Daily News

EPA has sent to the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) for pre-publication review its final rule aimed at repealing Obama-era changes that tightened facility safety risk management plan (RMP) requirements, moving ahead on the measure after repeated delays.

House lawmakers still appear divided on legislation that would reauthorize and strengthen the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) chemical facility safety program as the House Energy and Commerce Committee takes up the issue, though they are pledging to continue working towards an agreement.

A federal judge appeared skeptical of environmentalists’ landmark efforts to pursue claims against EPA under both the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) when the agency denied their TSCA section 21 petition seeking rules requiring additional asbestos reporting.

Administration efforts to address lead-paint dust in residential settings are facing wide-ranging criticisms, with EPA’s Inspector General (IG) charging the program lacks goals or ways to track progress and the agency’s advisors and environmentalists questioning why the agency has yet to update its lead dust clearance standards for contractors.

OSHA is facing a stakeholder battle as it proceeds with its plan to drop a rulemaking to rescind ancillary provisions from its beryllium rule for the construction sector and instead tailor the provisions, with industry groups suggesting they may sue as the agency lacks evidence for a threshold finding while health groups are citing studies backing the effort.

OSHA this week unveiled a new voluntary alliance with three major poultry sector trade associations in a bid to allay safety concerns over Agriculture Department (USDA) efforts to ease line speed requirements at processing plants, though labor advocates are strongly criticizing USDA’s actions and calling for stepped-up OSHA scrutiny.

EPA has issued guidance to aid small business as they work to comply with the agency’s recent ban on consumer uses of paint strippers containing methylene chloride, though it is not clear whether the guidance will address charges from manufacturers that the ban may make it difficult for some small entities to continue to purchase the products.

House lawmakers appear poised to resume their efforts to renew the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) chemical facility safety program when they return from their recess, though it is unclear whether their past pledges to seek a bipartisan deal on the issue will bear fruit.

California legislation that would lock into state law Obama-era worker safety and other rules has cleared a critical Assembly fiscal committee but still faces a fight on the floor of the chamber from powerful industry groups.

OSHA is gearing up to roll back the Obama administration’s landmark beryllium rule, floating two draft measures for White House review and scheduling a meeting of its construction advisors next month to discuss ways to implement some of the proposed rollbacks, though House Democrats are fighting efforts to undo the requirements.

EPA is seeking comment on a pair of chemical industry requests asking the agency to assess the risks of two phthalate chemicals, requests that will pose first-time tests for the agency on whether and how it conducts such analysis under the revised toxics law and whether any negative EPA risk finding preempts existing state and federal requirements.

Major disagreements between California employers and workers are already flaring as Cal/OSHA launches the development of permanent safety rules for wildfire smoke, a draft of which is more stringent than a set of emergency rules the agency’s standards board adopted last month.

President Donald Trump has formally nominated Eugene Scalia, a leading critic of strict OSHA rules, to lead the Labor Department, sparking a new confirmation fight battle with Senate Democrats and their labor union allies who oppose the administration’s deregulatory agenda.

The White House announced the nomination in an Aug. 27 press release, calling Scalia “a renowned labor, employment, and regulatory lawyer.”

A government watchdog group is petitioning EPA to phase out the use of hydrogen fluoride (HF) at oil refining facilities under its Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and Clean Air Act (CAA) authorities, the latest in a series of actions to curb the use of the highly corrosive substance following several “near miss” incidents.

EPA is claiming immunity from dozens of pending tort claims over its role in a 2015 wastewater spill because its employees went through OSHA’s training program for hazardous-waste handling, teeing up a district court ruling on how much training federal employees must receive to protect their agencies from liability should a disaster occur.

As expected, EPA has formally declined to create new Clean Water Act (CWA) requirements to prevent or contain industrial chemical spills, dismissing calls from state emergency responders and environmentalists, who argued a rule is mandated by law and needed in the wake of a 2014 spill that closed the drinking water system in Charleston, WV.

Public health groups are defending their legal standing to sue OSHA over its rollback of Obama-era electronic reporting and recordkeeping requirements, saying the changes will injure them by hindering their ability to gather federally reported data on workplace injuries.

Federal appellate judges, in a split decision on an EPA policy memo, are outlining competing tests for how judges should assess whether OSHA and other agency guidance is a “final action” subject to court review, with the majority acknowledging that the decision is likely to spark a debate in this “somewhat gnarled field of jurisprudence.”

Cal/OSHA is planning an advisory committee hearing to develop first-time construction worker safety rules pertaining to naturally occurring asbestos (NOA), with staff now conducting research to write a discussion draft for the meeting, officials say.

“This will be a big one for construction and any employers with employees outside,” says one employer consultant following the issue.

Fearing a patchwork of strict state rules, a variety of consumer product manufacturers is urging EPA to expand its planned or ongoing risk evaluations under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in an effort to preempt states from regulating -- or banning -- certain chemicals’ uses.