Chemical Makers, Employers Brace for OSHA HazCom Rule (Correct)

OSHA’s latest update to its rules on communicating chemical hazards—or HazCom, for short—is receiving pushback from chemical manufacturers that say the new standard contains an overly complex requirement for flagging downstream dangers to employers that use the substances.

Under the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s new rule, chemical manufacturers and importers must list on warning labels the chemical reactions and dangers that occur when the chemical is mixed with other compounds.

“The effort that would be required to determine all the downstream reactions” that might be involved with a particular chemical “is absurd,” said attorney Lawrence Halprin, a ...