Audit, Compliance and Risk Blog

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) assigns the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to define and then regulate “hazardous wastes.” EPA applies its considerable discretion to separate hazardous wastes into categories subject to distinct waste management requirements. One basis for these categorizations is relative risk – the more hazardous the waste the greater the controls required, and the smaller the threshold quantities necessary to trigger regulation. Beginning in 1995, EPA has defined a limited set of very common lower-risk wastes as “universal wastes,” and made them subject to special rules intended to encourage recycling (40 CFR part 273). The rest of this note summarizes universal waste requirements.

On March 4, 2019, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (Commission) issued its first affirmation of a citation and penalty issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to punish a health care provider under the Employer’s General Duty Clause for failing to take adequate steps to prevent workplace violence. OSHA has issued citations under this Clause since 2012, but this is the first time that the Commission has confirmed one of these citations on appeal.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is continuing its renewed reviews of asbestos products, and has just issued a requirement that “discontinued” uses receive new review and approval before they can re-enter commerce in the United States. Formally, EPA has issued a Significant New Use Rule (SNUR) covering these products (I wrote about the SNUR proposal here).

After a long rulemaking, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has just promulgated rules defining certain waste pharmaceuticals as “hazardous wastes” under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and establishing standards for their management by selected healthcare and “reverse distribution” waste management facilities. These regulations replace general RCRA generator and treatment requirements otherwise applicable to hazardous wastes.

Even if the latest polar vortex has ended by the time you read this, employers in most parts of the continent should be worrying about protecting workers against winter weather. Occupational safety and health regulators include “environmental” hazards as those that may require employers to provide their employees with personal protective equipment (PPE), and employers also bear a “general duty” to protect workers against recognized hazards. These requirements cover potential harm from extreme temperatures including cold, as well as slippery surfaces and other hazards from frozen and melting snow or other precipitation.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires employers to prepare and maintain records of occupational injuries and illnesses (I&I Logs) as they occur. OSHA also requires employers to post an annual I&I Summary in each “establishment” within their workplace by February 1, summarizing that workplace’s I&Is during the previous calendar year. In states that administer federal standards within state-run programs, employers follow the comparable state requirements. Establishments with 250 or more workers must file electronic summaries by March 2.

Beginning January 1, 2019, a new California law establishes extensive requirements for proper management of waste pharmaceuticals and “sharps.” These new provisions complement – but aren’t actually well-connected to -- medical waste management requirements (I outlined typical state-based requirements here), and workplace provisions to protect workers from “bloodborne pathogens” that may be present because of health and medical procedures and the wastes they generate (I discussed OSHA’s “BBP” Standard here). The rest of this note summarizes these new requirements, adopted by Senate Bill (SB) 212 (Jackson).

If you’re contemplating significant changes at a facility that’s regulated as a “major source” under the Clean Air Act (CAA), you’d better figure out whether those changes will “modify” the source enough to trigger significant pre-construction review and permitting by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or its state or local delegee. The likely answer to questions like yours has changed with CAA amendments and regulations over the decades. EPA has just changed them again, after ending a decade long year delay of a regulatory “interpretation” published in the last week of George W. Bush’s presidency, and stayed by the Obama-era EPA throughout his presidency, and now reaffirmed and activated by the Trump-era EPA.

On October 24, the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (which uses the truncated acronym CSB) issued a “Call to Action: Combustible Dust” seeking information about what it has long considered a major industrial hazard. Since 1980 CSB has identified hundreds of industrial accidents involving dust that have injured nearly 1000 workers and killed more than one hundred. In 2006 CSB issued 4 formal recommendations to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to enhance that agency’s regulation of occupational hazards from combustible dust – particularly from possible fires or explosions, with mixed responses.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and state worker protection agencies require employers to “guard” moving portions of machines and powered equipment, to prevent entanglements, pinches and amputations. OSHA sets general requirements for machine guarding under its Machine Guarding Standard, plus specific requirements for six different types of equipment in separate standards.