Reshaping regulations

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration held informal public hearings about its proposed heat injury and illness prevention standard June 16 through July 2. NRCA testified alongside other construction industry stakeholders, expressing concerns about the rule’s feasibility, particularly for small- and mid-sized businesses.

As NRCA’s vice president of enterprise risk management, I delivered testimony, emphasizing the unique demands of roofing work and the need for a flexible, risk-based approach to heat safety. My testimony pointed out several key issues with the proposed rule, including the burdensome requirements for continuous monitoring, rigid heat trigger thresholds that fail to account for regional climates and an overall lack of adaptability for diverse job-site conditions.

NRCA urges OSHA to adopt a performance-based standard that allows employers to implement heat safety measures appropriate to their specific work environments instead of prescriptive mandates. The association highlighted successful industry practices—such as voluntary heat stress training, access to water and rest breaks, and site-specific hazard assessments—as more practical and effective strategies.

NRCA urges OSHA to adopt a performance-based standard that allows employers to implement heat safety measures appropriate to their specific work environments instead of prescriptive mandates

NRCA’s testimony underscored the roofing industry’s long-standing commitment to heat safety and proactive risk management. The organization reaffirmed its willingness to work collaboratively with OSHA to develop a reasonable and effective standard. NRCA will submit post-hearing comments by the Sept. 30 deadline, addressing OSHA’s follow-up questions and reinforcing recommendations.

Rulemaking changes

Effective July 1, as part of the Trump administration’s broader deregulatory initiative to reduce unnecessary government procedures and increase efficiency, numerous deregulatory actions and procedural changes to the regulatory and rulemaking process across many federal departments and agencies were announced in the Federal Register.

The Department of Labor advanced more than 60 proposals to eliminate or revise workplace safety regulations considered outdated, duplicative or unnecessarily inflexible. OSHA has issued Notices of Proposed Rulemaking affecting 26 standards with several notable changes related to construction.

Advisory committee

OSHA has revoked construction advisory regulations, removing procedural requirements that previously required DOL’s assistant secretary for occupational safety and health to consult with the Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health for construction standards rulemaking. The final rule reduces the size of the committee from 15 members to nine, aiming to streamline the rulemaking process for construction standards and alleviate administrative burdens and delays. The committee can still advise the assistant secretary for occupational safety and health but without impeding the agency’s regulatory agenda.

Recording and reporting

OSHA has formally withdrawn the proposal to revise the OSHA 300 Log and add a column employers would use to record work-related musculoskeletal disorders, concluding it would not provide additional, meaningful information. This decision does not alter the criteria or definitions for recording injuries and illnesses and retains all employer obligations for injury and illness record keeping.

Respiratory protection

OSHA has proposed removing the medical evaluation requirement for workers wearing filtering facepiece respirators and loose-fitting powered air-purifying respirators. Medical evaluations for other types of respirators, such as tight-fitting or supplied-air respirators, would remain unchanged. This proposed change is expected to create cost savings for employers while reducing regulatory burden.

In addition, OSHA is proposing revisions to respirator provisions for its lead standard to align the substance-specific standard with the general Respiratory Protection standard, 29 CFR 1910.134, allowing employers more flexibility in respirator selection. It would also remove overly prescriptive requirements, such as mandatory use of full-facepiece respirators or high-efficiency particulate air filters where equally protective alternatives exist.

Similar to the lead standards, OSHA also is proposing to revise respirator-related provisions for its asbestos standard where they are unnecessarily prescriptive, which would result in employers having greater flexibility in the respirators they select for exposed workers while providing equivalent worker protection.

For example, the revisions would enable employers to select respirators based on assigned protection factors and eliminate requirements for specific respirator types. OSHA’s prohibitions regarding the use of filtering facepiece respirators for asbestos would remain unless evidence supports the adequacy of their use. The proposed standard is intended to account for modern knowledge and technology and to streamline the selection of respirators.

Construction Illumination Standard

OSHA proposes to remove from the Code of Federal Regulations OSHA’s Construction Illumination Standard, 29 CFR 1926.26 and 1926.56. OSHA’s Construction Illumination Standard requires construction areas, aisles, stairs, ramps, runways, corridors, offices, shops and storage areas where work is in progress be illuminated with either natural or artificial light. The minimum illumination requirements for work areas are contained in Subpart D, 29 CFR 1926.56. OSHA proposes removal of the standard because it has determined it is not “reasonably necessary or appropriate” under section 3(8) of the OSH Act 29 U.S.C. 652 because it does not reduce a significant risk to workers.

What’s ahead

NRCA will continue to remain engaged with these rulemaking proposals and potential changes and provide updates as they become available. Additional information regarding Federal Register notices about deregulatory actions is available at federalregister.gov.