Occupational Exposure to COVID-19 in Healthcare Settings

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR <SUBAGY>Occupational Safety and Health Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>29 CFR Parts 1910, 1915, 1917, 1918, 1926, and 1928</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. OSHA-2020-0004]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1218-AD36</RIN> <SUBJECT>Occupational Exposure to COVID-19 in Healthcare Settings</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Labor. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> OSHA is proposing to remove OSHA's COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard and its associated recordkeeping and reporting provisions from the Code of Federal Regulations. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Comments:</E> Comments in response to OSHA's proposal must be submitted in Docket No. OSHA-2020-0004 on or before September 2, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> <E T="03">Written comments:</E> You may submit comments and attachments, identified by Docket No. OSHA-2020-0004, electronically at <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov,</E> which is the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal. Follow the instructions online for making electronic submissions. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> All submissions must include the agency's name and the docket number for this rulemaking (Docket No. OSHA-2020-0004). All comments, including any personal information that is provided, are placed in the public docket without change and may be made available online at <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> Therefore, OSHA cautions commenters about submitting information they do not want made available to the public, or submitting materials that contain personal information (either about themselves or others), such as Social Security Numbers and birthdates. When uploading multiple attachments to <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov,</E> please number all of your attachments because <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov</E> will not automatically number the attachments. This numbering will be very useful in identifying all attachments. For example, Attachment 1—title of your document, Attachment 2—title of your document, Attachment 3—title of your document. For assistance with commenting and uploading documents, please see the Frequently Asked Questions on <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> <E T="03">Docket:</E> To read or download comments or other materials in the docket, go to Docket No. OSHA-2020-0004 at <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> All comments and submissions are listed in the <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov</E> index; however, some information ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> copyrighted material) is not publicly available to read or download through that website. All comments and submissions, including copyrighted material, are available for inspection through the OSHA Docket Office. Documents submitted to the docket by OSHA or stakeholders are assigned document identification numbers (Document ID) for easy identification and retrieval. The full Document ID is the docket number plus a unique four-digit code. For example, the Document ID number for OSHA's COVID-19 Healthcare ETS is OSHA-2020-0004-1033. Some Document ID numbers also include one or more attachments. When citing exhibits in the docket, OSHA includes the term “Document ID” followed by the last four digits of the Document ID number. For example, document OSHA-2020-0004-1033 would appear as “Document ID 1033.” Citations also include the attachment number or tab number, if applicable. In a citation that contains two or more Document ID numbers, the Document ID numbers are separated by semi-colons ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> “Document ID 1231, Attachment 1; 1383, Attachment 1”). OSHA may also cite items that appear in another docket. When that is the case, OSHA includes the full document ID for the corresponding docket entry. For example, a citation to OSHA's notice seeking public comments on its proposal to extend the approval of the information collection requirements in the COVID-19 Emergency Temporary standard, which is document number 0004 in Docket No. OSHA-2021-0003, would read “Document ID OSHA-2021-0003-0004.” This information can be used to search for a supporting document in the docket at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> Contact the OSHA Docket Office at (202) 693-2350 (TTY number: 877-889-5627) for assistance in locating docket submissions. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> <E T="03">For press inquiries:</E> Contact Frank Meilinger, Office of Communications, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, U.S. Department of Labor; telephone (202) 693-1999; email <E T="03">oshacomms@dol.gov.</E> <E T="03">For general information:</E> Contact Andrew Levinson, Director, Directorate of Standards and Guidance, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, U.S. Department of Labor; telephone (202) 693-1950; email: <E T="03">osha.dsg@dol.gov.</E> <E T="03">For copies of this</E> <E T="7462">Federal Register</E> <E T="03">document:</E> Electronic copies of this <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice are available at <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> This notice, as well as news releases and other relevant information, are also available at OSHA's web page at <E T="03">www.osha.gov.</E> A 100-word summary of this proposed rule is available on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Executive Summary</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Pertinent Legal Authority</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Explanation of Agency Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Explanation of the Proposed Removal of the Recordkeeping and Reporting Provisions From the Code of Federal Regulations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Explanation of the Removal of the Non-Recordkeeping and Reporting Provisions From the Code of Federal Regulations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Preliminary Economic Analysis</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Introduction</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Cost Savings</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Economic Feasibility</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Benefits</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Review Under Executive Order 12866</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Review Under the Regulatory Flexibility Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Technological Feasibility</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VII. Additional Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. State Plans</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. OMB Review Under Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Other Statutory and Executive Order Considerations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VIII. Authority and Signature</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> OSHA is proposing to remove from the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), the recordkeeping and reporting provisions in 29 CFR 1910 subpart U that are still in effect (specifically 29 CFR 1910.502(q)(2)(ii), (q)(3)(ii)-(iv), and (r)). OSHA requests comment on the proposed removal. OSHA estimates annual cost savings of $1,587,494 from the removal of these provisions. OSHA also intends to remove the rest of 29 CFR 1910 subpart U from the CFR upon finalization of this rulemaking. This is a deregulatory action per Executive Order 14192, “Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation” (90 FR 9065, Feb. 6, 2025). <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Pertinent Legal Authority</HD> The purpose of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (29 U.S.C. 651 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) (“the Act” or “the OSH Act”) is “to assure so far as possible every working man and woman in the Nation safe and healthful working conditions and to preserve our human resources” (29 U.S.C. 651(b)). To achieve this goal Congress authorized the Secretary of Labor (“the Secretary”) to promulgate standards to protect workers, including the authority “to set mandatory occupational safety and health standards applicable to businesses affecting interstate commerce” (29 U.S.C. 651(b)(3); <E T="03">see also</E> 29 U.S.C. 654(a)(2) (requiring employers to comply with OSHA standards), 29 U.S.C. 655(a) (authorizing summary adoption of existing consensus and established federal standards within two years of the Act's enactment), 29 U.S.C. 655(b) (authorizing promulgation, modification or revocation of standards pursuant to notice and comment), and 29 U.S.C. 655(b)(7) (authorizing OSHA to include among a standard's requirements labeling, monitoring, medical testing, and other information-transmittal provisions)). An occupational safety and health standard is “. . . a standard which requires conditions, or the adoption or use of one or more practices, means, methods, operations, or processes, <E T="03">reasonably necessary or appropriate</E> to provide safe or healthful employment and places of employment” (29 U.S.C. 652(8) (emphasis added)). The Secretary may also issue regulations requiring employers to keep records regarding their activities related to the Act, as well as records of work-related deaths, injuries, and illnesses (29 U.S.C. 657(c)(1)-(2)). In addition, section 6(c) of the Act gives OSHA the authority to issue Emergency Temporary Standards where it finds a standard is necessary to protect workers from a grave danger (29 U.S.C. 665(c)). As described in more detail in the Background section, below, OSHA issued the bulk of the Emergency Temporary Standard (“ETS”) for COVID-19 pursuant to this rarely used provision. However, the recordkeeping and reporting provisions associated with the ETS were issued under OSHA's authority to prescribe recordkeeping and reporting requirements in section 8(c)(1)-(3) of the Act (29 U.S.C. 657(c)(1)-(3)). OSHA is engaging in notice and comment rulemaking to remove the recordkeeping and reporting provisions pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act (AP ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 94k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━