OSHA hasn’t made major changes to the U.S. electrical safety standards since OSHA 1910.269 was created in 1994. That should change in 2013. OSHA’s regulatory calendar issued last year announced it will update by March, 2013, this critical standard and some parts of OSHA 1926 (related to electric utility construction) and 1910.300 series related to general industry electrical work.
Those familiar with these standards know that they are inadequate to build a safety program around without outside help since much of the language is performance-based without clear guidelines on how to comply. Most of industry turns to the national consensus standards such as ANSI/IEEE’s National Electric Safety Code (NESC) (ANSI C-2) or NFPA 70E Electrical Safety in the Workplace. These two standards cover electric utility work and other general industry electrical work respectively.