U.S. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin recently announced plans to review and reconsider several rules currently in place. These rules include:
- The 2024 Risk Management Plan (RMP) Rule – This rule was put in place to protect vulnerable communities from chemical accidents.
- National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) – The EPA set the primary (health-based) annual PM5 standard at 9.0 micrograms per cubic meter to provide increased public health protection in 2024. Particle pollution is one of the most dangerous forms of air pollution and can lead to a number of serious health problems including heart attacks and premature deaths.
- The definition of “waters of the United States” – Many Clean Water Act programs only apply to those bodies of water that fall under the definition of “waters of the United States,” so this definition impacts how the law is upheld.
The Trump Administration plans to review these rules in a move toward deregulation and to help ensure that American oil and gas refineries are competitive.
U.S. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin recently announced plans to review and reconsider several rules currently in place. These rules include:A new dashboard from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services uses data from federal OSHA to provide information about chemical exposure risk profiles for workers in different industries in the United States. The information displayed by the dashboard is based on industrial hygiene sampling data collected by OSHA compliance officers to monitor workers’ exposures to chemical hazards during agency investigations. The dashboard allows users to view the chemicals most frequently detected during OSHA inspections and to filter by factors including industry and health effects.
Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services explains that it extracted OSHA’s chemical exposure health data on a five-year rolling basis and linked that dataset to the Alphabetic Index of OSHA Occupational Chemical Database to obtain chemicals’ synonyms and Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) registry numbers. The dashboard excludes testing records such as blank samples, self-sampling records by OSHA compliance officers, and specific substances like combustible material, endotoxins, and ionizing radiation. Additional details about data selection can be found in the “technical notes” section on the department’s webpage for the dashboard.
The dashboard is featured in the March issue of NIOSH’s monthly e-newsletter along with other news from the agency’s partners. It is freely available via the Wisconsin Department of Health Services website.
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Information and resources about preventing hantavirus infection in the workplace are the focus of the Feb. 27 issue of Occupational Health Watch, the e-newsletter of the Occupational Health Branch of the California Department of Public Health (CDPH). The virus made headlines the following week, when officials in New Mexico announced hantavirus infection as the cause of death of classical pianist Betsy Arakawa, actor Gene Hackman’s wife.According to CDPH, workers whose tasks may expose them to rodents or rodent-infested areas could be at risk for exposure to hantavirus, which can cause a rare, potentially deadly lung disease called hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. In the western U.S., including California, deer mice infected with Sin Nombre virus, a type of hantavirus, are of particular concern. The virus spreads through contact with infected rodents, especially their urine, droppings, and saliva, and people can become infected by breathing air containing stirred-up particles of hantavirus from nests and droppings in areas where rodents have nested.
“The chances of this happening increase when opening or cleaning buildings in rural areas that have been closed for the winter where deer mice have entered, or for people working, playing, or living in closed spaces where mice are present,” CDPH explains.
Workers and others who must enter or inspect buildings, vehicles, and other spaces that have been closed for a while should air out the spaces for at least 30 minutes, leaving the area during that time, Occupational Health Watch states. CDPH reminds individuals to open both the hood and the trunk when airing out a vehicle. Personal protective equipment for cleaning areas infested by rodents should include rubber or plastic gloves and protective eyewear, and respiratory protection may be necessary for heavy infestations. Only wet-cleaning methods should be used to clean these spaces to avoid stirring up hantavirus in the air, CDPH says.
The department’s Hantavirus Occupational Health Toolkit provides further information regarding how to prevent hantavirus pulmonary syndrome in the workplace, how to identify and safely clean rodent-infested areas, how to prepare seasonally used buildings for closure, and how to safely open spaces to prevent exposure to hantavirus. The toolkit is intended for use by employers and workers as well as those who live in or manage properties where infected rodents may be present.
CDC also has webpages with information about hantavirus and controlling wild rodent infestations.
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