By SEMA Washington, D.C., Staff
The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate passed a resolution to overturn a regulation which effectively allowed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to cite companies that failed to record work-related injuries and illnesses during the five-year retention period. In 2012, a U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in the so-called “Volks” lawsuit that OSHA could not issue citations beyond a six-month statute of limitations set out under law. To get around the court finding, OSHA issued a rule before the Trump Administration took office to “clarify” that an employer had a duty to make and maintain accurate injury/illness records for the entire retention period, and that the duty did not end if the employer had failed to create the necessary records during the initial six-month citation period. President Trump is expected to sign the resolution into law.
The Congressional Review Act gives Congress the authority to overturn a recently issued federal regulation if a resolution is passed by a simple majority and signed by the President. Congress is currently reviewing a number of regulations issued before President Obama left office. The law has only previously been used on one other occasion, in 2001 when Congress overturned the Clinton Administration’s ergonomic rule.
For more information, contact Stuart Gosswein at stuartg@sema.org.