Awaits President’s Signature
This week, the Senate followed the House in passing a bill that repeals the OSHA “Volks” Rule and it now heads to the president’s desk where he is expected to sign it into law. AGC led a lobbying effort in passing the bill and issued a statement after the vote that the bill will preserve worker safety while protecting the constitution and respecting court rulings.
At the heart of the Volks matter was an Obama Administration OSHA rule issued in December that exposed employers to unfair liability for honest and inadvertent paperwork mistakes related to recordkeeping. The rule extended the statute of limitations on recordkeeping violations from six months to five and a half years, and did nothing to improve the safety or health of a company’s workers. The rule was initially issued by OSHA to circumvent a court decision involving a construction company that challenged an OSHA citation for a recordkeeping violation issued beyond six months. Two federal courts have since rebuked OSHA’s theory for issuing recordkeeping citations after six months.
For more information, contact Jim Young at [email protected] or (202) 547-0133.