American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) Government Affairs Director Aaron K. Trippler explains what the figures just released by the House Appropriations Committee’s Labor subcommittee mean to occupational safety and health agencies, going forward:
Attendees at the 2015 American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Expo (AIHce) meeting this week in Salt Lake City are networking and racking up certification maintenance points while Washington is experiencing one of its periodic “let’s trim back the regulatory thicket” periods.
American Industrial Hygiene Association Director of Government Affairs Aaron Trippler gives industrial hygienists this update on OSHA standards action. Beryllium: The OSHA draft of this proposed rule to reduce the exposure to beryllium remains at the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) – under review.
The White House has reviewed a draft of the rule and signed off on OSHA’s proposal – returning it to the agency with several undisclosed recommendations, according to Aaron Trippler, government affairs director for the American Industrial Hygiene Association.
OSHA and the White House say the silica rule will be finalized before the end of the Obama administration, according to Aaron Trippler, government affairs director for the American Industrial Hygiene Association.
As it has in the past, the White House is calling for the elimination of funding for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s (NIOSH) Education and Research Centers (ERCs) as well as the institute’s Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing (AFF) program.
In what has to be the first sign that the federal government truly recognizes the problem of outdated Permissible Exposure Limits (PELs), Federal OSHA has begun an effort to provide more guidance and information to employers and workers to compare some of the many different exposure limits being used.
OSHA will be spending the rest of 2014 holding public hearings and reviewing the approximately 3,000 comments it has already received on its proposed crystalline silica rule. Although OSHA chief Dr. David Michaels has stated the the silica rule – which would reduce occupational exposure limits to the substance – is the agency’s top priority, the issue is “a long, long way from every being finalized,” according to Aaron K. Trippler of the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA).
While federal regulatory action get the lion’s share of the attention, EHS professionals should pay even more attention to what happens at the state level, according to American Industrial Hygiene Association® (AIHA) government guru, Aaron K. Trippler, for a variety of reasons.
While the effects of the recent 16-day government shutdown are still being determined on a broad scale, a second OSH-related federal agency is showing signs of a significant lessening of activity during that time.
