The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administers rules governing the import and export of hazardous waste regulated by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). These rules implement requirements established by RCRA, and also ensure that the U.S. meets its international responsibilities as a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) by creating national rules that meet agreed-upon OECD standards. The proposal should appear in the Federal Register soon, opening a 60 day comment period after which EPA will decide whether to finalize the changes.
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Canadian
Cal/OSHA has adopted final rules, effective October 1, 2015, that update the state’s regulations relating to storage battery systems and to changing and charging storage batteries. The purpose of this action is to update standards for storage batteries to address modern types of batteries in addition to clarifying regulations applicable to traditional lead–acid batteries.
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In recent years, VW officials have sometimes been quoted touting their “clean diesel” vehicles by paraphrasing one of their competitors—“this isn’t your grandfather’s diesel.” This month VW finally admitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and customers worldwide that it “isn’t your regulator’s diesel” either. The company had programmed the electronics in millions of vehicles to provide false data during required emissions tests.
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Transportation
“No one should have to sacrifice their life for their livelihood, because a nation built on the dignity of work must provide safe working conditions for its people.”
– Secretary of Labor, Thomas E. Perez
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Although Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) requirements target hundreds of micro-organisms (primarily viruses and bacteria), regulation of important hazards remain on the drawing boards, awaiting appropriate testing and control methodologies, sufficient resources … and high enough political priorities. Until recently, one of these unregulated pathogens has been the legionella bacterium, first identified in 1976 as the cause of “Legionnaire’s disease” – named after an outbreak at an American Legion convention in Philadelphia traced to the hotel’s air conditioning system. This summer, however, an outbreak in New York has led state and local health agencies to adopt extremely ambitious testing and disinfection programs.
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How often do you read something that not only changes the things that you think about in life, it also changes the things you do?
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The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has just proposed to revise its requirement that employers prepare and maintain records of occupational injuries and illnesses as they occur – in “I&I Logs.” (I blogged about these requirements here). Employers must also post annual I&I Summaries in each workplace, and respond to survey questions if asked by OSHA or the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) adopted its Standard for Process Safety Management of Highly Hazardous Chemicals (usually referred to as “PSM”) in 1992, to require extensive risk assessment and reduction efforts by facilities where a significant chemical incident might have catastrophic consequences. OSHA has made only minor technical revisions in the ensuing two decades. However, during that time OSHA has issued a series of regulatory interpretations and enforcement guidelines that affect how the Standard is implemented.
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Late in June the U.S. Supreme Court issued its latest ruling on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) efforts to implement the Clean Air Act (CAA). This time a sharply divided Court voted 5 to 4 to vacate EPA’s attempt to regulate hazardous air pollutant (HAP) emissions from fossil fuel-fired electricity power plants. The justices split over when during a decade-spanning, multi-phase rulemaking did CAA require EPA to calculate the costs and benefits of regulation—the Court majority ruled that this calculation should have occurred in the first round, rejecting EPA’s decision to do so later in the rulemaking sequence.
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Oil & Gas
Valley fever is an illness that usually affects the lungs and is caused by the microscopic fungus known as Coccidiodes immitis, which lives in the top two to twelve inches of soil. While the fungal spores may be present in soils throughout California, they are endemic in the Central Valley counties of Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Merced, San Luis Obispo, and Tulare.
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