Daily News

South Carolina is doubling down on its arguments that a pending Supreme Court case over the Administrative Procedure Act's (APA) statute of limitations could ease its challenge to OSHA's mandate for states to match annual increases to federal OSH Act penalties.

A Small Business Advocacy Review (SBAR) panel that OSHA convened to gather input on its long-awaited heat safety standard has issued a report laying out a wide range of recommendations for the rulemaking, such as flexibility for employers to tailor worker protection plans to their sectors and generous exemptions for small companies.

Administrative law experts say they expect the Supreme Court will issue a narrow ruling in litigation seeking to limit agency adjudications via administrative law judges (ALJs), tamping down expectations that the case, focused on the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), could have sweeping implications for OSHA and other agencies.

California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) staff are developing stakeholder reports that will aim to justify their pending proposal to strengthen worker-safety rules for lead exposure in the construction and general industry sectors, including a claim that the tighter requirements would avoid 31 deaths and hundreds of job-related illnesses over 10 years.

Conservative justices on the Supreme Court appear sympathetic to claims that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) use of administrative law judges (ALJs) violates the 7th Amendment right to a jury trial, but during Nov. 28 oral argument they wrestled with how to craft a new test for the practice amid fears that a broad ruling could upend review of OSHA and other agencies’ enforcement actions.

An industry attorney is highlighting novel language in EPA’s proposed TSCA rule for the solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) that requires companies to limit worker exposures only “to the extent possible” as evidence that its occupational exposure standard is unworkably strict, underlining likely objections to the policy from trade groups and employers.

OSHA is urging a federal district court to reject any link between South Carolina’s latest suit over the federal mandate for states to match their annual penalty increases to federal OSH Act penalties and a pending Supreme Court case that could greatly extend the Administrative Procedure Act’s (APA) statute of limitations for rule challenges.

California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) is proposing to exempt short-term “incidental” exposures from its proposed first-time employee-safety rules for heat illness prevention at indoor worksites, but employer groups that sought the change are now calling on the state to expand it further, saying the current version is highly limited and fails to address their concerns.

The Labor Department (DOL) Office of Inspector General (OIG) has again identified worker safety issues among the top “management challenges” facing the department in its annual report on those high-priority issues, and is recommending a slew of new actions at both OSHA and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).

Statistics showing an increase in workplace deaths for miners in fiscal year 2023 are sparking concern from industry lawyers over how the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) will respond, though one attorney says it is uncertain that the agency has funds and resources for new training or enforcement initiatives.

The Supreme Court will hear oral argument on Jan. 17 in a pair of linked suits that could overturn or sharply limit the long-standing Chevron doctrine that gives deference to OSHA and other agencies on their “reasonable” interpretations of ambiguous statutory text.

Unions and their allies, including elected Democrats, are supporting OSHA’s proposal to allow compliance officers inspecting a workplace to bring worker representatives on walkarounds even if they are not affiliated with that employer, arguing that the policy will bolster workers’ rights while seeking relatively minor changes to the agency’s text.

The House has overwhelmingly approved a Republican-backed bill extending funding for several agencies including OSHA through Feb. 2, but the chamber adjourned Nov. 15 for the Thanksgiving holiday without voting on a full-year funding bill for the Labor Department (DOL) in a sign that lawmakers are still struggling with fiscal year 2024 appropriations.

South Carolina is seeking to stay its latest challenge to OSHA’s mandate for states to match annual increases to federal minimum and maximum OSH Act penalties, citing a pending Supreme Court case that it says could loosen the six-year statute of limitations for suing over federal agency action that OSHA has argued is fatal to the current suit.

Employer attorneys are urging California companies to begin crafting documents and developing training procedures to comply with the state’s newly enacted law requiring general industry employers to implement workplace violence-prevention plans -- measures that must be fully in place by next summer.

They are also warning that California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) continues to work on a separate workplace violence-prevention standard, which could eventually add more compliance requirements over and above the new statutory mandates.

Two environmental groups are renewing their push for EPA to strengthen its upcoming Risk Management Program (RMP) update, citing data on chemical-facility accidents as recent as Oct. 15, as supporters of a strict policy continue to raise public concerns that the agency’s upcoming final rule will fall short of their goals in several key areas.

The Office of Management & Budget (OMB) has finalized the first major update to its cost-benefit review guide in two decades, including changes that aim to put new emphasis on the distributional effects of regulations on disadvantaged populations.

The new “Circular A-4” which revises a 2003 policy with the same designation, largely retains proposed language earlier this year that included a lower initial discount rate used to reduce estimate future benefits of rules, and directives for agencies to weigh the possible global as well as domestic benefits of regulations.

The National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (COSH) is pressing the Department of Labor to take new steps to protect workers from a wide range of hazards, in particular through “system-wide actions” like training and enforcement boosts, after the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) found a 7.5 percent annual increase in workplace injuries and illnesses for 2022.

National Nurses United (NNU) is attacking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for its recent move advancing a draft infection control guidance for healthcare settings with just days of public input, charging that the agency is sidestepping public input while weakening protections for medical workers and others.

EPA has sent its proposed TSCA rule governing the solvent n-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), likely teeing up renewed battles over the Trump-era risk evaluation and any workplace exposure limit based on it, after industry groups asked the agency to rewrite the review over alleged scientific errors.