OSHA faces a 90-day deadline to start collecting comments on possible gaps in the agency's process safety management (PSM) standard, as well as controversial exemptions to the rule for retail and commercial-grade operations, under a sweeping new executive order from President Obama.
A key public interest group is pressuring OSHA to use the general duty clause of the OSH Act to enforce limits on resident physician work hours to battle fatigue and related hazards, after the agency denied the group's petition for formal regulatory action on the issue for the second time in a decade and deferred to an outside accrediting group. The organization, Public Citizen, also wants OSHA to ramp up enforcement of whistleblower laws to counter retaliation against doctors who lodge safety and health concerns over lengthy work periods.
Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell (R) issued an executive order Wednesday banning the use of flammable gases to conduct “gas blows” by power plants in the state, as OSHA continues to face pressure to draft a fuel gas standard. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), a proponent of regulatory action on the issue, praised the move but decried the lack of federal OSHA guidelines and procedures for handling natural gas.
Worker safety and health issues should play a greater role in response plans to national emergencies, a work group of the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health informally suggested at its recent meeting. The panel has asked OSHA and NIOSH, as part of their upcoming assessments of “lessons learned” from the Gulf oil spill response, to consider whether the federal national response plan should be modified to elevate worker safety and health considerations.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has undergone a major internal reorganization and has tapped longtime staffer Daniel Horowitz to the newly created position of managing director. Horowitz will report to the CSB chair and oversee all aspects of CSB operations -- including investigations, studies, recommendations, incident selection, congressional and public affairs, financial operations, human resources, information technology, and administration.
Worker safety advocates are engaged in a grassroots effort to shore up support among lawmakers to include sweeping OSHA reforms as part of any mine safety bill that moves through Congress this year, sources say. A congressional Democratic source acknowledged that lawmakers are divided on the issue as including the OSHA language complicates efforts to get mine legislation passed.
A public policy work group is urging OSHA to take a lead role in addressing worker handling of chemicals and use of biomonitoring data to set strategies for reducing harmful environmental chemicals in people. The recommendations are part of a wide-ranging set of draft proposals, now open to public comment, compiled by a public policy dispute resolution group on behalf of federal agencies.
The Small Business Administration is urging OSHA to take seriously industry's concerns that the agency's proposed fall protection standard goes too far by including a “general duty” type enforcement clause, and improperly opens the door to using the standard to address combustible dust. But union officials want OSHA to go a step further and explicitly link the standard to regulation of combustible dust.
A recent decision by the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) in the Summit Contractors case bolsters OSHA's longstanding policy of holding an employer responsible for the activities of its subcontractors, but industry sources say there are still many issues yet to be litigated, particularly how OSHA defines “controlling employers” and “creating employers.” The review commission followed recent court precedent and in the process reversed its earlier position on the issue.