Comments Pour in on Emergency Response Standard

OSHA said it received more than 2,500 comments on its proposed rule “Emergency Response Standard,” as of yesterday’s deadline.
The agency had twice extended the initial public comment period, from May 6, to June 21, then until July 22.
The regulator has now scheduled an informal virtual hearing on the proposed rule, for Nov. 12, 2024.
The proposed rule, which would replace OSHA’s existing Fire Brigades standard, 29 CFR 1910.156, has only had minor updates since it was published in 1980.
The proposed Emergency Response rule aims to provide basic workplace protections for workers who respond to emergencies as part of their regularly assigned duties.
The scope of workers protected under the proposed rule would be expanded to include those who provide emergency medical service and technical search and rescue.
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Michigan’s Supreme Court on Monday revived a former Fiat Chrysler employee’s lawsuit, saying that occupational safety laws don’t preempt his claims that he was fired because he raised concerns about potential asbestos at his job site.
In a 4-3 ruling, the justices said that while federal and state Occupational Safety and Health laws offer a way for workers to hold employers responsible for retaliating for reporting safety issues, those remedies “are plainly inadequate to provide an employee with sufficient redress.”
The ruling against Fiat Chrysler parent Stellantis can now be revived for additional litigation, according to reports.
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In the aftermath of last month’s US Supreme Court decision on the so-called Chevron deference, look for more challenges to OSHA rulings, according to Seth Briskin, chair of the Labor and Employment Group at Cleveland law firm Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis.
Prior to the June 28 ruling, courts routinely deferred to an agency’s “reasonable” interpretation of ambiguous statutory provisions, restraining or dissuading challenges to OSHA panel decisions, Briskin told OSHA Today by phone earlier this month.
This ruling curtails the authority of federal agencies like OSHA, giving courts more power to interpret workplace safety laws, he said.
One of the common criticisms of OSHA is that the agency has long used the Chevron doctrine to advance its own expansive interpretation of laws by issuing citations to employers, Todd Logsdon, co-chair of Fisher Phillips’ Workplace Safety and Catastrophe Practice Group, in Louisville, wrote in a recent blog post.
That practice “is essentially an end-around to the legislative process and impermissibly expands OSHA’s authority,” the post said. “But the agency’s decisions in these situations will now be called into question when employers file challenges to OSHA citations.”
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