A government watchdog group is weighing a lawsuit against EPA after the agency denied its petition seeking to ban the refinery chemical hydrofluoric acid (HF) under its Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and Clean Air Act authorities, with the agency saying the group failed to provide sufficient facts to support a ban.
Racing to meet an extended June 2020 deadline to complete 10 chemical evaluations under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), EPA has released its latest draft risk analysis -- of a widely used solvent -- though it will almost certainly draw criticisms from peer reviewers who continue to criticize the agency’s risk methods.
Employer attorneys are alerting companies in California about their responsibilities to comply with new state OSHA wildfire smoke exposure and safety rules, highlighting the importance of adhering to the rules while multiple fires sweep through large swaths of the state in both agricultural and urban areas.
James Sullivan, the chairman and lone member of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC), is optimistic that Congress will swiftly approve two nominations to join the panel so that it can once again have a quorum to resume its work reviewing contested OSHA workplace citations and penalties.
EPA’s has released a draft risk evaluation that finds scores of methylene chloride uses can pose unreasonable risks to consumers, workers and bystanders, a finding that opens the door to the agency adopting new toxics rules months after issuing a controversial measure that regulated only consumer uses of paint strippers containing the chemical.
Thirteen Democratic state attorneys general (AGs) are citing preliminary investigation results from the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) on explosions at a Philadelphia refinery to reiterate their recent calls for EPA and the White House to “abandon” plans to roll back strict Obama-era Risk Management Plan (RMP) facility safety requirements.
EPA is poised to release its draft evaluation of environmental and health risks from exposure to methylene chloride, according to a pending Federal Register notice, raising questions about what risk determinations the agency proposes, particularly regarding occupational exposures not addressed in its existing rule.
Patients and transplant centers are urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to review a three-judge panel decision that sidestepped a fight over deference courts give to OSHA and other agencies when it upheld a federal liver transplant policy, arguing the panel erred in finding the government’s rule interpretations to be valid.
Experts peer reviewing EPA’s new model for estimating lead concentrations in humans praised the agency’s years-long effort to craft a more-advanced model but urged the agency to clarify its applications and audience, with one peer reviewer noting increasing concerns about exposures given alleged flaws in OSHA’s lead standards.
House Democrats used an Oct. 23 hearing to bolster pending legislation that they say would enhance safety protections for so-called “gig” workers, who are currently identified as independent contractors and not covered by OSHA safety requirements and other federal labor protections that apply to employees.
President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders (EOs) curtailing OSHA and other agencies’ use of guidance and other policy memos ramp up scrutiny of OSHA’s contentious approach to guidance, which has long drawn criticism, including from the agency’s inspector general (IG).
OSHA plans to hold a stakeholder meeting next month to hear input from companies on leading indicators used to preemptively address workplace health and safety, planning to use the information it receives to develop additional tools that might assist employers with taking more preventative and predictive steps to protect worker safety.
Environmentalists are urging EPA to quickly use authority under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to address acute human health risks that exposure to the solvent chemical 1-bromopropane (1-BP) presents to workers and the very young, even before the agency finalizes its TSCA risk assessment of the substance.
President Donald Trump intends to nominate former OSHA Occupational Safety & Health Review Commission (OSHRC) member Cynthia Attwood to rejoin the panel that decides challenges to citations or penalties resulting from agency inspections of workplaces, a position that she has first held starting in February 2010.
A hazardous waste facility is urging EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) to scrap an agency-crafted Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) permit that includes OSHA worker safety requirements, arguing that EPA cannot force permittees to follow OSHA rules in RCRA permits.
Industry officials are optimistic that the White House will approve a pending final EPA rule to repeal Obama-era Risk Management Plan (RMP) facility safety requirements, and an environmentalist opposed to the effort says the agency “seems intent” on finalizing the delayed rollback.
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.
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.