Industry sources say OSHA's newly released proposed rule to reduce worker exposures to crystalline silica, given its breadth across business sectors and the reach of the standard, could represent the biggest OSHA proposed regulation in terms of impact on business since the agency's abortive effort to regulate ergonomic hazards in the late 1990s.
OSHA released its long-awaited proposed rule tackling crystalline silica exposures on Friday (Aug. 23), rolling out a comprehensive regulation that if eventually adopted would cut the permissible exposure limit to 50 micrograms of respirable crystalline silica per cubic meter and take broad measures to limit worker exposures across industries.
Newly released government data show work-related deaths last year dropping slightly by percentage relative to 2011, but the construction sector and specific high-risk industries suffered setbacks, with fatalities on the rise.
The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) is exploring the possibility of creating an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) process to resolve OSHA cases that rise to the full commission level on appeal, in an effort to deal with a backlog of cases.
Federal OSHA has issued an in-depth report on the performance of California's state plan that reflects persisting differences between how the federal government and states track safety and health program effectiveness.
Union officials are praising OSHA for what they consider a rigorous approach to concerns raised by organized labor about alleged hazards at a large steel product manufacturer, expressing “gratitude” that the agency aggressively responded to a host of formal complaints.
OSHA chief David Michaels says the agency is actively working to confront a growing problem -- how to uniformly enforce health and safety standards given the increased “atomization” of the work force largely caused by the use of contract and temporary labor.
OSHA has launched an intensive effort to cut down on excessive noise exposures in the manufacturing sector in New England, in what one industry official speculates could serve as a “test case” to roll out more aggressive noise control enforcement across the country.
A multinational company's effort to produce its own safety standards in dealing with “hot work” -- any operations that can involve flammable materials -- could offer a potential model for other employers to both meet and exceed OSHA standards on the issue.
A recent legal battle over a raft of OSHA citations under the process safety management (PSM) standard underscores a dilemma faced by the agency in how to craft risk-based regulations, versus the prescriptive standards that are common for OSHA rulemaking throughout its history, safety and health experts say.
OSHA's policy on using an employer's self-audits during inspections to identify potential workplace hazards -- and the results of those procedures then being used as the basis for citations -- has come up as an issue in a contested case over alleged process safety management (PSM) violations at a BP facility in Ohio.
An administrative law judge (ALJ) has thrown out most of OSHA's citations and fines against BP Products North America and an Ohio subsidiary over a slew of allegations that the company violated process safety management (PSM) standards -- a decision that poses serious issues for the agency's enforcement of the rule and potentially has wider implications for the industry's reliance on generally accepted safety practices.
OSHA has formally withdrawn a proposed rule to change the provisions of consultation agreements to allow inspectors to enter work sites that are participating in the Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program (SHARP) when critical hazards are identified.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has inked a corporate-wide settlement agreement with OSHA to abate hazards involved in trash compactors, cleaning chemicals and hazard communication throughout the company, clearing up citations that originally arose from inspections at a Rochester, NY, operation.
A recently formed Senate Judiciary subcommittee is probing the reasons behind what critics call an unnecessarily protracted White House review of new agency regulations, focusing on OSHA's planned rule tackling crystalline silica hazards, which is still under “extended” review at the Office of Management and Budget.
A contentious OSHA plan to reshape the rules under which compliance officers can enter work sites that fall under the voluntary Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program (SHARP) has quietly gone by the wayside, with the agency saying in a regulatory document that it is withdrawing the proposed rule “in light of” stakeholder concerns.
OSHA faces a 90-day deadline to start collecting comments on possible gaps in the agency's process safety management (PSM) standard, as well as controversial exemptions to the rule for retail and commercial-grade operations, under a sweeping new executive order from President Obama.
OSHA, in a final rule issued Friday (Aug. 2) to require federal agencies to report all injury and illness data among federal workers annually through the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), is setting up a system of data collection for the public sector that in some ways reflects the approach it has taken to gathering comprehensive data on private work sites, experts on OSHA recordkeeping say.
OSHA and NIOSH have produced a joint hazard alert on 1-bromopropane (1-BP), a chemical used in furniture making, dry cleaning and degreasing that is suspected to cause nervous system damage in workers.
President Obama is ordering federal agencies including OSHA to review their existing chemical regulations in light of the disastrous fire and explosion this April at a West, TX, fertilizer processing plant that cost 15 lives and decimated the rural town.