Late 2011 Action Set for Construction Confined Spaces Rule
Semiannual agendas published Monday in the Federal Register are later than usual. Those from the Labor Department's units are sparse.
Safety-related rulemaking efforts by OSHA, DOT, MSHA, and other federal agencies will be few and far between, if the newly published semiannual regulatory agendas from those and other federal departments are accurate. The agendas came out Monday in the Federal Register, later than usual, and the Labor Department units listed only a few items.
One of the OSHA items is a potential standard to limit occupational exposure to beryllium, a topic on which OSHA has been working since November 2002. The new agenda says a scientific peer review of OSHA's draft risk assessment is finished, with the next action lists as an economic peer review that will be completed in May 2011.
Also listed is the diacetyl exposure standard on which OSHA is working. The agenda says OSHA will begin public peer review in April 2011 of a criteria document that includes an assessment of the effects of diacetyl exposure and a quantitative risk assessment.
The agenda includes a date, November 2011, listed for final OSHA action on a proposed confined spaces in construction standard.
CDC's agenda included NIOSH's planned update of the quality assurance (QA) section of 42 CFR Part 84, the respiratory standard, but said the date of final action on it is undetermined.