Litigation

Health groups and the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) are at odds over how a federal court should proceed in the plaintiffs' lawsuit alleging the board has unlawfully failed to promulgate rules requiring industrial facilities to report their chemical releases following an incident and are asking the court to resolve the issue.

Environmental, labor and public interest groups are urging White House officials to preserve and quickly implement the Obama-era rule bolstering EPA's facility accident prevention program, even as the Trump administration prepares to issue a plan that is widely expected to scale back the regulation.

OSHA has submitted a final version of the Trump administration’s plan to scale-back Obama-era beryllium standards to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review, just as slag- and non-slag abrasive producers are intensifying their battle over which products would trigger the rule's safety requirements.

Appellate judges hearing litigation over EPA's two-year delay of Obama-era revisions to the agency's facility safety rule are demanding that the Trump administration provide a list of all federal agency rules prior to 2017 where effective dates of existing rules were changed solely to allow time for a potential reconsideration of those regulations.

Manufacturers of slag abrasives used for industrial blasting, cleaning and other purposes are making an 11th-hour push to roll back OSHA's beryllium rule, releasing a new study that even non-slag abrasives, which some have suggested may be a safer alternative, contain beryllium, and that “unecessary regulations” impact the entire industry “regardless of material used.”

Nearly a year after missing a court deadline, EPA is renewing its calls to indefinitely delay a decision on whether it must regulate lead-based paint in public and commercial (P&C) buildings, even as it faces a steep deadline later this month to propose a companion measure updating its standards for lead paint in residential buildings.

Appellate court judges appear to be backing the Trump administration's authority to delay the Obama-era rule strengthening EPA's facility accident prevention program, but some are questioning why the agency needs a two-year delay, suggesting it should quickly revise a controversial provision and allow other new protections to take effect.

Industry attorneys say they expect that employers will increasingly challenge future OSHA citations after a federal appellate court found that the agency does not have a binding look-back period for determining whether an employer repeatedly violated standards, which can carry fines 10 times higher than an initial penalty.

OSHA's Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC), which reviews administrative decisions, has found that inspectors with expired credentials still have the authority to cite employers for alleged violations and that it is the employers' responsibility to examine the officer's card before the inspection to ensure that they are “appropriate credentials."

In the wake of an ethics controversy, the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) has reinstated its strict Obama-era standard defining when contractors, franchisers and other entities are considered “joint employers,” though the move is unlikely to result in new enforcement of related OSHA guidance as conservatives and Trump administration officials have long opposed the standard.