A wide variety of federal, state and even local laws apply environmental, health and safety (EH&S) protection requirements to chemicals. EH&S compliance personnel are accustomed to complying with chemical management requirements imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and their state equivalents.
Tags: Corporate Governance, Health & Safety, OSHA, California Legislation, Environmental risks, Environmental, EPA, Greenhouse Gas, ghg, Hazcom
Adopted half a century ago, the Solid Waste Disposal Act (SWDA) of 1965 is one of the first federal statutes in the modern era of environmental protection. SWDA focused originally on worries that a “landfill crisis” combined predictions that landfills would soon be too full to provide disposal capacity, and longstanding concerns that poorly designed municipal and industrial landfills might not protect public health. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has applied SWDA authority to adopt landfill standards, which are administered by state and local governments nationwide.
Tags: Corporate Governance, Health & Safety, Environmental risks, Environmental, EPA, Hazcom
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and its state counterparts provide requirements to govern hazardous wastes during every step of their management, from “cradle to grave.” Although these rules are intended to improve management and provide incentives for recycling and other beneficial uses of hazardous wastes, many organizations find many of the rules unnecessarily onerous – and therefore potentially counterproductive if they actually discourage beneficial activities. In addition, over time changes in technologies, commercial activities and regulatory priorities reveal gaps in existing rules. In January, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revised its “Definition of Solid Waste” rules governing a number of potentially hazardous wastes that it instead considers to be “hazardous secondary materials”, and the range of recycling and recovery activities eligible for special regulatory considerations. The revisions become effective on July 13, 2015.
Tags: Environmental risks, Environmental, EPA, Hazcom, RCRA
How many times have you popped the batteries out of those old smoke detectors when the alarm blasted over burnt toast…and then failed to put the batteries back in? Or how about not replacing the batteries when they die or checking to see if the alarm is still in working order? Is there even a smoke detector in the house?
Tags: Corporate Governance, Business & Legal, Health & Safety, California Legislation, Environmental risks, Environmental, Transportation
On January 30, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) published a proposal to revise its requirements for covered Federal Government contractors and subcontractors, including federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors. This proposal would implement provisions in Executive Order (EO) Number 13672, which President Obama issued on July 21, 2014 (I blogged about the E.O. here). These revisions expand anti-discrimination responsibilities of federal contractors and federal grant recipients, to cover “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” Once implemented, employment practices in these workplaces will match private employers’ responsibilities under a growing number of state laws, and under some federal court cases interpreting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII).
Tags: Corporate Governance, Business & Legal, Employer Best Practices, Employee Rights, EEOC, NLRB, Disability benefits
Being a good citizen and composting food scraps really isn’t that hard if you live in a house. But what if you live in a condo? You might think it isn’t possible (or maybe you even think it isn’t worth it) to do your part and compost your organic wastes. Let me show you how to do it and why it’s worth it.
Tags: Health & Safety, Environmental risks, Environmental, EHS, Greenhouse Gas, ghg
How do you have to manage waste biological materials generated by your activities—maybe from agricultural or biotech production, or maybe from your onsite clinic or the healthcare facility you run? Worker safety and transportation rules will apply to handling, and environmental protection rules to releases and disposal. But the main regulatory focus is provided by waste management requirements.
Tags: Corporate Governance, Business & Legal, Health & Safety, Environmental
In 2007, Congress added a provision to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) budget, directing DHS to create a program to identify chemicals that might be tempting targets for terrorists, and to require facility that handle sufficiently large quantities of these chemicals of interest to establish security programs subject to DHS oversight (“Section 550”). DHS responded to Section 550 by issuing Chemical Facility Anti-terrorism Standards (CFATS) rules, requiring compliance to begin in 2008.
Tags: Corporate Governance, Business & Legal, Employer Best Practices, Health & Safety, Environmental risks, Environmental, Hazcom, Workplace violence
The British Columbia Supreme Court affirmed the reasoning of the Provincial Court trial judge that convicted a director, Mission Western Developments Ltd. and its director, Blake Larsen, of offenses under the federal Fisheries Act that occurred during land clearing operations near Wildebank Creek in Mission, British Columbia (R. v. Larsen, 2013 BCPC 92, affirmed 2014 BCSC 2084). In rejecting the appeal by the accused, the Supreme Court held that the Provincial Court judge had applied the correct legal principles for determining the necessary elements to obtain a conviction for impairment of fish habitat under the Fisheries Act. These principles were:
Tags: Corporate Governance, Business & Legal, Health & Safety, Environmental risks, Environmental, Canadian
After a facility determines it has generated hazardous waste, it must determine how to manage that waste in compliance with the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA), regulations issued by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and their state equivalents. (I recently wrote about hazardous waste determination, here and here).
Tags: Corporate Governance, Health & Safety, Environmental, EHS, EPA, Hazcom, RCRA