The latest issue of our weekly Workplace Safety and Health newsletter is available for viewing and contains the following articles:

No Guidance without Comment, Business Interests Tell Supreme Court. Federal agencies should be barred from issuing interpretive guidance on their regulations unless they follow the notice-and-comment procedures in the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), business groups are urging the Supreme Court. Left unchecked, they argue, agencies have an incentive to enact intentionally vague rules, then release more specific guidance on how the rules are to be implemented, so as to achieve their “potentially controversial” goals, the groups said in an amicus brief October 16.

Judge Dismisses Pattern Charge against Mine Operator. Likening MSHA’s litigation position on its pattern of violations (POV) allegation against a West Virginia coal operator to “an unfair card game” where “the rules were announced only after the game had been played,” a judge has dismissed the agency’s pattern claim on due process grounds.

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