OSHA is beginning a new enforcement national emphasis program (NEP) aimed at preventing on-the-job falls -- which the agency notes is the leading cause of fatal workplace accidents -- and improving compliance with the fall protection standard.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit has found that OSHA properly treated two subsidiaries of Universal Health Services (UHS) as a “single employer” in a citation for workplace violence at a Massachusetts facility, rejecting the firm’s claim that doing so would render the test “near-boundless” -- but also classifying its decision as non-precedential.
A National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (NACOSH) working group crafting advice for OSHA’s long-awaited heat-danger standard appears set to recommend that the rule avoid tying protections to specific temperatures and instead account for variability in working conditions and geographic areas.
California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board is divided over a pending proposal to substantially strengthen worker-safety rules for lead exposure in the construction sector and general industry, with several members agreeing with employers that the draft standard should be slowed and scaled back and others arguing it is far overdue.
A three-judge appellate panel appears skeptical of an Ohio contractor’s constitutional challenge to OSHA’s safety standard program, suggesting during recent oral arguments that the petitioner have a high bar to clear and questioning whether the case was intended only to challenge Supreme Court precedent on the so-called non-delegation doctrine.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could reverse -- or at least narrow -- the longstanding Chevron doctrine, which grants OSHA and other federal agencies discretion to reasonably interpret ambiguous statutory language.
The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is preparing to ask the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to renew its expiring information collection request (ICR) that allows industrial facilities to notify the board in the event of an “accidental release” that could be subject to investigation and prompt advice to EPA and OSHA on how to prevent such incidents.
The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is urging EPA to tighten its risk management program (RMP) to account for “reactive hazards” and extreme weather events driven by climate change, reiterating a swath of prior recommendations in its new report on a Gulf Coast chemical spill set off by 2020’s Hurricane Laura.
A scientist at EPA’s TSCA office says the agency’s collection of data on worker safety and chemical exposures differs in scope and purpose from industrial hygienists and employers’ methods, offering more insight into the program’s assessment process just as it is floating its first set of workplace safety standards in a newly proposed rule for methylene chloride.
OSHA’s enforcement chief has issued a letter of interpretation stating that the process safety management (PSM) standard allows host employers to train contract workers on requirements for handling hazardous chemicals, holding that host-led instruction satisfies the rule as long as the contractor’s direct employer ensures its adequacy and maintains records.
EPA chemicals chief Michal Freedhoff used the launch of the agency’s landmark TSCA risk-management proposal for methylene chloride to temper top officials’ prior statements that cast the rule and its worker-protection standards as a model for future chemical regulations under the law, saying key elements of the draft rest on case-specific factors.
An employer attorney says Amazon’s challenge to Washington State’s requirement for firms to abate alleged safety violations before administrative review of their citations is “ripe for an appeal” after a federal district court rejected the suit, holding out hope that further litigation could scrap the policy, though he warned that the retailer’s own arguments undercut its claims.
EPA’s newly proposed TSCA rule for methylene chloride would require a quick phaseout of most uses of the solvent but allows others to continue under a strict workplace exposure limit with monitoring and protective-gear mandates based on OSHA standards -- a line the agency’s chemicals chief says her office drew based on its “trust” in those sectors to adopt its safeguards.
The head of workplace safety practice at the law firm Conn Maciel Carey called OSHA’s severe violator enforcement program (SVEP) “unconstitutional” during a recent panel on the agency’s recent moves to strengthen it, arguing that it imposes penalties on employers before they can seek judicial review of pending citations, in violation of their due-process rights.
A new report from the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) claims the expansion of nitrogen fertilizer production since the 2013 West, TX, explosion is endangering public safety and the environment due in part to lax rules for the sector, urging EPA and OSHA to bolster facility-safety requirements for storing ammonium nitrate among other policy changes.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is floating a draft plan to overhaul its years-old chemical security program, seeking to break from EPA methods that were the basis for its 2007 rule for determining which chemicals and facilities to regulate, though the program’s future hinges on Congress reauthorizing it before it expires in July.
A new decision from the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) largely affirms an OSHA citation stemming from a 2018 shipyard explosion that killed three workers, agreeing with the agency that a salvage firm failed to train its employees on safety measures for confined spaces but rejecting its claim that the violation was “willful.”
California lawmakers are advancing a controversial bill to require California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) to expeditiously require workplace violence-prevention measures in employers’ existing employee-safety plans, with supporters saying that while the agency is already working on such rules for non-healthcare facilities it is taking too long to finalize them.
EPA is proposing new measures that would significantly strengthen regulatory oversight of emissions of the solvent ethylene oxide (EtO) from sterilization facilities and other settings, unveiling plans to set strict new workplace safety standards under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) as well as air emissions limits to mitigate high cancer risks.
The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has completed its review of EPA’s draft TSCA risk management rule for the solvent methylene chloride, teeing up formal release of a proposal that a top official has said will signal how the agency plans to regulate other substances and tailor chemical-safety rules to protect workers from occupational exposures.