House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) says a just-released Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that calls for strengthening cybersecurity protocols in a federal chemical facility safety program underscore what he says is a need to reauthorize an enhanced versions of the program.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is rejecting calls by Republicans and the business community to give employers liability protection from suits stemming from harmful workplace exposures to COVID-19 while renewing efforts to enact new OSHA requirements, which she says will provide liability protection if employers comply.
OSHA has issued a non-binding “hazard bulletin” for grease traps that details how companies should protect workers against trap-related accidents, falling short of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) call for the agency to issue strict new rules for the traps after a child fell through a fast food venue’s grease trap cover and drowned.
House and Senate Democrats have introduced companion bills that would force OSHA to quickly issue an emergency temporary standard mandating infectious disease exposure control plans in all workplaces to protect against COVID-19, expanding on an earlier bill that sought to establish the swift standard primarily for healthcare workers.
Top House Democrats say they will include a mandate that OSHA issue an emergency temporary infectious disease standard to address risks from the coronavirus to healthcare employees and expand protections in other industries in their next bill to address the pandemic after they were forced to drop the mandate from prior measures.
Senators are looking to a third coronavirus relief bill to attach a three-month extension of the Department of Homeland Security’s facility safety program that is set to expire April 18, aiming to buy more negotiating time on separate legislation that would reauthorize the program but potentially also make substantive changes to it.
The House early on March 14 approved by unanimous consent a bill to reauthorize the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) facility security program for 18 months, moving the measure to the Senate where some members favor replacing the CFATS program with a voluntary program similar to a plan suggested by the Trump administration.
With the federal chemical security program’s power slated to expire next month, its future is in doubt as lawmakers are at an impasse over whether to eliminate and replace it with a voluntary effort that the Trump administration and some Senate Republicans favor, or temporarily extend it as House Democrats and some industry groups prefer.
Pressure is mounting on Congress to put aside partisan differences and reauthorize the Department of Homeland Security’s Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program before it expires in April, pressure that is likely to rise in the wake of EPA’s rollback of its related Risk Management Plan (RMP) program.
Senators are warning that the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) risks losing its quorum when one of its two current member’s terms expires next week and are calling for the Senate to quickly vote on a pending Trump administration nominee, though the vote appears to have stalled amid partisan wrangling.