On December 11, 2024, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced it finalized a revision to the personal protective equipment (PPE) standard for the construction industry. The final rule adds specific language to the existing standard requiring employers to provide properly fitting PPE for construction industry workers. This change aligns the construction industry with
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
EPA Turns Up the Pressure on Chemical Release Prevention and Preparation
On May 10, 2024, extensive revisions recently adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the Risk Management Program (RMP) regulations (40 CFR Part 68) will take effect. The revisions, dubbed by EPA as the “Safer Communities by Chemical Accident Prevention Rule,” reinstate certain Obama-era provisions previously rolled back under the Trump administration. However, the revisions also enlarge some of these provisions and add significant new requirements, including some that reflect the current administration’s focus on climate change and environmental justice.
The revisions require owners and operators of subject facilities to achieve compliance with most of the substantive requirements within three years (i.e., by May 10, 2027). RMP plans must be updated to reflect new applicable requirements and resubmitted to EPA within four years (i.e., by May 10, 2028). For certain other requirements (regarding emergency response field exercises), the compliance deadline is potentially shorter or longer than these three- and four-year periods, depending on the date of the facility’s most recent field exercise.
Once the rule takes effect, court challenges by both business interests and environmental groups are expected. However, given the unknown outcome of such challenges and the breadth and potential costs of the new requirements, potentially impacted facilities should begin assessing the applicability of the revisions now.
Background
The RMP regulations implement Section 112(r) of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (42 U.S.C. 7412(r)), which direct EPA to develop regulations to improve the prevention of chemical accidents at stationary facilities or activities (for brevity, referred to here simply as “facilities”) that use or store “regulated substances” that EPA has identified as presenting the greatest risk of harm from accidental releases. In particular, the owner and operator of a facility with one or more “processes” that manufactures, uses, stores, or handles such a regulated substance in excess of substance-specific threshold quantities must develop and implement a risk management program for all such processes, and document that program in a risk management plan submitted to EPA.
RMP requirements are generally similar to, and in some respects will overlap with, requirements under the Process Safety Management (PSM) program administered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). However, while OSHA’s PSM regulations focus on workplace safety, the RMP regulations focus primarily on minimizing the public impacts of accidental releases through prevention and emergency response.Continue Reading EPA Turns Up the Pressure on Chemical Release Prevention and Preparation
Supreme Court Stays Implementation of OSHA ETS
As we have previously reported, the implementation status of OSHA’s Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) regarding COVID-19 vaccination or testing seems to change weekly. Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court reinstated the stay of OSHA’s ETS, ultimately sending the rule back to the Sixth Circuit to await a full review on the merits.
In the…
Supreme Court to Hear Arguments on Two Federal Vaccine Mandates
On December 21, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court took its first step into the fray over federal vaccine mandates. As we have previously posted, legal challenges to the Biden administration’s various vaccine mandates have been working their way through the courts since November. Most recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth…
Significant Increase in OSHA Whistleblower Complaints and Caseloads Due to COVID-19
Since at least March, manufacturers, and the entire U.S. economy, have been experiencing unprecedented conditions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 has not only changed where and how manufacturers operate, but also safety protocols across the board.
It will likely come as no surprise to any manufacturer, that since February there has been…