EPA has dropped an early plan to consider risks of asbestos exposures to firefighters and other first responders due to its policy of excluding legacy uses from consideration for possible regulation under the revised toxics law, a move that is drawing protest from a group representing the workers and highlights the controversy around the policy decision.
Massachusetts researchers are calling for government policies to reduce opioid abuse among construction workers after a new study finding that the state's construction workers are six times more likely to overdose than other workers, highlighting workplace safety concerns stemming from opioids, which OSHA and employers are seeking to address.
Appellate judges have scrapped former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's rule delaying by almost two years implementation of Obama-era facility safety requirements after finding the delay made a “mockery” of Clean Air Act mandates, the latest in a string of legal losses for the agency in suits filed over Pruitt delays of Obama EPA policies.
Democratic lawmakers and public interest groups are urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to scrap a recently announced policy allowing poultry plants to seek waivers from existing line speed limits, arguing the plan undermines USDA's denial of an industry request for broader waivers, and jeopardizes worker safety.
Industry attorneys are welcoming EPA's recent approval of a new chemical that took a narrow view of the substance's “reasonably foreseen uses” that the agency is required to consider, but are urging officials to clarify whether the approach is intended to apply more broadly to agency reviews of other new chemicals under the revised toxics law.
EPA has approved a new chemical for use under the revised toxics law but has limited its review and regulation of the substance's “reasonably foreseen uses,” a move environmentalists say signals a “reckless” process for reviewing new chemicals that violates the June 2016 toxics law by failing to preclude unintended uses from its requirements.
A three-judge federal appellate panel appeared skeptical during recent oral argument of a construction company's challenge to OSHA's “controlling employer” policy, suggesting the agency should be granted deference to interpret its authority and that officials are better positioned than courts to interpret ambiguous statutes.
The Labor Department's (DOL) Inspector General has launched an audit of OSHA's Whistleblower Protection Program (WPP) in several Western states after mounting pressure from years of audits related to a major Wells Fargo prosecution as well as internal complaints from a former agency investigator.
Massachusetts officials are signaling strong pushback against a Trump administration proposed rule that could allow for new uses of asbestos, with state environment officials raising early concerns and seeking a six month delay in the rulemaking while the state's attorney general (AG) works with other Democratic AGs to oppose the plan.
A group of 47 Democrats is concerned that a Labor Department (DOL) proposal to weaken rules prohibiting minors from working in certain hazardous operations has not been adequately reviewed for potential safety risks to teen workers, writing in a recent letter that they are unaware of any formal NIOSH review of the underlying data informing the plan.
OSHA has issued its final rule delaying until Dec. 12 some provisions of its Obama-era beryllium standard in order to complete a separate rule that will roll back aspects of the underlying regulation as agreed to in a settlement with industry groups, but the move is facing criticism from some worker advocates though others are grudgingly accepting it.
Business groups are urging the Supreme Court to review and reverse a California high court ruling that backed the state's use of supplemental enforcement powers to address workplace safety violations, fearing it will allow nearly two dozen other states operating under OSHA-approved plans to use their unapproved state laws to address alleged violations.
Business groups and industry attorneys are threatening aggressive advocacy, including reviving stayed suits challenging OSHA's injury and illness recordkeeping program, to address concerns that the Trump administration's planned rollback of an Obama-era rule does not go far enough to remove aspects of the rule employers oppose.
EPA is defending its framework for reviewing new chemicals, including risks to workers, under the revised toxics law against an environmentalist lawsuit by arguing that the policy is consistent with the 2016 law, but also says the framework is a draft that it might never finalize and therefore critics lack legal standing for their challenge.
Labor and public interest groups are faulting OSHA's recent pledge to support three committees that advise the agency's rulemaking and enforcement efforts as “disingenuous,” arguing that the agency has failed to fill the panels, including a construction advisory committee that has not met in more than a year and currently has no members.
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler is hedging on Senate Democrats' calls to strictly review and ban certain uses of the solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) that are blamed for harms to consumers and workers, saying only that the substance is one of 10 the agency has prioritized for review under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
OSHA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are weighing an update to a 1994 agreement encouraging USDA food safety inspectors to report chemical hazards to OSHA, after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) last year noted gaps protecting workers, and advocates are pressing for new research on chemical hazards.
A former senior OSHA official is faulting a softening in tone in the agency's announcements of workplace safety violations, arguing that strong language is necessary to maximize the deterrent effect of OSHA enforcement actions, though industry attorneys long opposed the Obama-era press release policy as unnecessary “regulation by shaming."
OSHA has issued a proposed rule revising an Obama-era update to the agency's injury and illness recordkeeping program that would require employers to report only summary information to the agency, citing fears of disclosure of worker injury data under public records law, though labor groups are already challenging Trump administration efforts to curtail the Obama-era rule.
In a new final agenda for construction safety research, a coalition convened by NIOSH is backing labor groups' calls for prioritizing research on protecting workers from falls and during natural or man-made disasters, while also softening past criticism of OSHA's lockout/tagout standard, which the Obama OSHA sought to revise, despite industry opposition.