Government Safety Regulations

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A measure currently being considered by lawmakers is coming under fire by occupational safety advocates who say that it would delay compensation for people suffering from mesothelioma and require victims to disclose personal information – such as social security numbers – thus making them vulnerable to identify theft.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is inviting small businesses, governments and not-for-profit organizations to participate as Small Entity Representatives (SERs) on a Small Business Advocacy Review (SBAR) Panel for the federal plan that EPA is developing as part of the Clean Power Plan.

Workplaces are constantly changing, and the Labor Department regularly reviews its existing regulations to update rules that may be out of date, ineffective, insufficient or excessively burdensome.

Many familiar sounds are associated with the Super Bowl: Cheering fans. Referee whistles. The spectacular halftime show. Booming fireworks. But one sound you shouldn’t hear is the whirring of an unmanned aircraft overhead.

Wielding a large rotating steel drum equipped with sharp tungsten carbide teeth, a continuous mining machine scrapes coal from the mine’s seams and drops it onto conveyor belts or into shuttle cars for transport to the surface.

Chester Fike was just in his 30s when he was diagnosed with black lung. As the disease progressed, the West Virginia coal miner was eventually so incapacitated that a simple walk with his family was impossible. In the summer of 2012, four months after a double lung transplant raised hopes for a second chance, Fike lost his fight for life at 60.

Citing the energy security provided by the current high levels of U.S. oil and natural gas production, the Obama Administration has announced plans to cut methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by 40-50 percent (from 2012 levels) by 2025 – a move intended to address climate change and reduce the effects of pollutants on health.

OSHA’s final rule requiring employers to notify the agency about workplace fatalities and severe injuries will be joined by other federal regulatory activity in 2015, according to Washington observers, who expect a number of regulations to be finalized during the last two years of the Obama administration.

OSHA’s final rule requiring employers to notify the agency when an employee is killed on the job or suffers a work-related hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye goes into effect today for workplaces under federal OSHA jurisdiction.

It’s fairly obvious that we are about to see some major changes take place on Capitol Hill. The mid-term elections have provided the Republicans with total control of both the House and the Senate for the next two years which will alter nearly everything.