13. Environmental Protection Agency · Notable
Presume OSHA compliance and PPE use in TSCA risk evaluations
Printed page 434 13. Environmental Protection Agency
“Ensure that risk evaluations and risk management rules presume that workplaces are following all OSHA requirements, including requirements for personal protective equipment (PPE).”
What has happened
- Partially done
EPA proposed to revise 40 CFR 702.39 "to further clarify how EPA will take occupational exposure controls into account when conducting risk evaluations and making risk determinations", reopening the 2024 rule's requirement that EPA consider workers exposed "due to ineffective use of personal protective equipment" and "not consider exposure reduction based on assumed use of personal protective equipment as part of the risk determination", which the 2024 preamble justified partly by possible non-compliance with OSHA standards. The presumption the Quote asks for is proposed, not established: no final rule had issued by 2026-08-28 and draft risk evaluations continued to be published under the 2024 rule.
- Attempted
Executive Order 14303 told agencies that overly precautionary assumptions should be relied on only where required by law and that they must evaluate the realistic or reasonably foreseeable effects of an action. It does not mention OSHA, personal protective equipment or TSCA, and changed nothing in a risk evaluation by itself.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- One negative search covered the OCSPP chemicals and pesticides asks on pp. 433-435.
- partial on the rule that a proposal following a directive (EO 14303) is partial. The alternative reading is attempted, since a withdrawn proposal would leave the 2024 PPE provision standing.
- The proposal reopens the question rather than announcing the presumption; EPA describes it as clarifying how occupational exposure controls will be taken into account.
- Action
- other
- Object
- TSCA risk evaluations and risk management rules
- ID
- 1142