The Department of Labor Office of the Inspector General (OIG) plans on investigating several programs within OSHA in 2013, according to Aaron Trippler, government affairs director of the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA).

The OIG will be taking a look at the OSHA Voluntary Protection Program (VPP). The OIG hopes to learn whether or not the program “has clearly defined performance based criteria, consistently applied the criteria to all workplaces, and consistently reevaluated workplaces in the program.”

This will be interesting, as participation in the federal VPP program declined for the second year in a row while the number of participants in state VPP programs increased.

Another investigation will deal with program data collected from OSHA’s national and local emphasis programs. The investigation will look at how OSHA uses the data and whether or not the data improves worker health and safety in targeted, high-hazard industries.