Advocacy

In comments to the Department of Transportation regarding FMCSA's proposed Alternative Vision Standard, ACOEM raises concerns regarding several aspects of the proposal including questions about what is stable vision and who is responsible for review of the driver's safety record. In addition, ACOEM expressed concern that the basis for the alternative vision standard is flawed.

Rep. Joe Courtney (D-CT) has reintroduced the Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act (H.R.1195). This bipartisan legislation is intended to protect caregivers from violence on the job. ACOEM has written Rep. Courtney to support his legislation, and is urging ACOEM members to do the same.
 

On February 8, 2021, ACOEM offered comments on President Biden’s Executive Order on Protecting Worker Health and Safety. Specifically, ACOEM urged OSHA to include precautionary removal protection in the Order, articulate explicit criteria for identifying an “outbreak,” and establish criteria for determining which workers require such protection.

ACOEM supports proposed legislation reintroduced by Senators Manchin and Capito which would require DOL to provide necessary protections for mine workers by working with operators and miners to address occupational exposures to COVID-19.

ACOEM has asked the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) to update its regulations addressing silica exposure in mine workers. Specifically, ACOEM asked MSHA to “rapidly act upon your August 29, 2019, Request for Information (RFI)” in which MSHA solicited information and data on “feasible, best practices to protect miners’ health from exposure to quartz in respirable dust, including an examination of an appropriately reduced permissible exposure limit, potential new or developing protective technologies, and/or technical and educational assistance.” In the letter, ACOEM recommends that MSHA “enact standards for respirable crystalline silica (not just quartz) for both coal mines and metal-non-metal mines.”

ACOEM applauds President-Elect Biden's recent Statement on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Occupational Safety and Health Act; expresses hope that this represents the beginning of the revitalization of OSHA.

ACOEM applauds President-Elect Biden's recent Statement on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Occupational Safety and Health Act; expresses hope that this represents the beginning of the revitalization of OSHA.

The American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine offered comments on Chapter 7: Health, wellbeing, and the changing structure of communities of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II Contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report.

On December 2, ACOEM extended its congratulations to President-elect Biden and expressed its hopes for the success of the new administration. In the letter, ACOEM offered to provide assistance to the new administration in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic,and urged that OSHA be directed to vigorously enforce existing standards and regulations.