Many THANKS to Barry Weissman for sharing this with his YAHOO Safety Group! This could be HUGE, bigger than the revised HAZCOM standard. Following its May 3 meeting, the Federal Advisory Council on Occupational Safety and Health (FACOSH) recommended that the Department of Labor consider asking the president to update OSHA’s permissible exposure limits (PELs) by executive order.
FACOSH’s Emerging Issues Subcommittee performed analysis on federal agencies’ use of PELs and examined how federal agencies use other occupational exposure limits (OELs). The report states that the PELs have not been changed since their adoption in 1971 and that they “do not account for 40 years of advances in technology or the latest peer-reviewed published toxicological information.” The FACOSH subcommittee recommended that federal agencies and departments “use the most protective and feasible OELs in federal workplaces, notwithstanding the existence of a PEL for a given substance of concern.” However, this proposal would cover only federal employees and contractors working on federal sites.