Daily News

Environmentalists, labor and community groups are seeking to intervene in industry groups' stayed lawsuits challenging EPA's facility accident prevention rule, arguing they will be harmed by weakening or vacating the rule and that the agency is unlikely to adequately represent their interests given Administrator Scott Pruitt's past opposition.

Firefighters, nurses and other groups are urging OSHA to pursue a standard requiring healthcare and social assistance employers to craft policies for preventing workplace violence, a rule the Obama OSHA committed to pursuing, but that employers have said is unlikely to advance given the Trump administration's deregulatory efforts, and are seeking to narrow its scope.

OSHA took comment through April 6 on its request for information (RFI) supporting a possible future violence prevention standard for the sectors.

A poultry processing facility is urging federal judges to reject OSHA's appeal of a lower court's ruling that held the agency lacks authority to expand an inspection beyond the circumstances of an employee's injury, faulting OSHA arguments that the company's injury reporting provided “reasonable suspicion” of a possible violation.

OSHA is postponing by three months the enforcement of construction industry compliance with the Obama administration's final rule overhauling the agency's limits for workers' exposure to silica, saying it is crafting additional guidance for employers given “the unique nature” of the rule's requirements for the construction sector.

In an April 6 statement, OSHA postpones from June 23 to Sept. 23 the date it will start enforcing the agency's March 25, 2016, silica rule in the construction sector, but says employers should continue working toward compliance.

Chemical manufacturers are urging the Commerce Department (DOC) to curtail Obama-era EPA guidance backing prompt action at sites contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE) to protect workers and others from the solvent's novel risk of cardiac birth defects, arguing the guidance unnecessarily raises costs and is scientifically unjustified.

EPA's proposed rule seeking to ban certain uses of the solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) is prompting competing claims over the merits of the plan, with some business groups calling it unjustified and urging its withdrawal while others including worker safety groups say the benefits of the ban will be greater than EPA projects.

President Donald Trump has repealed OSHA's final rule clarifying that employers face a “continuing obligation” to record worker injuries, part of a broad federal effort to roll back Obama-era rules under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) and other authorities that his staff say will continue even after the window for such action closes later this month.

A federal judge has granted OSHA's request to stay for two months a lawsuit builders, petrochemical manufacturers and other industries filed against the Obama administration's final rule updating the agency's worker injury and illness record-keeping program, but the judge sidestepped industry requests to delay the rule's initial July 1 compliance date.

With Congress facing an early May deadline to approve resolutions undoing Obama-era rules, industry and others are raising doubts over whether lawmakers will act in the coming weeks on a pending resolution that would undo changes to the agency's facility safety program, a rule that the Trump EPA is seeking to delay an additional 20 months.

“I'm not sure we're going to be able to get that over the finish line but we're going to try,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) said in March 29 remarks to a reception of a new Senate caucus backing chemical sector priorities.

EPA is proposing to delay by an additional 20 months -- from June 19 to Feb. 19, 2019 -- the effective date of the Obama administration's final rule overhauling the agency's industrial facility accident prevention program, citing the need for more time to weigh potential revisions to the rule in response to requests from industry and some states.

Industry attorneys are suggesting the Trump administration is already shifting OSHA toward greater emphasis on compliance assistance over the Obama administration's support for enforcement actions, citing a recent press release and other agency material that calls for employers to review voluntary safety and health plans.

Industry attorneys say OSHA is likely a prime deregulatory target for the Trump administration, expecting incoming Labor Department (DOL) leadership to curtail funding for enforcement, rescind rules under deregulatory orders, and drop defense of regulations facing legal challenges.

NIOSH is seeking an enforceable OSHA standard requiring healthcare employers to craft policies for preventing workplace violence that include thresholds for reporting violent incidents, staff-to-patient ratios, and a hierarchy of controls approach to preventing violence, though progress on such a rule under the Trump administration is uncertain.

President Donald Trump has signed a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution revoking an Obama administration policy requiring federal agencies to consider workplace safety and other labor law violations in procurement decisions, part of an ongoing White House push to roll back regulations, officials say.

OSHA has taken another step toward pulling back the Obama administration's worker injury and illness reporting rule, asking federal courts in Oklahoma and Texas to delay industry litigation challenging the rule to allow incoming Trump Labor Department officials time to consider the case.

The Labor Department (DOL) is defending the Obama OSHA's final rule strengthening limits for worker exposure to silica, claiming extreme deference in interpreting scientific data supporting the rule, though President Donald Trump's nominee to head the agency one day earlier declined a Democratic senator's call to defend the rule against expected rollback.

Alexander Acosta, President Donald Trump's nominee to be the next labor secretary, is balking at requests from Senate Democrats to preserve Obama-era OSHA rules strengthening silica standards due to the administration's deregulatory orders, but he backed the need to adequately fund safety inspections even in the face of budget cuts.

Top Senate environment committee Republicans are hedging on whether a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to rescind EPA's chemical facility safety rule will reach the Senate floor, raising fresh doubts about the measure's prospects even as EPA is said to be concerned about its administrative reconsideration of the regulation.

The Trump administration has, for the second time, delayed the effective date of the Obama OSHA's final beryllium rule, agreeing to examine concerns raised by an industry group and its congressional backers over the rule's coverage of the construction and shipyard sectors, though the agency has rebuffed, for now, industry calls for a longer delay.

A coalition of GOP states is petitioning EPA to delay by an additional 15 months the effective date of the Obama administration's final rule updating the agency's facility accident prevention program, saying more time is needed beyond the current delayed June deadline for EPA to weigh whether to revise or outright repeal the regulation.