Source: https://oshadefensereport.com/category/judicial-decisions/
Timestamp: 2020-08-13 01:55:36
Document Index: 374526988

Matched Legal Cases: ['ART 2', 'art 1', 'art 2', 'art 1', 'art 1', 'art 1', 'art 2', 'art 1904', '§ 651', '§ 658', '§ 552', '§ 551']

Judicial Decisions – The OSHA Defense Report
BREAKING – CSB Issues Final Accidental Release Reporting Rule
February 10, 2020 February 10, 2020 Beeta B. Lashkari Leave a comment
By Eric J. Conn and Beeta Lashkari
Last week, on the day of a federal district court-mandated deadline — Wednesday, February 5, 2020 — the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (the CSB) announced its Final Rule on Accidental Release Reporting. The CSB posted a prepublication version of the Final Rule last week, on February 5th. The official version should be published in the Federal Register within the next few days.
As we previously reported, on December 12, 2019, the CSB issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for its new reporting rule, which set out the circumstances when facility owners and operators are required to file reports with the CSB about certain accidental chemical releases and what must be communicated in the reports.
As stated in the NPRM, the purpose of the rule is “to ensure that the CSB receives rapid, accurate reports of any accidental release that meets established statutory criteria.”
The rule requires owners and operators of stationary sources to report accidental releases that result in a fatality, a serious injury, or substantial property damage to the CSB within eight hours. The specific information required to be provided in the accidental release report includes:
A brief description of the accidental release;
Whether the release resulted in a fire, explosion, death, serious injury, or property damage;
The number of fatalities and/or serious injuries, and the estimated property damage at or outside the stationary source;
The name of the material involved;
The amount of the release; and
Whether the accidental release resulted in an evacuation order impacting members of the general public and other details associated with the evacuation.
Issuance of the CSB’s reporting rule has been a long time coming. Although the CSB did not become operational until 1998, its enabling legislation – the Clean Air Act Amendments – was enacted in 1990. That statute, from nearly thirty years ago, expressly required the agency to issue a rule governing the reporting of accidental releases to the CSB. Although the CSB submitted an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Chemical Release Reporting in 2009, that effort died on the vine. Accordingly, the CSB has never had its own reporting rule, relying instead on other sources to receive incident information. In February 2019, however, Continue reading →
Announcing Conn Maciel Carey’s 2020 OSHA Webinar Series
December 20, 2019 January 28, 2020 Eric J. Conn 3 Comments
We are three years into the Trump Administration, and we have seen a mixed bag of change and business as usual at OSHA in enforcement and rulemaking. We watched late Obama-era OSHA rules get repealed, delayed, or amended and a modest boost in compliance assistance—the sort of policy shifts you expect to see in a transition from a Democratic to a Republican Administration. However, we have seen plenty of the unexpected, such as increases in virtually every enforcement metric, including record numbers of $100K+ enforcement actions. And most surprising of all, OSHA still does not have an Assistant Secretary—the longest ever vacancy for the top job at OSHA—and it seems highly likely the Agency will remain without a Senate-approved leader for the entirety of this presidential term. As we move into an election year, the final year of President Trump’s current term, we expect more reshuffling of OSHA enforcement policies and rulemaking priorities, and surely more surprises, so it is critical to stay abreast of OSHA developments.
Conn Maciel Carey’s complimentary 2020 OSHA Webinar Series includes monthly webinars presented by OSHA-specialist attorneys in the firm’s national OSHA Practice designed to give employers insight into developments at OSHA during this remarkable time in OSHA’s history.
To register for an individual webinar, use the registration links in the program descriptions below. To register for the entire 2020 Series, click here to send an email request, and we will register you. If you miss a program this year or missed any in prior years, click here for our webinar archive.
We are exploring CLE approval for this series. If you are interested in CLE or other forms of Continuing Education credits, click here to complete a survey.
2020 OSHA Webinar Series – Program Schedule
OSHA’s 2019 in Review
and 2020 Forecast
OSHA Settlement
Employee Discipline – OSHA
and Labor & Employment Issues
Strategies for Responding to Whistleblower Complaints
Privileged Audits and Investigations and OSHA’s Self-Audit Policy
Annual Cal/OSHA Update
Impact of the Election on OSHA
E-Recordkeeping and
Injury Reporting Update
Updates about OSHA’s PSM
Standard and EPA’s RMP Rule
OSHA’s PPE Standards –
Top 5 Risks and Mistakes
Impact of America’s Aging Workforce on OSHA and Employment Law
See below for the full schedule with program descriptions,
dates, times and links to register for each webinar event. Continue reading →
CSB Issues Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for New Accidental Release Reporting Rule
December 14, 2019 January 2, 2020 Beeta B. Lashkari Leave a comment
Earlier this week, on December 12, 2019, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for its long-awaiting chemical incident reporting rule, which sets out the circumstances when facility owners and operators are required to file reports with the CSB of accidental chemical releases and what must be communicated in the reports.
If promulgated, the rule would require owners and operators of stationary sources (chemical facilities) to report accidental releases that result in a fatality, serious injury, or substantial property damage to the CSB within four hours. The proposed rule also identifies the specific information required to be included in the accidental release report:
Importantly, recognizing that some or all of this information may not be known within four hours of an accidental release, the CSB decided to include the qualifier — “if known” — for much of the information that would be required in the report.
If, however, the owner/operator submits a report to Continue reading →
[Webinar] Process Safety Update: The Latest with OSHA’s PSM Standard and EPA’s RMP Rule
November 11, 2019 November 23, 2019 Eric J. Conn Leave a comment
On Tuesday, November 19, 2019 at 1:00 PM Eastern, join Eric J. Conn, Amanda Walker, and Micah Smith of Conn Maciel Carey’s national OSHA Practice for a complimentary webinar regarding “Process Safety Update: The Latest with OSHA’s PSM Standard and EPA’s RMP Rule.”
​ Following the tragic West Fertilizer explosion in 2013, then-President Obama issued an Executive Order directing OSHA, EPA and other agencies to “modernize” the way the government regulates chemical process safety. OSHA and EPA took (or at least initiated) sweeping actions in response to the Executive Order, from enforcement initiatives (like a new wave of Refinery and Chemical Facility PSM National Emphasis Program inspections) to rulemaking and interpretation letters to overhaul OSHA’s PSM and EPA’s RMP regulatory landscape.
When President Trump took office with a de-regulatory agenda, the regulated community was left wondering what this meant for these changes to process safety regulations. But rather than a continued wave of action, the momentum splintered, with some initiatives proceeding, others coming to a halt, and others still being pared back. We saw immediate delays and the beginning of rollbacks of new process safety regulations, yet enforcement initiatives appeared to move forward unhindered. And now, with two years of the Trump Administration in the books, it is still unclear where the regulatory landscape will settle.
This webinar will review the status and likely future of OSHA’s PSM Standard and EPA’s RMP Rule, as well as other major process safety developments from the federal government, state governments, and industry groups.
Specifically, participants in this webinar will learn about: Continue reading →
EPA Sends Final RMP Rollback Rule to OMB for Review
September 17, 2019 September 17, 2019 Beeta B. Lashkari Leave a comment
By Micah Smith, Eric J. Conn and Beeta Lashkari
Last week, on September 12, 2019, EPA sent its Final RMP Rollback Rule to the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) for pre-publication review. The rule is expected to roll back many of the Obama-era RMP Amendment Rule that added to and enhanced numerous RMP requirements, which was finalized and published in the Federal Register three days before President Trump’s Inauguration.
This new near-final RMP Rollback Rule comes after a long and tortured rulemaking and litigation history in which President Obama’s EPA rushed out the RMP Amendments Rule, President Trump’s EPA attempted to delay the RMP Amendments Rule, those attempts were defeated in federal court, and then EPA quickly finalized the current rulemaking with anticipated roll-backs. Here is a quick summary of that history: Continue reading →
“Unexpected Energization” Still Essential to Require Lockout/Tagout Despite Controversial OSHA Rulemaking
May 15, 2019 May 17, 2019 Daniel C. Deacon Leave a comment
By Dan C. Deacon and Eric J. Conn
After years awaiting the fate of OSHA’s controversial proposed change to write the term “unexpected energization” out of its Lockout/Tagout (“LOTO”) standard, OSHA just announced its new Final Rule of Phase IV of the Standards Improvement Project (“SIP”). The SIP process was designed to allow OSHA a simplified rulemaking path to make non-controversial changes to fix minor issues with existing standards. The SIP IV proposal included numerous minor adjustments to a variety of existing OSHA standards, but one seemingly major change to the LOTO standard. Specifically, the Obama Administration’s OSHA slipped into SIP IV a controversial proposal to revise the scope provision of the LOTO standard to remove the term “unexpected energization” as a prerequisite for the requirements of the LOTO standard to kick-in. After an outcry by the regulated community, this proposed change to the LOTO standard was removed from the Final Rule. However, OSHA signaled it will likely re-visit the issue again in a separate LOTO rulemaking.
History of Standards Improvement Project
OSHA initiated the “Standards Improvement Project” (SIP) during the Clinton Administration, and and there have been a series of four SIP rulemakings since. The Project was intended to allow OSHA to efficiently make non-controversial changes to confusing, outdated, or duplicative elements of OSHA standards and to to align standards across industries and make it easier for employers to understand and comply with safety and health regulations. Continue reading →
April 1, 2019 April 2, 2019 Micah Smith 1 Comment
D.C. Circuit’s “Inadvertently Issued” Mandate puts RMP Amendments into Effect for a Weekend
September 6, 2018 September 6, 2018 Micah Smith Leave a comment
By Eric Conn, Micah Smith, and Beeta Lashkari
Late last Friday, August 31, 2018, the D.C. Circuit unexpectedly granted Petitioners’ request to expedite the issuance of the Court’s mandate to strike down the delay of EPA’s 2017 RMP Amendments. As we previously reported, the D.C. Circuit held on August 17, 2018, that EPA acted improperly when it issued a final rule delaying the effective date of a certain set of amendments made to EPA’s RMP Rule (the “Delay Rule”). Providing for a full rehearing petition period, and absent any action from the Court, the mandate for this decision would have issued at the earliest on October 8, 2017. On August 24, 2018, however, Petitioners filed a motion to expedite, asking that it issue no later than September 7, 2018.
Petitioners’ arguments focus on the public’s “strong interest” in the prompt issuance of the mandate due to “the serious and irreparable harm and imminent threats to public health and safety that EPA’s Delay Rule is causing,” and they point to the 14 months of delay that has already occurred as evidence of the need for expedited relief.
And in a nod to current events, Petitioners claim that time is now of the essence because of the impending hurricane season, specifically mentioning the OIG’s investigation of EPA’s preparedness and response efforts to Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
Under the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, EPA and the Intervenors are afforded 10 days to file oppositions to Petitioners’ Motion, so those oppositions had not yet been filed on August 31.
After the Court issued the mandate late on Friday, August 31, several motions for reconsideration were filed by EPA and Intervenors, but the Court’s closure over the 3-day weekend left all the parties in suspense, anxiously trying to determine the implications of the decision.
After a long weekend of suspense, the Court ordered EPA to return the mandate on September 4, noting that the responses to Petitioners’ Motion were not yet due. The Court also briefly noted that it appeared “that the court’s mandate inadvertently issued” the previous Friday. EPA returned the mandate on the same day.
But now that EPA and the Intervenors have filed oppositions to Petitioners’ Motion to expedite the issuance of the mandate, what comes next? Continue reading →
D.C. Circuit Strikes Down the Trump EPA Delay of Obama EPA’s Overhaul of the Risk Management Program Rule
August 17, 2018 August 17, 2018 Eric J. Conn Leave a comment
By Micah Smith, Eric J. Conn, and Beeta Lashkari
Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit handed EPA (and Industry) a significant setback in the long-running battle over the 2017 Amendments to EPA’s Risk Management Program (RMP) Rule (EPA’s companion regulation to OSHA’s Process Safety Management Standard). Specifically, in a per curiam order in Air Alliance Houston v. EPA, the D.C. Circuit held that EPA under the Trump Administration acted improperly when it issued a final rule delaying the effective date by 20 months (from June 2017 to February 2019), of a significant set of Amendments to the RMP Rule that had been promulgated in the final days of the Obama Administration.
This ruling creates significant concern for the regulated community. The Amendments require major overhauls to they way covered employers implement their risk management plans. But EPA is still advancing a rulemaking to rescind and narrow those Amendments. Without this delay, there is tremendous uncertainty about whether or when to implement changes to those programs.
Indeed, EPA’s express purpose of the lengthy delay of the RMP Amendments was to provide time for EPA to reconsider and eliminate or curtail the sweeping new provisions. The D.C. Circuit criticized EPA for its attempts to delay a regulation that it had just recently issued, stating in the written opinion that:
“the Delay Rule thus contains no provisions that advance or accomplish these goals [of preventing accidental releases and protecting human health and the environment], but instead delays these objectives contrary to EPA’s prior determinations in a rulemaking.”
While the Court criticized the agency for Continue reading →
Unlock the Mysteries of OSHA’s Lockout/Tagout Rule (PART 2 of 2 – Five Common LOTO Mistakes)
June 20, 2018 October 26, 2018 Eric J. Conn Leave a comment
For a host of reasons, it is vital for employers to get compliance with OSHA’s standard for the “control of hazardous energy (Lockout/Tagout)” (29 C.F.R. 1910.147) (LOTO) right, but it also happens to be one of the least understood and most often botched set of regulatory requirements in OSHA’s portfolio of standards.
This two-part article lays out:
[Part 1]: 5 reasons it is critical for employers to ensure compliance with OSHA’s LOTO Standard; and
[Part 2]: 5 common mistakes employers make implementing LOTO requirements.
Part 1 Summary: Five Reasons it is Critical to Get LOTO Right
As we discussed in Part 1 of this two-part article, there are five important OSHA enforcement reasons why it is vital for employers to truly grasp OSHA’s regulatory requirements for lockout/tagout (LOTO) and implement them.
Those 5 reasons are:
Amputation Injuries Create Special Reporting Obligations
LOTO Citations are Low Hanging Fruit for OSHA
OSHA is Actively Pursuing LOTO Violations with a National Emphasis Program
LOTO Violations Qualify for the Severe Violator Enforcement Program
LOTO Violations are Among the Most Used for OSH Act Criminal Prosecutions
For a detailed discussion about those reasons, check out Part 1 of this two-part article.
Part 2: Five Common LOTO Mistakes
This part details the five most common mistakes and misunderstandings associated with OSHA’s regulatory requirements for LOTO.
1. Confusion about When the LOTO Standard Applies
Normal production operations are not covered by the LOTO standard. Rather, the requirements of OSHA’s LOTO standard kick in during servicing and/or maintenance, or any production activity that requires an employee to remove or bypass a guard or other safety device, or if an employee is required to place any part of his or her body into an area on a machine or piece of equipment where work is performed upon the material being processed. Otherwise, the employer is expected to install and maintain appropriate guards that protect employees as required by 1910.212, OSHA’s machine guarding standard.
While the LOTO and machine guarding standards tend to complement each other—one protects employees during normal production operations (guarding), while the other protects employees during servicing or maintenance (LOTO). Technically, OSHA may not cite the Continue reading →
OSHA’s “Look Back” Window to Issue Repeat Citations is Unlimited
March 23, 2018 March 23, 2018 Daniel C. Deacon Leave a comment
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently issued an opinion granting OSHA the ultimate leeway to characterize citations as Repeat. The case involved a Repeat excavation-related OSHA citation issued to Triumph Construction Corp. in 2014. OSHA based the Repeat characterization on a prior violation of the same excavation standard confirmed against Triumph from 2009.
Triumph asserted to the OSHRC Administrative Law Judge and to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that the Repeat citation was not appropriate because the amount of time that had passed from the original 2009 citation to the new 2014 alleged violation (nearly five years) was outside OSHA’s stated Repeat look-back policy in its Field Operations Manual. The OSHA Field Operations Manual in effect in 2014 was the 2009 version, which provided for a three year look-back period to find prior violations to serve as the basis for a Repeat violation.
In a 2016 update to the Fields Operations Manual, the Obama Administration expanded the Repeat look-back period to five-years. Regardless what the FOM said, the Triumph case implicated broader issues of whether OSHA’s policy created an strict statute of limitations for the Repeat look-back and whether OSHA has the authority, on a whim, to change enforcement policies like the Repeat look-back period without rulemaking or legislation.
The ALJ upheld the Repeat citation, and on appeal, the Second Circuit in Triumph Construction Corp. v. Sec. of Labor (Docket No. 16‐4128‐ag, March 14, 2018), held that because neither the OSH Act nor any regulations promulgated under the Act mandate or restrict any look-back time period for Repeat violations, OSHA was not bound by its own stated policy. OSHA has the discretion, in other words, to search an employer’s citation history as far back as it wishes to identify any prior substantially similar violations to serve as the basis for a present “repeat” violation. Continue reading →
OSHA’s PSM Standard & EPA’s RMP Rule [Webinar Recording]
December 11, 2017 December 21, 2017 Amanda Strainis-Walker Leave a comment
On December 12, 2017, Eric J. Conn and Micah Smith of Conn Maciel Carey’s national OSHA Practice Group presented a webinar regarding “OSHA’s PSM Standard & EPA’s RMP Rule.”
Following the tragic West Fertilizer explosion in 2013, then-Pres. Obama issued an Executive Order directing OSHA, EPA and other agencies to “modernize” how the government regulates chemical manufacturing. In response, OSHA and EPA took sweeping actions, from rulemaking and interpretation letters to overhaul the PSM and RMP regulatory landscape, to new enforcement initiatives, like a the Chemical Facilities and Petroleum Refineries PSM National Emphasis Program. When Pres. Trump took office, several key process safety and environmental regulations were delayed or repealed, new political leadership was installed, and enforcement policies were reexamined. This webinar will review the status and likely future of OSHA’s PSM and EPA’s RMP regulatory programs.
August 1, 2017 August 1, 2017 Eric J. Conn Leave a comment
By Eric J. Conn, Chair of Conn Maciel Carey’s OSHA Practice
President Trump was carried to the White House on promises (or threats) of rolling back government regulations. At the CPAC conference this year, Pres. Trump’s Sr. Policy Advisor, Steve Bannon, framed Pres. Trump’s agenda with the phrase: “deconstruction of the administrative state,” meaning the system of regulations the President believes have stymied economic growth. OSHA regulations are apparently at the heart of this deconstruction. Now, only half a year into the Trump Administration, we have seen significant changes to the OSHA regulatory landscape, from the Congressional Review Act repeal of Obama-era midnight rules, to a budget proposal that could shrink OSHA’s enforcement efforts and prioritize compliance assistance, to a series of Executive Orders that shift OSHA to a business friendly regulatory philosophy.
And now, the Trump Administration has issued its first “Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions,” and the path to “deconstruction of the administrative state” is clearer. The spring Unified Regulatory Agenda explains what agencies like OSHA and EPA will undertake on the rulemaking front, and the shift in the Dept. of Labor’s regulatory agenda for rules and standards affecting workplace safety is more pronounced than ever. The new Regulatory Agenda places a bevy of Obama-era regulatory priorities out in the cold. Among them, new standards to address infectious diseases in healthcare, various chemical exposures, and other broad-based initiatives have been canceled or placed on the regulatory back burner.
Here’s a breakdown of what Pres. Trump’s first Regulatory Agenda reveals about OSHA’s future plans:
Controversial Rules Off the Table
To the relief of industry advocates who spent years wringing their hands over OSHA’s aggressive rulemaking agenda during the Obama Administration, the new Administration put many of the Agency’s previous plans on ice. This set of rules will not see further action for years.
For example, a comprehensive rule addressing combustible dust, which has been in the works for nearly a decade, is off the table. This rulemaking was spurred by a recommendation from the U.S. Chemical Safety & Hazard Investigation Board, and was pursued by top officials in the Obama-era OSHA. The Trump Administration has removed it from the Regulatory Agenda.
Here are some of the higher profile OSHA rulemaking efforts that are now effectively dead in the water: Continue reading →
Finally We Have a Labor Secretary – Alexander Acosta
April 28, 2017 May 26, 2017 Lindsay A. DiSalvo Leave a comment
By Lindsay A. Disalvo
On Thursday, April 27, 2017, Alexander Acosta was confirmed by the United States Senate to serve as the first Secretary of Labor in the Trump Administration. As we reported in an earlier article when Acosta was first nominated by Pres. Trump, in this role, Sec. Acosta will oversee the federal department that develops and interprets labor regulations and investigates alleged violations of minimum wage, overtime, and workplace safety laws and regulations.
The Senate approved Acosta by a vote of 60-38, meaning there was some cross-party support, despite the party-line vote on Acosta’s nomination by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. This marks the fourth time Acosta has been confirmed by the Senate, including his prior positions in the Bush Administration.
Specifically, during the Bush Administration, Acosta served as a member of the National Labor Relations Board for approximately eight months. In 2003, President Bush appointed him to Head the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice’s , a position which he held for about two years, before being appointed to serve as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. Most recently, Acosta was the Dean of Florida International University’s School of Law.
At this point, it is still uncertain what jurisprudence Acosta will bring to the role of Secretary of Labor. The Trump Administration and its initial Secretary of Labor nominee, Andrew Puzder, who withdrew from consideration back in February, have taken aggressive stands on deregulation. However, Acosta’s positions on regulation and enforcement have not been as clearly expressed, and his prior experience as a prosecutor may suggest a more measured approach in managing the enforcement responsibilities of the various agencies under his direction. We will have a better idea of Acosta’s approach soon, however, because there are a number of time sensitive issues that will need his prompt attention upon being sworn in.
In particular, we expect that one immediate priority for Acosta will be Continue reading →
“OSHA’s Midnight Attempt to Overrule Federal Court’s Decision Is Ripe for Rescission” – WLF Article
February 24, 2017 Eric J. Conn 2 Comments
Washington Legal Foundation just published Eric J. Conn’s “Legal Opinion Letter” article regarding OSHA’s new “Volks Rule” attempting to circumvent the D.C. Circuit ruling limiting OSHA’s statute of limitations for injury and illness recordkeeping violations from 5½ years to six months.
Below is a summary of the article with an update about Congressional action scrutinizing the Rule, and here is a link to the full article.
In the waning days of the Obama Administration, OSHA promulgated a new rule purportedly “clarifying” employers’ continuing duty to correct injury and illness recordkeeping logs for the entire five-year period the logs must be kept. See 81 Fed. Reg. 91,792 (Dec. 19, 2016). The final rule, dubbed the “Clarification of Employer’s Continuing Obligation to Make and Maintain an Accurate Record of Each Recordable Injury and Illness,” amended OSHA’s existing recordkeeping regulations in order to circumvent a 2012 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in AKM LLC v. Secretary of Labor (Volks II), 675 F.3d 752 (DC Cir. 2012). This “clarifying” rule is unlawful and should be repudiated.
OSHA’s Injury and Illness Recordkeeping regulations require employers to record certain injuries and illnesses within seven days of the incident and also to preserve a copy of those records for five years. 29 C.F.R. Part 1904 et seq. Separately, the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSH Act) authorizes the Secretary of Labor to issue citations alleging violations of regulations adopted under the Act. 29 U.S.C. §§ 651-678. The statute of limitations in the OSH Act states, however, that “[n]o citation may be issued under this section after the expiration of six months following the occurrence of any violation.” 29 U.S.C. § 658(c).
The article provides a historical look at how OSHA interpreted and enforced its injury and illness recordkeeping regulations Continue reading →
Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee Neil Gorsuch Sides with Businesses on Labor and OSHA Issues
February 15, 2017 February 15, 2017 Lindsay A. DiSalvo Leave a comment
On February 1, 2017, President Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Denver, Colorado, to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court left by Antonin Scalia’s death in February 2016. Indeed, since February 2016, the High Court has functioned with only eight members; four liberal Justices and four conservative Justices. Therefore, the confirmation of a ninth Justice to fill the vacant position, and establish a majority conservative bench, is likely to have a substantial impact on the outcome of controversial issues brought before the Court.
Gorsuch was appointed to the Tenth Circuit by President George W. Bush in 2006. Although he is considered a firm conservative, as was expected given President Trump’s public stance to fill the vacancy with a judge who embodies Scalia’s principles, he has garnered praise from both liberals and conservatives for his work as an appellate judge due to his reputation for conveying his ideas fluently and courteously.
A number of Democrats have already conveyed their opposition to Gorsuch’s nomination, which could prove problematic as he will need to win over some Democratic senators to get the 60 votes needed to clear procedural hurdles.However, setting the political climate aside, when Judge Gorsuch was appointed to the Tenth Circuit in 2006, he was confirmed by the Senatewithout objection. Only time will tell if Judge Gorsuch will acquire enough support from Senate Democrats to overcome a filibuster given the immediate public opposition from Democrats following Gorsuch’s nomination, and whether he will be approved in time to hear oral arguments later this spring. Judge Gorsuch’s opinions on labor and employment topics suggest that he favors businesses, and his decisions reflect a distaste for overreaching agency action which could result in some limiting decisions if he is ultimately confirmed.
Who is Judge Gorsuch?
Prior to being appointed to the Tenth Circuit, Judge Gorsuch amassed an impressive resume. He received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University in New York City in 1988 and his law degree from Harvard Law School, with honors, in 1991 where he was the editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy and classmates with former President Obama. Judge Gorsuch also earned a doctorate of legal philosophy from Oxford University in 2004, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar. Judge Gorsuch began his law career as a
FAR Council’s and Dept. of Labor’s Contractor “Blacklisting” Rule – Finalized and Promptly Stayed
November 8, 2016 November 7, 2016 Eric J. Conn Leave a comment
Texas District Court Enjoins the Administration from Enforcing the Federal Government Contractor “Blacklisting” Provisions of the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council’s New Final “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” Rule.
On August 25, 2016, the Obama Administration, through the Federal Acquisition Regulatory (FAR) Council and in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Labor, promulgated the final Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces regulation and parallel guidance from the Labor Department, which collectively federal contractors have unaffectionately dubbed the “Blacklisting Rule.” The cornerstone provisions of the final rule establish expansive new reporting obligations for contractors bidding on executive branch contracts with an estimated value exceeding $500,000. These contractors, along with subcontractors whose portions of the overall contract meet the $500,000 threshold contract value, must disclose all confirmed and alleged violations issued under 14 labor laws, including alleged OSHA citations, within the three years prior to a prospective contractor’s bid submission, regardless of the status of the citation or whether the citation has yet been upheld in a judicial or administrative review process afforded employers. To be clear, under the final rule, all OSHA citations must be reported, even minor paperwork citations characterized as “OTS” (“other-than-serious”).
The final rule change the manner in which the rule applies to subcontractors. Unlike the proposed rule, the final rule requires covered subcontractors to disclose violations directly to the Department of Labor, which will conduct a “responsibility determination” and return it to the subcontractor, who in turn will then be required to deliver it to the prime contractor. The final rule also pushed back the mandatory disclosure date for subcontractors to October 25, 2017, a year after the disclosure requirements were set to begin for prime contractors.
The disclosure requirements for all contractors apply equally to related state labor laws, which sweeps in all citations issued under the 27 federal OSHA-approved state OSH programs administered by state occupational safety and health agencies such as CAL/OSHA. Whichever contractor is awarded a covered contract must also disclose any old and new OSHA or other alleged labor law violation (referred to in the regulation as “administrative merits determinations”) during regular, bi-annual reports throughout the life of the contract.
Rule Challenged and Preliminary Injunction Granted
Barely before contractors had time to read the regulation and attendant DOL guidance, however, and prior to its first effective date of October 25th, a group of industry trade associations filed a legal challenge in a Texas federal district court to the rule and requested the court grant emergency relief by Continue reading →
OSHA Settles Legal Challenge to Process Safety Management Chemical Mixtures Enforcement Memo
August 3, 2016 August 10, 2016 Eric J. Conn Leave a comment
By Eric J. Conn, Amanda R. Strainis-Walker, and Bryan A. Carey
In March 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in the closely watched Perez v. Mortgage Bankers. The Court’s decision killed a longstanding doctrine, set by the D.C. Circuit, that changes to federal agency rules, even if the changes are “interpretive” in nature, must go through Administrative Procedure Act public notice-and-comment. Mortgage Bankers reversed that principle, and held that notice-and-comment rulemaking is not required for “interpretive rules” or “administrative interpretations.”
In the post-Mortgage Bankers world, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) has a powerful new tool for backdoor rulemaking, and OSHA wasted no time taking advantage of this new legal doctrine. OSHA’s first efforts to utilize the new authority were seen in changes to its Process Safety Management of Highly Hazardous Chemicals standard (29 CFR 1910.119), which detail the requirements for operating and maintaining processes that use highly hazardous chemicals. Less than three months after the Supreme Court issued the Mortgage Bankers decision, OSHA issued three separate interpretation letters to amend the PSM Standard:
Narrowing the long-standing “Retail Exemption” from PSM-coverage;
Defining and enforcing the application of “Recognized and Generally Accepted Good Engineering Practices” (“RAGAGEP”); and
Expanding the scope of chemical mixtures covered by the PSM Standard.
Read our earlier article about these three enforcement memorandum and the resolution by settlement of a legal challenge to the RAGAGEP interpretation.
The Chemical Mixture Interpretation
On June 5, 2015, OSHA issued an enforcement memorandum regarding PSM and Covered Concentrations of Appendix A Chemicals, which substantially revised OSHA’s policy on the concentrations of components of chemical mixtures that trigger the coverage under the PSM Standard. Appendix A of the PSM Standard lists the “highly hazardous chemicals” that are Continue reading →
The Freedom of Information Act Amended: Process and Pitfalls
July 13, 2016 July 20, 2016 Bryan Carey 1 Comment
On June 30, 2016, President Obama signed into law the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, Pub. L. No. 114-185, which made significant changes to the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552, et seq. (“FOIA”). FOIA can be a great tool for unlocking the federal government’s vast compilations of documents and information, which make it a great resource for business intelligence. But you also should be aware of FOIA’s pitfalls, including how your own business’s confidential documents and information can be disclosed to the public, including the media, if the federal government has them in its possession and they become subject to a FOIA request.
FOIA was enacted in 1966 and allows any member of the public to request access to government information without requiring a showing of a need or reason for seeking the information. FOIA was a revision of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 551, et seq. (“APA”). Congress saw that the APA was falling short of its original disclosure goals and that the original law came to be viewed more as a withholding statute than a disclosure statute. See EPA v. Mink, 410 U.S. 73, 79 (1973). Congress’s intent in enacting FOIA was to make the government’s records and activities available and transparent to the public with only a handful of express exemptions that the government could invoke to withhold documents and information from disclosure. Generally the exemptions prevent disclosure of information related to national security, law enforcement investigations, government personnel rules and practices, specific exemptions from other statutes, and trade secret, commercial, or financial information obtained from third parties such as individuals and businesses.
The federal government is a huge Continue reading →