OSHA intends to issue its long-term healthcare industry standard for preventing COVID-19 infections in September, according to the agency’s newly updated unified agenda of future regulatory actions, while other key rulemakings are being delayed by months or more from their previously announced targets.
OSHA’s long-delayed call for public input on possible updates to the decades-old lead exposure standard has cleared White House review, teeing up the first step of a rulemaking process the agency says will at least aim to tighten the blood lead levels (BLLs) that trigger medical removal of workers but could be much broader.
California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) has released a long-delayed new draft of its proposed workplace violence prevention standard that would govern “all industries” as a supplement to its existing, healthcare-specific rule, but the revisions are drawing early push-back from employer attorneys over its definitions and broad applicability.
National Nurses United (NNU) is pointing to the June 1 shootings of three employees and a patient’s spouse at a Tulsa clinic as further proof of the need for an OSHA workplace violence standard, and is urging the Senate to advance a bill that would mandate a final rule in just a year, cutting short what supporters say is the agency’s unacceptably long rulemaking process.
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.
OSHA is giving stakeholders an extra 30 days, until June 30, to file comments on its proposal to reinstate Obama-era electronic recordkeeping and reporting mandates for workplace injury and illness data, following requests from employers and unions alike for more time to consider and respond to the plan.
Unions and employers used the final round of written comments on OSHA’s planned long-term COVID-19 standard for healthcare facilities to renew and supplement their arguments on the scope of the rule, with labor groups offering an array of claims to support strict mandates while industry focused on responding to specific questions raised by officials.
Oregon OSHA has finalized what it says are the nation’s “most protective” work-safety rules for heat danger and wildfire smoke, largely maintaining proposed versions issued earlier this year but with some revisions, as Gov. Kate Brown (D) is touting the rules as a “national model” for other safeguards -- such as OSHA’s pending federal heat rule.
Senate Democrats have unveiled their counterpart to a House bill that would give OSHA a one-year deadline to craft a long-sought workplace violence standard, after it passed the lower chamber by a bipartisan margin in 2021, giving supporters hope that it could overcome a filibuster in this Congress although so far it has no Republican co-sponsors.
Employers are tentatively backing a potential OSHA rule to tighten its decades-old limit for workers’ blood lead levels but are urging the agency to be cautious with any broader revisions to the lead exposure standards, especially if officials intend to model the federal update on strict proposals pending in Washington and California.