Opinion ID: 584066
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: conclusion

Text: 97 It is clear that the analytical approach used by OSHA in promulgating its revised Air Contaminants Standard is so flawed that it cannot stand. OSHA not only mislabeled this a generic rulemaking, but it inappropriately treated it as such. The result of this approach is a set of 428 inadequately supported standards. OSHA has lumped together substances and affected industries and provided such inadequate explanation that it is virtually impossible for a reviewing court to determine if sufficient evidence supports the agency's conclusions. The individual substances discussed in this opinion are merely examples of what is endemic in the Air Contaminants Standard as a whole. 98 OSHA does have the authority to set priorities for establishing standards under the OSH Act. See 29 U.S.C. § 655(g). That priority-setting authority permits OSHA to combine rulemaking for multiple substances in one rulemaking, to limit the scope of this rulemaking in a rational manner, and to defer issuance of regulations for monitoring and medical surveillance until a later rulemaking. It does not, however, give OSHA blanket authority to pick and choose what statutory requirements it will follow. The OSH Act mandates that OSHA promulgate the standards that most adequately assure that workers will not be exposed to significant risks of material health impairment to the extent feasible for the affected industries. Further, section 6(e) and caselaw require OSHA to adequately explain its determinations. Section 6(b) of the Act does not provide an exception to these requirements for administrative convenience. The only exceptions to the strict statutory criteria are the start-up provisions of section 6(a), the applicability of which has long since passed, and the emergency provisions of section 6(c), neither of which are implicated in this case. 99 Therefore, although we find that the record adequately explains and supports OSHA's determination that the health effects of exposure to these 428 substances are material impairments, we hold that OSHA has not sufficiently explained or supported its threshold determination that exposure to these substances at previous levels posed a significant risk of these material health impairments or that the new standard eliminates or reduces that risk to the extent feasible. OSHA's overall approach to this rulemaking is so flawed that we must vacate the whole revised Air Contaminants Standard. 100 We have no doubt that the agency acted with the best of intentions. It may well be, as OSHA claims, that this was the only practical way of accomplishing a much needed revision of the existing standards and of making major strides towards improving worker health and safety. Given OSHA's history of slow progress in issuing standards, we can easily believe OSHA's claim that going through detailed analysis for each of the 428 different substances regulated was not possible given the time constraints set by the agency for this rulemaking. Unfortunately, OSHA's approach to this rulemaking is not consistent with the requirements of the OSH Act. Before OSHA uses such an approach, it must get authorization from Congress by way of amendment to the OSH Act. 35 Legislative decisions on the federal level are to be made in the chambers of Congress. It is not for this court to undertake the substantial rewriting of the Act necessary to uphold OSHA's approach to this rulemaking. 101 Therefore, for the reasons stated above, we VACATE the revised Air Contaminants Standard, and REMAND to the agency.