Opinion ID: 584066
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Four-year Compliance Period

Text: 94 The union also challenges OSHA's decision to allow four years, until December 31, 1992, for the implementation of engineering and work practice controls to bring industry into compliance with the new standards, while in the interim permitting compliance through the use of respirators. 54 Fed.Reg. at 2921. As a transitional provision, OSHA specified that employers must continue to achieve the 1971 PELs by adhering to the hierarchy of controls in 29 C.F.R. § 1910.1000(e), as they have been required to do since 1971. 34 In adopting this four-year time period, OSHA stated that the agency's experience is that for substances of normal difficulty, one to two years is sufficient, 54 Fed.Reg. at 2916, but that a four-year period takes into account that some employers will have to control several substances and also considers those few substances where compliance may take greater efforts for some employers, id. That conclusory analysis falls short of justifying an across-the-board four-year period of delay, but is fully consistent with OSHA's treatment of this standard as a generic standard, without adequate consideration of individual substances or the effect of the new standards on individual industries. 95 This generic four-year compliance period is simply not adequately supported in the record. Unlike other standards where OSHA has exercised its technology-forcing authority and required that industries develop the technology to achieve the new standards, see United Steelworkers, 647 F.2d at 1264-65, in this standard, OSHA's feasibility analysis was based on what industry is already achieving or what could be achieved with standard 'off-the-shelf' technology, [and] there are few if any cases where OSHA is attempting to force technology. 54 Fed.Reg. at 2366. If the technology exists and is in many cases already being used, it is difficult to understand why four years is required for the implementation of this standard for all industries. If OSHA's concern was primarily economic feasibility, that too needed to be addressed for each industry or for each appropriate industrial grouping. 96 To the extent that there may be any unusual situations in which a feasibility problem exists, the OSH Act and the standard itself provide appropriate means of dealing with such problems without resorting to the extreme expedient of an across-the-board four-year compliance period. First, section 6(b)(6) allows an employer to obtain a temporary variance if that employer is unable to comply with a standard by its effective date because of unavailability of professional or technical personnel or of materials and equipment needed to come into compliance with the standard or because necessary construction or alteration of facilities cannot be completed by the effective date. 29 U.S.C. § 655(b)(6)(A)(i). Furthermore, if the rulemaking record establishes that specific industries will need an extended period of time to comply with PELs for certain substances, OSHA could so provide, just as it allows respirator use after December 1992 for four substances in specified operations. 54 Fed.Reg. at 2335, 2916 (carbon monoxide, carbon disulfide, styrene, and sulfur dioxide). We find insufficient explanation in the record to support this across-the-board four-year delay in implementation of this rule.