Opinion ID: 780241
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Do Competing Priorities Justify OSHA's Delay?

Text: 56 Although OSHA insists that since Oil Workers it has continued to work on health-risk and feasibility issues relating to an eventual hexavalent chromium rulemaking, it admits that the project has not been a priority. In Oil Workers, of course, we noted the quintessential discretion of the Secretary of Labor to allocate OSHA's resources and set its priorities, 145 F.3d at 123, and OSHA contends that it simply exercised its discretion to concentrate its resources elsewhere. For example, in early 1997, it promulgated a final standard regulating occupational exposure to methylene chloride, a widely-used chemical it found to be carcinogenic. See 62 Fed. Reg. 1494 (Jan. 10, 1997). Shortly thereafter, in early 1998, it issued a final rule on respirators, see 63 Fed. Reg. 1152 (Jan. 8, 1998), and later that year it issued a final rule requiring adequate training for operators of powered industrial trucks. See 63 Fed. Reg. 66238 (Dec. 1, 1998). During that period, OSHA also completed a revision to its safety standards for longshoring and marine terminals. See 62 Fed. Reg. 40142 (July 25, 1997). 57 In 1999 and 2000, OSHA submits that it focused most of its rulemaking resources on issuing an ergonomics standard before the end of the former Administration's term. [OSHA Br. at 10.] Because the Clinton Administration placed such great emphasis on quickly finalizing those standards, the process was remarkably compressed; OSHA issued a proposed rule on November 23, 1999, and a final rule less than a year later, on November 14, 2000, a timetable that required tremendous agency resources. [ Id. ] It explains that in addition to the ergonomics standard, the former Administration gave high priority to completing a steel erection standard, see 66 Fed. Reg. 5196 (Jan. 18, 2001), and a recordkeeping rule designed to improve the quality of information about the causes of occupational injuries and illnesses. See 66 Fed. Reg. 5916 (Jan. 19, 2001). 58 OSHA represents that the delays became worse when the Bush administration took office, for it instructed the agencies that any new regulatory actions must be reviewed and approved by a department or agency head appointed after January 20, 2001. See Andrew H. Card, Jr., Memorandum for the Heads and Acting Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies, (Jan. 20, 2001) available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/regreview_plan.pdf. As OSHA was not headed by a presidential nominee until August 2001, it alleges that it could not begin in earnest to set its new regulatory priorities until that time, [OSHA Br. at 14], and that even then, unforeseen incidents such as the September 11 attacks and anthrax mailings demanded that it immediately divert[ ] significant resources to help ensure that the rescue and cleanup efforts did not result in further loss of life. [ Id. at 15 (citation omitted).] 59 OSHA lastly represents that, while these competing priorities have admittedly delayed the hexavalent chromium rulemaking, it is now pressing forward on that project. It published a request for information (RFI) in the Federal Register in August 2002 posing specific questions that would be relevant to a rulemaking and inviting the public to submit any other evidence it feels might be helpful to OSHA. Following the RFI, it pledges that it will evaluate all of the information available on Cr VI ... and decide how to proceed. [ Id. at 16.] 60 We do not lightly discount these admittedly significant competing priorities, especially those relating to the events of September 11, but when we view the rulemaking's progress over the past nine years, we reach the ineluctable conclusion that hexavalent chromium has progressively fallen by the wayside. This is unacceptable, for as the D.C. Circuit stated, [w]here the Secretary deems a problem significant enough to warrant initiation of the standard setting process, the Act requires that he have a plan to shepherd through the development of the standard — that he take pains, regardless of the press of other priorities, to ensure that the standard is not inadvertently lost in the process. National Congress of Hispanic American Citizens v. Marshall, 626 F.2d 882, 890-91 (D.C. Cir.1979). 61 OSHA chose in 1993 to begin the rulemaking process, announcing its agree[ment] that there is clear evidence that exposure to Cr VI at the current PEL ... can result in an excess risk of lung cancer, and its anticipation that Notice of Proposed Rulemaking [would] be published in the Federal Register not later than March 1995. (Lurie Dec. ¶ 9.) However, 1995 came and went without any sign of formal action, only for OSHA in 1996 again to declare that [t]here appears to be no dispute that the current PEL is too high and must be greatly reduced. ( Id. ) In fact, in 1997 OSHA declared to this Court its intention to promulgate a proposed rule by September 1999. Oil Workers, 145 F.3d at 123. That deadline, like the others, passed without action. Now, nine years after the rulemaking process began, we find ourselves without even a hint as to when OSHA might issue a proposed rule, much less a final rule. Indeed, a reasonable person would likely conclude that we are further from a rule today than we were five years ago, a notion that would certainly have alarmed the Oil Workers panel. We find apropos the D.C. Circuit's words in Brock : 62 We understand that technical questions of health regulation are not easily untangled. We understand that an agency's limited resources may make impossible the rapid development of regulation on several fronts at once. And we understand that the agency before us has far greater medical and public health knowledge than do the lawyers who comprise this tribunal. But we also understand, because we have seen it happen time and time again, that action Congress has ordered for the protection of public health all too easily becomes hostage to bureaucratic recalcitrance, factional infighting, and special interest politics. At some point, we must lean forward from the bench to let an agency know, in no uncertain terms, that enough is enough. 63 Brock, 823 F.2d at 627 (emphasis added). 64 We conclude that now is such a time. While competing policy priorities might explain slow progress, they cannot justify indefinite delay and recalcitrance in the face of an admittedly grave risk to public health. Although the agency has commenced a rulemaking proceeding, we will nonetheless grant the petition to review the inaction of the United States Department of Labor as a predicate for our necessary discussion of the remedy. 65