The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) yesterday published a 2014 Budget Justification to make its case for an upcoming fiscal 2014 budget of $570,519,000.
The justification cited a recent Science magazine article that claimed safety inspections result in safer workplaces and save companies' big dollars in workers' compensation costs. The Justification specified that “the average employer saved $355,000 (in 2011 dollars) as a result of an OSHA inspection.”
On the rule-making front, the Justification requested an additional $2 million for these initiatives, among others:
OSHA projects that it will issue four Final Rules (Infectious Disease, Recordkeeping Modernization, Beryllium, and Vertical Tandem Lifts), seven Notices of Proposed Rulemaking (Standards Improvement Project Phase IV, Infectious Disease, Injury and Illness Prevention Programs, Combustible Dust, Backover Protection, and two consensus standard update actions), and initiate SBREFA reviews for five rules (Combustible Dust, Backover Protection, one chemical standard, and two other initiatives).