The Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently announced that it will delay one of President Obama’s final workplace protections aimed at protecting “workers from a dangerous element known as beryllium.” Finalized in January of this year, the new rule was intended to go into effect on March 21. However, with OSHA’s delay, the protection won’t be implemented until May 20. Why so late? Well, the delay is partly because OSHA wants to further review the rule, and partly because of President Trump’s regulatory freeze he “initiated when he took office.”
The Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently announced that it will delay one of President Obama’s final workplace protections aimed at protecting “workers from a dangerous element known as beryllium.” Finalized in January of this year, the new rule was intended to go into effect on March 21. However, with OSHA’s delay, the protection won’t be implemented until May 20. Why so late? Well, the delay is partly because OSHA wants to further review the rule, and partly because of President Trump’s regulatory freeze he “initiated when he took office.”
For those who aren’t aware, mere hours after he was inaugurated as our nation’s next president, Trump had his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, issue a memo “ordering agencies to halt all regulatory action.” Part of this regulatory freeze included delaying “any rules that had been finalized, but had not yet taken effect” for “at least 60 days.”
But what is beryllium, and why did the Obama administration seek to implement workplace protections because of it? Well, for those who don’t know, “beryllium is a lightweight metal that’s used in foundry and smelting operations, machining, beryllium oxide ceramics, composites manufacturing and dental lab work.” It is dangerous for workers to be around because, when sanded down, “the dust particles carry severe health risks when inhaled, including cancer risks.”
According to OSHA, the new rule will reduce the “permissible exposure of beryllium from 2.0 micrograms per cubic meter of air to 0.2 micrograms of beryllium per cubic meter of air over an eight-hour period.” OSHA also claims the new rule will “set a short-term exposure limit of 2.0 micrograms per cubic meter of air over a 15-minute sampling period.”
With such serious health implications, it seems a bit silly to delay such a beneficial new rule. That being said, OSHA recently announced that it will accept public comments until March 12 on whether they should extend the delay any further.
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