PROPOSED REVISIONS TO BERYLLIUM STANDARDS

CONSTRUCTION AND SHIPYARD INDUSTRIES

The U.S. Department of Labor recently proposed revisions to OSHA’s Beryllium Standards to better protect construction and shipyard workers from beryllium exposure.

The proposed changes would maintain safety and health protections for workers, while facilitating compliance with the standards and yielding some cost savings.

According to the Federal Register, the proposed changes are designed to accomplish three goals:

• More appropriately tailor the requirements of the construction and shipyards standards to the particular exposures in these industries in light of partial overlap between the beryllium standards’ requirements and other OSHA standards
• Aid compliance and enforcement across the beryllium standards by avoiding inconsistency, where appropriate, between the shipyards and construction standards and proposed revisions to the general industry standard
• Clarify certain requirements with respect to materials containing only trace amounts of beryllium

The proposal set a hearing date for December 3, 2019, and written comments on this notice of proposed rulemaking must be submitted by November 7, 2019. For details on how to submit comments, materials, and other information, see the Federal Register notice.

View the OSHA Trade Release on the proposed revisions, here: OSHA Trade Release

Credit to: OSHA and Office of the Federal Register