OccuSafe Industrial Hygiene Consulting

OCCUSAFE UPDATE
Monthly Round Up of Important Ideas and Standards in
Industrial Hygiene and Safety

January 2018

IN THIS ISSUE: What Can We Expect in 2018 for Safety & Health

• Scott Mungo, the vice president of safety, sustainability and vehicle maintenance at FedEx Ground, has been nominated by the President as the new Assistant Director of Labor for OSHA and is likely to be confirmed. He is an attorney and has been with FedEx since 2004. His experience is a safety professional is a positive for the government’s support of OSHA. Perhaps we will learn more about his views on safety during upcoming Senate hearings on his nomination.
• Recently there has been talk in Congress and the Administration about eliminating one or more regulations for every new one that goes into effect. It has also been proposed that each regulation have a “sunsetting” provision. This means that each standard will have an end date where it is eliminated unless renewed. There is nothing in the OSHA law that allows rules to be sunsetted unless it goes through the regulatory process.
• OSHA’s new final rule for Beryllium for General Industry, Construction, and Shipyards went into effect on March 20, 2017. It was later delayed three months for further review where some changes were made in the standards. Employers must comply with most elements of the rule starting by March 12, 2018 but have until March 11, 2019 to provide required change rooms and showers and until March 10, 2020 to implement engineering controls. After consultation with stakeholders, provisions for housekeeping, medical surveillance, and personal protection for construction and shipyards were modified. The standards will still maintain the new permissible exposure limits for 2.0 micrograms per cubic meter (ug/m3) and short-term exposure limit of 2.0 ug/m3.
• The final rules for Respirable Crystalline Silica for all industries went into effect on June 23, 2016 but enforcement dates were staggered. OSHA’s final rule for Respirable Crystalline Silica for general industry and oil & gas is due to be enforced this year. This follows the enforcement of the construction standard that began on September 23, 2017 after four months of delay. The full implementation of this standard was important and hopefully the general industry and shipyards standards will go into effect in 2018 with only limited delays.

2018 will be an interesting year for worker health issues. It remains to be seen whether the Beryllium and Respirable Crystalline Silica standards are enforced and whether other OSHA regulations are changed.

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