Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and a coalition of public health groups are urging senators to take up the House-approved Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform bill, saying an alternative pending Senate TSCA bill contains too many problematic provisions including sweeping preemption of state chemicals programs.
OSHA's recent decision to place the DuPont chemical company in its controversial Severe Violator Enforcement Program (SVEP) and slap the employer with new fines following a deadly leak last fall in Texas shows the agency's determination to use its chemical safety emphasis program to continually cite employers accused of widespread and potentially ongoing hazards.
A newly issued OSHA update to its enforcement guidelines for stopping the spread of tuberculosis (TB) in health care settings provides inspectors with new tools, including an expansion of what types of facilities are covered, to prevent the disease and further strengthens the agency's recently announced inspection emphasis in the hospital and residential care industries, one focus of which is heading off TB transmission.
OSHA's long-planned rule to reduce workplace silica dust exposures faces tough new opposition from Republican appropriators on Capitol Hill trying to derail the contentious rule through appropriations, though a new round of budget gridlock similar to recent years would likely prevent such provisions from becoming law, congressional observers say.
Ergonomics concerns at inpatient health care facilities will almost certainly get mentioned in at least some of next year's Democratic presidential platforms on safety and health, worker advocates say -- with candidates likely to call for mandates on hospitals to install mechanical lifting in place of manually moving patients.
OSHA's newly rolled-out areas of emphasis for compliance officers conducting hospital and nursing home inspections -- focused intently on ergonomic issues, bloodborne pathogens, workplace violence, tuberculosis and slips, trips and falls -- comes after lengthy and intense pressure by health care worker advocates, particularly the nurses' lobby, on the agency to increase inspectors' concentration on inpatient facilities, Washington sources say.
NIOSH says researchers have found that attaching a regular shop vacuum to a dust-collecting circular saw can provide a “simple, low cost solution” to reduce exposure to hazardous dust when construction workers cut fiber-cement siding -- findings that come as OSHA works intently to finalize a controversial rule to reduce exposures to crystalline silica dust, which is a major concern in dealing with that type of construction material.
OSHA fully expects before the Obama administration ends to finalize and enact new regulations aimed at reducing workplace hazards from crystalline silica dust, OSHA's top non-career deputy told safety and health activists at a Maryland conference Wednesday (June 3).
OSHA may be only four months away from publishing a long-promised and highly controversial rule to compel employers to submit electronic records of work-related injuries and illnesses, with the September date for the rule inked in the latest regulatory agenda only a month slip from the agency's earlier target, leaving observers to speculate the Obama administration is determined to finish the rule but needs to iron out final technical details before publishing it.
A key organization of industrial hygienists has added to stakeholder calls, mostly among worker health activists and their Democratic allies on Capitol Hill, for the Obama administration to release for public review OSHA's stalled regulatory proposal to reduce occupational exposure to beryllium, but the White House remains reticent on the timing of the rule's potential publication.