A top OSHA official says companies’ efforts to exceed compliance with EPA regulations and pursue sustainability as a core business concept provide a model for how OSHA wants firms to “race to the top” on strengthening worker safety protections, asking an agency advisory panel for advice on how to improve safety and health management.
Health and labor groups, along with two top Democrats, are raising concerns about OSHA’s plan to revise exposure standards for beryllium in the shipyard and construction sectors, and are urging changes to the plan to better protect workers’ health, highlighting a clash with industry groups who are threatening to sue OSHA if it finalizes the rule.
Major industry organizations are renewing their concerns over OSHA’s proposal to revise the standards for occupational exposure to beryllium and beryllium compounds in the shipyard and construction sectors, with the groups warning that the plan might be unlawful -- a hint of possible legal challenges if OSHA finalizes the plan.
California health officials are preparing on Jan. 1 to start reporting high lead-level blood tests of workers to Cal/OSHA and the agency must consider carrying out workplace inspections and requiring additional reporting by businesses, under the requirements of a controversial law Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) enacted last month.
President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders (EOs) curtailing OSHA and other agencies’ use of guidance and other policy memos ramp up scrutiny of OSHA’s contentious approach to guidance, which has long drawn criticism, including from the agency’s inspector general (IG).
OSHA is floating a proposal to revise Obama-era standards for occupational exposure to beryllium and beryllium compounds in the construction and shipyards industries, saying the changes will better tailor the standards for the two sectors’ unique exposures and also improve the agency’s overall enforcement of beryllium limits.
OSHA has issued a final rule reversing course on a prior proposal that would have revoked Obama-era occupational exposure standards for construction and shipyards, saying that undoing the standards would be at odds with the agency’s statutory mandate to protect workers from proven significant health risks of exposure to beryllium.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is threatening to veto a controversial bill championed by Democratic leaders of the state’s legislature that would lock into state law Obama-era worker safety and other rules in a dispute over how to address water supplies.
Federal appellate judges, in a split decision on an EPA policy memo, are outlining competing tests for how judges should assess whether OSHA and other agency guidance is a “final action” subject to court review, with the majority acknowledging that the decision is likely to spark a debate in this “somewhat gnarled field of jurisprudence.”
OSHA is publishing its request for information (RFI) seeking data on whether it should ease the Obama administration’s rule requiring protective equipment for construction workers exposed to crystalline silica, a measure that also opens the door to extending any deregulatory measures to standards covering maritime and general industry.