An attorney for employers says he anticipates that OSHA will soon finalize its controversial rule to allow representatives to take part in enforcement “walkaround” inspections even if they are not employed at the site, after the regulation sped through White House review -- a move he says is almost guaranteed to bring immediate court challenges.

Just-released fiscal year 2024 spending legislation keeps OSHA and other Labor Department (DOL) worker-protection agencies at their current funding despite an overall cut to the department, while preserving some of the budget for the lapsed Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standard (CFATS) program -- which could allow Congress to revive it later in the year.

Just-released fiscal year 2024 spending legislation keeps OSHA and other Labor Department (DOL) worker-protection agencies at their current funding despite an overall cut to the department, while preserving some of the budget for the lapsed Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standard (CFATS) program -- which could allow Congress to revive it later in the year.

The American Chemistry Council (ACC) is raising early attacks on a workplace exposure limit in EPA’s draft TSCA evaluation of formaldehyde, calling it unreasonably strict and at odds with science -- even as the agency itself acknowledges that key challenges in implementing that figure could lead to a different value in its eventual rulemaking.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is blocking inclusion of a Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) reauthorization in an upcoming spending bill -- a proposal that the source says may be the “last shot” to revive the lapsed program, a top chemical industry official says.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is blocking inclusion of a Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) reauthorization in an upcoming spending bill -- a proposal that the source says may be the “last shot” to revive the lapsed program, a top chemical industry official says.

EPA has released its final TSCA risk-management rule for chrysotile asbestos, aiming to phase out the carcinogen from chlor-alkali production on a sliding timeline that will run between five and 12 years based in part on the alternative technology to which a facility is switching -- a win for industry groups that argued the proposed two-year deadline was impossible.

EPA has released its final TSCA risk-management rule for chrysotile asbestos, aiming to phase out the carcinogen from chlor-alkali production on a sliding timeline that will run between five and 12 years based in part on the alternative technology to which a facility is switching -- a win for industry groups that argued the proposed two-year deadline was impossible.

EPA’s long-awaited draft TSCA evaluation of formaldehyde says all of its industrial uses and many commercial applications of the ubiquitous chemical pose “unreasonable risk” to workers and others, which could form the basis for a landmark rule regulating or even banning such uses amid industry’s broad attacks on the agency’s science and review process.

OSHA is petitioning the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit to require a Kansas-based contracting company to comply with Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) orders after the firm was found liable for four OSH Act violations -- a rare step for the agency to rely on a court petition to enforce orders.