The basic process by which all federal agencies typically develop and issue regulations is set forth in the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and is generally known as the rulemaking process. Rulemaking at most regulatory agencies follows the APA’s informal rulemaking process, also known as “notice and comment” rulemaking, which generally requires agencies to publish a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register, provide interested persons an opportunity to comment on the proposed regulation, and publish the final regulation, among other things. Agencies may also take other actions to gather information during the rulemaking process; for example, agencies may hold a public meeting to allow stakeholders to discuss specific aspects of the proposed regulation. Under the APA, a person adversely affected by an agency’s rulemaking is generally entitled to judicial review of that new rule. For regulations developed and issued using the APA’s notice and comment rulemaking process, the court may invalidate a regulation if it finds it to be “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law,” sometimes referred to as the arbitrary and capricious test. In addition to the APA requirements, federal agencies typically must comply with requirements imposed by certain other statutes and executive orders. Some of the relevant laws include the Paperwork Reduction Act and the Regulatory Flexibility Act, which were both enacted in 1980; the Congressional Review Act, enacted in 1996;and the Information Quality Act, enacted in 2000. (See app. II for an overview of requirements that commonly apply to OSHA standard setting.) In accordance with various presidential executive orders, agencies work closely with staff from OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, who review draft regulations and other significant regulatory actions prior to publication.standard setting were established in 1980 or later. Most of the additional requirements that affect OSHA Agencies can supplement the notice and comment procedure for developing regulations through a process called “negotiated rulemaking.” Through this process, the agency convenes a negotiated rulemaking committee, generally composed of representatives of the agency and the various interest groups to be affected by a potential regulation, before developing and issuing the proposed rule. If the committee comes to an agreement on the content of a potential regulation, the agency may use it as the proposed rule. However, any agreement by the negotiated rulemaking committee is not binding on the agency or interest groups represented on the committee. Negotiated rulemaking does not replace any procedures required by the APA; rather, it can be used to help reach agreement among the members of the committee on the content of a proposed regulation, and according to proponents, it may help decrease the likelihood of subsequent litigation over the regulation. OSHA administers the OSH Act, which was enacted to help assure, so far as possible, safe and healthful working conditions for the nation’s workers. Section 6(b) of the act authorizes the Secretary of Labor to “promulgate, modify, or revoke any occupational safety or health standard” when he or she determines that doing so would serve the objectives of the OSH Act. Occupational safety and health standards are a type of regulation and are defined as standards that require “conditions, or the adoption or use of one or more practices, means, methods, operations, or processes, reasonably necessary or appropriate to provide safe or healthful employment and places of employment.” Section 6(b) of the act also specifies the procedures by which OSHA must promulgate, modify, or revoke its standards. These procedures include publishing the proposed rule in the Federal Register, providing interested persons an opportunity to comment, and holding a public hearing upon request. Section 6(a) of the OSH Act directed the Secretary of Labor (through OSHA) to adopt any national consensus standards or established federal standards as safety and health standards within 2 years of the date the OSH Act went into effect. In general, national consensus standards are safety and health standards that a nationally recognized standards- producing organization, such as the National Fire Protection Association, adopts after reaching substantial agreement among those who will be affected, including businesses, industries, and workers. Unlike OSHA’s standards, which are mandatory, employers may choose whether to voluntarily follow national consensus standards. The OSH Act specified that OSHA set standards under section 6(a) without following OSHA’s typical standard-setting procedures or the APA, including provisions for public comment. Indeed, according to an OSHA publication, hundreds of requirements in current OSHA standards make reference to or are based on about 200 consensus standards, but the OSH Act does not explicitly The require OSHA to ensure that these standards are kept up to date.vast majority of these standards have not changed since originally adopted, despite significant advances in technology, equipment, and machinery over the past several decades. When a federal agency decides to develop a rule, it is generally required by the National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1995 to use technical standards developed or adopted by voluntary consensus standards bodies, where appropriate, except when doing so is inconsistent with applicable law or otherwise impractical. Under the OSH Act, if OSHA issues a rule that differs substantially from an existing national consensus standard, the agency must publish in the Federal Register an explanation of why its rule will better effectuate the purposes of the OSH Act than the national consensus standard. OSHA’s Directorate of Standards and Guidance, working with staff from other Labor offices, leads the agency’s standard-setting process. These staff explore the appropriateness and feasibility of developing standards to address workplace hazards that are not covered by existing standards. Once OSHA initiates such an effort, an interdisciplinary team typically composed of at least five staff focus on that issue. We analyzed the 58 significant health and safety standards that OSHA issued between 1981 and 2010 and found that the time frames for developing and issuing them ranged from 15 months to about 19 years (see table 1). At any given point during this period, OSHA staff worked to develop standards that eventually became final, represented in the table below. On average, OSHA took a total of about 93 months (7 years, 9 months) to develop and issue these standards. After the agency published the proposed standard, it took an average of about 39 months (3 years, 3 months) to finalize the standard. The majority of these standards—47 of the 58—were finalized between 1981 and 1999. In addition to these final standards, OSHA staff have also worked to develop standards that have not yet been finalized. For example, according to agency officials, OSHA staff have been working on developing a silica standard since 1997, a beryllium standard since 2000, and a standard on walking and working surfaces since 2003. We found that the time it takes OSHA to develop and issue standards varied over the 30-year period and by the type of standard. First, as shown in table 1, it took OSHA about 70 percent longer, on average, to finalize standards in the 1990s than it took during the 1980s, and about 30 percent longer than during the 2000s. While we were not able to determine the reason for this through our analysis, it demonstrates that there is no clear trend of OSHA developing and issuing standards more or less quickly over time. Second, we found that it took OSHA longer to develop and issue safety standards than health standards—an average of about 8 years, 6 months for safety standards compared with about 6 years, 4 months for health standards—even though several experts to whom we spoke stated that health standards are more difficult for OSHA to issue than safety standards (see figs. 1 and 2 for a depiction of the timelines for safety and health standards issued between 1981 and 2010). Part of this difference may be explained by the fact that a larger portion of the health standards (6 of 23, compared with only 3 of 35 safety standards) were standards for which Congress or the courts articulated time frames for their issuance or development. Experts and agency officials frequently cited the increased number of procedural requirements established since 1980, shifting priorities, and the relatively high standard of judicial review required for OSHA standards as factors that lengthen OSHA’s time frames for developing and issuing standards. In addition to these primary factors, several of the experts and agency officials also noted two secondary factors affecting the standard-setting process: significant data challenges and an institutional apprehension about setting standards in the wake of adverse court decisions. We have characterized these as secondary factors because they are both related to the three primary factors. Experts and agency officials indicated that the increased number of procedural requirements affects standard-setting time frames because of the complex requirements for OSHA to demonstrate the need for standards. Experts and agency officials named a variety of statutes and executive orders that have imposed an increasing number of procedural requirements on OSHA since 1980. The process for developing and issuing standards is complex and directed by multiple procedural requirements. According to Labor staff, agency consideration of a new standard can be the result of information OSHA receives from stakeholder petitions; occupational safety and health entities, such as the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board; OSHA’s enforcement efforts; or staff research (see fig. 3). To publicly signal OSHA’s intent to pursue development of a new safety or health standard, OSHA typically publishes a Request for Information or an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the topic in the Federal Register. In this report, we refer to these events as “initiation.” OSHA also signals the beginning of standard-setting efforts by placing the issue on its regulatory agenda. However, OSHA can stop the standard-setting process either informally—by ceasing to actively work on the standard— or through a public announcement. The process for developing OSHA standards varies, but the typical process involves multiple steps.