The Occupational Safety and Health Administration today issued a final rule to increase protections for construction workers in confined spaces. “This rule will provide construction workers with protections already afforded to workers in manufacturing and general industry, with some differences tailored to the construction industry,” said OSHA chief David Michaels, who predicted that it will prevent 800 serious injuries and save five lives a year.

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.

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.

In formally requesting input from stakeholders about its bid to update chemical permissible exposure limits, OSHA is “initiating a national dialogue” about ways to prevent work-related illness caused by exposure to hazardous substances.

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has completed its review of OSHA's injury and illness recordkeeping rule, which would change the types of injury and illness events that must be reported to the agency by telephone or in person.

OSHA announced yesterday  that it will extend the comment period on the proposed rule to improve tracking of workplace injuries and illnesses to Oct. 14, 2014. The proposal, published on Nov. 8, 2013, would amend the agency's recordkeeping regulation to add requirements for the electronic submission of injury and illness information that employers are already required to keep.