A California solar panel installation company has been fined $193,905 by the state’s workplace safety watchdog agency, after one of its employees was seriously injured in a fall. Cal/OSHA cited Anaheim-based Nexus Energy Systems, Inc. for failing to provide required fall protection for its workers.

The Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule finalized by the EPA this week is coming in for heavy criticism from leading health and environmental organizations, who are calling it “a dangerous replacement” for the Clean Power Plan. "EPA's decision to finalize the ACE rule means that more Americans will experience illness and early death – plain and simple. Furthermore, this rule will allow power plants across the nation to continue to be a major source of emissions that are driving climate change."

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board’s decision to reverse a policy of including the names of workers killed in the incidents it investigates is drawing fire from safety advocates. In a letter to the CSB, more than fifty organizations and individuals demand that the agency reinstate its policy of naming the fatally injured workers in its reports – something it had previously done since 2014. The CSB stopped the practice recently because doing so “may infer culpability on the part of the entity responsible for the operation of the facility where the incident occurred,” according to a spokesperson.

Every year, thousands of workers are exposed to heat on the job created by environmental conditions, clothing and workload. This heat exposure can lead to costly mistakes, time lost due to illness and even death in extreme heat illness situations. Government organizations, like OSHA, implement guidelines and regulations to ensure that heat-related prevention practices are in place to protect these workers.

Solving the opioid epidemic requires a “whole person” approach that includes nonpharmacological treatment for pain, as well as ensuring that people have the employment, education and housing supports they need for long-term recovery, the chief executive officer of the American Psychological Association (APA) told a congressional panel.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is in the midst of building a regulatory framework in order to “retain United States leadership and enable the limitless potential and possibilities of commercial space.” That’s the message delivered by Acting Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Daniel K. Elwell recently in Le Bourget, France, to an aerospace industry Commercial Space Panel at the Paris Air Show.

By allowing someone with a known physical impairment to drive a school bus, an Iowa school district is partly responsible for a 2017 crash and fire that killed both the driver and a female student who was his passenger. That determination is part of the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) investigation into the Dec. 12 incident in Oakland, Iowa involving a bus operated by the Riverside Community School District.

The Trump administration’s efforts to weaken a mining safety rule was reversed last week by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. A three-judge panel ruled that allowing mine operators flexibility in when they can conduct inspections of mines for hazardous conditions would violate the Mine Act’s no-less-protection standard.

OSHA has cited Southern Tire Mart LLC – based in Columbia, Mississippi – for failing to protect employees from serious safety hazards after a worker suffered fatal injuries while attempting to mount a monster truck tire rim at the company’s retreading facility in Fort Worth, Texas. The company faces $341,195 in fines.

More than a hundred groups and hundreds of individuals from Pennsylvania have signed onto a letter to the state’s governor, calling for an official investigation into recent reports of rare cancers in counties heavily impacted by shale gas development over the last decade. The letter also calls for the Governor Tom Wolf to suspend all gas drilling permits until the investigation shows that fracking is not the cause of what appears to be an emerging public health crisis.