OSHA looking to expand powers over recordkeeping

OSHA is seeking to significantly expand its powers over recordkeeping by effectively adding five years to the time it can issue citations.

A 2012 decision by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia affirmed that OSHA has six months under its statute of limitations to issue a citation for alleged recordkeeping violations. But in its Spring 2014 Regulatory Agenda, OSHA said it would be offering up a rule that would effectively extend that period to five and a half years.

Employers are currently required to preserve injury and illness records for five years. As Mark S. Dreux and Matt Thorne of the Arent Fox law firm explained in an article, what OSHA wants to do with the new rule is to say that every day that an improper record is filed during those five years, the six-month clock starts running again.

“OSHA could rightfully cite an employer for an uncorrected recordkeeping violation five years and six months after its occurrence,” Dreux and Thorne write.

They also point out that the new rule could impact other areas of OSHA enforcement, such as OSHA’s Process Safety Management (PSM) standard, which also contains recordkeeping provisions.