OSHA Takes New Approach to Enforce Out-Of-Date Rules for Unhealthy Chemicals

December 23, 2013- The nation's top work-safety watchdog, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), limits how much ammonia, benzene and 470 or so other hazardous chemicals workers can be exposed to on the job. When the agency determines an employer has exceeded those limits, it can issue fines based on the severity of the infraction and the size of the company.

Recently, however, the agency tried an unusual tactic. A worker at a fiberglass factory in Lake Mills, Wis., was hospitalized last year with his lungs inflamed by exposure to a chemical called styrene, according to his doctor. Styrene is a colorless liquid used to produce products such as rubber tires, food containers, and some reinforced plastics. It is hazardous at high levels.
 
After receiving complaints from the worker’s doctor and lawyer, OSHA inspected the factory. In September, the agency fined the employer $49,500, in part for exposing workers to high levels of styrene -- even though the agency determined that styrene exposure at the factory was below OSHA’s long-standing limits.
Instead, the OSHA cited the company, Fiberdome Inc., for allegedly violating a more general OSHA standard requiring workplaces to be safe from known hazards. Fiberdome is contesting the citation, arguing that the plant shouldn't be fined when it adhered to OSHA’s stated limits.
The case highlights a battle shaping up over the way the federal government regulates some dangerous substances in the American workplace. OSHA’s limits are decades out of date, and widely considered inadequate by people in industry and government.
 
It is rare for OSHA to take enforcement actions in which its so-called “general-duty” standard trumps its more specific guidelines. The Fiberdome case appeared to be the first time in many years the agency took such an approach to chemical-safety enforcement.
 
Nonetheless, the agency has taken steps to address what many experts say is a major weakness in its rules on chemical exposures. It recently notified companies such as nail salons, hospitals, auto body shops -- and plastics factories like Fiberdome -- that its own limits for chemical exposures in the workplace are inadequate. In website postings and other public statements, the agency also recommended often stricter chemical-exposure levels.
 
Industry groups are concerned that OSHA could try to enforce exposure limits that haven't gone through the thorough review that new OSHA standards require. Industry lawyers say they will vigorously fight back against any attempts to use the general-duty clause to make an end run around existing rules.
 

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