Last week the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) published major changes in the registration requirements it imposes on “motor carriers” that use roads and highways to transport materials—including hazardous materials. Over the next two years, these changes will consolidate four separate registration systems into a new web-based Unified Registration System (URS), designed to cover every domestic entity subject to FMCSA authority. Most elements of the new regulations will take effect on October 23, 2015, to allow FMCSA to develop additional URS features and to conduct several related rulemakings, and to allow regulated entities to prepare for the changes in compliance requirements.
Read More
Tags:
Health & Safety,
Environmental risks,
Environmental,
Hazcom,
Transportation
One small but critically important sub-category of chemical incidents consists of those that can produce mass casualties, usually when a cloud of toxic or superheated gases are spewed out by a fire or explosion. Given America’s fragmented approach to hazardous materials regulation, it’s no surprise that separate regulatory programs have grown up to address these concerns—leading inevitably to overlaps and gaps in coverage.
Read More
Tags:
Corporate Governance,
Business & Legal,
Health & Safety,
OSHA,
Environmental risks,
Environmental,
EHS,
EPA,
Greenhouse Gas,
Hazcom
If government provided a unified approach to chemical regulation, then each chemical might be subject to a single set of requirements, which ideally would be tailored to reflect chemical-specific hazards throughout its life cycle. Instead, each chemical is subject to its own loosely connected (some would say haphazard) collection of environmental, health and safety (EH&S) requirements. Some are federal, some are state (or provincial if you’re in Canada), and others are regional and even local. You may need to refer to agencies at all three levels (federal, state and local) to identify your regulators and their requirements – although many organizations only deal with the agency responsible for permitting and inspecting day-to-day activities.
Read More
Tags:
Audit Standards,
Environmental risks,
Environmental,
EHS,
EPA,
Hazcom,
MSDS,
mact
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was created 80 years ago to protect investors, while also nurturing the growth of efficient and transparent markets for securities. Over the intervening years, the balance between protection and growth has shifted many times, leading to many sets of requirements with conditions and exemptions to parse in order to determine entrepreneurs’ notice and filing requirements, and the range of investor opportunities and protections.
Read More
Tags:
Corporate Governance,
Business & Legal,
SEC
One of the Dodd-Frank Act’s many directives to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was to require annual disclosures by publicly listed “resource extraction issuers” of payments they make to the U.S. federal government or foreign governments, related to commercial development of oil, natural gas, or minerals. SEC thought it met this directive when it issued Rule 13q-1 and associated Form SD in August 2012. However, on July 2, 2013 a federal judge decided that SEC misapplied its authority, and so vacated these provisions and remanded the issue to SEC to try again (American Petroleum Institute v. SEC). Since Dodd-Frank required issuer reporting to begin no less than one year after SEC issued rules, the issuer reporting requirement is now on hold—but the statutory requirement remains in place so further rulemaking should be expected.
Read More
Tags:
Corporate Governance,
Business & Legal,
SEC,
International,
Health & Safety,
Environmental,
Greenhouse Gas,
ghg,
fracking,
hydraulic fracking
Partisan divides in Washington are preventing legislative action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and climate change, but President Obama recently announced administrative initiatives to advance these efforts even without Congressional action. His new Climate Action Plan reaffirms domestic initiatives led by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and international GHG emission reduction and climate change efforts. The Plan has the following three main “pillars”:
Read More
Tags:
Environmental risks,
Environmental,
EPA,
Greenhouse Gas,
ghg,
climate change
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 provides a wide range of anti-discrimination measures, including prohibitions against employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex (or “gender”), and national origin. Title VII is administered by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and enforced when EEOC or aggrieved employees file lawsuits in federal court.
Read More
Tags:
Corporate Governance,
Business & Legal,
Employer Best Practices,
Employee Rights,
Workplace violence,
EEOC,
NLRB
July 1 was the deadline for subject facilities to file their annual toxic chemical release inventory (TRI) reports with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and their state, on one of two EPA-mandated forms, Form R or Form A. These TRI reports are mandated by Section 313 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 (EPCRA), which was adopted as the first Congressional response to the December 1984 toxic gas disaster in Bhopal, India.
Read More
Tags:
Corporate Governance,
Business & Legal,
Health & Safety,
Environmental risks,
Environmental,
EHS,
Hazcom
As you look around your office, are there any summer interns working away? And if so, are they being paid for their efforts, are they receiving academic credits, or are they working to build their resumes, portfolios and connections?
Read More
Tags:
Corporate Governance,
Business & Legal,
Employer Best Practices,
Employee Rights
