This narrative describes several of the Department's Plan/Prevent/Protect, Openness and Transparency, Risk Reduction, and Regulatory Review and Burden Reduction initiatives. The Fall 2013 Regulatory Agenda utilizes this combination of approaches as one piece of the strategy to advance the Department's mission and the Secretary's goal.

Plan/Prevent/Protect. The regulatory actions that comprise the Department's Plan/Prevent/Protect approach are designed to ensure employers and other regulated entities are in full compliance with the law every day, not just when the Department of Labor engages an employer. First announced with the Spring 2010 Regulatory Agenda, this strategy shifts the burden of ensuring compliance from the Department - which cannot and does not want to inspect every workplace - to the regulated entity itself. Employers, unions, and others who follow the Department's Plan/Prevent/Protect strategy will assure compliance with employment laws before Labor Department enforcement personnel ever have to arrive at their doorsteps. Most important, rules published under this strategy will continue to assure that workers get the safe, healthy, diverse, family-friendly, and fair workplaces they deserve. In the Fall 2013 Regulatory Agenda, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) will propose regulatory actions furthering the Department's implementation of the Plan/Prevent/Protect strategy.

Openness and Transparency. Greater openness and transparency also continue to be central to the Department's compliance and regulatory strategies. The Fall 2013 Regulatory Plan demonstrates the Department's continued commitment to these two goals, not only as stakeholder engagement strategies, but also an important means to achieve compliance in the regulated community. The Department believes that when employers, workers, advocates, and members of the public have greater access to information concerning workplace conditions and expectations, achieving compliance is not only possible but often also becomes a cooperative exercise. Openness and transparency encourage greater levels of compliance by the regulated community, enhance awareness among workers of their rights and benefits, and provide employers with clear expectations, actionable data, and a level playing field on which to build their businesses.

Risk Reduction. When the Department identifies specific hazards and risks to worker health, safety, security, or fairness, the Department will utilize its regulatory powers to limit the risk to workers. The Fall 2013 Regulatory Agenda includes risk reduction initiatives to address such specific concerns, many of which are discussed in this document.

Regulatory Review and Burden Reduction. On January 18, 2011, the President issued Executive Order (E.O.) 13563 entitled "Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review." The E.O. aims to strike the right balance between protecting the health, welfare, safety, and the environment for all Americans - a goal at the core of the Labor Department's mission -- while fostering economic growth, job creation, and competitiveness. The Department's Fall 2013 Regulatory Agenda also aims to achieve more efficient and less burdensome regulations through a retrospective review of the Labor Department regulations

In August 2011, as part of a Government wide response to E.O. 13563, the Department published its "Plan for Retrospective Analysis of Existing Rules." The plan identified several burden-reducing regulatory projects. Projects such as OSHA's Standard Improvement Project - Phase IV (SIP IV) and OSHA's Revising to Record Requirements in the Mechanical Power Presses Standard are both expected to produce savings for the covered community.

The Department is also taking action to eliminate regulations that are no longer effective or enforceable. This effort has included the removal of obsolete ETA's Job Training Partnership Act program regulations. The effort will continue with the removal of attestation requirements for facilities using nonimmigrant aliens as registered nurses in the H-1A program (authorized by the Immigration Nursing Relief Act of 1999); removal of attestation requirements for employers using F-1 students in off-campus work (authorized by the Immigration Act of 1990); and removal of remove obsolete regulations regarding labor certification process requirements for logging employment and non-H-2A agricultural employment. This agenda includes 13 retrospective review projects.

Pursuant to section 6 of E.O. 13563, the following Regulatory Identifier Numbers (RINs) are associated with the Department's Plan for Retrospective Analysis of Existing Rules. More information about completed rulemakings, which are no longer included in the plan, can be found on Reginfo.gov. The original August 2011 DOL Plan for Retrospective Analysis of Existing Rules and each subsequent update can be found at http://www.dol.gov/regulations/

The Department's Plan/Prevent/Protect, Openness and Transparency, and Risk Reduction initiatives work in concert with its implementation of E.O. 13563. These regulations strengthen protections for workers while maintaining flexibility for businesses to comply. By requiring employers and other regulated entities to take full ownership of their compliance with clearly defined Department regulations; by promoting greater openness and transparency for employers and workers alike; and by encouraging regulated entities to adopt a strategy that includes planning and prevention, the Labor Department believes it can increase compliance with its regulations across all regulated entities. The increased effectiveness of this compliance strategy will enable the Department to create opportunity -- both for businesses to comply in the way that is most efficient, least burdensome, and in line with their existing business practices, and for workers to labor in safe and healthy environments. A discussion of several of these initiatives follows.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

OSHA's regulatory program is designed to help workers and employers identify hazards in the workplace, prevent the occurrence of injuries and adverse health effects, and communicate with the regulated community regarding hazards and how to effectively control them. Long-recognized health hazards and emerging hazards that place American workers at risk of serious injury, illness, and death are the focus of several initiatives on OSHA's regulatory agenda. In addition to targeting specific hazards, OSHA is focusing on proposing changes to systematic processes that would modernize the culture of safety in America's workplaces. OSHA continues work on its retrospective review projects that when completed will both update outdated regulations and reduce burdens on regulated employers. OSHA's retrospective review projects include consideration of the Bloodborne Pathogens standard, updating consensus standard references in OSHA standards, phase IV of OSHA's standard improvement project (SIP IV), and reviewing Permissible Exposure Limits of various hazardous chemicals.

OSHA Plan/Prevent/Protect Initiatives

OSHA is interested in all routes of infectious disease transmission in healthcare settings not already covered by its bloodborne pathogens standard (e.g. contact, droplet, and airborne routes of transmission.) The agency is particularly concerned by studies that indicate that transmission of infectious diseases to both patients and healthcare workers may be occurring as a result of incomplete adherence to recognized, but voluntary, infection control measures and is considering an approach that would combine elements of the Department's Plan/Prevent/Protect strategy with established infection control practices. The agency received strong stakeholder participation in response to its May 2010 request for information and July 2011 stakeholder meetings on this topic.

OSHA Openness and Transparency Initiatives

OSHA Risk Reduction Initiatives

OSHA Regulatory Review and Burden Reduction Initiatives

OSH Act, and only a few have been successfully updated since that time. There is widespread agreement among industry, labor, and professional occupational safety and health organizations that OSHA's PELs are outdated and need revising to reflect newer scientific data that indicate that significant occupational health risks exist at levels below OSHA's current PELs. As part of the Department's Regulatory Review and Lookback Efforts, OSHA is developing a Request for Information (RFI), seeking input from the public to help the Agency identify effective ways to address occupational exposure to chemicals.

Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA)

The Department believes that every worker has a right to a safe and healthy workplace. Workers should never have to sacrifice their lives for their livelihood. All workers deserve to come home to their families at the end of their shift safe and whole. MSHA's approach to reducing workplace fatalities and injuries includes promulgating and enforcing mandatory health and safety standards. MSHA's retrospective review project under E.O.13563 addresses revising the process for proposing civil penalties.

MSHA Plan/Prevent/Protect Initiatives

MSHA Risk Reduction Initiatives

MSHA Regulatory Review and Burden Reduction Initiative

Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP)

Through the work of OFCCP, DOL ensures that contractors and subcontractors doing business with the Federal Government provide equal employment opportunity and take affirmative action to create fair and diverse workplaces. OFCCP also combats discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran by ensuring that federal contractors recruit, hire, train, promote, terminate, and compensate workers in a nondiscriminatory manner. DOL, through OFCCP, protects workers, promotes diversity and enforces civil rights laws.

OFCCP Plan/Prevent/Protect Initiative

OFCCP Regulatory Review and Burden Reduction Initiative

Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA)

The Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) is responsible for administering and enforcing the fiduciary, reporting and disclosure, and health coverage provisions of title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). This includes recent amendments and additions to ERISA enacted in the Pension Protection Act of 2006, as well as new health coverage provisions under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (the Affordable Care Act). EBSA's regulatory plan initiatives are intended to improve health benefits and retirement security for workers in every type of job at every income level. EBSA is charged with protecting approximately 141 million individuals covered by an estimated 701,000 private retirement plans, 2.3 million health plans, and similar numbers of other welfare benefit plans, which together hold $7.3 trillion in assets.

EBSA will continue to issue guidance implementing the health reform provisions of the Affordable Care Act to help provide better quality health care for America's workers and their families. EBSA's regulations reduce discrimination in health coverage, promote better access to quality coverage, and protect the ability of individuals and businesses to keep their current health coverage. Many regulations are joint rulemakings with the Departments of Health and Human Services and the Treasury.

Using regulatory changes to produce greater openness and transparency is an integral part of EBSA's contribution to a department-wide compliance strategy. These efforts will not only enhance EBSA's enforcement toolbox but will also encourage greater levels of compliance by the regulated community and improve awareness among workers of their rights and benefits. EBSA's Fall 2013 agenda expands disclosure requirements, substantially enhancing the availability of information to employee benefit plan participants and beneficiaries and employers, and strengthening the retirement security of America's workers. EBSA's retrospective review project under E.O.13563 is the Abandoned Plan Program amendments.

EBSA Risk Reduction Initiative

EBSA Openness and Transparency Initiative

In addition to its health care reform and participant protection initiatives discussed above, EBSA is pursuing a regulatory program that, as reflected in the Unified Agenda, is designed to encourage, foster, and promote openness, transparency, and communication with respect to the management and operations of pension plans, as well as participant rights and benefits under such plans. Among other things, EBSA will be issuing a final rule addressing the requirement that administrators of defined benefit pension plans annually disclose the funding status of their plan to the plan's participants and beneficiaries (RIN l210-AB18). In addition, EBSA will be finalizing amendments to the disclosure requirements applicable to plan investment options, including Qualified Default Investment Alternatives, to better ensure that participants understand the operations and risks associated with investments in target date funds (RIN 1210-AB38).

EBSA Regulatory Review and Burden Reduction Initiative

EBSA intends to revise the regulations to expand the program to include plans of businesses in liquidation proceedings to reflect recent changes in the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. The Department believes that this expansion has the potential to substantially reduce burdens on these plans and bankruptcy trustees. Plans of businesses in liquidation currently do not have the option of using the streamlined termination and winding-up procedures under the program. This is true even though bankruptcy trustees, pursuant to the Bankruptcy Code, can have a legal duty to administer the plan. Expanding the program to cover these plans will allow eligible bankruptcy trustees to use the streamlined termination process to better discharge their obligations under the law. The use of streamlined procedures will reduce the amount of time and overall cost it would take to terminate and wind up such plans. This will result in larger benefit distributions to participants and beneficiaries in such plans. The expansion also will eliminate government filings ordinarily required of terminating plans. Participation in the program will reduce the overall cost of terminating and winding-up such plans, which will result in larger benefit distributions to participants and beneficiaries in such plans. EBSA estimates that approximately 165 additional plans will benefit from the Amended Abandoned Plan Program allowing bankruptcy trustees to participate in the program. The amendment expanding the program will provide substantial benefits to plans of sponsors in Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation and bankruptcy trustees through the orderly termination of plans, less service provider fees, and preservation of assets for participants and beneficiaries, while imposing minimal costs.

Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS)

The Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) administers and enforces most provisions of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA). The LMRDA promotes labor-management transparency by requiring unions, employers, labor-relations consultants, and others to file reports, which are publicly available. The LMRDA includes provisions protecting union member rights to participate in their union's governance, to run for office and fully exercise their union citizenship, as well as procedural safeguards to ensure free and fair union elections. Besides enforcing these provisions, OLMS also ensures the financial accountability of unions, their officers and employees, through enforcement and voluntary compliance efforts. Because of these activities, OLMS better ensures that workers have a more effective voice in the governance of their unions, which in turn affords them a more effective voice in their workplaces. OLMS also administers Executive Order 13496, which requires Federal contractors to notify their employees concerning their rights to organize and bargain collectively under Federal labor laws. OLMS also implements a federal transportation law by ensuring that workplace rights of mass transit employees will be protected whenever federal funds are used to acquire, improve, or operate a transit system.

OLMS Openness and Transparency

Employment and Training Administration (ETA)

The Employment and Training Administration (ETA) administers and oversees programs that prepare workers for good jobs at good wages by providing high quality job training, employment, labor market information, and income maintenance services through its national network of American Job Centers. The programs within ETA promote ladders of opportunity to economic independence for individuals and families. Through several laws, ETA is charged with administering numerous employment and training programs designed to assist the American worker in developing the knowledge, skills, and abilities sought in the 21st century's economy.

ETA Regulatory Review and Burden Reduction