OSHA added five new topics to its regulatory agenda despite being tardy completing its current rulemaking activities. Reading the agenda brings several questions to mind.
Government
Predicting key regulatory action on new worker safety protections should not be that difficult
OSHA and MSHA have a pathetic track record of estimating target dates for key regulatory action on new worker safety regulations. The Labor Department’s explanation for why they miss the mark just doesn’t hold up.
The latest edition of the Labor Department’s regulatory agenda offers a mixed bag of unaddressed workplace hazards and slipped deadlines, as well as a few new topics for possible regulatory action to protect workers.
Milestones set, milestones missed. The fiction of OSHA’s regulatory agenda for new worker safety protections.
The world’s largest producer and supplier of beryllium and workers exposed to the highly toxic mineral decided not to wait any longer for federal OSHA to draft a proposed worker safety rule on the hazard. Last week, the United Steelworkers International Union and Materion Brush (the only U.S. manufacturer) sent the complete text of a […]
The Labor Department provided an update on January 20, 2012 to its regulatory agenda, including revised target dates for improved workplace safety and health standards. Several of the rules OSHA now expects to publish in 2012 are regulations the agency previously said would be issued one or two years ago. Missed deadlines, however, are nothing […]
The Republicans’ mantra about the burden of regulations seems to have cast a spell on the Obama Administration’s attitude about promoting new regulatory initiatives. My observations about this were reinforced this week when I read the Administration’s statement accompanying its Fall 2011 regulatory plan. The message is clear: new regulations and an election year don’t […]
When an organization fails to get the little things right, I have difficulty believing they are competent to get the big things right either. That’s the way I feel about the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). OIRA is part of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), was created by the […]
Before too long the US Department of Labor (DOL) and other federal agencies should be issuing their annual regulatory plans and semi-annual agendas. These documents serve as official public notice of agencies’ regulatory (and deregulatory) priorities. The Regulatory Flexibility Act and Executive Order (EO) 12866 direct agency heads to release these documents in April (agenda) […]
Cancer
No avalanche, hardly even a snow flurry, of worker safety regulations in Labor Dept’s latest regulatory agenda
If one listens to the speeches of many Republican members of Congress, especially those assigned to the House Education and Workforce Committee, you’d think the U.S. Department of Labor has unleashed an avalanche of new employment-related regulations that business must now meet. I heard one Hill staffer report on inquiries he receives from constituents who […]