State Plans Slowly Adopt New Federal OSHA Reporting Requirements
Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Beginning on January 1, 2015, employers in states with Federal OSHA jurisdiction were required to start reporting to OSHA work-related fatalities (that occur within 30 days of the work-related incident) within 8 hours of learning of the fatality, work-related in-patient hospitalizations, amputations and losses of an eye within 24 hours of the work-related incident.

However, those states that operate their own state OSHA program have until January 1, 2016 to implement the new requirements. To date, only four states have adopted and put into effect the new federal OSHA reporting requirements. These include:

  • North Carolina – effective January 1, 2015

  • Iowa – effective January 14, 2015

  • Tennessee – effective February 24, 2015

  • Indiana – effective March 1, 2015

Some other state plans have indicated that they are currently in the proposed rulemaking process and intend to adopt the new federal requirements relatively shortly. These include:

  • Minnesota – Agency’s intention is to adopt the new requirements by March 18, 2015 with an effective date of October 1, 2015.

  • New Mexico – A public hearing on the proposed rule to adopt the new reporting requirements is scheduled for May 15, 2015.

  • Oregon – The agency currently has an open comment period until March 11, 2015 and anticipates adopting the new requirements in March with an effective date of January 1, 2016.

  • Virginia – The bill to adopt the new requirements was submitted to Governor McAuliffe on February 26, 2015 for signature with an action deadline of March 30, 2015. The effective date is unclear.

  • Washington – A public hearing on the proposed rule to adopt the new reporting requirements is scheduled for March 27, 2015 and the agency intends to adopt the new requirements on May 5, 2015. However, the effective date is unclear.

Arizona has submitted a request to Governor Ducey to proceed with proposed rulemaking adopting the new reporting requirements and is currently waiting for a response from the Governor’s office. The remaining state plans are currently evaluating the new federal reporting requirements but have not indicated when they will adopt and implement them. To ensure compliance, employers are encouraged to continue to monitor the various state plans progress in adopting these new requirements.

 

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