Alexandra Dunn, President Donald Trump's nominee to serve as EPA's toxics chief, is likely to face tough questions at her Nov. 29 confirmation hearing given Democrats long-standing opposition to Trump administration rules setting a framework for how EPA will consider chemicals' risks to workers and others under the revised toxics law.
Federal advisors are urging the Trump administration to retain two Obama-era rules bolstering protections for farmworkers from pesticide exposure, measures that are intended to provide farmworkers with similar protections to workers in industries regulated by OSHA.
OSHA has sent for White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review a proposed rule seeking to revise an Obama-era rule strengthening the agency's beryllium standards, changes that are part of a settlement with industry groups that calls for clarifying ancillary provisions of the Obama-era rule's general industry standard.
North Carolina regulators are asking their science advisors to review strict guidance developed with EPA for protecting against workers and others' exposures to trichloroethylene (TCE) through vapor intrusion at contaminated sites, amid ongoing controversy with EPA's 2011 assessment that found the solvent poses risks to pregnant women.
EPA is seeking public comment and peer review on a draft assessment of Colour Index Pigment Violet 29 (PV29), the first of 10 risk evaluations it is conducting of existing chemicals' risks to workers and others under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
Despite Democrats' control of the House next year, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) faces continued uncertainty about its future as its supporters fear the Trump administration may deprive it of a quorum to operate by not nominating new board members to replace those whose terms expire starting at the end of 2019.
Labor and environmental groups challenging the Trump administration's rules for reviewing existing chemicals' risks to workers and the environment under the revised toxics law are rejecting EPA assertions that the law grants the agency broad discretion to determine the chemical uses it considers for possible regulation, charging that EPA must consider all conditions of use.
EPA and OSHA, the lead agencies once charged with implementing an Obama-era Executive Order (EO) on improving facility safety after a 2013 disaster, are heeding long-standing industry calls to enforce existing rules while scaling back or shelving new protections advanced under the Obama administration.
Democrats are stepping up their efforts during Congress' lame duck session to kill House Farm Bill language that would codify a permanent waiver for retail facilities from OSHA's safety standards, though sources say that if lawmakers are unable to reach a deal on the Farm Bill this year, prospects for killing the OSHA language in 2019 would improve as Democrats will control the House.
Labor and safer chemicals groups are threatening to sue EPA within 60 days in a bid to compel the agency to finalize an Obama-era proposed rule banning use of methylene chloride (MC) in paint strippers, noting that former Administrator Scott Pruitt committed to the rule.