In this installment of EHSDA Shorts, Jill James, Chief Safety Officer, HSI, talks about the differences between state OSHA and federal OSHA requirements.
This clip was taken from a webinar titled “What Safety Training Do You Need? Mapping Training to OSHA Regulations,” as part of EHS Daily Advisor Safety Training Week 2024 virtual summit. The full session is available for FREE on-demand here.
Transcript (edited for clarity):
Question: What are the differences between state Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and federal OSHA requirements?
James: You recall that there is a federal OSHA, of course, and about half of the states in the nation have their own state-run OSHA programs. When it comes to OSHA compliance in all things, whether it’s training or something else, federal OSHA is the baseline under which everybody else has to comply. The state run OSHA program and their laws are over and above the federal OSHA requirements.
When federal OSHA decided to allow the states to run their own OSHA they said “Okay states, you have to be as good or better than federal OSHA”. This means that state OSHA programs had to adopt the federal regulations because they have to be as good as and then in certain areas and cases, they did better than the federal government.
For example, in my home state, Minnesota OSHA decided to make the hazard communication regulation that we just looked at a little bit better so they adopted the federal hazard communication law because they have to. And then they added to it Minnesota added training requirements around harmful physical agents and infectious agents, which is over and above the federal requirement, which only addresses hazardous substances.
Another example is a law that I co-authored on the operation of mobile earth-moving equipment for the construction industry, no such law exists on the federal level and it happens to have a training component. If you live in California, like Kristi does, you might have heard that California OSHA just birthed a new law on workplace violence prevention.
All of this to say that you need to comply with federal OSHA first and then find out if you’re impacted by a state OSHA program. And if so, which of their laws has something to do with training and, depending on where you live, you could also have a local government like a city or a county that might have mandates as well or you might have mandates imposed on you by a funding source like maybe a granting agency. Don’t forget to ask about those where you have your operations. Your insurance carriers, like workers compensation or property liability, they might have expectations of you, as well.