President Donald Trump’s proposed 2020 budgets for occupational safety and health agencies is a mixed bag, and include increases for certain OSHA activities while decreasing the agency’s overall funding by $254,000. Key OSH-related items in the budget released earlier this month: Enforcement funding for OSHA will increase by $4 million. So will the number of full-time employees at the agency, by 33.

Since the early 1980s, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has conducted a grim census, tracking reports of deaths from crashes of all-terrain vehicles, or ATVs. Now the body count has risen above 15,250, according to the agency’s latest annual report, with more than one in five of the deaths suffered by children under 16.

The federal government is pondering how best to accommodate automated vehicles under standards that were developed when all cars were driven solely by humans and self-driving vehicles were not even a glimmer on the horizon. As a part of the process, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is inviting the public to comment on a pair of petitions from Nuro and General Motors (GM) about exemptions to those standards.

To enhance safety and environmental protection, the EPA’s Hazardous Waste Generator Improvements Final Rule, which became effective federally last year, requires identification including the words “Hazardous Waste,” a description of the container’s hazards, and the date the accumulation started on each container.

Hazardous materials regulations govern the packaging and transportation of hazardous materials by highway, rail, vessel, and air. Given that these regulations have changed significantly over the last several years – and continue to evolve – it has become more important than ever for HazMat professionals to keep up to date on them. This effort becomes easier with the publication of Mancomm’s March 2019 edition of Hazardous Materials Regulations.

Thirty-four Congressional Democrats are calling for the reinstatement of the original Improve Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses rule published on May 12, 2016, which required companies with 250 or more employees to electronically submit OSHA forms 300 (Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses) and 301 (Injury and Illness Incident Report) each year. The Trump administration’s final rule, which was published during the government shutdown, only requires employers to submit a 300A – a summary of work-related injuries and illnesses.

The Ethiopian plane crash and its potential ramifications for aviation safety worldwide; tobacco product regulations; and help for employers whose workforces are affected by the opioid crisis. These were among the top stories featured on ISHN.com this week.

OSHA currently has the lowest number of health and safety inspectors in the agency’s 48-year history, according to an analysis of recent government data by the National Employment Law Project. Conversely, the number of OSHA investigations following work-related fatalities reached a 10-year high, climbing to 929 inspections in FY 2018, up almost 100 from the previous year. This is the single-largest increase in such investigations in a decade.

Justin Miller was 16 when he took his first ride on a recreational off-highway vehicle, or ROV. He came home missing a hand. The powerful 1,100-pound machine tipped over and landed on the Northridge, California, teen, mangling his hand so severely that seven surgeries couldn’t save it. At the time of the accident in 2008, similar reports of gruesome injuries and deaths were piling up at the Consumer Product Safety Commission.