OSHA has cited ConocoPhillips Co. for safety and health violations, proposing $116,500 in penalties, according to a December 23 agency news release. The Trainer, Pa. petroleum refinery has 425 employees.
The California Governmental Affairs Committee (CGAC) of the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Labor Designate Rep. Hilda Solis requesting the incoming administration appoint Dr. John Howard, MD, JD, as Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA, according to an ASSE press release.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is continuing to recruit new chemical incident investigators to work in Denver, Colorado, in an effort to establish the agency’s first regional office outside of Washington, DC, according to an agency press release.
EPA has released a Notice of Data Availability (NODA) on the regulatory status of spent oil shale generated by above ground retorting or heating of oil shale.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney praised President-elect Obama’s nomination of Rep. Hilda Solis, (D-Calif.) as secretary of labor. In a statement released to the press, Sweeney said: “We’re confident that she will return to the Labor Department one of its core missions — to defend workers’ basic rights in our nation’s workplaces. She’s proven to be a passionate leader and advocate for all working families. In fact, she’s voted with working men and women 97 percent of the time.”
Nationwide, OSHA logged 87,687 violations of its standards and regulations in fiscal year 2008, with 67,052 of these violations cited as “serious,” according to a news statement released by the agency.
ExxonMobil has agreed to pay nearly $6.1 million in civil penalties for violating the terms of a 2005 court-approved Clean Air Act agreement, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced last week, according to an EPA press statement.
More than 102 million Americans are breathing cleaner air due to decreases in smog-forming emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) according to the NOx Budget Trading Program annual report, an EPA press statement reports. The 2007 summertime NOx emissions from power plants and industrial sources were down by 60 percent compared to 2000 levels and 74 percent below 1990 levels in 20 eastern states and the District of Columbia.
At a press conference held today in Chicago, President-elect Barack Obama announced that he intends to nominate United States Congresswoman Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor, according to a press release from The Office of the President-Elect (http://Change.gov).
OSHA announced in a recent press statement its final rule on improving the safety of longshoring employees who work with vertical tandem lifts (VTLs). The final rule, published in the December 10 Federal Register, will reduce hazards related to lifting two containers at a time using cranes by ensuring that safe work practices are followed.
RSS