IHMM Today July 2, 2024

Inside IHMM

A Collaborative Culture

There are 1,379 different conversations going on in the IHMM/HMS Collaboration platform this week.

A collaborative culture is important for every business but is especially important for our hazardous materials, dangerous goods, environment, health, and safety communities of practice. Do you have a problem you need to solve and want the opinions of your colleagues? This is where we come together to help each other.

IHMM credentialed professionals are at the top 1% of their professions and their reach is global. We are at the forefront of environmental protection, health, and safety and this is where collaborating with the best people in their fields, always willing to help one another, lessens the stress of our jobs, and where we strive as a team to make a difference of which we are proud.

We opened COLLABORATION to enable thousands of certificants and supporters to collaborate together.

You can collaborate here.

Access to COLLABORATION is through the same username/password you use to access your MYIHMM account. Having a problem? Contact Jimmy Nguyen at [email protected]

IHMM Proposes Changes in Government Recognition of Credentials

IHMM Signs Letter Opposing Reductions in OSH Worker’s Pay – The IHMM Government Affairs Committee has agreed to sign a coalition letter opposing reductions in pay for IH and OSH employees. Here is the coalition letter we signed.

IHMM submitted comments on OSHA Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health (ACCSH): Notice of Meetings concerning OSHA-2024-0002-0007, and highlighted the creation of IHMM’s Certified Pandemic Preparedness Specialist [CPPS] credential.

State of Maine Department of Environmental Protection is proposing to update Chapter 851, Standards for Generators of Hazardous Waste. In the current regulation, work is required by a professional engineer. IHMM is proposing to include an environmental professional as defined by 40 CFR §312.10.

Beltway Buzz – Ogletree Deakins

New Overtime Rule to Take Effect? Pending a ruling in one of three legal challenges filed in federal court in Texas, phase one of the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) changes to the regulations implementing the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) overtime requirements is scheduled to go into effect July 1, 2024. That initial change will raise the salary basis threshold to $43,888 per year, meaning that employees earning less than that are automatically eligible for overtime time pay. Beginning on January 1, 2025, the threshold is scheduled to increase to $58,656 per year.

Cassidy to Sanders: Hold Hearing on NLRB Nominees. Like the summer temperatures, the politics regarding the potential confirmation of National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Chair Lauren McFerran to another term are heating up. Because the U.S. Congress will be spending much of the second half of the year on the campaign trail and wrapping up “must pass” legislation (such as government funding), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is expected to push for a confirmation vote on McFerran sooner rather than later. Ahead of any vote, Republicans in the U.S. Senate are hoping to get an opportunity to question McFerran about the direction she has taken the Board (as well as to examine the bona fides of Republican nominee Joshua Ditelberg). This week, Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, sent a letter to the chair of the committee, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), requesting that he schedule a hearing on the two Board nominees. In the letter, Senator Cassidy argues that McFerran has demonstrated a “clear preference for unions, bias against employers, and glaring indifference toward the rights of workers who do not actively want a labor union” and that the “Committee should come together to question Chair McFerran about her tenure on the Board.”

Appropriations Season. It’s appropriations season in the U.S. House of Representatives as lawmakers are looking ahead to the September 30, 2024, deadline for current government funding. In the interim, Congress is scheduled to be out next week for Independence Day, a week in mid-July for the Republican National Convention, and five weeks beginning in early August. This leaves only six weeks during which the House and Senate will be in session in Washington, D.C., prior to the September 30 deadline. In bills released this week by House subcommittees in charge of appropriating funds to federal labor and employment agencies, Republican lawmakers are proposing to use their power of the purse to limit the DOL, NLRB, and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from implementing and enforcing various workplace-related regulations and policies. For example, a bill debated during a markup hearing on Thursday would prohibit the DOL from implementing or enforcing its independent contractor, overtime, and walkaround regulations. The NLRB would also be prohibited from implementing and enforcing its joint employer regulation, and from using any funds “to issue any new administrative directive or regulation that would provide employees any means of voting through any electronic means in an election to determine a representative for the purposes of collective bargaining.” While most of these appropriations riders face an uphill climb in getting enacted into law, the prohibition on electronic voting has been included and maintained in recent funding cycles.

Court Enjoins Davis-Bacon Regulation Provisions. This week a federal court issued a nationwide order enjoining the DOL from implementing and enforcing certain provisions of its changes to the Davis-Bacon Act (DBA) regulations finalized in August 2023. Specifically, the court struck down a provision of the regulation that applied DBA prevailing wage requirements to projects operating under contracts that do not expressly include such requirements, noting that this provision was contrary to the text of the statute, and is “not consistent with basic contract and procedural due process principles.” The court also ruled that by extending DBA to cover trucking operations, the DOL enacted a “fundamental change to the Act by adding ‘transportation’ as a category of work covered by DBA, contrary to the congressional limitations of DBA to covering only mechanics and laborers employed directly on the site of work.” Suffice it to say that the court wasn’t happy with the DOL, writing, “Defendants engaged in egregious violations of Article II, section 3 of the Constitution, because rather than taking care to faithfully execute the DBA, Defendants instead usurped Congress’ law-making power and attempted substantive amendments to the DBA.”

Fed Contractor Affirmative Action Compliance. Covered supply and service federal contractors have until Monday, July 1, 2024, to certify their compliance with their affirmative action requirements. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs’ (OFCCP) requirement, which debuted in 2022, is in response to a 2016 U.S. Government Accountability Office report that recommended that OFCCP “develop a mechanism to monitor AAPs from covered federal contractors on a regular basis.” Contractors can visit the OFCCP’s contractor portal’s Frequently Asked Questions resource for more information.

Supreme Court Overturns Chevron

Supreme Court halts enforcement of the EPA’s plan to limit downwind pollution from power plants

Removal of Affirmative Defense Provisions From Specified New Source Performance Standards and National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants

PHMSA Issues New Rule Requiring Electronic Tracking of Hazardous Materials on Trains After East Palestine Incident

Climate Adaptation Plans

n-Methylpyrrolidone (NMP); Regulation Under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the “Agency”) is proposing to address the unreasonable risk of injury to human health presented by n-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) under its conditions of use as documented in EPA’s risk evaluation and risk determination for NMP pursuant to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). NMP is a widely used solvent in a variety of industrial, commercial, and consumer applications including the manufacture and production of electronics such as semiconductors, polymers, petrochemical products, paints and coatings, and paint and coating removers. EPA determined that NMP presents an unreasonable risk of injury to health due to the significant adverse health effects associated with exposure to NMP, including developmental post-implantation fetal loss from short-term exposure and reduced fertility and fecundity from long-term exposure. Additional adverse effects associated with exposure to NMP include liver toxicity, kidney toxicity, immunotoxicity, neurotoxicity, skin irritation, and sensitization. To address the identified unreasonable risk, EPA is proposing to: prohibit the manufacture (including import), processing, and distribution in commerce and use of NMP in several occupational conditions of use; require worker protections through an NMP workplace chemical protection program (WCPP) or prescriptive controls (including concentration limits) for most of the occupational conditions of use; require concentration limits on a consumer product; regulate certain consumer products to prevent commercial use; and establish recordkeeping, labeling, and downstream notification requirements.

DATES:

Comments must be received on or before July 29, 2024. Under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), comments on the information collection provisions are best assured of consideration if the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) receives a copy of your comments on or before July 15, 2024.

ADDRESSES:

Submit your comments, identified by docket identification (ID) number EPA-HQ-OPPT-2020-0744, through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at https://www.regulations.gov. Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. Do not submit electronically any information you consider to be Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Additional instructions on commenting or visiting the docket, along with more information about dockets generally, is available at https://www.epa.gov/​dockets/​.

Federal Register Notice

OSHA Emergency Response Proposal – Comment Period Extended Through 7/22/24

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has again extended the comment period on its proposed rule to provide expanded safety and health protections for emergency responders, including firefighters, emergency medical service providers and technical search and rescue workers. Interested parties now have until July 22, 2024, to submit comments electronically at regulations.gov, which is the Federal e-Rulemaking portal. All submissions must include the agency’s name and docket number for this rulemaking (Docket No. OSHA-2007-0073). For more information, please see the Federal Register notice or visit osha.gov/emergency-response/rulemaking.

Attention Transporters of Hazardous Materials: PHMSA Proposes Registration Fee Updates

PHMSA

In an NPRM, the agency, to account for what it contends are increased transport of hazardous materials as well as what it says are the burdens such transport places on first responders, proposes updates to the registration fees under the statutorily mandated registration and fee assessment program for persons who transport, or offer for transportation, certain categories and quantities of hazardous materials.

PHMSA’s proposed rulemaking would increase the annual fee by $125 for those registrants qualifying as a small business or not-for-profit organization (an increase from $250 to $375) and those registrants not qualifying as a small business or not-for-profit organization by $425 (an increase from $2,575 to $3,000).

Other proposed amendments in the NPRM include:

• Implementing an electronic-only registration fee payment process, based on changes to the payment processes implemented by the Department of Treasury
• Revising requirements to clarify that a Certificate of Registration may be carried in either electronic or paper form, for both motor carriers and those who transport hazardous materials by vessel.

The proposed update to fees will generate the estimated $6.4 million dollars necessary to fund PHMSA’s Hazardous Materials Emergency Preparedness (HMEP) grants program at newly authorized levels in accordance with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (2021).

Comments are due no later than August 22^nd, 2024. See details and how to comment here.

Federal Register Notice

Notice of Public Meetings: International Standards on the Transport of Dangerous Goods

PHMSA’s OHMS will be hosting public forums in advance of four international meetings to allow the public to give input on current proposals being considered by the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) Dangerous Goods Panel (DGP) and the United Nations Sub-Committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods (UNSCOE TDG). The international meetings include:

• ICAO TDG Working Group 24 (WG/24), tentatively scheduled for October, in Montreal, Canada.
• The 65th session of the UNSCOE TDG, scheduled for November 25 to December 3, 2024, in Geneva, Switzerland.

Each of these public meetings will be held approximately two weeks before the corresponding international meeting at U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Headquarters in Washington, DC (1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building), with a remote participation option available. Specific information for each meeting, including date, time, conference call-in number, and details for advance registration will be posted when available on PHMSA’s website under “Upcoming Events.”

Federal Register here.

2024-2025 Hazardous Materials Registration Brochure

Offerors and transporters of certain quantities and types of hazardous materials are required to file an annual registration statement with DOT and pay a designated fee. These fees are used to fund PHMSA’s Emergency Preparedness grants, which support hazardous materials emergency response planning and training activities by states, local governments, and Native American Tribes.

This brochure, updated for the 2024-2025 registration year, details PHMSA’s Hazmat Registration program by explaining who must register, and when and how to register, and providing key dates, registration cost, and other important information.

Link: https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/registration/registration-mail-brochure

Note: Each registration year spans from July 1 to June 30, with early registration beginning May 1. Completed registration statements and payment must be submitted before July 1, 2024, or before engaging in any of the activities requiring registration, whichever is later.

Contact [email protected] for more information.

OSHA HCS Amendments Primarily Align with GHS Rev 7

OSHA issued a final rule on May 20, 2024, that amends the Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) to conform to the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS), primarily Revision 7 (Rev 7), address issues that arose during the implementation of the 2012 update to the HCS, and provide better alignment with other U.S. agencies and international trading partners while enhancing the effectiveness of the standard. 89 Fed. Reg. 44144. OSHA states that, consistent with Executive Order 13563 and the Regulatory Flexibility Act, which call for assessment and, where appropriate, modification and improvement of existing rules, OSHA has reviewed the existing HCS. OSHA states that it determined that the revisions in the final rule “will enhance the effectiveness of the HCS by ensuring employees are appropriately apprised of the chemical hazards to which they may be exposed, thus reducing the incidence of chemical-related occupational illnesses and injuries.” The modifications to the HCS include revised criteria for classification of certain health and physical hazards, revised provisions for updating labels, new labeling provisions for small containers, new provisions related to trade secrets, technical amendments related to the contents of safety data sheets (SDS), and related revisions to definitions of terms used in the standard. The final rule will be effective July 19, 2024. For more information on the modifications to the HCS and our Commentary, please read the full memorandum.

Read more here.

EPA Releases Draft Risk Evaluation Documents for DIDP and DINP for Public Comment and Peer Review

EPA announced on May 20, 2024, the availability of and solicited public comment on the draft manufacturer-requested risk evaluation (MRRE) for di-isodecyl phthalate (DIDP) and the draft physical chemical, fate, and hazard assessments for di-isononyl phthalate (DINP) prepared under TSCA. 89 Fed. Reg. 43847. In its May 17, 2024, press release, EPA states that it preliminarily determined that all but one of the uses of DIDP that EPA evaluated under TSCA do not contribute to unreasonable risk to human health. Additionally, EPA preliminarily determined that DINP causes liver damage at lower concentrations than DIDP, and unlike DIDP, could cause cancer at higher levels of exposure. Comments on the draft documents are due July 19, 2024. For more information on the next steps in the peer review process and our commentary, please read the full memorandum.

Read more here

Safe + Sound Week 2024

Safe + Sound Week will be held from August 12-18, 2024.

Registration will open in July. Resources on how to participate will be released in the coming months. Stay tuned for more information! In the meantime, visit the Safe + Sound event archive to view participation from previous years.  

NIOSH Mental Health Resources

NIOSH launched an Impact Wellbeing Guide: Taking Action to Improve Healthcare Worker Wellbeing. This Guide offers six concrete Action Steps that hospital leaders can take to accelerate or supplement professional well-being efforts in their hospitals. It was developed in partnership with the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes Foundation and tested in six CommonSpirit hospitals across the U.S.

Participate in the Fall Stand-Down

The 11^th Annual National Safety Stand-Down to Prevent Falls in Construction will take place from May 6-10, 2024. Join us to help prevent fall hazards in the workplace by participating in the Stand-Down.

Are You Prepared for Any School Emergency?

We are excited to invite you to the next crucial step on the Path to Safer Schools: “Be Prepared”. Join us for this empowering conversation, designed to equip school leaders, teachers, and safety professionals with essential skills and knowledge for comprehensive emergency preparedness.

Webinar Details:

• Date: July 16, 2024
• Time: 2 PM EST
• Panelists: Guy Bliesner, Daniel Dluzneski, Gabrielle Morquecho
• Register Here

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Networking Drop-In

BJA/COPS STOP grantees, join our monthly Networking Drop-In session 7/17 from 12-1 PM ET and 3-4 PM ET. This is your opportunity to connect and engage with fellow grantees.

These sessions are not recorded. A Zoom link will be sent out via email (Note: the link remains the same every month). If you are a grantee and do not receive these emails, please reach out and let us know.

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• 7/11 – Enhancing School Safety Using Behavioral Threat Assessment Webinar
  Hosted by U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC)
• 8/7 – Preventing Mass Attacks in Our Communities Webinar
  Hosted by the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center
• 9/25-26 – 2024 National Summit on K-12 School Safety and Security

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Explore Our School Threat Assessment Toolkit:

Now Available in Interactive Web Format!

PFAS — Determining PFAS Content in Your Supply Chain and Expanding Data Collection Practice

July 23, 2024
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. (EDT)

REGISTER NOW

Register now to join Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. (B&C^®) for “Determining PFAS Content in Your Supply Chain and Expanding Data Collection Practice,” a complimentary webinar covering the basics of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) reporting rule for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). With Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) wrapping up this fall, companies still have time to gather the necessary information regarding PFAS to begin reporting as early as this November.

The fiscal year (FY) 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) amended the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to require that all manufacturers (including importers) of PFAS and PFAS-containing articles in any year since 2011 report information related to chemical identity, uses, volumes made and processed, byproducts, environmental and health effects, worker exposure, and disposal to EPA. According to EPA, at least 1,462 PFAS that are known to have been made or used in the United States since 2011 will be subject to its October 2023 final reporting rule, but the actual number may be very much higher. The six-month reporting period will begin November 12, 2024, and end May 8, 2025. Small businesses that are solely reporting data on importing PFAS present as components in articles have an additional six months to report, until November 10, 2025.

An AIHA Staff Initiative to Foster Inclusivity

As Pride Month draws to a close, we, as AIHA staff, wanted to share one of the association’s internal initiatives relevant to this month’s celebration of the LGBTQ+ community. Efforts to promote inclusivity align with AIHA’s mission to protect all workers and their communities from occupational and environmental hazards, regardless of background or identity. While AIHA as an organization recently updated its diversity, equity, and inclusion policy (PDF), which states the association’s commitment to fostering a culture and environment supportive of DEI and accessibility for all members and volunteers, AIHA staff have been working to ensure an inclusive environment for our colleagues. A group of staff formed a DEI committee a few years ago, and one of the key initiatives to stem from that was a staff-led workshop focused on inclusion and educating participants about sexuality, gender, and LGBTQ+ concepts.

Read more here.

IHMM-HMS Event Calendar