widespread expectations the justices will overturn or significantly cabin the doctrine.

California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board is renewing efforts to seek a compromise with federal OSHA over the state’s long-pending, controversial proposal to adopt updated federal fall-protection safety standards for residential frame construction, but federal regulators are expressing doubt over proposed alternatives aimed at easing employer burdens.

Lawmakers and industry groups that support the lapsed Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program are warning that states could create a “patchwork” of substitutes for the federal initiative following introduction of one such bill in Nebraska, adding urgency to their steady calls for Congress to pass a reauthorization.

At least four conservative justices on the Supreme Court appear open -- if not eager -- to overturn the 40-year-old principle of Chevron deference, though their success hinges on whether they can convince at least one more of their colleagues to join them in striking down the doctrine that requires courts to defer to OSHA and other agencies’ reasonable interpretations of vague statutory text.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has sent its final rule updating the 50-year-old standards for respirable crystalline silica (RCS) to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for interagency review, advancing a long-delayed rulemaking process and teeing up a last round of debate on the policy.

California’s public-health authority has eased its guidance on when COVID-19 is likely to be contagious, greatly loosening the state OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) requirement for employers to isolate workers with confirmed infections and likely also easing other elements of its permanent safety rules for the coronavirus, experts say.

Attorneys and former officials say the Senate’s failure to confirm a second member to the Occupational Safety and Health Association Review Commission (OSHRC) threatens short- and long-term complications for OSHA enforcement, including a backlog of cases and prolonged uncertainty on whether employers will be penalized for failing to abate alleged violations.

OSHA has announced its annual inflation adjustments to minimum and maximum OSH Act penalties for violations cited in the coming year, raising both figures by about 3.2 percent and triggering a regulatory mandate for state plans to apply a matching adjustment to their own penalties, amid continuing litigation over whether than requirement is lawful.

California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board is gearing up to consider a long-pending, controversial proposal to adopt updated federal fall-protection safety standards for residential frame construction, amid continued fierce opposition from construction companies, employers and industry groups.

A coalition of labor and environmental groups is urging OSHA to formally propose its long-delayed heat-danger standard before the start of summer, and to prioritize what they say are key elements for the eventual rule such as requiring employers to craft mandatory written safety programs and allow flexibility only within “careful” limits.

Correction Appended

A top official at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) says her team is refocusing their facility-safety resources on the voluntary ChemLock initiative after Congress allowed the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program to expire, but underlined that it “is not a substitute in any way” for binding regulation.