Inside OSHA

November 7, 2024

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As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House, the direction of federal labor and safety policy faces a major upheaval, as he has pledged to sharply roll back a host of Biden-era regulations and would likely scale back OSHA’s work as he did during his first term.

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Two industry groups are seeking to bolster allegations from the chemical sector that EPA’s TSCA rule for the solvent methylene chloride is unlawful, arguing that the agency’s claim of broad discretion to limit or ban chemical uses in order to protect workers is at odds with the Constitution and ignores Congress’s intended role for OSHA.

The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is renewing its calls for EPA to target hydrogen fluoride (HF) -- a highly toxic catalyst involved in several releases or near-misses in industrial accidents in recent years -- for possible regulation under TSCA, as the agency weighs candidates for its next “prioritization” cycle.

The Mine Safety and Health Review Commission (MSHRC) is declining to participate in a pair of D.C. Circuit appeals where both the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and mining companies hope to overturn its decisions that the agency lacks “unfettered” authority to drop already-issued citations in favor of settlement agreements.

A three-judge 5th Circuit panel is letting stand automakers’ amicus brief opposing EPA’s landmark TSCA rule for chrysotile asbestos that EPA and public-health advocates attacked as improperly adding a host of new legal questions to the case, teeing up what could be complex arguments over which of the group’s claims are properly before the court.

OSHA is arguing that California highway regulators responsible for the Golden Gate Bridge cannot continue to challenge its Trump-era guidance letter that eased implementation of a long-standing scaffolding safety standard, because officials in the state are not directly bound by the policy and thus have suffered no “injury” from it.

The fabricated stone manufacturing industry is making final pleas for California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) to scale back its proposed final permanent rules to protect workers from exposure to crystalline silica, warning that dozens of onerous new requirements and poor enforcement will penalize businesses that are adequately protecting employees.

Chemical-sector groups are urging EPA and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to ease the strict workplace exposure standard that the agency proposed in its TSCA rule for trichloroethylene (TCE), by either easing the final regulation or allowing for greater flexibility on enforcement.

OSHA has replaced its long-standing enforcement guidance for poultry facilities with one that covers all animal slaughtering and meat processing sites -- a move it says will tighten its oversight of the sector in order to better target disproportionately high injury and illness rates for workers.

Trade groups and a chemical company suing EPA over its redone rule governing TSCA risk evaluations are divided on what bar the agency must clear to defend its new policy, teeing up a question that will shape how appellate judges decide whether the agency has properly justified its approach to measuring workplace risk, among other key issues.

 

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