A federal appellate court is upholding a criminal conviction and a maximum penalty against an employer who failed to provide fall protection to an employee who fell to his death, a rare use of the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act's criminal enforcement authority, which the Obama administration sought to bolster.
The Omaha area OSHA office is no longer investigating a May grain elevator explosion that led to the death of an employee after determining that the farm is not subject to OSHA enforcement under a longstanding 1970s-era congressional policy rider that limits the agency's jurisdiction over farms with 10 or fewer employees.
Senate Democrats are signaling that they will not cooperate with congressional talks over the Trump administration's sweeping government reorganization plan, arguing their requests for the data informing the proposal were “stonewalled,” although Republicans argue that they are just at the “start” of the process.
A free market group's suit seeking to retroactively extend the Congressional Review Act's (CRA) requirements to OSHA and other agencies' guidance documents is facing a major test as the Justice Department is seeking to dismiss it, arguing in part that courts lack jurisdiction to review agencies' alleged failure to submit the policies to Congress for possible repeal.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers has introduced legislation seeking to improve reporting on the scope of harassment in the workplace, data that could aid policy development just as labor groups have urged OSHA to take up the issue as a safety concern.
EPA is planning to consider workers' exposures to existing chemicals when it assesses substances' risks for possible regulation under the revised toxics law, noting that OSHA has acknowledged that its exposure limits for many chemicals are “outdated and inadequate.”
Former OSHA officials and a coalition of over 100 labor groups are formally petitioning OSHA to craft a federal standard protecting workers from exposure to excessive heat, though one former official says that imminent Democratic legislation requiring such a standard is likely the most feasible path forward under the Trump administration.
Former OSHA officials and a coalition of over 100 labor groups are formally petitioning OSHA to craft a federal standard protecting workers from exposure to excessive heat, though one former official says that imminent Democratic legislation requiring such a standard is likely the most feasible path forward under the Trump administration.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is urging a federal court to reject environmentalists' suit seeking to require a rule mandating facilities report their accidental releases, charging, among other things, that the plaintiffs lack standing, though CSB says that if the court requires such a rule it may be “difficult” given administration plans to kill the agency.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is urging a federal court to reject environmentalists' suit seeking to require a rule mandating facilities report their accidental releases, charging, among other things, that the plaintiffs lack standing, though CSB says that if the court requires such a rule it may be “difficult” given administration plans to kill the agency.