Government Safety Regulations

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If you were hoping to view the Statue of Liberty or Mount Rushmore by air – via your drone – you’re out of luck. At the request of U.S. national security and law enforcement agencies, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is prohibiting drones from flying within 400 feet of a number of national monuments.

The food industry is cheering and health experts are jeering the USDA’s announcement on Friday that it is proposing to push new nutrition label requirements back by a year and a half.

A move last week by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) will delay enforcement of OSHA’s silica rule for the construction industry for another 30 days – to Oct. 23. The DOL said the delay was necessary because of the “dramatic” reduction in the exposure limit – from 250 to 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air, averaged over an eight-hour shift.

While the new headlines are all about Hurricanes, health care, North Korea and tax “reform,” chickens around the country are getting more and more nervous as the foxes quietly move into the government agencies that are supposed to be protecting them.

Five years after starting his first job with a landscaping crew in the suburbs of Seattle, Fredi Dubon decided he had enough and called it quits. The work days were long, sometimes 12 hours, but a bigger problem was having to inhale exhaust from his gas-powered leaf blower.

Washington observers say the Trump administration is planning to replace the EPA’s rule to limit emissions from coal-fired power plants with one that’s more industry friendly.

More than 80,000 individual drones have been registered for commercial and government purposes and more than 60,000 people have obtained a Remote Pilot Certificate required to operate a drone, since the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) small unmanned aircraft rule, Part 107 (PDF), went into effect a year ago.

In response to a call for comments, the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) is strongly urging the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to retain those portions of the proposed rule on occupational exposure to beryllium that deal with medical surveillance, medical removal, and other ancillary standards for both construction and shipyard workers.

In an increasingly familiar scenario, OSHA is considering pushing a regulatory compliance date forward into the future in order to “address stakeholder concerns.”