Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-03-01280/USCOURTS-caDC-03-01280-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Edison Electric Institute
Petitioner
Occupational Safety & Health Administration
Respondent
Secretary of Labor
Respondent

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 9, 2004 Decided June 14, 2005

No. 03-1280

EDISON ELECTRIC INSTITUTE,

PETITIONER

V.

OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY & HEALTH ADMINISTRATION AND

SECRETARY OF LABOR,

RESPONDENTS

On Petition for Review of an Order of the

Occupational Safety and Health Administration

Stephen C. Yohay argued the cause for petitioner. With him

on the briefs were Edward H. Comer and J. Bruce Brown.

James F. Laboe entered an appearance.

Lee Grabel, Attorney, U.S. Department of Labor, argued

the cause for respondent Secretary of Labor. With him on the

brief were Joseph M. Woodward, Associate Solicitor, and Ann

S. Rosenthal, Counsel.

Before: EDWARDS, HENDERSON, and GARLAND, Circuit

Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GARLAND.

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GARLAND, Circuit Judge: Edison Electric Institute (EEI)

petitions for review of a compliance directive issued by the

Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 2003. We

conclude that because the directive did not promulgate a new

occupational safety or health standard under the Occupational

Safety and Health Act, but rather merely reiterated a preexisting

standard, this court lacks jurisdiction over EEI’s petition for

review.

I

The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSH Act)

authorizes the Secretary of Labor, through the Occupational

Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), to ensure safe and

healthful working conditions by creating and enforcing

mandatory occupational safety and health standards. 29 U.S.C.

§§ 651(b)(9), 655(b). In 1989, OSHA promulgated a general

industry standard for Control of Hazardous Energy, 29 C.F.R. §

1910.147. See UAW v. OSHA, 37 F.3d 665 (D.C. Cir. 1994).

OSHA exempted electric utilities from the general standard,

promising “to propose in the near future” a standard “to meet the

special safety needs of that industry.” 53 Fed. Reg. 15,496,

15,504 (Apr. 29, 1988). Fulfilling that promise in 1994, OSHA

promulgated the Electric Power Generation, Transmission, and

Distribution Standard, 29 C.F.R. § 1910.269 (Power Generation

Standard or 1994 Standard), specifically to protect maintenance

workers in electric power generation plants from being injured

or killed by the accidental activation of equipment while they

are servicing it.

The Power Generation Standard requires electric power

plants to establish hazardous energy control protocols known as

“lockout/tagout procedures.” Under these procedures, a worker

must shut down the equipment and place a lock or tag on the

“energy isolating device” or control switch before commencing

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repairs. 29 C.F.R. § 1910.269(d)(6)(iv). A lock is a mechanical

device that keeps the equipment from being energized until the

lock is removed. A tag is a warning placed to caution others not

to operate the device. After the maintenance is completed, the

worker removes the lock or tag and reenergizes the equipment.

Id. § 1910.269(d)(7)(iv). 

This case primarily concerns two further elements of the

1994 Power Generation Standard: the “group servicing”

provision, 29 C.F.R. § 1910.269(d)(8)(ii), and the “system

operator” exception, id. § 1910.269(d)(8)(v). The group

servicing provision applies when “servicing or maintenance is

performed by a . . . group” of workers. Id. § 1910.269(d)(8)(ii).

It requires each employee in the group to “affix a personal

lockout or tagout device” to a “group lockout device” or

comparable mechanism “when he or she begins work,” and to

“remove those devices when he or she stops working.” Id. §

1910.269(d)(8)(ii)(D). The system operator exception -- an

exception to the general requirements of the Power Generation

Standard -- provides that when “energy isolating devices are

installed in a central location and are under the exclusive control

of a system operator,” the “system operator [may] place and

remove lockout and tagout devices in place of” the employee

doing the repair work. Id. § 1910.269(d)(8)(v).

EEI is a national association of shareholder-owned electric

utility companies. Many of EEI’s members generate, transmit,

and distribute electricity, and are therefore subject to the Power

Generation Standard. Soon after OSHA promulgated that

standard in 1994, EEI filed a petition for review in the Eleventh

Circuit. EEI was particularly concerned that the standard limits

the system operator exception “to situations where ‘energy

isolat[ing] devices are installed in a central location and are

under the exclusive control of a system operator.’” Pet’r Br. at

11 (quoting 29 C.F.R. § 1910.269(d)(8)(v)). EEI eventually

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withdrew its petition for review, however, see Edison Elec. Inst.

v. OSHA, No. 94-2389 (11th Cir. Apr. 18, 1995) (dismissing

petition for review), and entered into negotiations with OSHA

over the terms of a forthcoming OSHA compliance directive

concerning the Power Generation Standard, Pet’r Br. at 12.

In 1997, OSHA issued that directive, OSHA Directive CPL

2-1.18A (Oct. 20, 1997) (1997 Directive). In its discussion of

the group servicing provision, the 1997 Directive refers to an

earlier OSHA directive that offers examples of group

lockout/tagout procedures that would comply with the general

industry energy control standard. According to the 1997

Directive, those sample procedures “can be used to comply

with” the group servicing provision of the Power Generation

Standard as well. 1997 Directive at 32. The earlier directive

provides “several alternatives for having . . . employees affix

personal lockout/tagout devices in a group . . . setting,”

including procedures involving master lockboxes and master

tags. OSHA Directive STD 1-7.3, at C-2 to C-3 (Sept. 11,

1990). The 1997 Directive states that those sample procedures

“are intended as examples only,” and that “[o]ther means of

meeting the” 1994 Standard “may also be used.” 1997 Directive

at 32 n.5. 

On several occasions after the publication of the 1997

Directive, EEI and its members urged OSHA to interpret the

Power Generation Standard to permit supervisors, rather than

individual maintenance workers, to control locks and tags during

group servicing. In a June 1999 letter to OSHA, EEI stated its

understanding that individual worker control of locks and tags

is not required by the standard’s group servicing provision, and

that supervisor control is adequate as long as the supervisor

“accounts for” each crew member and notifies each member

before reenergizing the equipment. Letter from Charles Kelly,

EEI, to Richard Fairfax, OSHA (June 2, 1999). OSHA

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1On April 26, 2005, OSHRC affirmed the ALJ’s finding of

violation. OSHRC held that the 1994 Standard “mandates use of a

personal tagout device in a group tagging situation,” Exelon

Generating Corp., 2005 OSHRC No. 17, slip op. at 5, and that neither

post-promulgation negotiations nor the 1997 Directive evidences any

agreement “to substitute verbal notification of the application and

responded in an October 1999 letter that EEI’s understanding

was wrong, and that “each employee in the group needs to be

able to affix his/her personal . . . device as part of the group

lockout.” Letter from Fairfax to Kelly at 2 (Oct. 14, 1999)

(quoting 59 Fed. Reg. 4320, 4361 (Jan. 31, 1994)). “[V]erbal

accountability steps,” OSHA said, “are not equivalent to each

employee placing a personal device on a group [lockout/tagout]

mechanism.” Id. EEI filed a petition for review of that letter in

this court, asserting that the letter amended the standard in the

same way that it asserts the 2003 directive at issue in this case

does. Once again, however, EEI withdrew its petition. See

Edison Elec. Inst. v. DOL, No. 99-1518 (D.C. Cir. Feb. 28,

2000) (dismissing petition for review).

In 2000, OSHA issued a citation to Exelon Generating

Corp., an EEI member, for violating the Power Generation

Standard by permitting a supervisor to verbally notify individual

crew members of the application and removal of lockout/tagout

devices from a master tag, rather than requiring each employee

to affix and remove a personal lock or tag from the master tag.

Exelon defended on the ground that its method complied with

the 1994 Standard, as the 1999 EEI letter had asserted. An

Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) rejected that argument. Exelon

GeneratingCorp.,OSHRC DocketNo. 00-1198, 2001O.S.H.D.

(CCH) ¶ 32,495 (Nov. 13, 2001). At the time of EEI’s petition

to this court, Exelon’s petition for review was pending before

the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission

(OSHRC).1

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removal of [lockout/tagout] protection for the requirement of

individual worker sign on/off,” id. at 6.

Despite OSHA’s continued refusal to adopt EEI’s

interpretation of the Power Generation Standard, EEI persisted.

In February 2000, EEI wrote OSHA two more letters, again

arguing that supervisor control of locks and tags during group

servicing complies with the Power Generation Standard. In

addition, EEI contended that the system operator exception

applies regardless of whether the system operator has exclusive

physical control over the energy isolating device, so long as the

system operator is the only person authorized to use the device.

Letter from Kelly to Charles N. Jeffress, OSHA (Feb. 24, 2000);

Letter from Kelly to Fairfax (Feb. 17, 2000). OSHA’s

November 21, 2000 reply again disagreed with both points. In

response to the latter contention, OSHA noted that the exception

permitting a system operator “to place and remove lockout and

tagout devices” applies “only when the energy isolating devices

are in a central location under the exclusive control of the

system operator,” and that “central location” means “a location

to which access is physically limited to one or more persons

acting as a system operator during the servicing operation.”

Letter from Jeffress to Kelly at 4 (Nov. 21, 2000).

On June 18, 2003, OSHA issued the compliance directive

at issue in this case. The directive expressly rejects EEI’s views

of the 1994 Power Generation Standard’s group servicing

provision. It states:

Group lockout/tagout procedures . . . must assure . . .

that each individual is the only person who can release

his or her personal lockout device, personal tagout

device, or equivalent means of controlling hazardous

energy sources. Procedures that rely solely on visual

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or audible means of accounting for employees are not

acceptable.

OSHA Directive CPL 2-1.38, at B-4 (June 18, 2003) (2003

Directive). The directive also rejects EEI’s understanding of the

system operator exception, expressly defining the term “central

control location under the exclusive control of a system

operator” as:

An area to which access by employees, other than the

system operator, to energy isolating devices is

physically limited to a person(s) acting as a “system

operator” during the maintenance or servicing

operation. The system operator has complete control

over the hazardous energy sources because no other

employees have access to the area and its energy

control devices.

Id. at A-2. Finally, the directive defines the term “personal

tagout devices” as:

Prominent warning devices, secured to energy isolating

devices in accordance with an established procedure

that uniquely identify each employee performing the

servicing/maintenance activity and that indicate that

the energy isolating device(s), and the machines or

equipment being controlled, cannot be operated until

the personal tagout device is removed.

Id. at A-8.

On September 12, 2003, EEI filed a petition for review in

this court. EEI challenges the 2003 Directive on the following

grounds, among others: that OSHA issued it without following

the notice-and-comment requirements applicable to occupational

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2Section 655(b) provides that OSHA may promulgate, modify, or

revoke an occupational safety or health standard “by rule.” 29 U.S.C.

§ 655(b). In addition, the OSH Act gives the Secretaries of Labor and

Health and Human Services the authority to promulgate “such rules

and regulations as [they] may deem necessary to carry out their

responsibilities” under the Act. Id. § 657(g)(2). 

safety standards under the OSH Act, see 29 U.S.C. § 655(b); that

the directive is unsupported by substantial evidence in the

record, see id. § 655(f); and that the directive is arbitrary and

capricious, see 5 U.S.C. § 706. Before we may consider the

merits of EEI’s challenges, however, we must first determine

whether we have jurisdiction to entertain its petition for review.

II

The OSH Act provides that any person adversely affected

by an “occupational safety or health standard,” 29 U.S.C. §

655(b), may, “at any time prior to the sixtieth day after such

standard is promulgated,” file a petition challenging the validity

of the standard in an appropriate court of appeals, id. § 655(f).

The OSH Act defines an “occupational safety and health

standard” as “a standard which requires conditions, or the

adoption or use of one or more practices . . . reasonably

necessary or appropriate to provide safe . . . places of

employment.” Id. § 652(8). If an OSHA rule2 does not amount

to an “occupational safety or health standard,” this court does

not have jurisdiction to review it. See Chamber of Commerce v.

United States Dep’t of Labor, 174 F.3d 206, 209-11 (D.C. Cir.

1999) (distinguishing between a “standard” and a “regulation”

for purposes of jurisdiction under the OSH Act); Workplace

Health& SafetyCouncil v. Reich, 56 F.3d 1465, 1467-68 (D.C.

Cir. 1995) (same). Challenges to rules that are not occupational

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safety and health standards must be filed in federal district court

pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 703;

see Reich, 56 F.3d at 1467, although other considerations may

preclude immediate review in that court as well, see Sturm,

Ruger & Co. v. Chao, 300 F.3d 867, 872-73 & n.5 (D.C. Cir.

2002). 

In addition, we have indicated that we lack jurisdiction to

review an OSHA rule unless it is a “new” standard. Chamber of

Commerce, 174 F.3d at 211. The jurisdictional requirement that

the standard be new -- and not simply the reiteration of an

existing standard -- is supported by a number of rationales.

Textually, it would be a stretch to say that a rule that merely

restates an existing standard “requires conditions, or the

adoption or use of one or more practices,” as the definition of

standard provides. 29 U.S.C. § 652(8) (emphasis added). In

such a circumstance, it is the existing standard, not the

reiteration, that compels employer practices. And it would be an

even greater textual stretch to say that an OSHA rule that merely

restates an earlier standard “promulgate[s]” that standard, as

required by the jurisdictional language of § 655(f). Cf.

Independent Equip. Dealers Ass’n v. EPA, 372 F.3d 420, 426

(D.C. Cir. 2004) (holding that, “because the . . . EPA Letter does

not reflect any change in EPA’s . . . regulations or its

interpretation of those regulations, it is difficult to see how that

letter ‘promulgat[ed] or revis[ed] . . . any regulation’”

(alterations in original)). Again, the better reading is that a

standard is “promulgated” only when it is originally issued.

Moreover, to permit review whenever OSHA reiterates the

requirements of a standard -- which is what OSHA contends it

did in the 2003 Directive (as well as in the 1997 Directive and

in the 1999-2000 correspondence with EEI) -- would circumvent

§ 655(f)’s requirement that any petition for review be filed

“prior to the sixtieth day after such standard is promulgated.” If

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the 2003 Directive is no different from the 1994 Power

Generation Standard, then EEI should have petitioned for review

in 1994. Indeed, EEI did file a petition for review that year, but

voluntarily withdrew it. If OSHA is correct that it has not

changed its position since it promulgated the Power Generation

Standard, then to permit review now would allow EEI to avoid

the consequences of its failure to adhere to the congressionally

prescribed jurisdictional window of § 655(f). See Independent

Equip. Dealers, 372 F.3d at 428 (“Just as it would be folly to

allow parties to challenge a regulation anew each year upon the

annual re-publication of the Code of Federal Regulations, so too

it is silly to permit parties to challenge an established regulatory

interpretation each time it is repeated.”); see also General

Motors Corp. v. EPA, 363 F.3d 442, 451 (D.C. Cir. 2004)

(holding that a challenge to agency letters reiterating the

agency’s consistently held position was untimely); Molycorp,

Inc. v. EPA, 197 F.3d 543, 546-47 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (same).

The parties do not dispute that our jurisdiction depends

upon whether the 2003 Directive establishes new obligations

beyond those imposed by the 1994 Power Generation Standard.

See 11/9/04 Oral Arg. Tape at 1:55-2:01. As might be expected,

however, each has a different view as to the directive’s novelty.

OSHA contends that the directive “does not impose any new or

independent obligations,” Resp. Br. at 16, and that it is “a mere

restatement of OSHA’s decade-old position on the energy

control provisions of the power generation standard,” id. at 23.

EEI, by contrast, insists that the directive “states new and

revised mandatory and enforceable requirements,” Pet’r Br. at

1, and thereby “substantively amends” the 1994 Standard, id. at

5. 

In the following Part we consider whether the directive is

(as OSHA contends) merely old wine in a new bottle, or (as EEI

insists) a new vintage altogether.

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III

The heart of EEI’s argument is that the 2003 Directive

alters the 1994 Power Generation Standard’s group servicing

provision by requiring each employee to take a physical step,

such as personally affixing and removing a lock, or signing on

to and off of a tag -- rather than permitting the group’s

supervisor to accomplish lockout/tagout for the entire group

following, for example, oral communication with the employees.

There is no question that the directive does require personal

control of locks and tags. The directive mandates that: “Group

lockout/tagout procedures . . . must . . . ensur[e] that each

individual is uniquely accounted for and that each individual is

the only person who can release his or her personal lockout

device [or] personal tagout device.” 2003 Directive at B-4. And

it further states that “[p]rocedures that rely solely on visual or

audible means of accounting for employees are not acceptable.”

Id. Accordingly, the question is whether these statements

deviate from the original standard, or merely reiterate it (albeit

in somewhat clearer language). We consider EEI’s five

arguments in favor of the former proposition in turn. 

EEI’s first contention is that the 2003 Directive constitutes

a change from the Power Generation Standard because neither

the text of the 1994 Standard, nor that of the preamble

accompanying it, requires that maintenance employees working

in a group “exercise personal accountability by affixing personal

locks or tags or their equivalent to energy control devices.”

Pet’r Br. at 33. But this contention is simply incorrect. The

1994 Standard expressly states that, “[w]hen servicing or

maintenance is performed by” a group, “[e]ach authorized

employee shall affix a personal lockout or tagout device . . . , or

comparable mechanism, when he or she begins work and shall

remove those devices when he or she stops working.” 29

C.F.R. § 1910.269(d)(8)(ii)(D) (emphasis added). That

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3As EEI points out, the 1994 preamble also states that “the

procedure must ensure that no lock or tag is removed without the

permission of the authorized employee.” 59 Fed. Reg. at 4364

(emphasis added). But whatever the word “permission” may

otherwise connote, in the context of the other statements quoted above

it plainly requires personal handling of a lock or tag and not mere oral

assent. 

provision reflects OSHA’s view, as stated in the 1994 preamble,

that “the only way to ensure that the employee is aware of

whether or not the lockout or tagout device is in place is to

permit only that employee to remove the device himself or

herself.” 59 Fed. Reg. at 4360; see id. at 4361 (“[E]ach

employee in the group needs to be able to affix his/her personal

lockout or tagout system device as part of the group lockout.”

(quoting 54 Fed. Reg. 36,644, 36,681-82 (Sept. 1, 1989))).

Indeed, in announcing the 1994 Standard, OSHA expressly

rejected “EEI[’s] argu[ment] that the person removing a lockout

or tagout device need not be the same as the person who placed

it,” and instead adopted the position that “each employee must

have the assurance that the device is in his or her control, and

that it will not be removed by anyone else except in an

emergency situation.” Id. at 4360; see also id. at 4361 (“The

authorized employee in charge of the group lockout or tagout

cannot reenergize the equipment until each employee in the

group has removed his/her personal device.” (quoting 54 Fed.

Reg. at 36,681-82)).3

EEI’s second argument is that the 2003 Directive changes

the Power Generation Standard by adding, for the first time, a

definition of the term “central location under the exclusive

control of a system operator” that assertedly alters the term’s

original meaning. The term plays a key role in the system

operator exception to the general requirements of the Power

Generation Standard. Under the 1994 Standard, the exception

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applies only when “energy isolating devices are installed in a

central location and are under the exclusive control of a system

operator.” 29 C.F.R. § 1910.269(d)(8)(v). In such

circumstances, the “system operator” may “place and remove

lockout and tagout devices in place of” the individual

maintenance employee. Id. § 1910.269(d)(8)(v)(B). 

The 2003 Directive defines this key term as an “area to

which access by employees, other than the system operator, to

energy isolating devices is physically limited.” 2003 Directive

at A-2. It further explains that the system operator exception

applies only when the “system operator has complete control

over the hazardous energy sources because no other employees

have access to the area and its energy control devices.” Id.

According to EEI, this definition marks a dramatic change from

the Power Generation Standard, because it limits the system

operator exception to cases in which the operator is the only

employee with physical access to the equipment. By contrast,

in EEI’s view the 1994 Standard permits a supervisor to place

and remove locks and tags for other employees whenever the

supervisor has exclusive administrative control over the

machinery under repair -- i.e., whenever the system operator is

the only person authorized to operate the equipment. 

But what EEI calls a “new definition,” Pet’r Br. at 21, is in

fact a near-verbatim recitation of the text of the 1994 preamble.

Compare 2003 Directive at A-2 (“The system operator has

complete control over the hazardous energy sources because no

other employees have access to the area and its energy control

devices.” (emphasis added)), with 59 Fed. Reg. at 4364 (“Under

[the system operator exception], the system operator has

complete control over hazardous energy sources . . . . Other

employees do not even have accessto the energy control devices

and cannot operate them.” (emphasis added)). And the

preamble’s insistence that the system operator have “complete

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control” because “[o]ther employees do not even have access to

the energy control devices,” id. at 4364, strongly supports the

directive’s focus on physical control.

The 2003 Directive’s definition of “central location” is also

consistent with the definition in the letter that OSHA sent EEI

on November 21, 2000. In response to EEI’s contention that the

system operator exception applies regardless of whether the

system operator has exclusive physical control of the energy

isolating device, OSHA there explained that “central location”

means “a location to which access is physically limited to one or

more persons acting as a system operator during the servicing

operation.” Letter from Jeffress to Kelly at 4 (Nov. 21, 2000).

EEI’s third argument is that dramatic change is wrought by

yet another definition in the 2003 Directive: that of “personal

tagout devices.” The directive defines such devices as

“[p]rominent warning devices” that “uniquely identify each

employee performing the servicing/maintenance activity and

that indicate that” the equipment under repair “cannot be

operated until the personal tagout device is removed.” 2003

Directive at A-8. Although EEI does not explain what it thinks

the term meant in the original standard, the directive’s definition

is perfectly consistent with that standard. The requirement that

personal tagout devices “uniquely identify each” maintenance

employee can be found in the 1994 Standard at §

1910.269(d)(3)(ii)(E), which states that “[e]ach lockout device

or tagout device shall include provisions for the identification of

the employee applying the device.” And the requirement that

the equipment under repair “cannot be operated until the

personal tagout device is removed” simply restates the command

of § 1910.269(d)(7)(iv), that “[e]ach lockout or tagout device

shall be removed from each energy isolating device by the

authorized employee who applied the lockout or tagout device”

before “energy is restored to the” equipment.

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Fourth, EEI contends that the 2003 Directive is a new

standard because it is inconsistent with OSHA’s 1997 Directive

regarding the Power Generation Standard. EEI directs our

attention to Appendix B of the 1997 Directive, which in turn

refers to Appendix C of the earlier directive regarding the

general industry lockout/tagout standard. Appendix B states:

“Appendix C [of the earlier directive] presents example group

lockout/tagout procedures that can be used to comply with” the

1994 Power Generation Standard. 1997 Directive at 32.

At first glance, the 1997 Directive’s reference to Appendix

C seems to offer little succor to EEI, since the text of Appendix

C is completely consistent with the 2003 Directive. It states:

Normal group lockout/tagout procedures require the

affixing of individual lockout/tagout devices by each

authorized employee to a group lockout device . . . .

The use of the work permit or “master tag” system

(with each employee personally signing on and signing

off the job to ensure continual employee accountability

and control) . . . is an acceptable approach to

compliance with the group lockout/tagout and shift

transfer provisions of the standard.

OSHA Directive STD 1-7.3, at C-6 to C-7 (emphasis added).

Appendix C also provides “examples to illustrate . . . several

alternatives for having authorized employees affix personal

lockout/tagout devices in a group lockout/tagout setting.” Id. at

C-2 to C-3. The examples include “a lockbox procedure” in

which the energy isolating device is placed in a lockbox to

which “[e]ach authorized employee assigned to the job then

affixes his/her personal lock or tag,” id. at C-5 (emphasis

added), and a “Master Tag” system in which a master tag “is

subsequently signed by all of the maintenance/servicing

workers,” id. at C-9 (emphasis added).

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Notwithstanding this apparent consistency with the 2003

Directive, EEI takes comfort from Appendix C’s further

statement that “[t]his discussion is intended only as an example

and is not anticipated to reflect operations at any specific

facility.” Id. at C-7 to C-8. Similarly, a footnote to Appendix

B of the 1997 Directive states: “These [Appendix C

illustrations] are intended as examples only. Other means of

meeting the standard may also be used.” 1997 Directive at 32

n.5. In EEI’s view, these caveats demonstrate OSHA’s intention

-- at least in 1997 -- to permit lockout/tagout procedures

different from those discussed in Appendix C, and particularly

to permit procedures that do not require individual crew

members to personally place or sign a device.

But describing as “examples” procedures that comply with

the literal terms of the 1994 Standard -- which requires

“personal lockout or tagout device[s] . . . or comparable

mechanism[s],” 29 C.F.R. § 1910.269(d)(8)(ii)(D) -- hardly

means that employers are free to use different procedures that do

not comply with those terms. Under the established interpretive

canon of ejusdem generis, “[w]here general words follow

specific words,” the general words are “construed to embrace

only objects similar in nature to those objects enumerated by the

preceding specific words.” Washington State Dep’t of Social &

Health Servs. v. Guardianship Estate of Keffeler, 537 U.S. 371,

384 (2003) (alteration in original) (citation omitted). The “other

means” sanctioned by the 1990 and 1997 Directives include

procedures similar to the examples offered in those directives,

but do not include procedures that are fundamentally different.

EEI endeavors to buttress its reliance on the 1997 Directive

by adverting to the “negotiation history” that preceded it.

According to the petitioner, “OSHA initially proposed to

include” language in the directive that would require “personally

signing on and off a tag, or physically applying a lock,” but

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subsequently “agreed to exclude it” in the face of opposition

from EEI during the settlement negotiations following EEI’s

withdrawal of its petition for review of the 1994 Standard. Pet’r

Br. at 5. OSHA, however, recalls the history differently.

According to a 2003 letter from OSHA to EEI, no “agreement

was ever executed, EEI eventually withdrew its challenge [to the

1994 Standard] unilaterally, [and] OSHA made no commitments

in resolving that case.” Letter from John L. Henshaw, OSHA,

to Carl D. Behnke, EEI, at 2 (June 13, 2003). Unfortunately, we

have no way to determine which entity is the better historian.

And regardless of whether negotiation history is ever useful in

explaining the meaning of a regulation that is clear on its face,

irresolvably disputed history can be of no help at all. 

Finally, EEI claims that the heart of the controversy

between it and OSHA is a “fundamental error” that OSHA made

when it crafted the Power Generation Standard in 1994. Pet’r

Br. at 11. As the preamble to the standard reflects, OSHA

thought the system operator exception ratified “lockout and

tagout practices that are common in the electric utility industry,”

particularly the “use of a system operator who initiates and

controls switching and tagging procedures.” 59 Fed. Reg. at

4364. In EEI’s estimation, however, “[w]hile intending to craft

a provision that endorsed longstanding utility power plant

practices,” OSHA instead “inexplicably conditioned the

application of” the system operator exception “upon the

presence of power plant configurations and practices that simply

do not exist” -- i.e., configurations in which the system operator

is the only employee with physical access to the equipment.

Pet’r Br. at 11. EEI insists that it was this 1994 “misperception”

about how “power plants are configured” that led to “errors and

omissions” that greatly limited the scope of the exception. Id.

at 12. As counsel for EEI put it at oral argument, EEI’s

contention is essentially that “[t]here is a mistake in the

preamble.” 11/9/04 Oral Arg. Tape at 11:45. 

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What this argument makes manifest is that EEI’s true

quarrel is not with the 2003 Directive, but with the 1994

Standard and its preamble. Cast in this light, EEI’s problem is

clear: it should have made these points in a challenge to the

1994 Standard -- a challenge that it began but later withdrew --

not in a petition to review a compliance directive issued nearly

a decade later. If OSHA was mistaken about the configuration

of electric power plants, it made that mistake in 1994, not in

2003. And even if OSHA’s policy is based on a faulty empirical

premise (a point OSHA vigorously disputes), there is no doubt

that the policy the agency set forth in the 2003 Directive is the

same one it has consistently followed since 1994 -- in the

original Standard, in the 1997 Directive, and in the 1999-2000

correspondence with EEI.

In short, the 2003 Directive is not a new standard, but rather

“merely restate[s] in an abstract setting -- for the umteenth time

-- [OSHA’s] longstanding interpretation” of its Power

Generation Standard. Independent Equip. Dealers, 372 F.3d at

427. Indeed, OSHA foreswears drawing any independent

authority at all from the directive, contending that in an

enforcement action, any finding of a violation must be

predicated on the standard itself, “just as if the [directive] had

never been issued.” Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. v. FPC, 506 F.2d

33, 38 (D.C. Cir. 1974). As EEI is therefore “no worse off than

it would be had the [directive] not been issued at all,” Molycorp,

197 F.3d at 547, it may not obtain review of the directive in the

court of appeals. 

IV

Because OSHA’s 2003 Directive does not render any

significant change to the agency’s 1994 Power Generation

Standard, the directive is not itself a new occupational safety or

health standard within the meaning of 29 U.S.C. § 655(b).

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4

In a footnote to its brief, EEI suggests that, if this court

concludes it lacks jurisdiction to review EEI’s petition directly, the

case should be transferred to the district court. Pet’r Br. at 35 n.19;

see Workplace Health, 56 F.3d at 1469 (citing 28 U.S.C. § 1631). We

deny this request because the question of the district court’s

jurisdiction raises a host of issues, see Sturm, Ruger, 300 F.3d at 871-

77, that have been neither fully briefed nor argued. As a consequence,

we cannot conclude that a transfer to the district court would be “in the

interest of justice,” as 28 U.S.C. § 1631 requires.

Accordingly, we have no jurisdiction to review it. Workplace

Health, 56 F.3d at 1468-69.4 The petition for review is

Dismissed.

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