ASSE urged OSHA to finalize Hazard Communication Standard regulation
President of the ASSE Christopher Patton recently sent OSHA chief David Michaels a letter asking to support the organization’s proposal about implementing changes to the agency’s existing Hazard Communications Standard, which will harmonize chemical hazard communications around the globe and increase workplace safety according to Patton.
Patton gives credits to OSHA for enforcing the HCS rulemaking and urged every possible step needs to achieve a final regulation. However, he quoted that the ASSE is quite disappointed to monitor that control banding has been badly ignored in revising the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standard.
Control banding is a method used to guide the federal assessment and control of workplace risks. He said it is a descriptive technique that determines a control measure. In 2005, the ASSE released a position document that urged the Mine Safety and Health Administration and OSHA to consider the use of control banding models in a revised Hazard Communication Standard.
Control banding practice the solutions that experts have enhanced lately to utilized occupational chemical exposures and is an introduction that center resources on exposure controls and define how serious a risk needs to be handled.
The federal agency plans to host three informal public hearings to hear comments and testimony on the proposed OSHA regulation changes to the HCS. The first hearing is on March 2 in the Department of Labor auditorium in Washington, D.C. 20210. Next hearings are on for March 31 in Pittsburgh, then in Los Angeles on April 13.
