Updating OSHA's Permissible Exposure Limits

Background: American workers are exposed to hundreds of thousands of chemicals and chemical mixtures every year. Initial exposure limit setting capabilities were given to OSHA under the authority of section 6(a) of the OSH Act, which provided the Agency with a two-year window to adopt existing federal or national consensus standards. OSHA adopted approximately 400 PELs for airborne contaminants many of which were based on science of the 1950's and ‘60s. Since that many of OSHA's exposure limits are still based on these values, and there is a consensus among the public health community that these PELs are woefully out of date. Traditional rulemaking has been ineffective, and the Agency has only been able to set standards for about 30 chemicals through establishing comprehensive health standards.

Methods: Various alternatives, including both rulemaking and non-rulemaking approaches are being examined to determine how the Agency can address its outdated PELs and develop a better approach to chemical hazard management. OSHA has reached out to stakeholders and experts from other agencies, labor unions, and the private sector and has solicited input from the public for nominations for the chemicals they believe are of most concern for workers.

Conclusions: The information and data collected by the OSHA will provide a better understanding of the options available to improve worker protections from the chemical hazards they encounter everyday. Such efforts will need to include a broad array of both short and long term approaches.