OSHA Cracks Down on Workplace Chemicals : Federal Agency’s Sweeping Action Tightens Exposure Limits on 376 Toxic Substances

In a sweeping and unprecedented action, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration on Friday enacted stricter workplace exposure limits on 376 toxic chemicals.

OSHA officials said the changes could prevent nearly 700 deaths, reduce cases of cancer and other diseases by about 55,000 and eliminate 500,000 lost workdays each year.

“It is the most significant workplace exposure action in the agency’s 17-year history,” said John A. Pendergrass, assistant secretary of labor in charge of OSHA.

Business leaders generally praised the sweeping action, but union health and safety experts said OSHA could have gone much further.

The standards regulate maximum exposures to toxic chemicals, both for short-term periods and over an eight-hour workday.

About 4.5 million workers are currently working with exposures above the new limits, primarily people using cleaning solvents, such as acetone and trichlorethylene, according to OSHA. In all, 21 million employees will be covered by the standards.

Cancer Suspects

Some of the chemicals are known or suspected of causing cancer. Others are considered responsible for heart, kidney, liver and respiratory problems and some cause major irritations to eyes and skin.

In many instances, the standards have not been updated for 20 years. The new standards, to be published next week in the Federal Register, fill 2,100 pages.

The new standards set permissible exposure limits for 164 substances not previously regulated by OSHA and adopt more protective limits for 212 that had previously been regulated by the agency. OSHA reaffirmed existing exposure limits for 52 chemicals.

Most of the existing exposure limits were based on standards established in 1968 by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists, a private organization. The committee that established the 1968 standards included several representatives of industry and one labor representative. Many of the new standards were also based on the hygienist organization’s recommendations, according to Pendergrass.

OSHA’S massive action was widely applauded by influential business organizations.

“The Chemical Manufacturers Assn. supports OSHA’s update of workplace exposures,” said Randy Schumacher, health and safety director of the potent Washington-based industry group.

Union officials were critical though.

“They have just rubber-stamped the chemical industry’s own recommendations,” said Eric Frumin, health and safety director of the New York-based Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union.

He and other union officials indicated that lawsuits might be filed in an attempt to compel OSHA to toughen some of the standards.

Battle Shapes Up

In particular, a battle is shaping up on the new exposure limit on perchloroethylene, a solvent widely used in more than 80% of the nation’s 25,000 dry-cleaning businesses. Frumin asserted that the new limit is too weak and will allow up to 2,000 of the industry’s 100,000 workers to develop cancer over a period of years.

But William Fisher, vice president of the International Fabricare Institute, a dry-cleaners organization, said the standard is tougher than one recommended by the hygienist organization. Fisher said it would be too expensive for some dry cleaners to comply with and that they would be forced out of business.

The new standards will become effective March 1. Employers are directed to be in compliance by Sept. 1.

However, they will have until Dec. 31, 1992, to implement needed engineering changes. In the interim, companies are allowed to comply through alternative means, such as requiring workers to wear breathing masks.

Overall, it will cost industry about $900 million to comply with the new regulations, OSHA officials said. This amounts to about $6,000 each for 131,000 businesses, they said. Average annual costs will range from $77,400 per establishment in petroleum refining down to $360 a year for auto dealers.

Update Limits

Friday’s action culminated a two-year program within OSHA to update exposure limits. The agency has been heavily criticized for failing to promulgate new rules, having set only 24 new exposure limits in OSHA’s 17-year history.

“We departed from the traditional substance-by-substance approach followed by the agency in the past,” Pendergrass said. “History demonstrates that this procedure cannot keep pace with scientific developments in occupational health nor with the introduction of chemicals and chemical compounds into industry.”

In June, when OSHA proposed the new standards, Pendergrass said about 550,000 hazardous chemicals were currently in use.

OSHA held 13 days of public hearings in July and August and also received written briefs from a number of concerned organizations.

In addition to the controversy over perchloroethylene, OSHA officials Friday said proposed changes in five other substances had drawn considerable comment during public hearings. The five are acetone, a solvent widely used in fiber manufacturing; carbon disulfide, a chemical used in the manufacture of rayon and sausage casings; grain dust; styrene, a chemical commonly used in making boats, and wood dust. Both grain dust and wood dust now have exposure limits for the first time.

Schumacher of the Chemical Manufacturers Assn. said he hoped that in the future, OSHA would adopt a system for keeping the agency’s levels current with new scientific information.

Margaret Seminario, the AFL-CIO’s health and safety director, agreed with that position. But she said OSHA had not fulfilled its responsibility under the law that created the agency.

“We’re disappointed in the final action,” she said in a telephone interview from Washington. “What these standards represent is the industry-supported standards of a private organization (the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists) in 99% of the cases, rather than what the law says, based on all available evidence.

“They are an improvement in many cases over current standards. They are not, however, standards which fully protect workers as the law requires. . . . We see this as the last act of the Reagan Administration,” she said.

Seminario also criticized OSHA because the new standards do not apply to construction, maritime work or agriculture. OSHA said Friday that it anticipated that the new standards would be applied to construction and maritime workers after a separate rule-making proceeding.

The agency is currently considering adopting exposure limits on a number of other substances, including asphalt, fibrous glass dust and mineral wool. Those substances were included in the June proposal, but agency officials said that conflicting data presented during the summer hearings caused them to delay any decision on the substances.

California and 22 other states that have their own OSHA programs will have to update any of their standards that are not as strict as the new OSHA regulations. Gabe Gillotti, federal OSHA’s assistant regional administrator in San Francisco, said he did not think this would be too difficult a task for California, because Cal/OSHA had periodically updated its standards.