Editor's note: The following letter was submitted by Mark Ellis, president of the National Industrial Sand Association, with respect to OSHA's proposed rule addressing crystalline silica. Inside OSHA Online welcomes readers to submit their feedback. Please send comments to: ccole@iwpnews.com
Chemicals, petroleum and other industry groups are urging President Obama and other officials to drop consideration of a federal mandate requiring use of inherently safer technologies (IST), such as benign chemicals, in any upcoming proposal on facility security, saying it will create an impossible burden and derail the president's effort to improve safety at the nation's industrial plants.
OSHA is enforcing its process safety management standard (PSM) in several cases that sources say indicate a strong emphasis on chemical safety compliance, especially where the agency believes it can prove serious or willful violations of the standard -- actions which possibly could be used to buttress arguments by OSHA that a rulemaking is needed to strengthen plant safety regulations.
OSHA made it official Thursday (Jan. 30) that Dorothy Dougherty has been named the agency's deputy assistant secretary, a capacity in which she has effectively served for several months, having been selected for the post during a high-level shakeup after last year's retirement of Richard Fairfax.
Supporters of broad-based legislation to strengthen OSHA will lose a major ally when longtime Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) retires at the end of this year.
Public and consumer interest groups urging stronger safety, health and environmental protections lauded the shots President Obama took across House Republicans' bow Tuesday (Jan. 28) in promising to press ahead with his agenda through any executive actions possible when faced with GOP attempts to block administration priorities.
An industry with perhaps the most obvious of all possible stakes in OSHA's rulemaking to tackle crystalline silica hazards -- the brick-making business -- has started expressing serious apprehensions with the agency's regulatory approach, saying there are many unanswered questions about the technical feasibility of the rule, on top of concerns about its potential economic impact on companies that manufacture the building materials.
The operator of a Louisiana petrochemical plant where a deadly explosion occurred last year will contest a group of OSHA citations that officials issued after a lengthy probe into the blast, potentially setting up a legal battle over an incident that highlighted national concerns about chemical safety and became a focal point of the issue on Capitol Hill.
OSHA's proposed silica rule, even if eventually finalized, would be opened up to substantial legal challenges if the agency continues to refute a need for separate, formal avenues by the small business community to review and offer criticism of the proposal, a pair of GOP lawmakers suggested in a recent letter to OSHA chief David Michaels.
OSHA has pushed until Feb. 11 the deadline for submitting comments on its proposed crystalline silica rule -- in what amounts to a 15-day extension -- due to an apparent posting error on the web-based regulations portal that Republicans say could have led some affected stakeholders to believe the window had already closed on putting comments in the record.
Chemical industry representatives strongly back a relatively obscure change made recently to OSHA's right-to-know regulations that switches to a “weight of evidence” approach for determining whether an agent must be labeled as a known or possible carcinogen, responding to newly voiced worries among worker advocates that the policy shift gives too much latitude to industry's own assessments of chemical risk factors.
OSHA reportedly is working on an internal directive to deal with an apparent gap in the agency's new hazard communication rule that could let employers dispute whether a chemical is proven to cause cancer, even if the chemical appears as either a known or possible carcinogen by the National Toxicology Program (NTP) or the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a source familiar with the issue tells Inside OSHA Online.
Several Republican senators are pushing legislation that would consolidate the Labor and Commerce departments, a move that would lump OSHA into one large umbrella agency responsible for the government's efforts in both promoting business and labor protections.
OSHA's new push to urge hospitals across the country to develop safety and health “management systems” -- with safe patient handling as the centerpiece of the initiative -- mirrors a broader OSHA emphasis on injury and illness prevention programs that is also borne out on the rulemaking front, with the agency seeking to impose all-encompassing hazard identification programs on employers.
Progressive groups are urging President Obama to implement "fundamental reform" to boost transparency and end delays in White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) reviews of OSHA and other agencies' rules, changes they say would help expedite regulations that improve public safety and health.
OSHA continues to work on a planned rule to tackle infectious disease hazards in health care settings, OSHA chief David Michaels told Inside OSHA Online, but he declined to provide details on how far the agency is in the process.
OSHA is about to unveil comprehensive new guidance materials for hospitals to tackle a range of worker hazards, with a strong focus on safe patient handling, that in part offers a self-assessment tool for health care employers to learn more about where they stand on addressing the issue, sources familiar with the plan tell Inside OSHA Online.
A GOP senator who contends that OSHA is violating congressional intent through an enforcement policy aimed at preventing grain bin accidents on small farming operations has attached a rider to the newly crafted omnibus spending bill for fiscal 2014 that effectively tells the Labor Department to scrap the controversial policy.
OSHA would receive a $17 million funding increase over the course of fiscal year 2014, including more funds targeted to whistleblower enforcement, under an omnibus spending bill agreed to by House and Senate negotiators.
The retirement later this year of Rep. George Miller, a veteran California Democrat who took office just four years after OSHA was created and who has fought vigorously for worker rights reforms over four decades in Congress, will leave nothing short of an institutional vacuum on issues keyed to worker safety and health, congressional observers say.