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Public health groups sue over OSHA electronic records rule

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Public health groups sue over OSHA electronic records rule

Three public health organizations sued the U.S. Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on Friday over a final rule to rescind provisions of the agency’s electronic record-keeping regulation.

OSHA issued a final rule on Thursday eliminating the requirement for establishments with 250 or more employees to electronically submit OSHA Form 300-Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses and OSHA Form 301-Injury and Illness Incident Report to the agency each year, but these establishments are still required to electronically submit information on OSHA Form 300A-Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses.

The new rule would prevent “routine government collection of information that may be quite sensitive, including descriptions of workers’ injuries and body parts affected,” with OSHA avoiding the risk that such information might be publicly disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act, the agency said in a statement on Thursday.

But Public Citizen Health Research Group, the American Public Health Association and the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists hit back in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday accusing the agency of violating the Administrative Procedure Act with its final rule.

“The rollback rule should be declared unlawful and set aside because OSHA has failed to provide a reasoned explanation for its change in position, failed to adequately consider comments submitted in opposition to the change, and relied on considerations that have no sound basis in law,” the organizations said in the lawsuit. “OSHA’s action, findings, and conclusions are arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and otherwise not in accordance with law.”

The public health organizations asked the court to vacate the regulation and order the agency to require and accept submissions mandated by the electronic record-keeping rule within 30 days of the court’s order.

“When it issued the electronic reporting rule after an exhaustive process, OSHA concluded that requiring the submission of workplace injury and illness data would greatly enhance worker health and safety,” Michael Kirkpatrick, the Public Citizen attorney handling the case, said in a statement on Friday. “OSHA has now rushed through a new rule drawing exactly the opposite conclusion, but OSHA has failed to provide any good reason for reversing itself.

The organizations previously sued the agency for allegedly violating the Administrative Procedure Act by suspending filing deadlines under the electronic record-keeping rule while finalizing its proposal to rescind the requirement to file certain forms. That lawsuit was filed after the agency denied Freedom of Information Act requests for the summary records submitted under the rule, which Public Citizen said it intended to use to conduct research on workplace health and safety. In December, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia denied the Trump administration’s motion to dismiss the litigation, but also denied a request by the public health organizations for a preliminary injunction barring OSHA from implementing its planned delay.

An OSHA spokeswoman declined to comment.

 

 

 

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