Daily News

EPA is renewing its bid to end environmental and public health groups’ efforts to obtain a court ruling on the merits of their petition asking EPA to ban drinking water fluoridation because of human health risks, in a case testing a little-used section of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) shortly after the court denied EPA’s appeal to delay a trial.

President Donald Trump has announced his intent to nominate Amanda Laihow, chief counsel of OSHA’s Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC), to become a member of the review panel through April 2023, touting her long-running work on labor issues related to health, safety and anti-discrimination laws.

A staffing firm executive told House lawmakers at a recent hearing that the trend toward greater use of robots and artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace could bolster worker safety through a combination of new data-driven safeguards and shifting repetitive or weight-bearing tasks away from humans.

But lawmakers and other stakeholders at the hearing of the House Science, Space & Technology Committee’s panel on research and technology are raising initial safety concerns over the shift to AI and robotics.

OSHA is floating a proposal to revise Obama-era standards for occupational exposure to beryllium and beryllium compounds in the construction and shipyards industries, saying the changes will better tailor the standards for the two sectors’ unique exposures and also improve the agency’s overall enforcement of beryllium limits.

EPA appears to be advancing a new argument to dismiss part of environmentalists’ suit over the agency’s denial of their petition to require more reporting about the uses of asbestos in the United States that could also provide a defense against a new trial in a second, nearly identical petition case from states.

OSHA in a new final rule is certifying two “quantitative fit” tests for ensuring respiratory equipment complies with its respiratory protection standard, giving employers new options that the agency says can be completed more than twice as quickly as prior methods and potentially enabling major time savings for firms with large workforces that use masks.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in a ruling on the government’s liver transplant policy has avoided weighing in applying the Supreme Court’s test for when to defer to OSHA and other agencies in interpreting their regulatory authority, but does embrace the high court’s instruction to first look for a clear answer in the law.

A federal judge has once again handed a blow to EPA in its effort to defend its denial of public health advocates’ petition urging the agency to ban drinking water fluoridation, in this instance denying EPA’s request to delay the trial schedule by 65 days to extend limited expert discovery, a request the judge considered unnecessary and prejudicial to the plaintiffs.

A House Energy and Commerce Committee panel has advanced on a primarily partisan basis a bill to ban all uses of asbestos and a package of 13 bills to deal with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), although the asbestos legislation could ultimately drive chlorine producers to use PFAS as a replacement to asbestos.

OSHA has issued a final rule reversing course on a prior proposal that would have revoked Obama-era occupational exposure standards for construction and shipyards, saying that undoing the standards would be at odds with the agency’s statutory mandate to protect workers from proven significant health risks of exposure to beryllium.

However, OSHA also says that it plans in the future to develop a new proposed rulemaking that will outline different changes to the beryllium standards for both sectors that it is considering.

Senators in a 53-44 vote on Sept. 26 confirmed President Donald Trump’s nominee Eugene Scalia to head the Department of Labor (DOL), clearing the path for him to be sworn in and pursue an agenda that Democrats fear will advance the administration’s deregulatory agenda at OSHA with rule rollbacks that increase risks to worker safety.

The Senate environment panel has approved President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Chemical Safety Board (CSB), clearing the path for her Senate confirmation, though a key GOP senator continues to urge the White House to fill other current and pending vacancies to ensure CSB can continue its incident investigation and other functions.

The White House has approved two OSHA measures aimed at revising portions of the Obama administration’s final beryllium rules for the construction and shipyard sectors but without repealing them, a move that is likely to spark heated opposition and resumed litigation from key industry groups.

Eugene Scalia, President Trump’s nominee to lead the Labor Department (DOL), moved closer to a Senate confirmation vote as soon as this week after the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee approved his nomination on a party-line vote.

The committee voted 12-11 to confirm Scalia despite scathing attacks from Democrats who reiterated their earlier charges that he is ill-suited to the job because of his work as an employer-side attorney and his long-time support for corporate interests.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is threatening to veto a controversial bill championed by Democratic leaders of the state’s legislature that would lock into state law Obama-era worker safety and other rules in a dispute over how to address water supplies.

OSHA and other agencies appear headed for a continuing resolution (CR) to fund their operations when fiscal year 2020 begins next month after the Senate earlier this week failed to debate the agency’s FY20 spending bill and the House overwhelmingly approved a CR that will fund the government until shortly before Thanksgiving.

Eugene Scalia, the Trump administration’s nominee to lead the Labor Department (DOL), drew strong criticism from Democratic senators during his Sept. 19 confirmation hearing over his record targeting OSHA and other DOL rules though he stopped short of committing to senators’ requests for new safety and other measures they are seeking.

A federal judge is asking EPA and environmentalists to respond to a set of questions in a potentially precedent-setting Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) case after an agency lawyer sought to clarify statements she made during recent oral arguments but instead raised new doubts about the agency’s stances on key issues and the suit’s procedural posture.

Worker and other safety advocates are warning they might sue the Agriculture Department (USDA) over its just-issued rule easing swine slaughter inspection requirements and increasing line speeds, arguing the measure will increase risks to workers that already face some of the highest workplace injury rates in the country.

Labor and other groups are threatening to sue EPA over allegations that the agency is inadequately releasing information about new chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), detailing concerns that they will likely urge the agency to address as it prepares to release a new framework for its new chemicals review process.