"OSHA Regulatory Update" Opens CONVEY '19 Summer of Safety Webinar Series

Befitting the vast responsibilities of the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, Jess McCluer of the National Grain and Feed Association, set the stage on Wednesday for CONVEY ‘19 Summer of Safety with his presentation “OSHA Regulatory Update.”

McCluer discussed OSHA leadership, inspection data, the NGFA-OSHA alliance, the 2019 semi-annual regulatory agenda, combustible dust regulations, and education and training opportunities offered by NGFA.

The CONVEY ‘19 Summer of Safety streaming seminar is presented by NGFA and Grain Journal and will feature four live and eight recorded webinars released throughout the summer. It is an all-digital, all-searchable content safety education opportunity.

Wednesday’s live webinar by McCluer joined recorded webinars also published Wednesday for subscribers: “Dust Explosion Prevention” by John Lee of the Grain and Feed Association of Illinois and “Belt Splicing: Getting It Right” by Kevin Finnegan of Flexaco.

Other releases will be June 26, July 10 and July 24, each with one live and two recorded webinars focused on the details of preventing injuries on the job. To learn more or to register, visit CONVEY19.com.

It all starts at the top, and McCluer, NGFA’s director of safety and regulatory affairs, noted that for the first time, it is likely an entire presidential administration will pass without an appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health. Scott Mugno, vice-president of safety with FedEx Ground, formally withdrew his nomination in May. Deputy Assistant Secretary Loren Sweatt has been overseeing the agency while awaiting a permanent assistant secretary.

“With the next presidential election 18 months away, it is very unlikely that there’s going to be a formal nominee for the position,” McCluer said. “Obviously that could have an impact on what is going to be going on within the agency itself.”

McCluer noted major policy decisions usually wait until a formal assistant secretary is in place.

“It’s really going to be interesting to see what happens in this situation. Because most likely acting assistant secretaries really don’t have a long history of taking drastic actions during their tenures on specific issues,” said McCluer, who previously served as a program analyst at OSHA’s Office of Outreach Services and Alliances.

That doesn’t mean the safety issues affecting grain handling are going away, however, and McCluer touched on several of them during his 50-minute presentation.

Data provided by OSHA shows a slight increase in inspections from fiscal year 2016 to 2017, mostly by state plans, McCluer said. The OSHA field office our field operations manual, the “holy grail” for inspectors, is getting an update for the first time in three years, McCluer said.

“Basically what OSHA is doing is they're trying to update this manual based on the data that they've been collecting on the specific type of citations that have been issued on certain standards,” he said. National areas of emphasis for the grain industry include combustible dust and hazardous machinery, while regional emphasis programs include powered industrial trucks, high hazard safety and health workplaces, fertilizer grade ammonium nitrate, agricultural anhydrous ammonia facilities.

McCluer gave an overview of the OSHA enforcement data, including types of citations, repeat or serious, and the average penalty. The presentation included a breakdown of the most frequently cited OSHA standards within the grain handling industry itself, the top 3 of which were grain handling, mechanical power transmission and fall protection.

“So I think the entire point of all this is that when make sure everyone is aware of the most frequently cited standards within the industry,” McCluer said. “This is something to make sure that these particular areas within your facilities are in full compliance with the OSHA regulations and just to be aware that if there is a citation that's issued, it can be a pretty significant penalty as well.”

The NGFA/OSHA alliance established in 2017 emphasizes six areas: engulfment, falls, electric, entanglement, struck by and dust explosion. The goal of the two-year agreement was to collection information, enhance communication and renew the agreement so the focus could be on substantive training and education related issues.

“ I think it's been very successful,” he said.

The OSHA Spring 2019 semiannual regulatory agenda includes proposals for e-recordkeeping, emergency response and preparedness, hazardous communication standard, lockout/tagout and powered industrial trucks.

Changes in technology, available data and economic impact often have the most effect on these issues and the responses to them. For example, OSHA would like to update and streamline emergency response and preparedness procedures across agencies, and that would certainly affect the grain handling facilities that rely on local emergency responders.

“It could be additional paperwork for pre-incident planning responder preparedness, ie., additional training and certification requirements and equipment preparedness. So essentially the concern is that whatever changes made to the standard, if there are additional requirements placed upon an emergency responder, then they could it's probably going to mean there's going to be additional burden placed on organizations,” he noted.

With regard to powered industrial trucks: “They really need to consider the economic impact right that any major change could have an impact, especially since much of the equipment that's used in a lot of the member facilities could be older than 10 years old.”

NGFA has been submitting comments and information on all these proposals for OSHA and keeping members updated.

A final issue McCluer brought to his presentation is a push by the National Fire Protection Association to create one combustible dust standard. Grain, feed, processing and milling representatives on the Combustible Correlating Committee oppose one standard.

“That’s really not the way it should be. We’re very different from general industry in how we operate and the equipment that we use. It’s really not something that we support at all,” McCluer said.

McCluer finished by guiding webinar attendees to NGFA.org where additional safety education and training information is available.

“All this information is available at no charge to members or non-members of the association,” he said.