Opinion ID: 4437281
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Purpose and History of the Regulation

Text: We thus find little or no ambiguity in the plain text of the regulation. Any ambiguity that might remain is dispelled by the purpose of the Standard and its regulatory history. See PIZZELLA V. SEWARD SHIP’S DRYDOCK 19 Kisor, 139 S. Ct. at 2415 (“[B]efore concluding that a rule is genuinely ambiguous, a court must exhaust all the ‘traditional tools’ of construction. . . . To make that effort, a court must ‘carefully consider[ ]’ the text, structure, history, and purpose of a regulation[.]” (emphasis added)). The Standard’s “primary objective” is “to prevent atmospheric contamination” in order to prevent employees working in industrial facilities from experiencing “occupational diseases caused by breathing air contaminated with harmful dusts, fogs, fumes, mists, gases, smokes, sprays, or vapors.” 29 C.F.R. § 1910.134(a)(1). To achieve this goal, the Standard requires an employer first to put in place engineering control measures, such as ventilation, as feasible. Only if those measures are not feasible or are inadequate is the employer required to use respirators. See id. Under the Commission’s reading, employers would be required to evaluate respiratory hazards only after it becomes clear that employees will be overexposed without a respirator. But such a reading undermines the Standard’s goals of preventing exposure to atmospheric contamination in the first place. Without an initial evaluation of respiratory hazards, employers would not be able to assess whether the engineering control measures they employ—if any—are sufficiently protective of employee health. The regulatory history of the Standard also supports our reading. In the preamble to the Standard, the discussion of § 1910.134(d)(1)(iii) begins, Paragraph (d)(1)(iii) of the final rule requires the employer to identify and evaluate the respiratory hazard(s) in the workplace. To perform this evaluation, the employer must 20 PIZZELLA V. SEWARD SHIP’S DRYDOCK make a “reasonable estimate” of the employee exposures anticipated to occur as a result of those hazards, including those likely to be encountered in reasonably foreseeable emergency situations, and must also identify the physical state and chemical form of such contaminant(s). 63 Fed. Reg. at 1198 (emphasis added). The “exposures anticipated to occur” plainly include all exposures, not just those that exceed a contaminant’s permissible exposure limit. This text directly contradicts the Commission’s understanding that actual or anticipated overexposure is a prerequisite to a § 1910.134(d)(1)(iii) evaluation. The preamble’s discussion of the appropriate tools for an evaluation under § 1910.134(d)(1)(iii) reiterates the purpose of that evaluation. The preamble states, “OSHA recognizes that there are many instances in which it may not be possible or necessary to take personal exposure measurements to determine whether respiratory protection is needed.” Id. at 1199 (emphasis added). The preamble then discusses alternate acceptable methods to estimate exposure, such as data from industry-wide surveys and mathematical analysis. See id. The preamble continues that, under certain circumstances, employers may nonetheless “find it easier and less costly to conduct personal exposure monitoring to evaluate the need for respiratory protection.” Id. (emphasis added). OSHA clearly intended for an evaluation to first determine whether a respirator is necessary, and only if a respirator is necessary, to use that evaluation to choose the appropriate type of respirator. PIZZELLA V. SEWARD SHIP’S DRYDOCK 21 Enforcement guidance issued contemporaneously with the Standard in 1998 further confirms our reading. As noted above, the 1998 OSHA Instruction stated, “If the employer has not made any effort to assess the respiratory hazards, and there is potential for an overexposure, the [compliance officer] should cite section (d)(1)(iii).” See 1998 Instruction, at § VII(E)(2) (emphasis added). The Instruction also recognized the employer’s “continuing” obligation under § 1910.134(d)(1)(iii) to “identify hazards as a result of changes in the workplace” and then provide “[a]ppropriate respirators . . . as necessary.” Id. at § VII(E) (emphasis added). This flatly contradicts the Commission’s reading that § 1910.134(d)(1)(iii) operates only when respirators are already necessary.