Search results for: I2P2

By Eric J. Conn

In what seems to be a trend, OSHA has again delayed its rulemaking process for an Injury and Illness Prevention Program (commonly known as I2P2) standard. The announcement came during a National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health meeting in late June.  According to OSHA officials, we should not expect the next rulemaking phase, a small business review process, to begin until at least Labor Day.  I2P2 programs, which aim to reduce workplace injuries by requiring employers to proactively find and fix workplace hazards, have been on OSHA’s regulatory radar for quite some time.

Agency hold-ups, however, and more recently, election-year politics, have left the rulemaking process at a standstill.  The timeline below illustrates OSHA’s “progress” to date on the I2P2 Rule:

To justify the Agency’s most recent delay, an OSHA official explained that OSHA is still ironing out the proposal it plans to present to the SBREFA panel. OSHA stressed that it wants to deliver a “complete” proposal, including a range of alternatives that the Agency is considering.  Excuses aside, OSHA’s inability to get past this early step in the rulemaking process signals a long and difficult road ahead for the I2P2 rule.  After OSHA convenes the SBREFA panel, it still has to publish its proposed rule and solicit stakeholder comments before releasing a final rule.  Based on the time-consuming nature of this process and the delays we have already seen from OSHA, we probably will not see substantial movement on the rule until 2013.  Still, it is never too early for employers to start preparing.

While OSHA’s rule will likely allow for some degree of program flexibility, we expect that it will require employers’ I2P2 programs to include the following core components:

  • Management leadership;
  • Employee participation;
  • Hazard identification, prevention, and control;
  • Education and training; and
  • Program evaluation.

Further, an I2P2 rule will likely draw from current voluntary consensus standards for I2P2 programs, such as the ANSI/AIHA Z10 and the OSHAS 18001 standards, as well as state I2P2 laws and regulations (34 states currently incentivize or require employers to implement I2P2 programs through legislation or regulation).

No matter the Rule’s ultimate requirements, employer compliance will be crucial.  The I2P2 rule has the potential to become one of the most frequently used weapons in OSHA’s enforcement arsenal.  For example, if a workplace injury occurs, OSHA may not only cite the employer under applicable hazard-specific standard, it will likely also tack on an I2P2 violation. Alternatively, if a workplace injury occurs, but there is no hazard-specific standard for OSHA to cite, OSHA will rely on the I2P2 rule to impose fines against employers.  In either case, OSHA’s reasoning would be that the injury never would have happened if the employer had an adequate I2P2 program in place.

This type of enforcement pattern is already playing out at the state plan level.  Consider California for example, where employers have been subject to a state I2P2 standard since 1991.  Twenty-one years later, California’s I2P2 standard is the most frequently cited standard.  The bottom line is that although OSHA may not issue a final I2P2 rule until sometime in 2013, or later, employers should consider the potential far-reaching implications of the rule for safety, their budgets, and their reputations.

 

Bonnie I. Scott, a Summer Associate (not admitted to the practice of law) in Epstein Becker Green’s Washington, DC, office, contributed significantly to the preparation of this post.

On November 21, 2014, the Department of Labor released its Agency Rule List, which provides the status of all rulemaking efforts at each of its agencies.  OSHA dominated the list of regulatory activity in the Department, listing 26 regulations in the prerule, proposed rule, and final rule stages. 

Of these 26 items, OSHA announced that its top regulatory priorities include:

  • Efforts to control exposure to crystalline silica
  • Enhancements to current infectious disease protocols in healthcare and other high risk environments
  • Issuance of a final rule modernizing its reporting system for occupational injuries and illnesses, requiring electronic submission of injury and illness survey data, which, notably, would be made publicly available
  • Issuance of final rules regarding procedures for handling whistleblower complaints under 9 of the 22 federal statutes which include whistleblower protection provisions that OSHA has been tasked with investigating and enforcing

Hidden among the collection of proposed regulatory actions is OSHA’s plan to issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking by the end of the year seeking to amend its recordkeeping regulations to clarify that the duty to make and maintain accurate records of work-related injuries and illnesses is an ongoing obligation.  This proposal is clearly an attempt to circumvent the Volks decision by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals (AKM LLC dba Volks Constructors v. Secretary of Labor, 675 F.3d 752 (D.C. Cir. 2012)), in which the court held that a plain reading of the six-month statute of limitations in the OSH Act limits the period of time in which OSHA can issue a recordkeeping citation to six months.  Otherwise, the court reasoned, the Secretary of Labor could rely upon document retention rules contained within various OSHA standards to tack on extra time to the statute of limitations, potentially leading to absurd results and giving the Secretary the leeway to extend the statute of limitations forever, simply by adding a never-ending document retention requirement to any given recordkeeping rule.

Finally, and predictably, two longstanding controversial topics were relegated to the agency’s long term action list.  Both the proposed stand-alone combustible dust standard and updates to the recently amended Hazard Communication Standard (which includes the undefined term “combustible dust” within the definition of “hazardous chemicals” regulated under the standard) have been added to the list, indicating that regulated industries must continue waiting for a clear and intelligible definition of the term.  And the so-called “I2P2” (Injury and Illness Prevention Program) has also been shelved for an indeterminate period of time.

 

By the national OSHA Practice Group at Epstein Becker & Green

As we closed the book on 2013 — a truly remarkable year of OSHA enforcement and regulatory activity — we look to the future, and think about what to expect from OSHA in 2014.  Over the next couple of weeks, we will roll out what we believe are the 5 most significant OSHA developments to monitor in 2014.

If you are interested in how accurate our past predictions have been, take a look at these articles from December 2011 forecasting five OSHA developments for 2012 and from December 2012 predicting three developments from OSHA in 2013.

Without further ado, here are the 5 OSHA-related developments you should anticipate in 2014, so says the collective wisdom of the national OSHA Practice Group at Epstein Becker & Green:

1.      A Busy OSHA Rulemaking Docket

Although OSHA enforcement has reached levels never seen before by every measure, rulemaking activity under the current Administration has been slow.  During President Obama’s first term, OSHA identified numerous rulemaking initiatives in its periodic Regulatory Agenda updates, including rules for combustible dust, Crystalline Silica, Beryllium, and an Injury and Illness Prevention Program (I2P2) rule.  All of these proposed rules, however, missed important rulemaking deadlines or were completely set-aside.  We expect that to change in 2014 and for the balance of this Administration, as the OSHA leadership team will strive to leave their legacy.

Just as we saw OSHA deemphasize rulemaking in the year leading up to the 2012 Presidential election, we are already seeing signs of a typical post-election, second term, aggressive rulemaking calendar from OSHA.  The first sign of the new rulemaking push could be seen in speeches by David Michaels, the Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA, who characterized the proposed I2P2 rule as his and OSHA’s “highest priority.”  Second, OSHA recently issued its Fall 2013 Regulatory Agenda, which, as we expected, returned several rulemaking initiatives, including the I2P2 rule, from the backburner, where they were deposited prior to the 2012 Presidential Election, back to the active rulemaking calendar.  Finally, OSHA has also introduced new rules, such as a proposed rule to require employers to proactively report to OSHA injuries and illnesses, not just record them on the 300 Log.  Check out our article about a burdensome new Injury & Illness Reporting Rule advanced by OSHA.  Other important rules in the proposed or pre-rule stage to monitor in the coming year include:

2.      OSHA Will Focus on Temporary Worker Safety

The treatment of temporary workers is expected to become more significant as the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) is implemented, particularly when the “Employer Mandate” kicks in.  The ACA will require employers with 50 or more workers to provide affordable coverage to employees who work at least 30 hours per week.  This will result in employers using more part-time workers and hiring more contractors; i.e., workers who will not be counted towards the 50-worker minimum for ACA coverage.  Both qualities are commonly associated with “temporary workers.”

With an expected increase in the use of temporary workers, along with recent reports of temporary workers suffering fatal workplace injuries on their first days on a new job, OSHA will make temporary worker safety a top priority in 2014, and has already launched a Temporary Worker Initiative.  OSHA’s stated goals for the Temporary Worker Initiative are to:

  • Protect temporary workers from workplace hazards;
  • Ensure staffing agencies and host employers understand their safety & health obligations; and
  • Learn information regarding hazards in workplaces that utilize temporary workers.

To achieve these goals, OSHA is developing outreach materials (such as fact sheets and webpages), and will use a combination of enforcement and training, but based on OSHA’s track record, we expect this will involve mostly enforcement.  OSHA’s director of enforcement programs already issued a memorandum to its Regional Administrators instructing them to increase efforts to investigate employers’ use and protection of temporary workers.  This side of the Temporary Work Initiative is already showing results.  In the last quarter of FY 2013 alone, OSHA issued citations at 262 worksites where temporary workers were allegedly exposed to safety and health violations.  Additionally, OSHA has conducted more than twice as many inspections of staffing agencies this year as it did last year.  This trend will undoubtedly continue in 2014, so it is critical for host employers and staffing agencies to understand the dividing line of responsibility for addressing hazards to which temporary workers are exposed.

3.      Hazard Communication Comes Into Focus

December 1, 2013 marked the first key implementation deadline of OSHA’s Hazard Communication standard, which was recently amended to align with the United Nations’ Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals. Continue Reading OSHA Forecast – 5 Important OSHA Issues to Monitor in 2014

By Eric J. Conn, Head of Epstein Becker & Green’s OSHA Practice Group

OSHA recently announced a campaign to raise awareness about the hazards likely to cause musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) among health care workers responsible for patient care.  Common MSDs suffered in the patient care industry include sprains, strains, soft tissue and back injuries.  These injuries are due in large part to over exertion related to manual patient handling activities, often involving heavy lifting associated with transferring and repositioning patients and working in awkward positions.

“The best control for MSDs is an effective prevention program,” said MaryAnn Garrahan, OSHA’s Regional Administrator in Philadelphia. “[OSHA’s] goal is to assist nursing homes and long-term care facilities in promoting effective processes to prevent injuries.”

As part of the campaign, OSHA will provide 2,500 employers, unions and associations in the patient care industry in Delaware, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and the District of Columbia with information about methods used to control hazards, such as lifting excessive weight during patient transfers and handling.  OSHA will also provide information about how employers can include a zero-lift program, which minimizes direct patient lifting by using specialized lifting equipment and transfer tools.  Here is a resource regarding Safe Patient Handling from OSHA’s website.

Employers in the healthcare industries should be on high alert, because whenever OSHA provides information about hazards it believes are present, a focus on enforcement is soon to follow.  This is particularly true when it comes to hazards for which OSHA has no specific standards or regulations, like ergonomics.  In these circumstances, OSHA is limited in its enforcement to use of Sec. 5(a)(1) of the OSH Act – the General Duty Clause.  The General Duty Clause is used by OSHA to issue citations in the absence of a specific standard, in situations where employers have not taken steps to address “recognized serious hazards.”  Efforts like OSHA’s present campaign to advise healthcare employers about hazards in their workplaces, is OSHA’s way of making you “recognize” the hazard, so the Agency can more easily prove General Duty Clause violations.

Of course, there are plenty of other reasons that healthcare employers should take note of the rate of MSD cases in patient care work.  Continue Reading OSHA Launches Ergonomics Campaign in Healthcare Industries

By Epstein Becker & Green’s OSHA Practice Group

OSHA during the first term of the Obama Administration featured a heavy focus on enforcement, at the expense of compliance assistance, and despite a lot of talk, also at the expense of any meaningful new rulemaking activities.  There are signs now, however, that OSHA may be renewing a push for a more active rulemaking calendar during the Administration’s second term.

The first sign has been a series of speeches and public statements by OSHA’s Administrator, Dr. David Michaels, in which he has characterized the development of a proposed Injury and Illness Prevention Program (I2P2) rule as his and the Agency’s “highest priority.”  The I2P2 rule is being designed to compel employers to “find and fix” hazards, and would have significant implications for employers across all industries.  During a presentation at a safety conference in June, Michaels explained that “I2P2 would require employers to have an ongoing, investigative, preventative process in place instead of being reactive and addressing problems after an accident occurs.”  OSHA’s leadership characterizing the I2P2 rule is a top priority is not new, but now that we are passed the 2012 Presidential Election, actual movement on the proposed rule is realistic.

Second, we are hearing that the Department of Labor’s Spring Regulatory Agenda is expected to return several OSHA rulemaking initiatives, including the I2P2 rule, from the backburner, where they were deposited prior to the 2012 Presidential Election, back to the active rulemaking calendar.  For the moment, we are left only to guess about that active rulemaking calendar because the Department of Labor is once again significantly overdue, already by two months, publishing the Regulatory Agenda.  Congressional Republicans have criticized the Agency’s lack of transparency resulting from the delay, claiming the Administration is playing a game of regulatory hide-and-seek.

Finally, although OSHA has not made an official announcement yet, sources report that OSHA will soon promote Dorothy Dougherty, current Director of OSHA’s Directorate of Standards and Guidance, as its new Deputy Assistant Secretary, the most senior career position within OSHA.  Ms. Dougherty will replace former Deputy Assistant Secretary Richard Fairfax, who retired in early May of 2013.  This move is significant because, as her most recent title indicates, Ms. Dougherty’s long career at OSHA has included a heavy focus on the development of workplace standards, regulations, and guidance, and therefore may be another sign that OSHA plans to prioritize rulemaking over the balance of the Obama Administration’s time in office.

Ms. Dougherty began her career with OSHA in 1992 as Chief of the Compliance and Technical Guidance Division (another non-enforcement role) for the Office of the Federal Agency Programs.  Since that time, Ms. Dougherty has assumed several other leadership positions within the Agency, many of which focused on rulemaking and compliance assistance.  She has served nearly seven years in her current position as Director for the Directorate of Standards and Guidance.  Ms. Dougherty is well-liked within the Agency and has received high praise from current and former peers for her managerial skills and ability to work collaboratively with others, including appointed officials from both sides of the aisle. Continue Reading OSHA Signals Renewed Focus on Rulemaking

By Eric J. Conn, Head of the OSHA Practice Group

Pursuant to the Regulatory Flexibility Act, the federal government and its agencies, such as OSHA, are required to give notice of significant rulemaking and other regulatory activity by publishing “semi-annual” regulatory agendas that outline the status of on-going and intended federal regulations and standards.  Someone needs to tell the Administration that “semi-annual” means twice yearly, not every other year.

Historically, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) issues a Spring regulatory agenda sometime during the summer, and a Fall regulatory agenda sometime in the winter.  Before last week (the final week of 2012), however, there had been no regulatory agenda published for 2012.  The only regulatory agenda published during 2012, was for Fall 2011.

Congressional Republicans had been hounding the Administration for a regulatory agenda since well before the Election, believing the long delay was because the President feared bad press and negative public reaction to the Administration’s continued aggressive regulatory plans.

 

Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio) sent a letter to the President in late August calling for an Spring Reg Agenda, and Congressman John Kline (R-MN), Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce, followed up with a November 1, 2012 press release stating:

“The Obama administration continues to play a game of regulatory hide-and-seek with the American people. Current law was designed to protect the public’s right to know about rules and regulations being crafted behind the closed doors of the federal bureaucracy. However, on a range of issues including health care, retirement security, and workplace safety the president seems determined to keep his plans for new regulations secret.”

The wait is finally over, as the Fall 2012 Regulatory Agenda was released last week (Friday, December 21, 2012) — just in time for 2013.  Here are the OSHA-related highlights.  OSHA projects that during 2013, final agency action will be taken on 10 regulations, including the following:

1. A new Confined Spaces in Construction standard (by July 2013)

  • For more than a decade, OSHA has been developing a counter-part to the general industry confined space standard (29 CFR 1910.146).
  • The Final Rule for the construction industry is expected this summer.

2. An updated Electric Power Transmission and Distribution standard (by March 2013)

  • Based on a high incident rate among electric line workers, forty years ago, OSHA developed a standard to address safety during the construction of electric power transmission and distribution lines.  Early in 2013, OSHA expects to implement a series of revisions to this standard intended to address non-construction work performed during maintenance on electric power installations, and to update PPE and Fall Protection requirements for work on power generation, transmission, and distribution installations.
  • The final rule is expected early this year.

3. Gutting Cooperative Programs (by April 2013)

  • OSHA has proposed to amend its cooperative Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program (SHARP) to eliminate most of the exemptions from enforcement inspections historically available to facilities that have qualified for the program.
  • This change could effectively eliminate most of the incentives for employers to participate in this recognition program, which OSHA has historically administered to incentivize and support small employers to develop, implement, and continuously improve effective safety and health programs.

4. An updated Walking Working Surfaces standard; i.e., Fall Protection (by August 2013)

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to all of you, and Happy 1st Anniversary to the OSHA Law Update blog.  On December 20th, we celebrated our first full year of updates and articles (56 of them) about important OSHA Law topics here on the OSHA Law Update blog.  We would hardly have the energy or enthusiasm to keep the OSHA Law Update current if it were not for all of the incredibly positive feedback, comments, and questions that we have received over the year from all of you.  Thank you for that.

Just as we did last year, as the clock was winding down on a remarkable year of OSHA enforcement and other activity, it is time to take a look ahead to the new year, and offer our thoughts about what we can all expect from OSHA in 2013.  Here is a link to our post from December 2011 in which forecasted 5 important OSHA developments for 2012 (a pretty accurate forecast in retrospect), and here are three developments we expect from OSHA in 2013:

1.  Heavy-handed enforcement will continue to trend up:

During President Obama’s first term in office, OSHA consistently increased enforcement in every measureable way, year over year, and there is every reason to believe that trend will continue.  OSHA’s budget increased early in President Obama’s first team, and that allowed OSHA to hire more than 100 new compliance officers.  The agency also redirected most of the resources and personnel who had formerly been involved in compliance assistance and cooperative programs into enforcement.  As a result of this big increase in enforcement personnel, we saw the number of inspections increase from averages in the mid-30,000’s during the Bush Administration to the mid-40,000’s through President Obama’s first term.  Barring a prolonged trip over the Fiscal Cliff and actual implementation of sequestration, the trend of increasing enforcement personnel and increasing inspections will continue.

In addition to more frequent visits from OSHA, the OSHA leadership team also modified its Field Operations Manual for the purpose of driving up average and total penalties per inspection (i.e., by raising minimum penalties, average penalties, and eliminating penalty reductions available for size and safe history).  As a result, the average per Serious violation penalty doubled from the Bush Administration (approx. $1,000 per violation) to the end of Obama’s first term (approx. $2,000 per violation).  OSHA’s leadership team has expressed a goal of continuing to grow that average to approx. $3,000 per Serious violation.  We also watched the frequency of enhanced citations (i.e., Willful and Repeat violations that carry 10x higher penalties) increase at a rate of more than 200%.  Those changes, and other aggressive enforcement strategies by OSHA, have resulted in the Agency doubling the total number of “Significant” enforcement actions (cases involving penalties of $100,000 or more), and tripling the number of cases involving total penalties over $1M.  That trend is also expected to continue.

The Democratic Party unveiled its Party Platform during President Obama’s Nominating Convention, and offered a glimpse into what we can expect from OSHA in 2013 and beyond.

The platform called for a focus on “continu[ing] to adopt and enforce comprehensive safety standards.”  Many dubbed the 2012 a “status quo election,” which is probably right, and because the status quo at OSHA over the past four years has been a trend of increasing enforcement and focused rulemaking, that is precisely what we should expect from OSHA over the next four years.

Specifically, OSHA will continue to aggressively enforce its existing standards (i.e., increasing numbers of inspections, increasing penalties, and increasing publicity related to enforcement actions).  We anticipate a doubling down on programs and strategies like:

By Paul H. Burmeister and Eric J. Conn

At the end of January 2012, OSHA finally released its Fall 2011 regulatory agenda, which is intended to be an overview of what OSHA plans to accomplish in the next few months.  The agenda includes updates about the status of several major OSHA rulemaking efforts.  Below is a brief summary of the Reg Agenda.

This Reg Agenda was far less ambitious than each of the previous agendas set forth by the Obama Administration’s OSHA, but it does reveal the agency’s top priorities that will continue to be pressed even during an election year.  The highlights include:

  1. The Injury and Illness Prevention Program (I2P2) Rule going before a Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) Panel review;
  2. Continued revision of OSHA’s permissible chemical exposure limits (PELs);
  3. Changes to OSHA’s Hazard Communication Standard are growing closer; and
  4. A projected date for Silica exposure regulations; and

I2P2 –SBREFA Panel is Imminent:

The most significant update in the Reg Agenda is the much-anticipated call for a SBREFA panel review of the I2P2 Rule.  The SBREFA Panel process provides an opportunity for small business representatives to offer input to OSHA on the potential impact of proposed regulations and to propose alternative regulatory approaches.

If implemented, the I2P2 Rule would require employers to “find and fix” workplace hazards, regardless whether the hazards relate to an existing OSHA standard.  More importantly, like OSHA’s “General Duty Clause,” an I2P2 rule would provide another means for OSHA to impose fines against employers in the absence any existing hazard-specific standard (i.e., in practice, if any injury occurs, the employer will likely be cited for failing to identify or correct the hazardous condition).

An I2P2 Rule has long been identified as the top regulatory priority for today’s OSHA, but to date, the public has not seen proposed regulatory language for the Rule.  That is about to change because under the SBREFA process, small business representatives will review and comment on an actual draft of the I2P2 regulatory text that OSHA would intend to publish as a proposed rule.  OSHA began the SBREFA process for the I2P2 rule on January 6, 2012, and announced that the SBREFA panel would be held within two months of that time (i.e., by the beginning of March 2012).  In anticipation of the I2P2 SBREFA Panel, OSHA published an Injury and Illness Prevention Programs White Paper describing OSHA’s expectations about injury and illness prevention programs, how they protect workers, existing I2P2 requirements under various OSHA-approved state programs, and costs associated with implementing I2P2 programs.

Permissible Exposure Levels To Be Re-Set:

The Fall Reg Agenda also reiterates OSHA’s continued efforts to re-evaluate permissible exposure limits (PELs), many of which have not been updated since1971.  PELs are the limits for how long an employee can be exposed to a hazardous substance without experiencing harmful effects.  OSHA’s new Reg Agenda indicates that OSHA is preparing a Request for Information, due out in August 2012, to seek “input from the public to help the Agency identify effective ways to address occupational exposure to chemicals.”  OSHA’s expectation is that more advanced research in this area will find that the current exposure limits are outdated.

HazCom Alignment with GHS Getting Closer:

The overhauled Hazard Communication Standard, which is intended to align the current OSHA Hazard Communication Standard with the United Nations’ Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS), is growing closer to becoming a final rule.  The recently released Reg Agenda indicates that a final action for the Standard is due in February 2012, but the Rule remains under review at the Office of Management and Budget, where it has been stuck since October of last year.

Silica Rule Also Held Up at OMB:

Delays at the Office of Management and Budget have also held up OSHA’s proposed new standard for exposure to crystalline silica.  OSHA submitted the rule for review all the way back in February 2011, where it has remained buried since.  Nevertheless, OSHA plans to release the proposed work rule on silica exposure this month.

What’s Missing from the Reg Agenda:

While I2P2, Silica, PELs and HazCom remain on the agenda, and remain top priorities for today’s OSHA, the new Reg Agenda is remarkable for what is missing.  With no explanation, several items that had been featured in previous Reg Agenda updates were changed by OSHA in this Reg Agenda from active status to the “Long-Term Actions” category, effectively putting them on the backburner with the designation: “Next Action Undetermined” and completion dates of “To Be Determined.”

The two most notable items moving from active rulemaking to “Long Term Actions” in the new Reg Agenda include:

  1. Combustible Dust Standard, which has been in the works since 2009, following a recommendation from the U.S. Chemical Safety & Hazard Investigation Board.  See our previous post on the OSHA Law Update Blog regarding the status of the Combustible Dust Rulemaking.
  2. Musculoskeletal Disorder (MSD) Column on Recordkeeping Forms.  In January 2010, OSHA proposed to revise its Injury & Illness Recordkeeping Rule to add a column to check on the OSHA Form 300 if a recordable case is an ergonomic/MSD injury.  MSDs, for recordkeeping purposes, are disorders of the muscles, nerves, tendons, ligaments, joints, cartilage or spinal disc not caused by a slip, trip, fall, motor vehicle accident or similar trauma.  The Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA gave a speech in 2010 announcing that “OSHA’s field staff will be looking for ergonomic hazards in their inspections, and we will be providing them with the support and tools they need to enforce under the general duty clause.”  OSHA intended for this MSD Recordkeeping rule to be that ergonomics enforcement tool, as it would allow OSHA to characterize more ergonomic hazards as “recognized,” and therefore, more Ergonomic Citations issued under OSHA’s General Duty Clause.  Congress finally passed OSHA’s 2012 budget, however, and it included an addendum that stated: “None of the funds made available [in the entire budget] may be used to promulgate, administer, enforce, otherwise implement the [MSD] Column being developed by OSHA.”