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Is your business in the bullseye of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) 2023 regulatory plans? If you oversee a healthcare facility, then the answer is a resounding “yes.” Labor Secretary Marty Walsh recently confirmed that three OSHA healthcare rulemakings are priorities for the Labor Department: a permanent healthcare COVID-19 standard, a proposed infectious […]
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) will proceed with three rulemakings focused on the healthcare industry—standards for COVID-19, infectious diseases, and workplace violence—the Department of Labor (DOL) announced as part of the fall 2022 unified regulatory agenda unveiled January 4. The agency also is moving forward with developing a federal heat illness prevention standard, […]
In April, the American Hospital Association (AHA) urged the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) not to establish a permanent healthcare COVID-19 standard based on the agency’s June 21, 2021, emergency temporary standard (ETS). The AHA voiced its opposition to establishing a permanent standard not aligned with evolving evidence-based guidance from the Centers for Disease […]
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has plans to move forward with rulemakings addressing heat illness prevention; infectious disease hazards in healthcare and related industries, including COVID-19; and workplace violence in healthcare and social services, according to the Department of Labor’s (DOL) fall 2021 semiannual regulatory agenda, published January 31 (87 Federal Register (FR) […]
The EPA announced September 3 it will initiate new rulemaking and plans to propose new rules for five persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT) chemicals subject to risk management rules under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). In conjunction with this announcement, the EPA is also taking action to provide an extension on the compliance dates […]
The EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently reported that the Agency failed to comply with two Clinton-era Executive Orders (EOs) when former Administrator Scott Pruitt decided to rush into publication the proposed repeal of an Obama-era rule intended to reduce air pollution generated by glider vehicles.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) plans to issue changes by the end of the year to its beryllium standards for general industry, construction, and shipyards. The plans announced in the agency’s Spring 2019 regulatory agenda would complete changes to an “eleventh-hour” Obama administration rulemaking.
In a May 13, 2019, intra-Agency memo that was leaked to news outlets, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler instructed the heads of four Agency offices to begin to reform how those offices evaluate costs and benefits as part of the regulatory decision process. The intent, wrote Wheeler, is to correct lapses in consistency and transparency evident […]
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is once again drawing attention to the hazards of combustible dust in the workplace. As part of its investigation into a May 2017 explosion at a milling facility in Cambria, Wisconsin, which fatally injured five workers and demolished the facility, the CSB has issued a call […]
The EPA possesses substantial flexibility in how it considers the costs and benefits of regulations it promulgates. That flexibility is inherent in the environmental statutes, which sometimes require that costs be considered in rulemaking and sometimes make no mention of costs/benefits, but, in any case, rarely specify how such consideration should occur. This has given […]