Rulemaking

An OSHA oversight hearing by a House labor subcommittee highlighted the gulf between Republicans and Democrats on the agency’s regulatory plans and its requested funding for fiscal year 2023, underscoring both continued tensions over the Biden administration’s COVID-19 rules and the high bar any budget increase will face in the current Congress.

OSHA is giving stakeholders an extra 30 days, until June 30, to file comments on its proposal to reinstate Obama-era electronic recordkeeping and reporting mandates for workplace injury and illness data, following requests from employers and unions alike for more time to consider and respond to the plan.

Unions and employers used the final round of written comments on OSHA’s planned long-term COVID-19 standard for healthcare facilities to renew and supplement their arguments on the scope of the rule, with labor groups offering an array of claims to support strict mandates while industry focused on responding to specific questions raised by officials.

Oregon OSHA has finalized what it says are the nation’s “most protective” work-safety rules for heat danger and wildfire smoke, largely maintaining proposed versions issued earlier this year but with some revisions, as Gov. Kate Brown (D) is touting the rules as a “national model” for other safeguards -- such as OSHA’s pending federal heat rule.

Senate Democrats have unveiled their counterpart to a House bill that would give OSHA a one-year deadline to craft a long-sought workplace violence standard, after it passed the lower chamber by a bipartisan margin in 2021, giving supporters hope that it could overcome a filibuster in this Congress although so far it has no Republican co-sponsors.

Employers are tentatively backing a potential OSHA rule to tighten its decades-old limit for workers’ blood lead levels but are urging the agency to be cautious with any broader revisions to the lead exposure standards, especially if officials intend to model the federal update on strict proposals pending in Washington and California.

OSHA officials used the public hearing on a forthcoming permanent COVID-19 rule for healthcare facilities to press union representatives for more data and testimony to support the groups’ arguments that a stringent regulation is needed to protect workers, asking questions on workplace infections, cost management and a host of other issues.

Labor unions and safety groups are urging OSHA to reject employers’ calls to defer to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in any permanent COVID-19 safety standard for healthcare workers, saying that agency’s statutory mission and procedures are distinct from -- and less stringent than -- the OSH Act’s mandate to ensure safe workplaces.

Some employers are warning OSHA that any move to revive the emergency temporary standard (ETS) would be illegal while others are urging the agency to link any long-term COVID-19 safety standard for the healthcare sector with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance in order to ensure flexibility in response to new research on the disease.

A group of 31 House and Senate Democrats is stepping up pressure on EPA to consider climate change impacts in its upcoming risk management plan (RMP) facility safety rule, arguing that hazards such as more frequent extreme weather will act as a “threat multiplier” for chemical releases and other disasters the rule is meant to prevent or mitigate.