Rulemaking

Employers are lining up against OSHA’s proposed withdrawal of federal approval for Arizona to operate an OSH Act state plan, saying the move has no reasonable basis and would undercut a “highly effective” program, while national unions and safety professionals are hailing the proposal as a necessary step for worker protections.

Petrochemical and other industry groups are urging the White House not to tighten mandates under EPA’s risk management plan (RMP) program that requires facilities using very hazardous substances to follow plans to reduce risk of dangerous releases, as the agency moves toward reviving Obama-era policies that the Trump administration rescinded.

The Industrial Commission of Arizona (ICA) is raising a long list of defenses against OSHA’s proposal to withdraw its state plan authority under the OSH Act, saying the federal agency’s claim of a “history of shortcomings” by ICA is merely a “pretext” for a revocation and that it has never established a legal standard to deem a state program inadequate.

Employers and labor-aligned groups are renewing their longstanding arguments on the merits of OSHA’s expanded electronic recordkeeping and reporting mandates in response to the Biden administration’s proposal to generally unwind a Trump-era rollback of those requirements, with unions again welcoming the rule while industry calls it unnecessary or dangerous.

With little warning, EPA has revived and finalized a 2016 proposal that aims to harmonize its approach to regulating new chemicals with OSHA’s overall worker protection practices and the terms of that agency’s 2012 Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) -- rejecting industry objections that certain policies are either inconsistent with TSCA or redundant.

OSHA is floating a wide range of ways to tighten its decades-old lead exposure standards, including stricter medical removal requirements or even strengthening the permissible exposure limit (PEL) that forms the basis for many of the rule’s provisions, and is also asking stakeholders to weigh in on using state-level proposals in California and Washington as models.

OSHA intends to issue its long-term healthcare industry standard for preventing COVID-19 infections in September, according to the agency’s newly updated unified agenda of future regulatory actions, while other key rulemakings are being delayed by months or more from their previously announced targets.

OSHA’s long-delayed call for public input on possible updates to the decades-old lead exposure standard has cleared White House review, teeing up the first step of a rulemaking process the agency says will at least aim to tighten the blood lead levels (BLLs) that trigger medical removal of workers but could be much broader.

California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) has released a long-delayed new draft of its proposed workplace violence prevention standard that would govern “all industries” as a supplement to its existing, healthcare-specific rule, but the revisions are drawing early push-back from employer attorneys over its definitions and broad applicability.

National Nurses United (NNU) is pointing to the June 1 shootings of three employees and a patient’s spouse at a Tulsa clinic as further proof of the need for an OSHA workplace violence standard, and is urging the Senate to advance a bill that would mandate a final rule in just a year, cutting short what supporters say is the agency’s unacceptably long rulemaking process.