Update Applicable to:
All employers in the state of Arizona
What happened?
On February 14, 2023, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced that it would withdraw its proposal to reconsider and revoke Arizona’s State Plan.
What are the details?
Arizona is one of 22 states and territories with its own State Plan covering private, state, and local government workers. State Plans are OSHA-approved job safety and health programs operated by individual states rather than federal OSHA. Although individual states run these State Plans, OSHA will monitor these State Plans to ensure that they are at least as effective as the federal OSHA program.
In April 2022, OSHA issued a proposed rule to revoke its final approval of Arizona’s State Plan according to Section 18(e) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. In support of this proposal, the agency detailed its past efforts to ensure that certain standards contained in the Arizona State Plan were at least as effective as federal OSHA standards. OSHA further alleged that the then-current penalty levels outlined in Arizona’s State Plan were not as effective as federal OSHA’s and that Arizona’s State Plan had not adopted the requirements outlined in federal OSHA’s June 21, 2021, COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) applicable to the healthcare industry.
In response, the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health (ADOSH) and the Industrial Commission of Arizona (ICA) submitted a comment outlining the measures they had taken to address OSHA’s concerns with their safety and health program. These measures included, among other things, adopting rules on beryllium in construction and shipyards, cranes and derricks in construction as well as railroad roadway work; passing recent legislation tying ADOSH penalties to corresponding federal OSHA penalties; passing additional legislation authorizing adoption of an ETS when either the ICA or OSHA deems the grave danger criteria met; and adopting the recordkeeping and COVID-19 log requirements in OSHA’s COVID-19 Healthcare ETS as a permanent standard.
Based on these representations, OSHA withdrew its proposal to reconsider the final approval status of Arizona’s State Plan. This means that the Arizona State Plan will remain in place, and ADOSH will continue to oversee the State’s safety and health program.
The withdrawal became effective on February 15, 2023.
For more information, please see the links below:
What do employers need to do?
Employers should review the links provided above and be on the lookout for any more news regarding proposals from OSHA.
