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The tragic explosion of fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate at the West, Texas, distribution facility in April 2013 has had a powerful impact on the direction of the EPA’s implementation of the Clean Air Act’s Risk Management Program (RMP, CAA Section 112(r)).
OSHA’s proposed revisions to the 2016 final rule to Improve the Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses have cleared the Office of Management and Budget, meaning that a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is likely to be published in the Federal Register soon.
The EPA has completed its residual risk and technology review (RTR) of the Clean Air Act’s National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) for the Portland Cement manufacturing sector.
Volkswagen’s (VW) successful efforts to cheat the EPA’s emissions testing of light-duty vehicles with defeat devices became major public news in 2014 and continues to have repercussions today for those offices within the Agency that conduct vehicle testing and oversee compliance.
In a final rule, the EPA has promulgated amendments to its 2015 requirements for the disposal of coal combustion residuals (CCRs) generated by electric utilities (April 17, 2015, Federal Register (FR)). The final amendments, which were included in a package of revisions the Agency proposed in early 2018 (March 15, 2018, FR), loosen the stringency […]
In conjunction with a new report by Public Citizen, 130 groups have petitioned U.S. OSHA to initiate rulemaking for the first federal standard to protect indoor and outdoor workers from occupational exposure to excessive heat.
Nearly 8 years after the Association of American Railroads (AAR) challenged provisions of OSHA’s Cranes and Derricks in Construction rule (August 9, 2010, Federal Register (FR)), the Agency has issued a formal proposal to address the AAR’s concerns. (The AAR’s petition remains with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, but the two […]
In its revisions to the Worker Protection Standard ((WPS), November 2, 2015, Federal Register (FR)), the EPA introduced a new term—application exclusion zone (AEZ). AEZ replaced entry restricted area, a phrase included in the Agency’s proposal under which people other than approved pesticide handlers were prohibited from entering both outdoor areas treated with pesticides and […]
On July 9, 2018, his first day as Acting EPA Administrator, Andrew Wheeler denied a petition to reconsider the Agency’s residual risk and technology review (RTR) of its 2001 National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) for Chemical Recovery Combustion Sources at Kraft, Soda, Sulfite, and Stand-Alone Semi-Chemical Pulp Mills (October 11, 2107, Federal […]
Worker safety advocates, scientists, and some state OSHA authorities have been contending for years that OSHA’s permissible exposure levels (PELs) for lead in the workplace are inadequate to protect workers from the multiple adverse health effects associated with the metal.