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February 25, 2021 By Paul Serafini

Biden orders OSHA to consider Emergency Temporary Standard on COVID.

On his first day in office, President Biden signed an executive order which among other things, orders the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to consider whether an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) is required to address the COVID crisis.

An ETS carries the same status of other OSHA regulations, without having to go through the customary years-long rule making process.

Under the order, if OSHA determines that an ETS is necessary, they will only have until mid-March to promulgate it. Based on that fact alone, it would seem that any forthcoming rule would likely be fairly limited in scope, perhaps limited only to healthcare workers and first responders, and would likely include requirements with which most high-risk employers are already in compliance, such as use of masks or respirators, social distancing requirements, use of engineering controls such as barriers/partitions where possible, employee training, etc.

It’s also likely that a written exposure control plan would be mandated.

By law, an ETS may only be in effect for six months and would have to be replaced by a permanent standard.

Filed Under: COVID, OSHA Tagged With: Biden, COVID, Emergency Temporary STandard, ETS, Executive Order, OSHA

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