EPA’s top waste official is promising that the agency’s plan to revise the Trump-era rule setting safety mandates for chemical facilities will require that industry provides the “maximum protection possible” and will make environmental justice a key focus, bolstering environmental groups that have pushed for such approaches.
OSHA plans to propose in December a rule to restore Obama-era electronic recordkeeping and reporting mandates that the Trump administration largely rolled back in 2019, according to its newly released Unified Agenda of regulatory actions that also targets December for proposing a long-delayed infectious-disease standard.
Unions and their allies are pushing back on OSHA’s emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19, arguing that limiting the rule to healthcare workers leaves at-risk workers in other industries unprotected, even as employers’ attorneys are warning that the agency could soon tighten enforcement across all industry sectors.
OSHA has released its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) for healthcare employers, alongside new general-industry guidance for the pandemic that focuses on vaccination and recommends infection-control measures only for workplaces where some employees are not yet vaccinated.
Labor Secretary Marty Walsh says OSHA will release June 10 a COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) that applies only to the medical sector, rejecting arguments from unions and safety groups that a general-industry standard is still needed despite widespread vaccinations.
OSHA has named five new members to its Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health (ACCSH) and renewed another 10 for new two-year terms, including an official with North America's Building Trades Unions (NABTU) who will serve as chair, in the Biden administration’s first round of appointments to an agency panel.
OSHA and four companies that sued over the Obama-era beryllium exposure regulation have reached a settlement to expand the list of “abrasive blasting materials” the agency says in guidance are subject to the rule, potentially resolving a long-running conflict among industry on which materials the policy should cover.
Republicans on the Senate labor committee are calling on Doug Parker, President Joe Biden’s nominee as the next OSHA chief, to withdraw the agency’s planned COVID-19 standard (ETS), telling Parker during his May 27 confirmation hearing that vaccinations have eliminated the need for a pandemic worker safety rule.
OSHA is proposing a second set of revisions to its 2016 fall-prevention standard to address what it says were unclear provisions and typographical errors in the Obama-era rule governing elevated “walking-working surfaces,” including a formatting mistake that left out key language on guardrails for staircases.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has unveiled new COVID-19 guidance that allows “fully vaccinated” individuals to avoid wearing masks or socially distancing in many settings, just as employers are urging OSHA to include similar language in its upcoming emergency temporary standard (ETS).