iThe Department of Labor is turning to the public once again for suggestions on which of its existing regulations administered department-wide should be revised or repealed.
In a request for information (RFI), DOL said it would accept comments from the public through February 25 on how its significant regulations could be improved by modernizing, modifying, redesigning, streamlining, expanding, or repealing them. “This request for public input will inform development of the Department’s future plans to review its existing significant regulations,” DOL said.
DOL offers a series of questions individuals should consider when they respond. The questions make clear DOL seeks comment not only on regulations, but also on guidance and interpretative documents, and reporting requirements.
“The Department is especially interested in candidates for review for which there is evidence of rapid technological change in a sector that could influence the structure and need for the regulation, whether the chosen regulatory approach will impose large ongoing costs on regulated entities, whether the agency is regulating in an area of significant uncertainty that may be lowered with a future retrospective study, and other similar conditions,” DOL said. Commenters are instructed to confine remarks to items not currently on the department’s regulatory agenda.
DOL had issued a request for information for regulatory review suggestions in 2011, and received 100 individual recommendations from more than 900 respondents. That eventually led DOL to develop what it calls a Plan for Retrospective Analysis of Existing Rules. The latest iteration of the plan, dated August 2014, lists eight OSHA actions undergoing regulatory review and one from MSHA that deals with updating the mine safety agency’s criteria and procedures for assessment of civil penalties. The OSHA initiatives address blood-borne pathogens, national consensus standards, mechanical power presses, unnecessary or duplicative provisions or paperwork requirements primarily in construction, cranes and derricks in construction, chemical management and permissible exposure limits, and improving tracking of workplace injuries and illnesses.
