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The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is renewing its calls for EPA to strengthen its oversight of refiners’ use of hydrofluoric acid (HF), in a report on a 2019 refinery incident that urges officials to prioritize HF for risk evaluation under TSCA and to require a safer-alternatives review under the risk management plan (RMP) program.

OSHA is ordering ExxonMobil to reinstate two former employees who the agency says were illegally fired in retaliation for potentially leaking information to the press, and to pay them over $800,000 in back wages, compensatory damages and interest, in its second high-profile whistleblower enforcement action of recent months.

OSHA is ordering ExxonMobil to reinstate two former employees who the agency says were illegally fired in retaliation for potentially leaking information to the press, and to pay them over $800,000 in back wages, compensatory damages and interest, in its second high-profile whistleblower enforcement action of recent months.

A Texas construction firm is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to narrow OSHA’s reading of its safety standard for assembling or disassembling cranes and other large equipment, arguing in a new brief that the agency was wrong to cite it under that rule for an accident involving preparatory steps before the disassembly process.

A Texas construction firm is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to narrow OSHA’s reading of its safety standard for assembling or disassembling cranes and other large equipment, arguing in a new brief that the agency was wrong to cite it under that rule for an accident involving preparatory steps before the disassembly process.

South Carolina is defending its lawsuit seeking to block OSHA’s mandate that state plans match federal maximum penalties for OSH Act violations, saying that the agency has shown scant justification for the requirement in either statutory text or its own rules and offered “no response” to arguments that the law explicitly gives states “flexibility” on penalties.

South Carolina is defending its lawsuit seeking to block OSHA’s mandate that state plans match federal maximum penalties for OSH Act violations, saying that the agency has shown scant justification for the requirement in either statutory text or its own rules and offered “no response” to arguments that the law explicitly gives states “flexibility” on penalties.

A federal appeals court has overturned a 2020 Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) decision that took a narrow reading of OSHA’s safety standard for goods “stored in tiers,” holding that Walmart violated the rule in a 2017 accident even though the items in question were held in shelves rather than stacked directly atop one another.

A federal appeals court has overturned a 2020 Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) decision that took a narrow reading of OSHA’s safety standard for goods “stored in tiers,” holding that Walmart violated the rule in a 2017 accident even though the items in question were held in shelves rather than stacked directly atop one another.

A coalition of chemical firms is warning EPA that its novel “whole chemical” approach to TSCA risk determinations could “functionally disable” the law’s restrictions on using workplace risks from chemical exposures to justify rules limiting manufacture, import or use of finished articles, just as officials are preparing to step up their use of that power.