The Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is launching an “actionable dialogue” with workers, managers and others to limit workplace hazards from combustible dust in the face of inaction by the Trump OSHA, which shelved a rulemaking setting a first-time standard to protect workers against hazards from combustible dust.
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is urging an appellate court to overturn a lower court ruling that partially denied its request for a broad subpoena for information related to an incident at an Exxon Mobil refinery, arguing the court abused its discretion in rejecting some subpoenas as “not relevant and material” to its inquiry.
OSHA and EPA are crafting a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to guide consultations between the two agencies on protections to workers who may be exposed to new chemicals that EPA is reviewing under the revised toxics law to determine whether and under what conditions they should enter the market.
As a federal appellate court weighs the Natural Resources Defense Council's (NRDC) standing to sue, the group is moving to drop its suit challenging the agency's draft framework for reviewing new chemicals under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), arguing that EPA has decided not to implement the framework.
EPA has dropped an early plan to consider risks of asbestos exposures to firefighters and other first responders due to its policy of excluding legacy uses from consideration for possible regulation under the revised toxics law, a move that is drawing protest from a group representing the workers and highlights the controversy around the policy decision.
Industry attorneys are welcoming EPA's recent approval of a new chemical that took a narrow view of the substance's “reasonably foreseen uses” that the agency is required to consider, but are urging officials to clarify whether the approach is intended to apply more broadly to agency reviews of other new chemicals under the revised toxics law.
EPA has approved a new chemical for use under the revised toxics law but has limited its review and regulation of the substance's “reasonably foreseen uses,” a move environmentalists say signals a “reckless” process for reviewing new chemicals that violates the June 2016 toxics law by failing to preclude unintended uses from its requirements.
Massachusetts officials are signaling strong pushback against a Trump administration proposed rule that could allow for new uses of asbestos, with state environment officials raising early concerns and seeking a six month delay in the rulemaking while the state's attorney general (AG) works with other Democratic AGs to oppose the plan.
EPA is defending its framework for reviewing new chemicals, including risks to workers, under the revised toxics law against an environmentalist lawsuit by arguing that the policy is consistent with the 2016 law, but also says the framework is a draft that it might never finalize and therefore critics lack legal standing for their challenge.
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler is hedging on Senate Democrats' calls to strictly review and ban certain uses of the solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) that are blamed for harms to consumers and workers, saying only that the substance is one of 10 the agency has prioritized for review under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).