Misguided OHSA Rule Permanently Repealed

Last Monday, the president repealed the OSHA “Volks” Rule by signing the congressional resolution of disapproval. 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 2016 – 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.

The signing of the congressional resolution of disapproval formally repeals the rule and any other substantially similar rules from OSHA in the future. This is the second labor and employment rule repealed by President Trump that AGC played an integral role in, the other being the bill invalidating the blacklisting regulations, which was signed into law on March 27.

For more information, contact Jim Young at youngj@agc.org or (202) 547-0133.