Improving and Eliminating Regulations; Hazardous Communication

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR <SUBAGY>Mine Safety and Health Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>30 CFR part 47</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. MSHA-2025-0077]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1219-AC08</RIN> <SUBJECT>Improving and Eliminating Regulations; Hazardous Communication</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), Department of Labor. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> MSHA is proposing to revise 30 CFR part 47 to allow electronic access to all Hazard Communication (HazCom) materials at no cost to miners. This change would ensure miners have access to information about the chemical hazards where they work while reducing paperwork burdens for operators. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before July 31, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> All submissions must include RIN 1219-AC08 or Docket No. MSHA-2025-0077. You should not include personal or proprietary information that you do not wish to disclose publicly. If you mark parts of a comment as “business confidential” information, MSHA will not post those parts of the comment. Otherwise, MSHA will post all comments without change, including any personal information provided. MSHA cautions against submitting personal information. You may submit comments and informational materials, clearly identified by RIN 1219-AC08 or Docket No. MSHA-2025-0077, by any of the following methods: 1. <E T="03">Federal E-Rulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. 2. <E T="03">Email: zzMSHA-comments@dol.gov.</E> Include “RIN 1219-AC08” in the subject line of the message. 3. <E T="03">Regular Mail or Hand Delivery:</E> MSHA, Office of Standards, Regulations, and Variances, 200 Constitution Avenue NW, Room C3522, Washington, DC 20210. Before visiting MSHA in person, call 202-693-9440 to make an appointment. No telefacsimiles (“faxes”) will be accepted. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jessica D. Senk, Acting Director, Office of Standards, Regulations, and Variances, MSHA at 202-693-9440 (voice). This is not a toll-free number. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> MSHA is proposing to remove existing provisions from title 30 of the Code of Federal Regulations (30 CFR). The existing MSHA standard in 30 CFR 47.71, requires mine operators, upon request, to provide access to all hazard communication (HazCom) materials required by part 47 to the miners and designated representative. The existing standard in § 47.72 requires operators to provide the first copy of each revision of the hazard communication materials without a cost to the miners, and all fees for subsequent copies of materials to be non-discriminatory and reasonable. Amending these provisions would not reduce protections afforded to miners. The proposed changes would decrease paperwork burdens on mine operators while also maintaining the current protections miners receive by accessing information on hazardous chemicals. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Discussion</HD> MSHA proposes to revise § 47.71 to allow mine operators to make HazCom materials available to miners electronically, without cost to miners. Under the Agency's proposed revision, a new paragraph (a) would be added to allow operators to choose to make HazCom materials available either electronically or as hard copies in paper form. The language in proposed paragraph (a) is substantially similar to the existing language in this section with the addition of allowing electronic access. This is a change from existing § 47.71 which requires operators to provide hard copies of HazCom materials. Section 47.71 would be further revised by adding a new paragraph (b) which would, if the operator chooses, make HazCom material available as hard copies and require the operator to provide the first copy and each revision of the HazCom material without cost. Paragraph (b) would also allow operators to charge fees that are non-discriminatory and reasonable for subsequent hard copies of HazCom material. This proposed addition to existing § 47.71 is substantially similar to the language in existing § 47.72. As a result of the proposed revisions and additions to § 47.71, MSHA proposes to remove § 47.72 as it would no longer be necessary. The proposed changes would decrease paperwork burdens on mine operators while also maintaining the current protections miners receive by accessing information on hazardous chemicals. These actions reflect MSHA's experience and ongoing review of existing regulations to ensure they remain necessary, effective, and aligned with current technologies and mining practices. MSHA seeks comment on any aspect of this proposed rule. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Procedural Issues and Regulatory Review</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Review Under Executive Orders 12866 and 13563</HD> Executive Order (E.O.) 12866, “Regulatory Planning and Review” 58 FR 51735 (Oct. 4, 1993), requires agencies, to the extent permitted by law, to (1) propose or adopt a regulation only upon a reasoned determination that its benefits justify its costs (recognizing that some benefits and costs are difficult to quantify); (2) tailor regulations to impose the least burden on society, consistent with obtaining regulatory objectives, taking into account, among other things, and to the extent practicable, the costs of cumulative regulations; (3) select, in choosing among alternative regulatory approaches, those approaches that maximize net benefits; (4) to the extent feasible, specify performance objectives, rather than specifying the behavior or manner of compliance that regulated entities must adopt; and (5) identify and assess available alternatives to direct regulation, including providing economic incentives to encourage the desired behavior, such as user fees or marketable permits, or providing information upon which choices can be made by the public. E.O. 13563, “Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review” 76 FR 3821 (Jan. 21, 2011), requires agencies to use the best available techniques to quantify anticipated present and future benefits and costs as accurately as possible. E.O. 13563 reaffirms the principles of E.O. 12866 while calling for improvements in the nation's regulatory system to promote predictability, reduce uncertainty, and use the best, most innovative, and least burdensome tools for achieving regulatory ends. E.O. 12866 and E.O. 13563 direct agencies to assess all costs and benefits of available regulatory alternatives and, if regulation is necessary, to select regulatory approaches that maximize net benefits. E.O. 13563 emphasizes the importance of quantifying both costs and benefits, reducing costs, harmonizing rules, and promoting flexibility. Under section 3(f) of E.O. 12866, a “significant regulatory action” is a regulatory action that is likely to result in a rule that may: (1) have an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more, or adversely affect in a material way the economy, a sector of the economy, productivity, competition, jobs, the environment, public health or safety, or state, local, or tribal governments or communities (also referred to as economically significant); (2) create a serious inconsistency or otherwise interfere with an action taken or planned by another agency; (3) materially alter the budgetary impact of entitlements, grants, user fees, or loan programs or the rights and obligations of recipients thereof; or (4) raise novel legal or policy issues arising out of legal mandates, the President's priorities, or the principles set forth in the E.O. <HD SOURCE="HD3">Background</HD> The proposed regulations would allow all mine operators to provide electronic access to HazCom materials to miners and designated representatives, at their request. The existing standard in 30 CFR 47.72 requires operators to provide the first copy of each revision of the hazard communication materials without a cost to the miners. The proposed changes would decrease paperwork burdens on mine operators while also maintaining the current protections miners receive by accessing information on hazardous chemicals. On average, each year there are 12,529 mine operations and mining contractors that employ 138,586 miners affected by this proposed rule. All estimated figures are expressed in 2024 dollars. <HD SOURCE="HD3">Benefits</HD> This proposed rule would allow mine operators to provide electronic access to HazCom materials to the miners and designated representatives. The proposal would provide miners and their designated representatives easy access to information about chemical hazards and the measures they can take to protect themselves from these hazards. Electronic copies (instead of paper copies) would reduce the time needed to access HazCom materials and increase efficiency in mine operations, without diminishing safety in underground mines. <HD SOURCE="HD3">Costs Savings</HD> The Agency estimates that each year there are an average of 12,529 mine operations and mining contractors that employ 138,586 miners, that would be affected by this proposed rule. MSHA assumes that approximately 2 percent of these miners (including their designated representatives) request HazCom information each year, meaning there are 2,772 copies being provided to miners. MSHA estimates that, under this proposed rule, 75 percent of these requested copies, or 2,079, would be provided electronically. MSHA used data from the May 2024 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for hourly wage rates  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> and adjusted the rates for benefits, <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> wage inflation, and overhead costs. <SU>4</SU> ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 54k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━