[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 123 (Wednesday, June 28, 2017)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 29261-29263]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2017-13550]
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DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
29 CFR Part 1904
[Docket No. OSHA-2013-0023]
RIN 1218-AD16
Improve Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses: Proposed
Delay of Compliance Date
AGENCY: Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Department of
Labor.
ACTION: Proposed rule; delay of compliance date.
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SUMMARY: On May 12, 2016, the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) published a rule entitled "Improve Tracking of
Workplace Injuries and Illnesses" with an effective date of January 1,
2017 for the final rule's electronic reporting requirements. The final
rule sets an initial deadline of July 1, 2017, as the date by which
certain employers are required to submit the information from their
completed 2016 Form 300A to OSHA electronically. This action proposes
to extend the initial submission deadline for 2016 Form 300A data to
December 1, 2017, to provide the new administration an opportunity to
review the new electronic reporting requirements prior to their
implementation and allow affected entities sufficient time to
familiarize themselves with the electronic reporting system, which will
not be available until August 1. The proposed five-month delay would be
effective on the date of publication of a final rule in the Federal
Register. OSHA also intends to issue a separate proposal to reconsider,
revise, or remove other provisions of the prior final rule. OSHA will
seek comment on those provisions in that separate proposal. In this
proposal, OSHA only seeks comment on the delay of the July 1, 2017
compliance date to December 1, 2017.
DATES: Written comments must be submitted (postmarked, sent, or
received) by July 13, 2017.
ADDRESSES:
Written comments. You may submit comments, identified by Docket No.
OSHA-2013-0023, by any of the following methods:
Electronically: You may submit comments and attachments
electronically at http://www.regulations.gov, which is the Federal e-
Rulemaking Portal. Follow the instructions online for making electronic
submissions. When uploading multiple attachments into Regulations.gov,
please number all of your attachments because http://www.regulations.gov will
not automatically number the attachments. This will be very useful in
identifying all attachments in the rulemaking docket. For example,
Attachment 1_title of your document, Attachment 2_title of your
document, Attachment 3_title of your document, etc. Specific
instructions on uploading all documents are found in the Facts, Answer,
Questions portion and the commenter check list on the Regulations.gov
Web page.
Fax: If your submissions, including attachments, are not longer
than 10 pages, you may fax them to the OSHA Docket Office at (202) 693-
1648.
Mail, hand delivery, express mail, messenger, or courier service:
You may submit your comments to the OSHA Docket Office, Docket No.
OSHA-2013-0023, Room N-3653, U.S. Department of Labor, 200 Constitution
Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20210; telephone (202) 693-2350 (TTY (887)
889-5627). OSHA's Docket Office accepts deliveries (hand deliveries,
express mail, and messenger/courier service) from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
e.t., weekdays.
Instructions: All submissions must include the Agency name and the
docket number for this rulemaking (Docket No. OSHA-2013-0023). All
comments, including any personal information you provide, are placed in
the public docket without change and may be made available online at:
http://www.regulations.gov. Therefore, OSHA cautions you not to submit
personal information such as Social Security numbers and birthdates.
Docket: To read or download comments and materials submitted in
response to this Federal Register notice, go to Docket No. OSHA-2013-
0023 at http://www.regulations.gov, or to the OSHA Docket Office at the
address above. All comments and submissions are listed in the http://www.regulations.gov
index; however, some information (e.g., copyrighted
material) is not publicly available to read or download through that
Web site. All comments and submissions are available for inspection at
the OSHA Docket Office.
Electronic copies of this Federal Register document are available
at http://www.regulations.gov. Copies also are available from the OSHA
Office of Publications, Room N-3101, U.S. Department of Labor, 200
Constitution Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20210; telephone (202) 693-
1888. This document, as well as news releases and other relevant
information, is also available at OSHA's Web site at http://www.osha.gov.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For press inquiries: Frank Meilinger,
Director, Office of Communications, Room N-3647, OSHA, U.S. Department
of Labor, 200 Constitution Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20210; telephone
(202) 693-1999; email meilinger.francis2@dol.gov.
For general and technical information: Miriam Schoenbaum, OSHA,
Office of Statistical Analysis, Room N-3507, U.S. Department of Labor,
200 Constitution Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20210; telephone (202) 693-
1841; email: schoenbaum.miriam@dol.gov
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
A. Background
On May 12, 2016, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration
(OSHA) published a rule entitled "Improve Tracking of Workplace
Injuries and Illnesses" with an effective date of January 1, 2017, for
the final rule's electronic reporting requirements (81 FR 29624). Under
these requirements, certain employers who were required to complete
Form 300A in 2016 must submit the information on the form to OSHA
electronically by July 1, 2017.
The Department proposes to delay the initial deadline for
electronic submission of 2016 300A data from July 1, 2017, to December
1, 2017. The data collection system was originally intended to launch
in February 2017. This would have given employers four months to submit
their data in time for the due date of July 1. However, the launch was
postponed. OSHA now expects to launch the data collection system by
August 1, and the proposed due date of December 1 will allow OSHA to
provide employers the same four-month window to electronically submit
their 2016 Form 300A data. This delay will also to provide the new
administration the opportunity to review the new electronic reporting
requirements prior to their implementation and allow affected entities
sufficient time to familiarize themselves with the electronic reporting
system, which will not be available until August 1. OSHA seeks comment
by July 13, 2017 on its proposal to extend the submission deadline by
five months to December 1, 2017. OSHA also intends to issue a separate
proposal to reconsider, revise, or remove other
provisions of the prior final rule. OSHA will seek comment on those
provisions in that separate proposal. In this proposal, OSHA only seeks
comment on the delay of the July 1, 2017 compliance date to December 1,
2017.
B. Preliminary Economic Analysis
OSHA is proposing to delay the implementation of the electronic
reporting requirements of the Improve Tracking of Workplace Injuries
and Illnesses rule by five months. By July 1, 2017, all establishments
were to electronically report their summary data (Form 300A). The
proposed new date for reporting is December 1, 2017. The cost savings
for this delay are $59,310, or $6,953 per year annualized at three
percent over the same 10-year period OSHA used in the initial
rulemaking. At a 7 percent discount rate, the cost savings of the
proposed delay are $134,689, or $19,177 per year annualized over 10
years.
These cost savings are calculated as follows. First, OSHA
subtracted costs not applicable to the proposed delay from the original
private-sector cost of the final rule. The subtracted costs include the
costs of familiarization and checking by unregulated establishments
(both of which would have taken place after the rule was published in
May 2016), the costs of the non-discrimination provision (which became
enforceable in 2016), and the costs of submission of case data (the
OSHA Log data) (which is not required until 2018). This yields a
private-sector cost of $4,845,365 per year, for the parts of the
original rule relevant to the proposed delay of the first year's
submission date from July 1, 2017, to December 1, 2017.
This cost represents the cost of electronically submitting the
required 2016 information from the OSHA Form 300A in 2017. The affected
employers have already gathered and recorded this information, as
required by a different section of Part 1904.
This proposed delay will only affect costs for this year (2017);
this proposal does not affect the deadlines for electronic submission
in subsequent years. Thus, the only cost savings associated with this
proposal are for delaying the deadline for the electronic submission of
previously-recorded data by five months, from July 1, 2017, to December
1, 2017.
The cost savings of the delay are estimated based on the interest
that can now be earned on the funds involved while the report for the
first year is delayed.\1\ At a 3 percent discount rate, this results in
a one-time cost savings of $59,310, or $6,953 per year annualized over
10 years. At a 7 percent discount rate, this results in a one-time cost
savings of $134,689, or $19,177 per year annualized over 10 years.
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\1\ The entire derivation is as follows: OSHA begins with a
current private sector cost of the original rule of $4,845,365 times
the discount rate value of the delay of (1+d[caret]-(5/12). OSHA
then subtracts this value (which is $4,786,055 at 3 percent) from
the full value of $4,845,365. This results in a difference of
$59,310, which can be annualized at 3 percent as $6,953.
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The Agency notes that it did not include an overhead labor cost in
the Final Economic Analysis (FEA) for this rule. It is important to
note that there is not one broadly accepted overhead rate and that the
use of overhead to estimate the marginal costs of labor raises a number
of issues that should be addressed before applying overhead costs to
analyze the costs of any specific regulation. There are several
approaches to look at the cost elements that fit the definition of
overhead, and there are a range of overhead estimates currently used
within the federal government--for example, the Environmental
Protection Agency has used 17 percent,\2\ and government contractors
have been reported to use an average of 77 percent.3 4 Some
overhead costs, such as advertising and marketing, may be more closely
correlated with output than with labor. Other overhead costs vary with
the number of new employees. For example, rent or payroll processing
costs may change little with the addition of 1 employee in a 500-
employee firm, but may change substantially with the addition of 100
employees. If an employer is able to rearrange current employees'
duties to implement a rule, then the marginal share of overhead costs
such as rent, insurance, and major office equipment (e.g., computers,
printers, copiers) would be very difficult to measure with accuracy
(e.g., computer use costs associated with two hours for rule
familiarization by an existing employee).
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\2\ Cody Rice, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "Wage
Rates for Economic Analyses of the Toxics Release Inventory
Program," June 10, 2002.
\3\ Grant Thornton LLP, 2015 Government Contractor Survey.
(https://www.grantthornton.com/~/media/content-page-files/public-sector/pdfs/surveys/2015/Gov-Contractor-Survey.ashx)
\4\ For further example of overhead cost estimates, please see
the Employee Benefits Security Administration's guidance at https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/ebsa/
laws-and-regulations/rules-and-regulations/technical-appendices/labor-cost-inputs-used-in-ebsa-opr-ria-and-pra-burden-calculations-august-2016.pdf.
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If OSHA had included an overhead rate when estimating the marginal
cost of labor, without further analyzing an appropriate quantitative
adjustment, and adopted for these purposes an overhead rate of 17
percent on base wages, as was done in a sensitivity analysis in the FEA
in support of OSHA's 2016 final rule on Occupational Exposure to
Respirable Crystalline Silica, the base wages would increase annualized
cost savings by approximately $1,822 per year using a 3 percent
discount rate and by $3,260 a year using a 7 percent discount rate.
(Note that all costs of this proposed rule are labor costs.)
As noted below, OSHA has stated that the data submission
requirements of the original final rule would lead employers to
increase workplace safety and health; although the costs of the safety-
and health-improving actions have not been quantified, the savings
associated with a delay of such costs would be analogous to those
calculated for quantified costs.
Table 1 summarizes the annualized and one-time cost savings.
Table 1--Annualized and One-Time Cost Savings \5\
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Annualized One time cost
Cost savings method savings savings
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3 Percent Discount Rate................. $6,953 $59,310
7 Percent Discount Rate................. 19,177 134,689
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\5\ All cost savings are in 2014 dollars. Costs are annualized
over ten years.
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OSHA did not quantify the benefits of the final rule. In the
economic analysis of the final rule, OSHA stated that the rule would
improve OSHA's ability to identify, target, and remove safety and
health hazards, thereby preventing workplace injuries, illnesses, and
deaths. In addition, OSHA stated that the data submission requirements
of the final rule would improve the quality of the information
submitted and lead employers to increase workplace safety and health.
OSHA also projected benefits associated with making the data publicly
available. OSHA does not believe this relatively brief delay in initial
submissions would have any effect on these benefits; however, because
of the lack of quantification, there is some uncertainty as to what the
impact will be. Other aspects of the final rule that OSHA determined
would produce benefits, such as the non-discrimination provision and
the collection of case characteristic data (OSHA Forms 300, 301) from
establishments with 250 or more
employees, would not be altered by this proposed action.
This delay of five months is both economically and technologically
feasible. The delay meets both criteria of feasibility because the
original rule was economically and technologically feasible without a
five-month delay.
OSHA has considered whether this proposed change will have a
significant economic impact on small firms. As a result of these
considerations, in accordance with Sec. 605 of the Regulatory
Flexibility Act, OSHA certifies that this proposed rule will not have a
significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities.
Thus, OSHA did not prepare an initial regulatory flexibility analysis
or conduct a SBREFA Panel.
Consistent with EO 13771 (82 FR 9339, February 3, 2017), OSHA has
estimated the annualized cost savings over 10 years for this proposed
rule to range from $6,953 to $19,177, depending on the discount rate.
Therefore, this proposed rule, if finalized, is expected to be an EO
13771 deregulatory action.
C. Paperwork Reduction Act
This Notice of Proposed Rulemaking does not propose changes to the
information collections already approved by OMB under control number
1218-0176.
Signed at Washington, DC, on June 22, 2017.
Dorothy Dougherty,
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health.
[FR Doc. 2017-13550 Filed 6-27-17; 8:45 am]
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