In 2005, California OSHA (Cal-OSHA) promulgated its Heat Illness Prevention standard, Section 3395, regulating employees’ exposure to heat for all outdoor places of employment.  This standard is unique to California.  Neither Federal OSHA nor any other state operated OSHA program has developed a similar standard governing heat exposure.

While Federal OSHA has no specific standard…

On April 11, 2014 OSHA officially promulgated final standards updating the general industry and construction standards for work on electrical power generation, transmission and distribution installations – 29 C.F.R. § 1910.269 and 29 C.F.R. Part 1926, Subpart V.  OSHA also issued final standards covering electrical protective equipment, §§ 1910.137 and 1926.97.  The final standards contain…

As the days grow warmer, California employers with outdoor places of employment should think about compliance with California’s Heat Illness Prevention Regulations (Cal. Code of Regs. tit. 8, § 3395). To comply with the regulations, California employers should take four essential steps:

• Develop and implement written procedures for addressing heat illness prevention;
• Train employees and

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

Judge Questions Proposed Settlement with Coal Company. “Who will guard the guardians?” is the question an administrative law judge (ALJ) raised in a May 13 order denying a Labor Department motion to gain approval of…

On May 23, 2014 the full semiannual regulatory agenda for federal agencies was published.  This regulatory agenda provides a complete list of all regulatory actions that are under active consideration for promulgation, proposal, or review and covers regulatory actions for over 60 federal departments, agencies, and commissions.

The regulatory agenda for the Department of Labor…

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

Federal Court Sides with OSHA on Machine Guard Standard. In a split decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in St. Louis, has sided with OSHA on its interpretation of a machine…

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

MSHA’s Final Dust Rule Draws Industry Ire. MSHA has released a new regulation, lowering the amount of permissible coal dust and forcing the use of new technology. The industry believes that the rule is…

As we get deeper into the second term of President Obama, OSHA’s regulatory agenda is picking up steam.  With the first term focused mainly on increasing enforcement, regulatory initiatives often took a back seat to other initiatives.  Rules that were announced as Agency priorities – such as OSHA’s combustible dust rulemaking and the Injury Illness…