Daily News

The Labor Department's (DOL) Office of Inspector General (IG) is reiterating calls for OSHA to ensure employers report workers' injuries and abate workplace hazards, highlighting an ongoing dispute with the Trump administration's top OSHA official, who has argued that employers are not required prove they have abated workplace hazards.

OSHA has sent for White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review a proposed rule seeking to revise an Obama-era rule strengthening the agency's beryllium standards, changes that are part of a settlement with industry groups that calls for clarifying ancillary provisions of the Obama-era rule's general industry standard.

House Democrats have introduced a bill that would compel OSHA to follow through on an Obama-era commitment to issue an enforceable standard requiring that employers in the healthcare and social services sectors craft plans for preventing workplace violence, arguing that the Trump administration is slow-walking the rule.

North Carolina regulators are asking their science advisors to review strict guidance developed with EPA for protecting against workers and others' exposures to trichloroethylene (TCE) through vapor intrusion at contaminated sites, amid ongoing controversy with EPA's 2011 assessment that found the solvent poses risks to pregnant women.

Public Citizen is urging a federal court to preserve its suit challenging the Trump administration's suspension of OSHA's Obama-era injury and illness reporting rule, charging that the agency's motion to dismiss wrongly claims it lacks standing and that the court lacks jurisdiction.

In a Nov. 13 filing to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Public Citizen rejects OSHA’s claim that its lacks standing to sue because it cannot demonstrate how the court will redress any injury.

Despite Democrats' control of the House next year, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) faces continued uncertainty about its future as its supporters fear the Trump administration may deprive it of a quorum to operate by not nominating new board members to replace those whose terms expire starting at the end of 2019.

In addition, staff morale at the agency has plummeted in the face of Trump administration efforts to eliminate the board by cutting its budget, as well as allegations about mismanagement, driving investigators and others to depart.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is faulting the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board's (CSB) spending on legal fees in a dispute with the board's former managing director, saying that CSB's continued focus on the on the matter distracts from its mission of investigating facility accidents.

EPA and OSHA, the lead agencies once charged with implementing an Obama-era Executive Order (EO) on improving facility safety after a 2013 disaster, are heeding long-standing industry calls to enforce existing rules while scaling back or shelving new protections advanced under the Obama administration.

The approach is highlighted by a series of actions over the past few months.

OSHA is urging a district court to “disregard” recent claims from Public Citizen that it is able to detect companies that do not report worker injuries, part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit seeking the reports, arguing that the plaintiff misunderstood a recent agency statement on how it targeted enforcement against possible reporting violators.

Democrats are stepping up their efforts during Congress' lame duck session to kill House Farm Bill language that would codify a permanent waiver for retail facilities from OSHA's safety standards, though sources say that if lawmakers are unable to reach a deal on the Farm Bill this year, prospects for killing the OSHA language in 2019 would improve as Democrats will control the House.

Facing a Nov. 10 deadline to act, the Trump OSHA has issued a final rule easing Obama-era certification requirements for crane operators while also issuing interim guidance that seeks to implement the new rule's more-flexible requirements before they take effect in early December.

Top House Democrats are signaling they plan to closely scrutinize Trump administration plans to allow teens to independently operate powered patient lifts in healthcare, adding to the lengthy list of Labor Department (DOL) policies that could adversely effect worker safety that Democrats plan to address should they win back control of the House.

Democrats who are expected to win control of the House in 2019 following Nov. 6 elections are preparing for a host of oversight hearings to block planned Trump OSHA rollbacks of Obama-era rules that strengthened requirements on beryllium, recordkeeping and other measures, as well as the agency's “failure to staff up,” a Democratic staffer says.

The source says Democrats may also use hearings to make the case for new legislation to address workplace violence and whistleblower protections.

OSHA and industry petitioners are requesting that a federal appellate court continue to hold in abeyance an industry lawsuit challenging an Obama-era update to the agency's beryllium standards to allow the Trump administration to complete a planned rule rolling back aspects of the standard in accordance with a settlement deal reached this spring.

OSHA is urging a federal court to dismiss a public interest group’s lawsuit that seeks to preserve provisions of the Obama-era injury and illness reporting rule that the Trump administration had suspended, charging the group lacks standing and that the suspensions are not judicially reviewable.

OSHA is bolstering enforcement oversight of trenching and excavation operations after a spike in worker deaths, updating its National Emphasis Program (NEP) on preventing collapses and increasing education and enforcement, though an industry official is bristling at OSHA's continued use of enforcement programs he faults for inflating OSHA penalties.

Public Citizen is seeking to bolster its push to compel release of employers' worker injury and illness data, arguing that recent OSHA statements undermine the Trump administration's claims in its lawsuit that releasing worker data through public records requests would deter reporting, and that it is unable to detect companies that do not report.

A senior Trump administration official says EPA is planning a significant rollback of an Obama-era facility safety rule, arguing against significant disclosure of facility data that the original rule requires and backing the Labor Department's lead in process safety.

But an industry official says EPA faces a difficult task in responding to environmentalists' lengthy concerns with a proposed version of the Risk Management Plan (RMP) rollback.

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is formally reviewing a draft OSHA plan for collecting information on possible changes, long sought by industry, to ease the agency's so-called lockout/tagout safety standard that applies to power equipment that is shut off during repair work.

According to OMB's website, OSHA submitted the draft request for information (RFI) to OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on Oct. 24. Such reviews are usually slated to take 90 days but can take more or less time depending on a host of factors.

The Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is launching an “actionable dialogue” with workers, managers and others to limit workplace hazards from combustible dust in the face of inaction by the Trump OSHA, which shelved a rulemaking setting a first-time standard to protect workers against hazards from combustible dust.

CSB Oct. 24 issued a “Call to Action,” seeking comments from a wide range of stakeholders on ways to limit hazards following an investigation into a fatal 2017 explosion.