Rulemaking

OSHA plans to hold a stakeholder meeting next month to hear input from companies on leading indicators used to preemptively address workplace health and safety, planning to use the information it receives to develop additional tools that might assist employers with taking more preventative and predictive steps to protect worker safety.

OSHA in a new final rule is certifying two “quantitative fit” tests for ensuring respiratory equipment complies with its respiratory protection standard, giving employers new options that the agency says can be completed more than twice as quickly as prior methods and potentially enabling major time savings for firms with large workforces that use masks.

The White House has approved two OSHA measures aimed at revising portions of the Obama administration’s final beryllium rules for the construction and shipyard sectors but without repealing them, a move that is likely to spark heated opposition and resumed litigation from key industry groups.

Worker and other safety advocates are warning they might sue the Agriculture Department (USDA) over its just-issued rule easing swine slaughter inspection requirements and increasing line speeds, arguing the measure will increase risks to workers that already face some of the highest workplace injury rates in the country.

OSHA is facing a stakeholder battle as it proceeds with its plan to drop a rulemaking to rescind ancillary provisions from its beryllium rule for the construction sector and instead tailor the provisions, with industry groups suggesting they may sue as the agency lacks evidence for a threshold finding while health groups are citing studies backing the effort.

OSHA this week unveiled a new voluntary alliance with three major poultry sector trade associations in a bid to allay safety concerns over Agriculture Department (USDA) efforts to ease line speed requirements at processing plants, though labor advocates are strongly criticizing USDA’s actions and calling for stepped-up OSHA scrutiny.

California legislation that would lock into state law Obama-era worker safety and other rules has cleared a critical Assembly fiscal committee but still faces a fight on the floor of the chamber from powerful industry groups.

OSHA is gearing up to roll back the Obama administration’s landmark beryllium rule, floating two draft measures for White House review and scheduling a meeting of its construction advisors next month to discuss ways to implement some of the proposed rollbacks, though House Democrats are fighting efforts to undo the requirements.

EPA is seeking comment on a pair of chemical industry requests asking the agency to assess the risks of two phthalate chemicals, requests that will pose first-time tests for the agency on whether and how it conducts such analysis under the revised toxics law and whether any negative EPA risk finding preempts existing state and federal requirements.

As expected, EPA has formally declined to create new Clean Water Act (CWA) requirements to prevent or contain industrial chemical spills, dismissing calls from state emergency responders and environmentalists, who argued a rule is mandated by law and needed in the wake of a 2014 spill that closed the drinking water system in Charleston, WV.