OSHA is seeking $110,630 in penalties for an ammonia leak at a Georgia poultry plant that the agency says hospitalized two workers and forced dozens more to evacuate, as the agency prepares to pursue an update to the process safety management (PSM) standard at the heart of the case, in parallel with EPA’s reforms to its own facility-safety rule.
The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) has upheld a General Duty Clause citation that OSHA filed against a Pennsylvania construction firm in the wake of a fatal equipment collapse, holding that the citation for failure to perform required maintenance is valid regardless of whether that failure caused the accident.
Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee are proposing a $68 million fiscal year 2023 funding increase for OSHA in hopes of restarting long-stalled talks with the GOP on spending legislation, just as the chamber’s leaders are embracing a deal with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) on a reconciliation bill that appears to exclude long-sought boosts to OSH Act penalties.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced it is directly investigating workplace safety concerns and “related issues” at multiple Amazon warehouses, in the wake of a worker death at one of the company’s New Jersey facilities -- a step one Democratic lawmaker says is “exceptionally rare” and justifies a strict OSHA response as well.
A Texas construction firm is suing over OSHA’s citation for a 2016 accident where a worker was seriously injured when a crane touched a live power line during disassembly, after the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) twice rejected the employer’s defenses -- including that the crane safety standard should not apply.
The Biden administration is highlighting early inspection figures from OSHA’s first-time National Emphasis Program (NEP) on heat danger as part of a broader push to showcase its climate policies amid a worldwide heat wave and the failure of Senate negotiations over clean-energy measures in a reconciliation spending bill.
EPA plans to “learn from” OSHA’s enforcement of workplace chemical-exposure limits as it prepares for the demands of enforcing new TSCA risk management rules, a spokesperson says, while an industry attorney sees a formal memorandum of understanding (MOU) or other partnership between the two agencies as an option to aid those efforts.
The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission has taken the rare step of announcing that its current members are deadlocked on a pending petition, unveiling a pair of opinions where the two members are at odds on whether claiming a violation occurred “on or about” a particular day gives OSHA leeway to file a citation more than six months later.
An OSHA oversight hearing by a House labor subcommittee highlighted the gulf between Republicans and Democrats on the agency’s regulatory plans and its requested funding for fiscal year 2023, underscoring both continued tensions over the Biden administration’s COVID-19 rules and the high bar any budget increase will face in the current Congress.
California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) is imposing a combined $1.75 million in fines against an oil refinery and three contractors for “serious” violations following a fatal 2021 incident, concluding that several of the companies failed to determine acceptable “entry conditions” for a confined chamber where a worker suffocated due to high argon levels.