• Environmental

Workplace Health and Safety

Our extensive regulatory and litigation experience with environmental laws and the industries regulated by them has led our clients increasingly to turn to us for assistance relating to worker health and safety issues. Beveridge & Diamond, P.C.'s lawyers represent clients on a wide range of worker safety issues in both counseling and litigation contexts, particularly with respect to chemicals and processes regulated by environmental programs.

Our experience spans many years, both as in-house EH&S counsel and at Beveridge & Diamond. We have assisted clients on a range of compliance issues under the Occupational Safety and Health Act (the OSH Act), including lockout/tagout, confined space entry, building “red-tag” classifications, Hazard Communication, process safety management (PSM) evaluations and audits, whistle-blower claims, illness and injury prevention and pollutant-specific exposure standards. We counsel clients on preparing for and responding to inspections by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and in conducting OSH Act audits, and help clients develop and implement any necessary corrective actions. We have also represented clients in workplace compliance and injury enforcement proceedings, including administrative trials before OSHA. Our practice extends to advising clients regarding the interplay of Clean Air Act Title V permitting, Risk Management Plan coverage, and OSHA process safety management implementation.

The regulatory scrutiny of chemicals in the workplace will continue to increase in the near term. In early 2007, OSHA created a National Emphasis Program (NEP) to reduce and eliminate the workplace hazards associated with catastrophic releases of highly hazardous chemicals at petroleum refineries, which will entail inspections of most refineries by 2008. Other clients have been subject to rigorous investigations by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) following workplace incidents. The DOJ Environmental Crimes Division also recently renewed its initiative to prosecute workplace safety crimes through environmental statutes. New nanotechnology science as well as chemicals data gathered under the European REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemical Substances) Regulation may also be used as the basis for bringing new toxic tort claims based on chemicals exposures in the workplace.

Examples of specific past projects include:

• evaluating the OSH Act general duty clause, hazard communication and illness and injury prevention program obligations, including those that might be triggered by the production or use of nanoscale versions of chemicals whose bulk-scale counterparts have been used or produced in the workplace for many years;

• analyzing the hazard communication standard to determine whether an MSDS is required for a specific chemical, ultimately to assess whether a facility has triggered the EPCRA Section 311 and 312 reporting requirements;

• conducting OSHA compliance audits of manufacturing facilities, including consideration of privilege and audit amnesty issues;

• counseling companies regarding management response to workplace safety incidents;

• reviewing building demolition plans for compliance with asbestos and mold abatement and other health and safety requirements in New York and California;

• negotiating and, where necessary, successfully defending administrative enforcement actions;

• successfully defending whistle-blower claims;

• counseling clients regarding reporting obligations following workplace injury/death;

• developing litigation strategy in toxic tort cases using regulatory history of chemical-specific standards (e.g., PELs);

• advising clients on negotiating and complying with Title V permit provisions that incorporate PSM requirements;

• assisting clients in verifying OSHA recordkeeping and reporting obligations; and

• counseling clients within the high-tech industry on worker health issues related to workplace chemical exposure in light of OSHA requirements and potential toxic tort litigation.