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OSHA's Standards Improvement Projects (SIPs) are intended to remove or revise duplicative, unnecessary, and inconsistent safety and health standards. The Agency has published three earlier final standards to remove unnecessary provisions (63 FR 33450, 70 FR 1111, 76 FR 33590), thus reducing costs or paperwork burden on affected employers. The Agency is initiating a fourth rulemaking effort to identify unnecessary or duplicative provisions or paperwork requirements that are focused primarily on its construction standards in 29 CFR 1926, as long as they do not diminish employee protections.

Statement of Need:

OSHA’s Standard Improvement Projects (SIPs) are intended to remove or revise duplicative, unnecessary, and inconsistent safety and health standards. The Agency has published three earlier final standards to remove unnecessary provisions, thus reducing costs or paperwork burden on affected employers. The Agency is initiating a fourth rulemaking effort to identify unnecessary or duplicative provisions or paperwork requirements that are focused primarily on its construction standards in 29 CFR 1926, as long as they do not diminish employee protections.

Summary of the Legal Basis:

OSHA is conducting Phase IV of the Standards Improvement Project (SIP-IV) in response to the President’s Executive Order 13563, Improving Regulations and Regulatory Review (76 FR 38210). SIP-IV will update three standards to align with current medical practice, including a reduction to the number of necessary employee x-rays, updates to requirements for pulmonary function testing, and updates to the table used for decompression of employees during underground construction. Additionally, the proposed revisions include an update to the consensus standard incorporated by reference for signs and devices used to protect workers near automobile traffic, a revision to the requirements for roll-over protective structures to comply with current consensus standards, updates for storage of digital x-rays and the method of calling emergency services to allow for use of current technology, and a revision to lockout/tagout requirements in response to a court decision, among others. OSHA is also proposing to remove from its standards the requirements that employers include an employee’s social security number (SSN) on exposure monitoring, medical surveillance, and other records in order to protect employee privacy and prevent identity fraud.

Alternatives:

The main alternative OSHA considered for all of the proposed changes contained in the SIP-IV rulemaking was retaining the existing regulatory language, i.e., retaining the status quo. In each instance, OSHA has concluded that the benefits of the proposed regulatory change outweigh the costs of those changes. In a few of the items, such as the proposed changes to the decompression requirements applicable to employees working in compressed air environments, OSHA has requested public comment on feasible alternatives to the Agency’s proposal.

Anticipated Costs and Benefits:

The Agency has estimated that one revision (updating the method of identifying and calling emergency medical services) may increase construction employers costs by about $28,000 per year while two provisions (reduction in the number of necessary employee x-rays and elimination of posting requirements for residential construction employers) provide estimated costs savings of $3.2 million annually. The Agency has not estimated or quantified benefits to employees from reduced exposure to x-ray radiation or to employers for the reduced cost of storing digital x-rays rather than x-ray films, among others. The Agency has preliminarily concluded that the proposed revisions are economically feasible and do not have any significant economic impact on small businesses. The Preliminary Economic Analysis in this preamble provides an explanation of the economic effects of the proposed revisions.

Risks:

SIP rulemakings do not address new significant risks or estimate benefits and economic impacts of reducing such risks. Overall, SIP rulemakings are reasonably necessary under the OSH Act because they provide cost savings, or eliminate unnecessary requirements.