Following its scathing rebuke of Nevada’s Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) program in 2009, Federal OSHA launched a review of all 27 states that administer their own OSH programs and has now released the results.
The EFAME (Enhanced Federal Annual Monitoring and Evaluation) reports provide details of the problems and cover fiscal year 2009. Most problems are minor instances where the states fail to keep records as they should or haven’t updated their regulations in a timely manner.
The issue of Nevada aside, New Mexico came out with a stellar review while Hawaii was found to be somewhat lacking in funds and resources. OSHA officials say they are working with the Hawaii "governor’s office" to address the deficiencies. The report was critical of HIOSH (Hawaii OSH) for both long delays in investigating complaints and for the overall declining number of investigations conducted statewide.
"Our goal is to identify problems in state-run programs before they result in serious injuries or fatalities," OSHA Administrator David Michaels said. "While we found many positives in the state programs, we also found deficiencies including concerns about identification of hazards, proper classification of violations, proposed penalty levels, and failure to follow up on violations to ensure that workplace safety and health problems are corrected."
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