In the U.S., worker chemical safety is a key concern at a wide range of industrial facilities. The current regulatory framework for worker chemical safety is overseen by two federal agencies: traditionally, by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA; Washington, D.C.; www.osha.gov), and more recently, by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA; Washington, D.C.; www.epa.gov), under its Workplace Chemical Protection Program. This has created a system where rules can overlap and occasionally conflict, making it more difficult for organizations to maintain compliance. An ongoing effort is pushing for alignment of the requirements for the OSHA and EPA regulations.
In late July, a coalition of 75 professional organizations and trade groups, including the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com), the American Petroleum Institute (API; Washington, D.C.; www.api.org), American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM; Washington, D.C.; www.afpm.org) and other organizations representing chemical companies, submitted a letter to EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, OSHA assistant secretary David Keeling and Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought, urging the EPA and OSHA to work jointly to establish “a single, consistent federal framework for worker chemical safety.”
The coalition, calling themselves the American Alliance for Innovation (AAI), says it is concerned that the EPA’s implementation of its Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) authorities is “undermining, rather than strengthening, worker protection.” AAI explains that EPA’s current TSCA implementation is creating overlapping workplace chemical requirements alongside OSHA’s longstanding worker-safety programs. There is a unique opportunity for employers to avoid conflicting federal obligations that make compliance more difficult without improving protections for workers.
As an example, AAI points to EPA’s Workplace Chemical Protection Program, which the coalition says “creates not only overlap, but also results in dueling federal frameworks between EPA and OSHA that impose conflicting assumptions, requirements and implementation approaches on the same workers, in the same workplace for the same occupational risk.” The current situation results in different exposure limits, monitoring approaches and compliance requirements for the same chemical, AAI says, creating confusion at the facility level and complicating decision making about safe practices.
As a path forward, the AAI points to Section 9 of the TSCA, which expresses authorization for the two agencies to collaborate and coordinate on worker safety. “This authority should be fully utilized to protect workers under one consistent and coherent federal standard,” AAI says.
The coalition urges EPA and OSHA to operationalize Section 9 to align regulatory responsibilities “in ways that leverage each agency’s expertise, while eliminating duplicative or conflicting requirements.
Specifically, this means establishing a single federal framework for occupational chemical safety, strengthening EPA-OSHA coordination, aligning requirements with agency expertise, and eliminating conflicting or duplicative requirements, according to the AAI letter.
ACC is tying the chemical safety effort into a broader program to make legislative changes to TSCA. As of printing, no public reaction to the AAI proposal has been forthcoming by EPA or OSHA. ■
Scott Jenkins, senior editor
