View Rule

The majority of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) Permissible Exposure Limits (PELs) were adopted in 1971, under section 6(a) of the 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agreement among industry, labor, and professional occupational safety and health organizations that OSHA's PELs are outdated and need revising in order to take into account newer scientific data that indicates that significant occupational health risks exist at levels below OSHA's current PELs. In 1989, OSHA issued a final standard that lowered PELs for over 200 chemicals and added PELs for 164. However, the final rule was challenged and ultimately vacated by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1991 citing deficiencies in OSHA's analyses. Since that time OSHA has made attempts to examine its outdated PELs in light of the court's 1991 decisions. On October 10, 2014, OSHA published a Request for Information to solicit comments from the public on approaches it may take to reduce the risk of developing illness caused by exposure to hazardous chemicals. On October 10, 2014, OSHA published a Request for Information (RFI) to broadly solicit comment from the public on regulatory and non-regulatory approaches it may take to reduce the risk of developing illness caused by exposure to hazardous chemicals.  The public record closed on October 19, 2015.  At this time, OSHA is withdrawing this entry from the agenda while it considers appropriate strategies to address management of chemical hazards in the workplace.