[Senate Hearing 108-538]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 108-538
HAZARD COMMUNICATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY WORKFORCE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMPLOYMENT, SAFETY, AND TRAINING
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION,
LABOR, AND PENSIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
ON
EXAMINING HAZARD COMMUNICATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY WORKPLACE, FOCUSING
ON STEPS THAT THE OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION (OSHA)
IS TAKING TO IMPROVE IMPLEMENTATION OF OSHA'S HAZARD COMMUNICATION
STANDARD
__________
MARCH 25, 2004
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions
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COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS
JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire, Chairman
BILL FRIST, Tennessee EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee TOM HARKIN, Iowa
CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland
MIKE DeWINE, Ohio JAMES M. JEFFORDS (I), Vermont
PAT ROBERTS, Kansas JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico
JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama PATTY MURRAY, Washington
JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada JACK REED, Rhode Island
LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina
JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York
Sharon R. Soderstrom, Staff Director
J. Michael Myers, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
______
Subcommittee on Employment, Safety, and Training
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming, Chairman
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee PATTY MURRAY, Washington
CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
PAT ROBERTS, Kansas TOM HARKIN, Iowa
JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama JAMES M. JEFFORDS (I), Vermont
Ilyse W. Schuman, Staff Director
William Kamela, Minority Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
__________
STATEMENTS
THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 2004
Page
Hon. Enzi, Michael B., a U.S. Senator from the State of Wyoming,
opening statement.............................................. 1
Hon. Murray, Patty, a U.S. Senator from the State of Washington,
opening statement.............................................. 4
Henshaw, John L., Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and
Health, U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, DC............... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 8
Grumbles, Thomas G., President, American Industrial Hygiene
Association; Jon Hanson, Director of Safety, Wyoming Medical
Center, Casper, WY; Anne Jackson, Corporate Safety Director,
Pepperidge Farm, on behalf of the American Bakers Association;
Michele R. Sullivan, Chairman of the Board of Directors,
Society for Chemical Hazard Communication; and Michael J.
Wright, Director of Health, Safety and Environment, United
Steelworkers of America........................................ 18
Prepared statements of:
Thomas Grumbles.......................................... 20
Jon Hanson............................................... 26
Anne Jackson............................................. 42
Michele Sullivan......................................... 48
Michael Wright........................................... 54
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.:
Letter to Senator Enzi from Ron Hayes........................ 4
Questions of Senator Murray for OSHA......................... 6
Studies submitted by Senator Murray:
Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich, March 2004 Oversight
Report--OSHA's Failure to Monitor and Enforce Asbestos
Regulations in Auto Repair Shops....................... 63
Asbestos in Brakes: Exposure and Risk of Disease......... 72
The Asbestos Cancer Epidemic............................. 81
American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE).................. 86
International Truck and Engine Corporation (ITEC)............ 91
Carolyn W. Merritt........................................... 92
Karan Singh.................................................. 95
(iii)
HAZARD COMMUNICATION IN THE 21st CENTURY WORKPLACE
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THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 2004
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Employment, Safety and Training, of the
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m., in
room SD-430, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Michael B.
Enzi (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Senators Enzi and Murray.
Opening Statement of Senator Enzi
Senator Enzi. I will go ahead and call to order this
hearing before the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and
Pensions, specifically, the Subcommittee on Employment, Safety
and Training, for a hearing on ``Hazardous Communication in the
21st Century Workplace.''
I want to begin by thanking the witnesses for participating
in this important hearing.
Hazardous chemicals pervade the 21st century workplace. An
estimated 650,000 hazardous chemical products are now used in
over 3 million workplaces across the country. Every day, more
than 30 million American workers will be exposed to hazardous
chemicals on the job. Whether or not they return home safely at
the end of the day depends on their awareness of these hazards
and appropriate precautionary measures.
Communication is the key to protecting the safety and
health of these 30 million workers. However, the protection is
only as effective as the communication. Twenty years ago, the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, adopted
the Hazard Communication Standard. The stated purpose of the
rule is to ensure that the hazards of all chemicals produced or
imported are evaluated and the information concerning their
hazards is transmitted to employers and employees.
Material Safety Data Sheets are the cornerstone of hazard
communication. OSHA's rule provides a generic framework for
hazard communication. With over 650,000 chemicals in use and
tens of thousands of chemical manufacturers, the content and
format of the Material Safety Data Sheets varies widely.
At least three different parties are involved in hazard
communication. There is the chemical manufacturer, the
employer, and the worker. Safety and health professionals and
first responders are also often involved. Each of these parties
has a different perspective, different resources, and quite
frequently usually speaks a different language.
Within OSHA's generic framework for hazard communication,
clarity, consistency and accuracy get lost in the translation.
The chemical manufacturer might prepare the Material Safety
Data Sheet with an eye toward the courtroom or the laboratory--
usually not the factory floor.
Workers should not need a Ph.D. in biochemistry to know how
to protect themselves against hazardous materials. The
complexity of Material Safety Data Sheets and hazard
communication creates a particular problem for small business
and their workers. With limited resources, many small
businesses do not have the expertise to develop or interpret
Material Safety Data Sheets. Small businesses want to promote
the safety of their workers; they just need some assistance in
doing so.
I can speak from personal experience about the problems
Material Safety Data Sheets pose for small business. There are
a number of reports that have also called into question the
quality of the Material Safety Data Sheets. A 1991 study
commissioned by OSHA found that only 11 percent of the Material
Safety Data Sheets examined were entirely accurate. That same
year, the General Accounting Office issued a report that found
that a substantial number--52 percent--of employers surveyed
were not in compliance with OSHA's Hazard Communication
Standard. More recently, the Chemical Safety and Hazard
Investigation Board has investigated and issued reports on 19
chemical accidents that killed or injured workers since 1998.
In a total of nine cases, inadequate communication of hazards
to workers or contractors was found to be a root or
contributing cause of the accident.
Twenty years after the Hazard Communication Standard was
published, it is time for review. It is time to heed the call
of workers and employers alike for more clarity, consistency,
accuracy and guidance.
Over the years, I have had the great fortune to work with
Ron Hayes on improving the safety and health of American
workers. Ron was not able to testify today, but he wrote me a
letter that I would like to submit for the record.
He writes that: ``Other standards cover many issues for the
workers, but Material Safety Data Sheet paperwork is used
millions of times each work day, and the accuracy of these
sheets is of paramount importance for the complete protection
of our most important resource--our great American workers.''
Ron, of course, counsels people who have lost family
members in industrial accidents. He himself lost his son in a
grain elevator accident, and he has become a dedicated worker
to making sure that people are safe on the job.
In the 20 years since the Hazard Communication Standard was
adopted, the American workplace has changed dramatically. Our
economy has become more increasingly global. The chemical
industry is one of the United States' largest exporting
sectors. The manner in which other countries regulate hazardous
chemicals impacts and affects American manufacturers' ability
to compete in the global marketplace.
The preamble to OSHA's 1983 Hazard Communication Standard
included a commitment by the agency to pursue international
harmonization of such communication. In 2002, the United
Nations adopted the Globally Harmonized System for
Classification and Labeling of Chemicals. The Globally
Harmonized System is designed to improve the quality of hazard
communication by establishing standardized requirements for
hazard evaluation, safety data sheets, and labels.
The Globally Harmonized System has the potential to address
significant concerns with current hazard communication. Whether
the United States adopts it cannot be decided by OSHA alone.
Other agencies and key stakeholders in the hazard communication
must also be involved.
As the economy becomes increasingly global, and with worker
safety at stake, this consideration cannot be delayed or made
lightly. Some day, these Material Safety Data Sheets will be
electronic for faster look-up and ease of answering questions
with Blackberry-type devices doing all of the calculations. The
sheets will even be updated daily and be wireless.
Of course, tomorrow is already here thanks to a Wyoming
company spelled, P-E-A-C, pronounced PEAC, that we know has
simplicity and uniformity. I used to work with these sheets as
an accountant for an oil well servicing company, and I
mentioned that if they had more safety training, they could
save money, and they said, ``Do it.'' And I said, ``I am an
accountant; I do not do safety.''
They said, ``Well, you know more about it than anybody
else, because nobody has recommended that.''
So they paid me to do some safety, and the Material Safety
Data Sheets was one of the real problems. They came in a book
that was about that thick, and we used red notebooks so they
were more easily found in time of a crisis. But I showed people
how to read those and use those and really felt fortunate if I
could just get them to find the notebook at all.
It is a terrible problem, and it is extremely complicated
once they have a problem. They are always a little bit jittery
and panicked, and they need easy information quickly to be able
to solve the problem. They do not need a huge range of
calculations that they have to recall or even try to follow on
a sheet.
So this is one of the ways that we can save lives most
easily if we do the job right.
I would like to read another statement from Ron Hayes, who
I mentioned could not be here today--he had an operation
recently. He writes that: ``Education and information is the
key. Please help me make the changes that will protect all of
our workers all of the time.''
I could not agree more that education and information is
the key to workplace safety. Those of you who know Ron know
about his determination and commitment to the safety and health
of American workers. We must rise to the challenge that he
sets.
[Letter from Mr. Hayes follows:]
March 15, 2004.
Hon. Michael B. Enzi,
United States Senate,
Washington DC.
Dear Senator Enzi: Honorable Senators, staff, and witnesses, it is
an honor for me to have a small part in this most important hearing on
Hazard Communication (MSDS). I am very proud to have worked with you
great statesmen over the years to better safety and health for our
great American workers. Your work today in this hearing could be the
most important advancement of OSHA's mission ever undertaken and more
importantly provide guidance, leadership and much needed closer
oversight to a slow moving, backward agency.
No other standard or regulation in OSHA's responsibility covers or
protects workers as much as the Hazard Communication standard does and
especially the MSDS section of this standard. MSDS effects every worker
everyday on every job. Other standards cover many issues for the
workers but the MSDS paperwork is used millions of times each workday,
and the accuracy of these sheets are of paramount importance for the
complete protection of our most important resource--our great American
workers.
These men and women work and toil everyday to bring a better way of
life for us all, they deserve to go home safe and sound everyday, to
have the opportunity to live a long and happy life, free of injury and
sickness. No one should die, be hurt or made sick at work.
I can only pray that you will be so moved by God today, to make the
much needed changes to this problem and find new ways to make sure all
MSDS sheets are readable, understandable, and correct. Education and
information is the key, please help make the changes that will protect
all of our workers all the time.
Please forgive me for being absent today but I look forward to
working with you and this great committee in the future. I know in my
heart you will do the right thing today and am confident new changes
and new protection will come from this hearing. God bless, and thank
you for your courageous stand for all American workers.
Yours,
Ron Hayes.
______
Senator Enzi. I appreciate the witnesses being here today.
I will turn now to the ranking member.
Opening Statement of Senator Murray
Senator Murray. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I
want to commend you for calling this hearing to make sure that
workers and employers have the most accurate and complete
information on the hazards associated with the chemicals that
they use on their jobs.
I also want to thank Mike Wright from United Steelworkers
of America for making the trip down from Pittsburgh to be with
us this morning.
Mr. Chairman, under your leadership, we were able to
develop a bipartisan approach to the reauthorization of the
Workforce Investment Act. You have my commitment to work with
you again on a bipartisan basis to adopt a solution which many
experts around the world have spent years developing--a
globally harmonized system for classifying and labeling
chemicals.
I believe that we have a real opportunity to again forge a
bipartisan consensus, and I hope that our subcommittee will
move quickly to adopt a globally harmonized approach to
chemical safety. I believe such a system will benefit both
employers and workers because a trained and informed work force
is essential to a good safety and health program.
This approach will also be crucial to the ongoing economic
success of any business or industry, especially small
businesses, which are becoming increasingly frustrated with
confusing and misleading safety information they receive.
In the Tri-Cities in Washington State, we have an ongoing
example of the critical importance of providing workers with
the most accurate information available on the dangers of the
chemicals they work with. We are still struggling with the
clean-up of the Hanford nuclear waste site, and as more work is
done on the site's tank farms, workers are being exposed to new
dangers from the vapors in the tanks. OSHA does not have
jurisdiction in that case, leaving the Department of Energy
with the responsibility for providing adequate warnings to
workers. Workers on site are currently experiencing a number of
troubling medical problems. The private contractors involved in
the clean-up have a set of incentives which push them to limit
the number of work days lost from exposure.
I would like to work with OSHA to see how the agency's
expertise could be helpful to the DOE and the thousands of
workers who are currently at risk in my State.
I do want to commend OSHA on the positive steps it has
taken on this issue, including forming a partnership with the
Society for Chemical Hazard Communications, and for its recent
hazard communication initiative. I hope that as OSHA moves
forward, the agency will take into account the views of workers
and the public, and not just the chemical suppliers.
OSHA must also solicit the input of small businesses that
often do not have the technical expertise on site to wade
through the often complex and confusing Material Safety Data
Sheets that they receive.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, I hope that OSHA will be more
responsive to Members of Congress on issues of concern to their
constituents. As you know, I have been leading the fight in
Congress to ban the production and importation of asbestos.
OSHA has had a very poor track record of enforcing asbestos
regulations in the workplace over the last 30 years. Auto
repair workers are particularly vulnerable. Several months ago,
I wrote to the EPA and OSHA on their intent to reexamine the
Gold Book Guidance for Brake Mechanics. After a number of
months, I finally received a response from OSHA, but it is
inadequate at best.
As part of this hearing record, I will be submitting
several questions to OSHA on issues related to the enforcement
of asbestos regulations, and I hope that the assistant
secretary will provide more timely responses to my questions
and that he will work with my office to make the enforcement of
workplace asbestos regulations a priority for OSHA.
Again, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your efforts, and I look
forward to working with you as we move forward together on this
critical issue.
As you know, I have three hearings at the same time this
morning, so I will not be able to stay, but I will be
submitting my questions for the record, and I appreciate the
opportunity to be here this morning.
Senator Enzi. I thank you for your cooperativeness on this
hearing and all others, and the way that you so diligently work
on the pieces of legislation so that we can come up with
solutions. I appreciate your recognition that the solution is
where we are trying to go.
So thank you for being here.
Senator Murray. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared questions of Senator Murray follow:]
Questions of Senator Murray for OSHA
Numerous research opinions and findings by scientists, government
agencies, and international organizations have agreed that asbestos
exposure from brake servicing is a mortal hazard.
Question 1. How does OSHA weigh this considerable scientific
evidence against the published positions of General Motors, Chrysler,
Ford and their expert witnesses?
Question 2. Does OSHA reaffirm its policy expressed in their
current 1994 asbestos standard requirements that brake mechanics are at
risk of asbestos diseases, including cancer from their exposure to
asbestos?
Question 3. Does OSHA believe that dust control safeguards and
worker education programs are needed--especially given the significant
imports of asbestos brake parts into the US?
Question 4. What evidence if any does OSHA have that mechanics
doing brake work in typical service stations are taking any more
precautions now than they were 30 years ago to reduce/eliminate
airborne asbestos dust from grinding, beveling, and blow-out with
compressed air?
Question 5. Why doesn't OSHA propose a ban on the use of asbestos
by industry?
Question 6. What regulatory steps and or other actions is OSHA
contemplating to encourage the use of substitutes for asbestos in
brakes and other uses of asbestos?
Question 7. Could OSHA please provide me with the measures of
exposures for asbestos for the years from 1990 on?
Question 8. Has OSHA contemplated a warning label survey of
asbestos-containing friction products, especially from countries like
Mexico, Colombia, China, Canada and Brazil where the volume of export
of products that contain asbestos have been rising into the US?
[Response to questions were not available at print time.]
Senator Enzi. Our first panelist today is Mr. John Henshaw,
who is the Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and
Health.
Assistant Secretary Henshaw will discuss OSHA's review of
hazard communication issues involving Material Safety Data
Sheets. He will also discuss OSHA's recently announced Hazard
Communication Initiative.
I want to thank you for all of your efforts on behalf of
the workers across the country and look forward to your
testimony.
Mr. Henshaw.
STATEMENT OF JOHN L. HENSHAW, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR
OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR,
WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Henshaw. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to discuss the
steps that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is
taking to improve the implementation of OSHA's Hazard
Communication Standard.
I would also like to thank the chairman for holding this
hearing to help draw attention to this important safety and
health issue.
Our goal is to adapt hazard communication to the workplaces
of the 21st century, and OSHA is doing that through this new
initiative that I recently announced and will describe in just
a moment.
More than 30 million workers in this country are exposed to
hazardous chemicals in their work environment. To protect these
workers, OSHA adopted the Hazard Communication Standard, which
I will refer to as the HCS, in November of 1983, as you
mentioned, Mr. Chairman.
The HCS covers about 650,000 hazardous chemical products in
over 3 million work establishments across this country. The
standard requires chemical manufacturers and importers to
evaluate the hazards of chemicals that they produce and
distribute.
The HCS also requires information about hazards and
protective measures to be disseminated on container labels and
Material Safety Data Sheets.
Over the past 20 years, OSHA has reviewed the enforcement
of its Hazard Communication Standard and modified its practices
and guidance to the regulated community to reflect these
lessons learned over the last 20 years. In response to concerns
about the accuracy of MSDSs used in the American work force,
Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao asked me to review the current
requirements under the Hazard Communication Standard and
recommend any needed changes.
Following an extensive review of the Hazard Communication
Standard, OSHA has concluded that changes in the text of the
Hazard Communication Standard are not needed at this time to
improve the accuracy of MSDSs. Inaccuracies arise from failure
to comply with the existing requirements under the Hazard
Communication Standard.
To address the inaccuracies and concerns raised about the
quality of hazard information presented to employers and
employees, OSHA has announced a new Hazard Communication
Initiative. There are three components to the program--number
one, compliance assistance, including additional guidance
materials, a new portal on OSHA's website, and added outreach
and education through new alliances.
The second component is enforcement, and number three would
be consideration of adopting the Global Harmonization System
for Classification and Labeling of Chemicals, or the GHS system
that you referred to, Mr. Chairman.
Now let me explain these. OSHA has developed three guidance
documents to improve the Hazard Communication Standard or
compliance with the HCS. The first is a guide on performing a
hazard determination under the requirements of the Hazard
Communication Standard. The second document is a model training
program which will provide employers with information on how to
train their employees to understand the hazards identified on
the labels as well as the MSDSs and, more important and
appropriately, take appropriate cautions to prevent adverse
effects.
The third document is to guide the manufacturers and
importers on how to prepare the MSDSs, and we will provide
assistance on how to write clear and complete MSDSs, using the
suggested format.
To assist us in our compliance assistance and outreach
efforts, last October, OSHA signed an alliance with a group
that is testifying here today, called the Society of Chemical
Hazard Communication. This organization is working with us to
develop a short course on the preparation of MSDSs directed
primarily to small businesses that prepare MSDSs, as well as a
number of other joint projects we have underway with other
organizations to help us with communication to small businesses
and others around the requirements under hazard communication.
We will continue to focus our enforcement on hazard
communication and ensuring that it is properly implemented in
workplaces across the country.
While violations of the Hazard Communication Standard
provisions are often cited during inspections, the accuracy of
information has not been the focus of these citations most
recently. Under the new initiative, however, OSHA will notify
manufacturers in writing of critical deficiencies or
inaccuracies on selected MSDSs. Manufacturers will be required
to correct and update these MSDSs as a result. They will then
have to respond back to OSHA and inform the agency of the steps
taken to correct and update these data sheets. Those
manufacturers who fail to respond or do not update their MSDSs
can potentially be cited under the Hazard Communication
Standard.
OSHA has a great deal of hazard communication information
available on its website. We have established a portal page now
to consolidate this information and allow access directly from
OSHA's home page. This will make it easier for the public and
especially small businesses to find the information needed on
hazard communication and find the guidance and compliance
assistance material involved in developing MSDSs and complying
with the standard.
In the long-term, global harmonization of chemical
information and labeling will improve communication of chemical
risk. Standardized presentation of information on labels and
MSDSs through the industrialized world can address many of the
concerns about comprehensibility of chemical hazard
information.
To increase awareness of the GHS, OSHA is preparing a guide
on the classification and labeling system that was adopted by
the United Nations in December of 1992.
Mr. Chairman, it is not surprising that problems arise from
time to time when there is such a large universe of chemicals,
and there are millions of workers exposed to these chemicals
every day. I believe that the steps that we have taken in OSHA
that we have outlined today will actively address the problems
that you and Ron Hayes and others have pointed out, and these
will significantly raise awareness among our employers and
employees of the need to provide information on the chemicals
used in American workplaces and, more important, provide the
protection that every American worker in this country deserves.
I will be happy to answer any questions, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Henshaw follows:]
Prepared Statement of John L. Henshaw
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee: Thank you for the
opportunity to discuss the steps that the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration (OSHA) is taking to improve implementation of
OSHA's Hazard Communication Standard. I would also like to thank the
Chairman for holding this hearing to help draw renewed attention to the
need to provide accurate information to employees who work with
potentially hazardous chemicals. Our goal is to adapt hazard
communication to the workplaces of the 21st century and OSHA is doing
that through a new initiative that I announced last week and will
describe later in my testimony.
More than 30 million workers in this country are exposed to
hazardous chemicals in their work environment. To protect these
workers, OSHA adopted the Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) in
November 1983. The standard requires chemical manufacturers and
importers to evaluate the hazards of chemicals that they produce and
distribute. The HCS requires information about hazards and protective
measures to be disseminated on container labels and Material Safety
Data Sheets (MSDSs). All employers with employees exposed to regulated
chemicals must provide access to the labels and the MSDSs. Employers
using the manufactured chemicals must also train their employees to
understand the information provided by the MSDS and the labels and how
to use the information to protect themselves.
The HCS covers all chemicals used in American workplaces. It is
criteria-based, so the standard is not limited to a list of chemicals
at any given point in time. The standard addresses trade secrets to
ensure protection of legitimate claims of confidentiality at the same
time that it requires disclosure of safety and health information.
The HCS covers about 650,000 hazardous-chemical products in over
three million work establishments. It has made the dissemination of
hazard information about chemical products a standard business practice
in the United States. There is now a generation of employers and
employees who have continuously worked in an environment in which
information about chemicals in their workplaces has been freely
available.
MSDSs are the primary means of transmitting detailed chemical-
hazard information to employers that use them and to their employees.
The MSDS is a technical bulletin, which contains information such as
chemical composition, health hazards, and precautions for safe handling
and use. Most safety and health professionals consider MSDSs to be a
primary component of their company's hazard communication programs.
Even prior to promulgation of the HCS, many chemical manufacturers and
importers included MSDSs with hazardous chemicals as a good business
practice.
The HCS places primary responsibility for preparing and
disseminating the MSDSs with the chemical manufacturer. The HCS states
clearly that manufacturers, importers, and employers preparing MSDSs
shall ensure that the recorded information accurately reflects the
scientific evidence used in making the hazard determination. However,
MSDSs alone cannot protect workers from chemical hazards. The HCS also
requires manufacturers to place labels on containers of hazardous
chemicals and for employers using the manufactured chemicals to train
their workforce.
Due to its broad scope and significant impact, the HCS has been
discussed, debated, and amended over the last 21 years. OSHA has
reviewed its enforcement of the rule and modified its practices and
guidance to the regulated community to reflect lessons learned. OSHA
has also been careful in considering changes to the HCS because
modifications to the labels and the MSDS would be costly and time-
consuming for the private sector. In response to concerns about the
accuracy of MSDSs used in American workplaces, Secretary of Labor
Elaine L. Chao asked me to review current requirements under the HCS
and recommend any needed changes.
In response to the Secretary's request, OSHA staff reviewed the
available evidence, including scientific literature and studies;
considered OSHA's institutional knowledge, including experience
implementing the standard; and assessed the practical issues faced by
employers and manufacturers in complying with the standard. We have
concluded that changes to the text of the HCS are not needed to improve
the accuracy of MSDSs. Inaccuracies arise from failure to comply with
existing requirements. OSHA's review of the HCS and MSDSs has
identified many of the reasons why there are problems with MSDS
accuracy and the Agency is addressing those problems through our new
initiative, announced last week and described later in this statement.
At the time the HCS was adopted, available MSDSs followed different
formats. Chemical manufacturers that had been providing MSDSs for many
years were concerned about being required to change what they had been
doing voluntarily. OSHA thus adopted a performance-oriented requirement
that allowed variations in format as long as all the necessary
information appeared on the MSDS. The HCS also required more extensive
information than had been previously provided, particularly for health
effects of chemicals. Thus, the two-page format common in the past is
rarely used now. Most MSDSs contain a minimum of four pages and many
exceed that length.
The value of properly completed MSDSs has been demonstrated
repeatedly. However, there have been a number of limited studies and
investigations indicating that some MSDSs may contain errors. While
this information indicates there are inaccurate MSDSs in circulation,
there has never been a comprehensive study on this topic that provides
more than anecdotal evidence about a limited number of MSDSs. This is
not surprising since a study of that magnitude would be far-reaching,
costly, and time-consuming. However, lacking such a study, it is
difficult to determine how widespread the problem is today. The
previously conducted studies mentioned above are quite old in some
cases. In others, the authors have made assumptions about what they
consider to be compliance with the standard that may not be consistent
with the standard's requirements. For example, in a study regarding
MSDSs on toluene diisocyanate, the authors assumed the MSDS was
inaccurate if it did not explicitly refer to occupational asthma, but
discussed respiratory sensitization. Since respiratory sensitization is
the health hazard defined in the HCS, either term would be accepted as
compliance for OSHA.
In addition to issues of accuracy, there have been complaints that
MSDSs are not comprehensible to workers and to small employers. The HCS
was designed to address problems of comprehensibility by providing
general information on labels in conjunction with the MSDSs and other
information available to employees. Training programs are a critical
component of hazard communication because they help ensure that workers
understand the information they receive from labels and MSDSs. One
reason why there are concerns regarding comprehensibility is that there
are multiple audiences for MSDS information--workers, employers, and
safety and health professionals. What may be comprehensible to an
experienced professional in the field of safety and health may be
difficult for an employer or an employee to understand. In addition,
Title III of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act mandates
that MSDSs be made available to State emergency-response commissions,
local emergency-planning committees, and fire departments to assist in
planning for emergencies. It is difficult, if not impossible, to design
a document that meets the informational needs of each of these
audiences and is universally comprehensible as well.
Disparity in the qualifications of those who prepare MSDSs is
another significant reason for variability in quality. OSHA's HCS does
not address the qualifications needed to prepare an MSDS. Those who
write MSDSs come from a wide variety of educational backgrounds, and
there is little training available that is specific to this task.
Accurately depicting the health effects of chemicals requires a
technical background to review relevant scientific literature. Large
chemical manufacturers often have multidisciplinary staffs of experts
devoted to this task, but smaller manufacturers may not have such
resources. Thus, the disparity in qualifications can lead to
differences in the quality of information included in an MSDS.
A cause of incomplete MSDS information is the lack of data on the
health effects of some chemicals. The HCS does not require testing of
chemicals or protective measures; it is based on available information.
The chronic- or long-term health effects of many chemicals are not
always well-known.
In addition, most chemical products on the market are mixtures
unique to a single manufacturer. The HCS provides manufacturers of
mixtures a number of alternatives to determining hazards. A chemical
manufacturer could choose to test a mixture as a whole through a full
range of tests, including tests to determine health risks and physical
hazards. Another accepted approach to hazard determinations is for the
manufacturer to test certain properties of a chemical and to rely on
the available research for others. If the manufacturer does not test
the mixture as a whole, the mixture is assumed to present the same
hazards as its individual-component parts, and the manufacturer may
rely on the upstream chemical manufacturers' hazard determinations for
those constituent substances. The MSDS for the mixture would then be
comprised of the MSDSs for each component. Because of the variations in
methods used to determine hazards, employers using chemical mixtures
must make some judgments about how to apply the information provided by
manufacturers to the conditions in their individual workplace.
The amount and quality of research on chemical hazards also has an
impact on the accuracy of information on the MSDS. Even the best
available evidence may not provide sufficient information about
hazardous effects and protective measures.
OSHA staff has discussed these issues informally with
representatives from other nations that have MSDS requirements and they
report similar problems regarding the quality of MSDS information.
OSHA has been studying ways of improving the accuracy and
comprehensibility of MSDSs for many years. In May 1990, the Agency
issued a request for information about MSDSs in the Federal Register.
From those who responded, there was general support for consistent
information on MSDSs and a standardized format. In September 1995, OSHA
asked its National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health
for recommendations on how to improve chemical-hazard communication,
including methods of simplifying MSDSs and reducing paperwork for
employers and manufacturers. After hearing from the public, including
representatives of small businesses and unions, the Committee
reaffirmed the importance of the HCS, and concluded that MSDSs have
become long and complicated because they are used for many purposes
other than to meet OSHA requirements. OSHA has no control over such
nonOSHA purposes. A majority of the Committee supported the use of a
standardized format such as that developed by the American National
Standards Institute. OSHA has indicated this preference in its
enforcement directives for the HCS.
To address concerns raised and to enhance the quality of hazard
information presented to employers and employees, OSHA has announced a
new hazard-communication initiative. There are three components of the
program: (1) compliance assistance--including additional guidance
materials, a new portal on OSHA's Web Site, and added outreach and
education through new alliances; (2) an enforcement initiative; and (3)
consideration of adopting the Globally Harmonized System of
Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS), and preparation of a
guide to raise awareness of the GHS.
OSHA has developed three guidance documents to improve the HCS. The
first is a guide to performing a hazard determination under the
requirements of the HCS. An accurate hazard determination is the first
step to an accurate MSDS and label. The guidance provides details on
how to identify the appropriate information necessary for a hazard
determination, and further how to evaluate it and determine what
hazards are covered. The second document is a model training program,
which will provide employers with information on how to train their
employees to understand hazards identified on labels and MSDSs and take
appropriate precautions. These two documents are currently on OSHA's
Web Site to allow public comment for 30 days. The third document is a
guide to preparing MSDSs, and will provide assistance on how to write
clear and complete MSDSs with a suggested format. The document will
list sources of information and include suggestions for the type of
information to complete each section of the MSDS. This guidance will be
available in draft form on OSHA's Web Site after the comment period for
the first two documents closes.
Last October, OSHA signed an alliance with the Society for Chemical
Hazard Communication, a professional society that promotes improvements
in chemical-hazard communication. This organization is working with us
to develop a short course on preparation of MSDSs, directed primarily
to small businesses that prepare MSDSs. The Society--including more
than 600 members representing industry, academia, and government--has
considerable expertise in hazard communication and experience in
putting together professional-development courses. The Society is also
working with OSHA on a checklist that can be used to review MSDSs for
accuracy. A number of other joint projects with this organization are
being planned.
In addition to the training and other initiatives described above
and the development of a review tool such as a checklist, the HCS will
also continue to be a focus of OSHA enforcement. While violations of
HCS provisions are often cited during inspections, the accuracy of
information is not the focus of these citations in most situations.
Therefore, OSHA is developing an enforcement initiative for compliance
officers to review and evaluate the adequacy of MSDSs. Under this
program, the Agency will choose a certain number of chemicals, and
following the requirements in the HCS, identify some critical elements
(phrases, words, etc.) that should appear on an accurate MSDS.
Compliance officers would use this information as they encounter MSDSs
for these chemicals at worksites. Where MSDSs are found that do not
contain these critical elements, OSHA will notify the manufacturer in
writing of the deficiencies or inaccuracies. Manufacturers will be
required to correct and update their MSDS. They will then have to
respond to OSHA and inform the Agency of the steps taken to correct and
update their data sheet. Those manufacturers that fail to respond or do
not update their MSDS can potentially be cited under the HCS.
In addition, compliance staff and the public are being made aware
of the availability of International Chemical Safety Cards on OSHA's
Web Site. These cards are similar to MSDSs in terms of the information
provided. They are internationally developed and peer-reviewed, cover
over 1,300 substances, and are available in fourteen languages. They
are a good screening tool to be used when reviewing MSDSs on covered
substances, and are going to be modified to be consistent with the GHS
classification criteria and MSDS format.
OSHA has a great deal of hazard-communication information available
on its Web Site. We have established a portal page to consolidate this
information and allow access directly from OSHA's homepage. This will
make it easier for the public to find the HCS, and guidance and
compliance-assistance materials involving the standard. Other sources
of information helpful to employers and employees will also be
accessible through the portal page. OSHA expects that almost 50 million
visits will be made to its Web Site this year.
In the long-term, global harmonization of chemical information and
labeling will improve communication of chemical risks. Standardized
presentation of information on labels and MSDSs throughout the
industrialized world can address many of the concerns about
comprehensibility of chemical-hazard information. Consistent
presentation of information would simplify the task of reviewing MSDSs
for accuracy, allowing those who prepare and review the documents to
find missing elements more easily and OSHA compliance officers to
examine MSDSs more efficiently when conducting inspections. OSHA has
worked with the international community on global harmonization since
the HCS was promulgated. In addition to the benefits associated with
improved comprehensibility and communication, implementation of the GHS
around the world could also facilitate international trade in
chemicals. In the United States, there would also be a benefit of
domestic harmonization if all of the affected agencies adopt the GHS.
To increase awareness of the GHS, OSHA is preparing a guide on the
classification and labeling system that was adopted by the United
Nations in December 2002. The United States is now considering adoption
of the GHS. Further information about the GHS is available on OSHA's
Web Site.
Mr. Chairman, it is not surprising that problems arise from time to
time when there is such a large universe of chemicals and there are
millions of workers exposed to these substances. I believe that the
steps I have outlined today will actively address the problems that you
and others have pointed out and will significantly raise awareness
among both employers and employees of the need to provide information
on chemicals used in America's workplaces. I will be happy to answer
any questions.
Senator Enzi. Thank you very much for your testimony. It
has been very helpful to have you go over the number of things
that you have been working on with this. I know that you have
been pushed a lot by Ron Hayes to do it, but you have been
extremely responsive on it and I think have some great ideas. I
do have a few questions.
I want to congratulate you for the guidance materials that
you are providing so people can do these sheets better and the
model training program that you have. I will be anxious to see
how that works and how it gets revised, because I know a first
product is never a final product, either. But I think those
will make a tremendous difference.
Compliance assistance and training are keys to preventing
injuries and illnesses in the workplace, and I know that small
businesses particularly have very limited resources and are in
most need of assistance. You mentioned some things. If you
could reiterate those and also tell me what OSHA is doing to
make its compliance assistance and outreach efforts more
effective for small business, I would appreciate it.
Mr. Henshaw. Mr. Chairman, as you know, we have created
over the last year and a half a new Office of Small Business,
and that office is directing a lot of our compliance assistance
efforts to deal with the issues that small businesses have to
deal with in respect to complying with our standards. And
obviously a critical one is the Hazard Communication Standard.
So we are working closely with that Office of Small
Business. And the materials that we have up on our website--we
have two draft documents that are up for review currently. One
is the training materials or model training program, as well as
the hazard determination guidance. Those documents are prepared
to help small business make some of these critical decisions as
to what is a hazard and how to make those determinations, as
well as how to properly train their employees based on the
labels and MSDSs.
I would like to clear up the understanding of the intent
behind the Hazard Communication Standard and the purpose behind
the Material Safety Data Sheets. The Material Safety Data
Sheets are not the only tool by which an employer communicates
to his employees as to hazards in the workplace. They are one
of the tools they should use.
So the model training program is a way to take the
information that the employer has, small or large, and
disseminate the right information and communicate the right
information to the employee so the employee knows what the
hazards are based on, the information the employer has and the
employee has that is included in the MSDS and the label.
So just purely laying down an MSDS to an employee and
saying you have been properly trained is inadequate. There is a
training process. There is a communication process. There is an
understanding process that must take place.
So the model training program is geared to help the
employer, specifically the small employer, to make that
communication as effective as he possibly can. What we like to
do through our alliances is to develop model training programs
from this larger program that we have up on our website now,
hone it down specifically to small business or to a small
business sector so that they can communicate more effectively
to their employees.
This is what we hope to do through our alliances and other
partnerships that we have underway at the present time.
Senator Enzi. By honing it down--I know we talked about the
650,000 different chemicals out there, and on any one job site,
they are not going to come in contact with nearly that many--so
are you talking about making it more specific by type of job? I
am not sure I understand the concept on honing it down.
Mr. Henshaw. Generally, if it is a construction site, you
may see various different exposures or potential exposures,
depending on the tasks being performed. And the employer's job
is, based on those tasks that the employee will perform, to
make sure the employee understands what those hazards are and
takes the appropriate precautions.
So it may be a task-oriented program, or it may be this is
the job we are hiring you for, there are four different tasks
that you are going to be performing in this job, and each one
of those tasks may involve this chemical or that chemical, and
here are the precautions you need to take as a result of using
those chemicals. The basis for those cautions, the basis for
that communication, will be the label and the MSDS.
Senator Enzi. That sounds like it will be a tremendous help
to small business. Going back again to when I was doing some
training in that area, the important thing was to make sure the
employee was safe and knew what to do in case of a problem, and
I really did not find the sheets to be all that helpful. I did
find that if they could find them, then we would not be fined
by OSHA.
I appreciate your explanation on the honing down, and I do
hope everybody will look at that website. As I mentioned, I
have seen these MSDS sheets with complex terminology that I
think only a Ph.D. in biochemistry could understand, and even
if it is accurate, if the employee does not understand it, it
is probably not going to do any good.
I also ran into some employees who had very limited English
capability, and I wondered what the OSHA plan was doing to make
these sheets more easily understood by workers, including those
with more limited English proficiency. Is there an effort that
way, too?
Mr. Henshaw. I think that is going to be addressed to a
great extent in the model training programs. As you know, in
our Hazard Communication Standard, English is the preferred
language. It was primarily established as we received products
from outside the U.S. We wanted to make sure that at least we
had a common language, an MSDS in our common language here in
the U.S., so we would not receive a Chinese MSDS and be
required to translate that here in this country.
So English is the primary language according to the Hazard
Communication Standard. I do not think it is feasible to
require a different MSDS in every conceivable language that we
may have in this country. I do not think that is a doable
process. What we do require--and this is why this is a
performance-oriented standard--is that the employer, as he
takes the MSDS--and again, we need to make sure it is accurate,
because if the employer is working off of an inaccurate MSDS is
communicating inaccurate information no matter how they are
communicating to the employee--so we have got to make sure from
the very beginning that the MSDS is accurate. Now it is the
employer's job to communicate in whatever language, whatever
technique, whatever process is appropriate so that the employee
understands the hazard and knows what precautions to take.
We have some tools that can help the employer make this
translation or make this bridge if the employee does not
understand English as well as, obviously, the communicator. We
have these international chemical cards, which are also on our
website, and about 1,300 different chemicals are included in
those, in 14 different languages. They are also a way that we
can communicate in different languages to employees. However,
they are not part of the MSDS, but they are a technique that
the employer can use, and as I said, they are available to any
employer if they want to pull those down.
But it is the employer's responsibility to communicate to
that employee, and if that employee only understands Spanish,
we need to make sure that we have the communication done in the
language, or in a technique--it could be pictures, it could be
some other process--that the employee understands, because the
most important part is that the employee understands what the
hazards are and how to protect himself.
Senator Enzi. Excellent. I will shift gears now, because
part of it is getting the right information on the data sheets
to begin with. Is there a mechanism by which OSHA can better
detect consistent problems in the way a manufacturer or
importer prepares those Material Safety Data Sheet? How do you
go about checking the sheets themselves?
Mr. Henshaw. Yes, sir. We have had a process under way, and
we are going to reenergize that and improve on it, which is
part of this initiative, on the enforcement part. We are going
to do several things. One, using our partners in the alliance,
we are going to identify a checklist or complete a checklist on
various compounds, and as the OSHA inspector visits that
location, he will use this checklist to make sure these MSDSs
have the right phrases and the right information on the MSDS.
If they find there is a problem there, that they are not using
the right phrase, or it is inaccurate, we will, through our
phone and fax investigation process, communicate back to the
supplier and ask the supplier to respond. If the supplier does
not respond or does not provide the right information as far as
updating their MSDS and prove that they are updating their
MSDS, they are subject to violation under the Hazard
Communication Standard.
The other thing we are asking is that employers, especially
small employers, if they have a question around the accuracy of
their MSDS, they ought to come to us; they ought to refer that
to us and let us contact the supplier and ask the supplier to
respond appropriately in respect to the accuracy of the MSDS.
Senator Enzi. This brings me to the other area of interest,
which is how does the employer know that he has the latest
sheet.
Mr. Henshaw. That is a difficult issue. We hope through our
guidance material on our website, not only the hazard
determination but also model training, as well as the future--
the one that we do not have yet, but we will be posting it
after we get the comments from the other two--on how to prepare
MSDSs, as well as the international cards. I mentioned the
international cards. There are 1,300 chemicals addressed there,
and the small employer can also refer to that and see if those
phrases are included in their MSDS, and if they are not, we may
have a problem in the accuracy of that MSDS, and they should
call us.
So that is another tool from our website.
Senator Enzi. I guess I am not quite clear on this, because
when we talked about how you find out if there is a consistent
manufacturer or importer consistently making inaccuracies in
their data sheet, it sounds like it comes down to the field
inspections where you are checking the sheets in the field to
see if there is an inconsistency there. There is not some kind
of clearinghouse where they can see if they are using the right
form, and it is clear enough, before it gets out to the worker?
Mr. Henshaw. We do not have that process. I mean, we do not
require suppliers or importers to send us copies of their
MSDSs, so we do not have that information. The only way we will
know what is out there is to go into the individual workplace
and examine those MSDSs. That is the only process we have.
Senator Enzi. If the employer downloads from these 1,300
different chemicals they have, are those sheets acceptable as
opposed to the one from the manufacturer directly?
Mr. Henshaw. These are not MSDSs.
Senator Enzi. OK.
Mr. Henshaw. These are not model MSDSs. These are sheets
that cover relevant phrases and hazard determinations. They
would not be considered a complete MSDS. But they are sources
of information that the employer can look at and see if--if it
is supposed to say respiratory sensitization for a certain
compound, like isocyanide, they will see that on one of the
1,300 cards out there, and if the MSDS that they have from
their supplier, they know there is a discrepancy. But these
1,300 cards would not be considered as an MSDS.
Senator Enzi. OK. It still sounds like quite a burden on
the small business, which is what I am trying to get around. I
appreciate that you have done the website, and I see some
tremendous potential for the website, but only if it can be
accessed for some of these sheets, or if there are providers
that could do that, particularly electronically. I was not just
doing a pitch for a company from Wyoming. I know that when we
had the September 11th problem, they donated a lot of their
electronic devices to the first responders in New York, and
first responders particularly have a huge problem because they
are not normally working at that site and may now know what
chemicals are at that site and consequently may not have the
data to be able to handle the situation; but if they have these
electronic devices that have a whole range of things in there,
and they can just type in the name of whatever they determine
to be the chemical or the characteristics of what they are
seeing, and the computer rifles through it and suggests what it
might be and asks some additional questions to more carefully
identify it, and then, when it has been identified, asks more
questions to the extent that a person can answer them, and they
plug those in, and then it gives you as much of an indication
of what to do as possible, seems to me to be really the only
kind of technique that stands a chance, because a first
responder carrying a 5-pound notebook around just is not going
to happen, and then having to do the look-up process, because
you do not know whether it is by the name of the company, the
name of the chemical--I am just trying to convey a little bit
how difficult this is for the employer out there and the worker
out there.
So I am hoping that through your electronic mechanisms,
there are ways that employers could download actual MSDS sheets
that would comply and answer the questions as best possible--
and I do not expect an answer to that; I am just giving a
suggestion.
Mr. Henshaw. Senator, with respect to helping small
business, another avenue we have is of course our consultation
services. We have 54 different consultation units around the
country in all States and territories, and they are there for
small employers to call if they have questions, and that is
free service. So I would encourage small employers to contact
our consultation services, and we have those numbers and
addresses on our website, so if they need information or if
they have a question, they should be calling our consultation
services.
Senator Enzi. Excellent. It is always nice to have somebody
on the other end of the phone line.
Now, the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
investigates major chemical accidents, and according to the
Chemical Safety Board, they identified inadequate communication
as a contributing cause in 9 of the 19 cases that they
investigated. How do OSHA and the Chemical Safety Board
coordinate their efforts to address this hazardous
communication problem?
Mr. Henshaw. The Chemical Safety Board has done its part.
We have an MOU with them as to how we will communicate and
respond, and they have already submitted their recommendation
and highlighted the issue about inaccurate MSDSs. So that has
been communicated. Now our job is to take that and do something
with it, and this initiative that we are embarking on now is an
effort to address that.
What I hope is that as they continue on with their
investigations--and my hope is fewer and fewer and fewer
investigations--but as they uncover other issues around MSDSs,
we need to know about it, and I am sure they will communicate
to us.
So based on their recommendations that were submitted some
time ago to us, this initiative is intended to address those
problems.
Senator Enzi. And of course, the Chemical Safety Board is
not the agency working on some of these things; there would
also be the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department
of Transportation and the Consumer Product Safety Commission--
and there are probably a whole bunch of others.
How are you working with these other agencies particularly
regarding the Globally Harmonized System?
Mr. Henshaw. In respect to the Globally Harmonized System
or the GHS, we have been active in that process, and for the
last pretty close to 15 years it has been in discussion. And
Jennifer Silk, who is behind me, is world-renowned in this area
of harmonizing as well as hazard communication. She has been
actively involved in the process of getting this harmonization
initiated and to reach some sort of conclusion, and the
conclusion was the recommendation from the United Nations, as
you mentioned, in December 2002 to go forward with the
implementation of the GHS system.
OSHA is not the only agency involved in that process. DOT,
EPA, the Consumer Product Safety, and a number of other
agencies will have to be players in this as we determine how
the United States will respond to this recommendation from the
United Nations.
We have been actively involved in discussions with the
various agencies, and we need to continue to pursue that. The
deadline or the target date that the United Nations has
established is 2008, and that is coming very quickly.
Senator Enzi. Thank you very much for your testimony this
morning, and we will leave the record open so that others can
submit questions. This is perhaps too detailed for many, but
there will be staff members who will be intricately interested
in this and will help to move the system along.
I want to congratulate you. I think that not having people
here asking you a lot of different questions says that you have
been doing a good job. So thanks to you and your staff, and
keep up the good work.
Mr. Henshaw. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Enzi. I will ask the next panel to come forward as
I introduce them.
We have with us today on our second panel Tom Grumbles, who
is president of the American Industrial Hygiene Association. He
is a certified industrial hygienist and manager of product
safety and health for Sasol North America, Inc., an
international chemical manufacturer. He has been involved in
the occupational safety and health profession for nearly 30
years. He will discuss hazard communication from the
perspective of occupational safety and health experts.
As the manager of product safety and health for an
international chemical manufacturer, Mr. Grumbles is also well-
positioned to discuss the global implications of hazard
communication and the Globally Harmonized System.
I will do one introduction at a time, and each of you will
speak, and then we will have questions to the panel as a whole.
I would ask that you summarize your information so we can keep
it within the 5-minute time frame, and your entire statement
will be a part of the record, though, and anything you wish to
submit after you have heard additional questions or have
thought of some other things will also be a part of the record.
We will leave the record open for a while.
Mr. Grumbles.
STATEMENTS OF THOMAS G. GRUMBLES, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN
INDUSTRIAL HYGIENE ASSOCIATION; JON HANSON, DIRECTOR OF SAFETY,
WYOMING MEDICAL CENTER, CASPER, WY; ANNE JACKSON, CORPORATE
SAFETY DIRECTOR, PEPPERIDGE FARM, ON BEHALF OF THE AMERICAN
BAKERS ASSOCIATION; MICHELE R. SULLIVAN, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD
OF DIRECTORS, SOCIETY FOR CHEMICAL HAZARD COMMUNICATION; AND
MICHAEL J. WRIGHT, DIRECTOR OF HEALTH, SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENT,
UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA
Mr. Grumbles. Senator Enzi, we appreciate the opportunity
to be here representing AIHA to comment on these issues today.
The good news is that I will depart a lot from my written
testimony, mostly because Mr. Henshaw has already said most of
what I wanted to say.
I think the fact is this is an issue where there are a lot
of common ideas and common beliefs as to what the issues are
and what can be fixed.
It has been over 20 years since OSHA adopted the Hazard
Communication Standard. There is absolutely no doubt in my work
every day and I think in most people's minds that it has
improved the availability and the understanding of information
on hazardous materials in the workplace. But there is also no
doubt that as the pressures have grown on what the MSDS as
meant to do--and it should be stated again that it was never
meant to be a stand-alone document to create all the hazard
information in the workplace, that it was meant to be used with
education and labeling along with it--but the pressures have
grown on what the MSDS has meant to do and what it has asked to
do. It has been said time and time again that the intended
audiences for the MSDS have expanded over time, in some cases
explicitly by regulation, and in other cases simply based on
the business demands that are put on chemical manufacturers
like my company to provide information to our customers.
Can the MSDSs be better regulated? In our minds and at
AIHA, it is not clear that additional regulation will
necessarily improve all the issues associated with MSDSs.
Existing problems with MSDSs should first be considered in
light of noncompliance with existing regulations, not the need
for new regulations. If the conclusion is drawn that additional
regulatory action is needed, full consideration must be given
to the Globally Harmonized System to avoid possible concerns
with international commerce.
This truly is an international issue. We are in a global
economy--nobody can argue with that. And as an international
chemical company, I see the problems we have every day trying
to communicate in different regions of the world with MSDSs for
in essence the same product or the same chemical produced in
different regions of the world.
It truly is an international problem, and we need to work
on it together with the rest of the industrialized countries of
the world to solve it. So I think our first point would be
please, if additional regulation is anticipated, it should be
done with full recognition of the Globally Harmonized System.
On the issue of competency of MSDS writers, hazard
communication does not address that issue. There is nothing in
there about qualifications needed to prepare MSDSs. Clearly, we
believe the quality, accuracy, and usefulness of MSDSs can be
improved by increasing the competency of MSDS authors through
development of appropriate and practical guidelines on the
preparation and aggressive outreach on those guidelines.
Nobody who does what I do went to school to get a degree on
writing an MSDS. There are few programs you can go to to learn
how to do that. It really does come from experience and using
whatever scientific background you have to learn how to do
that.
So we are faced with a situation, and I do believe that the
impact on small business is disproportionate in terms of the
technical resources needed and available to write the MSDSs.
I think that working with the many OSHA alliances, not just
SCHC, but with all the alliances together, we can probably
create a greater market force, in essence, for the quality of
MSDSs. Providing information to people who must use them to
help them understand and evaluate the quality of the
information they receive, and encouraging them to go back to
their suppliers to ask for good MSDSs, I believe could in
essence create a market force that will help to improve the
quality of the MSDSs.
The impact on small business must be considered, and
certainly the outreach that we have heard about already this
morning and working further through the alliances that OSHA has
developed throughout the last 2 years can perhaps provide that
aggressive outreach to small businesses, and perhaps through
the combined efforts of experts in the field, the alliances and
the small baseness development centers, we could create that
outreach network to improve the understanding of, the quality
of the MSDSs, as well as improve the competency and the work of
the people who must write those and provide them to the
consumers of chemicals.
The Globally Harmonized System clearly addresses a number
of the issues raised regarding the current Hazard Communication
Standard requirements. The major goal of the GHS is to improve
the quality and consistency of chemical hazard information;
creating a more consistent format so that people know,
regardless of where they are, what region they are in, what
page on the MSDS would have the most important information;
creating a system that provides more consistent hazard
communication phrasing, so that, to be honest, we can get rid
of some of the adjectives and modifiers and other things that
go into most MSDS statements that leave you generally with the
conclusion in many cases that we are not sure if this is
hazardous or not, but we are providing you all this wonderful
information; providing a more consistent methodology to do
that, down to the point of actually consistent pictograms so
that you can begin to deal with the language issue. Those
things that are embodied in the GHS we believe certainly can
move toward improving the quality, the consistency, and the
information that is in the MSDS for the ultimate user of that
information.
That still does not necessarily deal with the competency of
the MSDS writers, and once again, we certainly applaud the
efforts of OSHA on the outreach and believe that OSHA can work
even more aggressively with all the alliances they have to get
this information out, and particularly to assist small
business.
OSHA had stated that the original approach to hazard
communication, training, labels, and MSDSs was based in part on
information regarding communication theory. AIHA would suggest
that there probably is a need for a review of the most current
science of communication and perhaps new scientific studies to
determine the comprehensibility of model language for each of
the target audiences that we know the MSDS must now reach.
So AIHA certainly stands ready to assist you, Congress or
OSHA and others, in every possible way. We also have an
alliance with OSHA, and we will be happy to work with them
through that alliance as well as work with the other alliances
to try to assist in this, what we believe to be an essential
outreach effort that is needed.
We thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Senator Enzi. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Grumbles follows:]
Prepared Statement of Thomas G. Grumbles
My name is Tom Grumbles and I am President of the American
Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA). I am a certified industrial
hygienist and have been involved in the occupational health and safety
profession for nearly 30 years. I am also the Manager of Product Safety
and Occupational Health for Sasol North America, Inc., an international
corporation involved with chemical manufacturing. I appreciate the
opportunity to appear before this hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on
Employment, Safety and Training and provide testimony on the issue of
Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDSs) and hazard communication. I would
ask that my entire written testimony be inserted into the record.
Before I begin Mr. Chairman, I would like to take this opportunity
to thank you on behalf of both employees and employers who desire a
healthy and safe workplace for your past and present involvement in
occupational health and safety. Your leadership is crucial if we are to
improve this country's record of workplace-related injury and illness
that affects workers and their families and impacts our communities. I
applaud your efforts.
The American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) appreciates the
opportunity to provide input and offer recommendations in support of
the overall goal of this Senate hearing to address improving the
accuracy, quality, and maintenance of Material Safety Data Sheets
(MSDSs). Founded in 1939, AIHA is a nonprofit international
organization comprised of 12,000 members and more than 75 local
sections. AIHA's more than 30 technical committees deal with the health
and safety challenges facing occupational health experts and workers
everywhere. AIHA's Stewardship and Sustainability Committee is an
active participant in the development of the revised ANSI Standard on
MSDS Preparation Z400.1.
AIHA shares the concerns that inaccurate, incomplete and outdated
MSDSs can increase risks of illnesses and injuries and environmental
consequences arising from the handling, storage, transportation and use
of hazardous chemicals. Industrial hygiene, safety, emergency response
and environmental health professionals rely on MSDSs as a source of
information to assist employers and employees properly manage hazardous
chemicals.
It has been almost 20 years since the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration (OSHA) adopted the Hazard Communication Standard
with its provisions for development and distribution of MSDSs for
hazardous chemicals. As originally intended, a MSDS was not meant to be
a stand-alone document. It was part of an overall hazard communication
program designed to include labeling and, perhaps most importantly,
training in the hazards and use of labels and MSDSs. The target
audience for MSDSs at that time was employers, employees, industrial
hygiene and safety professionals and occupational physicians and
nurses. We believe there is little doubt that the implementation of
this standard by chemical producers and employers has improved the
availability and understanding of information on hazardous chemicals in
the workplace. In fact, the provision of MSDSs and labels is a standard
business practice today, even resulting in many employers having MSDS
requirements for everything they purchase, including products that are
not hazardous as defined by the hazard communication standard.
Today, audiences for MSDSs continue to expand beyond the workers
handling chemicals, IHs, and others. Target audiences now include
emergency response personnel, environmental professionals, R&D
chemists, process engineers and product stewards. The content of MSDSs
attempting to meet these needs varies and the value to target audiences
needs to be improved.
In addition, we are now in a truly ``global economy'' where
international cooperation and harmonization is required. If MSDSs are
to remain a valuable tool in the protection of workers and others, all
industrialized countries must work together to see that they contain
the most reliable and accurate data available. The quality and accuracy
of MSDSs is an international one and we should work on international
solutions.
Last October it was reported that in the ECLIPS (European
Classification and Labelling Inspections of Preparations) project
participating countries evaluated the data of about 900 inspected
preparations in about 200 companies. The goal of the project was to
inspect companies and their handling and labelling of preparations
containing dangerous substances. The emerging results of the ECLIPS
project show that only 38 percent of the labelling and 25 percent of
the safety data sheets were fully correct. There have been similar
studies in the US with similar results.
To address the problem we are discussing today, questions need to
be asked:
Can MSDSs Be Better Regulated?
It is in no way clear that additional regulation will improve the
accuracy and quality of MSDSs. Events cited as highlighting the
problems with MSDSs should first be considered in light of
noncompliance with the existing regulations, not the need for new
regulations. If the conclusion is drawn that additional regulatory
action is needed, full consideration must be given to the Globally
Harmonized System (GHS) to avoid possible concerns with international
commerce.
Is the Existing Hazard Communication Standard too Generic?
AIHA does not believe the hazard communication standard is too
generic, but there are areas where it can be improved. AIHA supports
the overall goals of both the ANSI Standard on MSDS Preparation Z400.1
and the GHS in that they improve the quality of the MSDS by
establishing a structure and providing meaningful recommendations on
content. However, caution is warranted because following ANSI
guidelines or GHS will still not ensure that information is accurate or
reliable.
Can the Competency of MSDS Writers Be Regulated?
The Hazard Communication Standard does not address what
qualifications are needed to prepare MSDSs. The disparity in the
qualifications of MSDS preparers is one significant reason for the
disparity in the quality of MSDSs. There are no degrees in this type of
product stewardship work, so experts in label and MSDS requirements
usually come from backgrounds such as chemistry and industrial hygiene
and receive on-the-job training. There are few recognized courses
available for those newly tasked with writing MSDSs.
AIHA believes that the quality, accuracy and usefulness of MSDSs
can be improved by increasing the competency of MSDS authors and the
development of appropriate and practical guidelines on the preparation
and maintenance of MSDSs. It is essential that MSDS authors have both
the necessary technical skills to write MSDSs and the tools necessary
to ensure that MSDS information is accurate and written in clear and
understandable language.
AIHA recommends consideration of a nonmandatory appendix to the
Hazard Communication Standard (29 CFR 1910.1200) that addresses
training guidelines for MSDS authors. This action, coupled with an
aggressive outreach effort by OSHA to develop and provide resources to
accomplish such training, seems essential at this point. OSHA
recognizes the need for this Compliance Assistance outreach in its
recent document titled ``Hazard Communication in the 21st Century''. In
that document OSHA speaks of the alliance with the Society for Chemical
Hazard Communication. AIHA believes that work with this alliance is not
enough. OSHA should work through its alliances with AIHA, the American
Society of Safety Engineers, and many others to create a wide
recognition of the issues and needs, and the outreach materials that
are part of the solution.
Working with the many OSHA alliances with groups representing
companies that are a recipient of MSDSs, and who rely on this
information, could create a greater ``market force'' for quality MSDSs.
Alliances and partnerships between regulators, professional
organizations, universities, educators, and the regulated community to
develop best practices and metrics would serve to improve the current
situation. Considering the 10 years it took to finalize the first
hazard communication standard these types of efforts should be much
more efficient than new regulation in improving the situation with
MSDSs.
This issue also has a significant impact on small business where
technical resources may be limited. To address this problem, AIHA
believes that outreach assistance on MSDS and hazard communication
should be provided to small business. This assistance could be
accomplished through combined efforts of experts in the field, perhaps
utilizing the existing Small Business Development Centers.
Should There Be Different MSDSs for Employers and Employees?
The AIHA fully supports one MSDS format for all target audiences.
The AIHA encourages the use of international standards/guidelines
(including recommended phrases and symbols) that allow MSDS preparers
to communicate hazards in an understandable way to each of the various
MSDS users. The AIHA recognizes that providing information on an MSDS,
beyond that required by the OSHA Hazard Communication Standard, is
necessary to fulfill needs of the variety of target audiences (e.g.,
transportation, global inventory status, waste disposal information).
Specific formatting and content guidelines or regulations can
facilitate this need. One must remember that the MSDS is a reference
document meant to be used with education and labeling to communicate
hazards. It is not meant to be a stand-alone document.
How Does the Existing MSDS System in the United States Interact With
the United Nations Global Harmonization Standard (GHS)?
Since the US is both a major importer and exporter of chemicals,
the manner in which other countries choose to regulate has an impact on
the protection of workers in the US as well as on possible barriers to
international trade in chemicals, and vice versa. The GHS clearly
addresses a number of the issues raised regarding the current Hazard
Communication Standard requirements.
The GHS is intended to accomplish a number of objectives. A major
goal is to improve the quality and consistency of chemical hazard
information. It is also anticipated that the GHS, if implemented, will
facilitate international trade in chemicals and provide a recognized
framework for those countries without an existing hazard communication
system.
A standardized 16-section format is established for safety data
sheets to provide a consistent sequence for presentation of
information. With the exception of the order of two headings being
reversed, the harmonized data sheets are the same as the ANSI standard.
Items of common interest to workers are presented at the front of the
document, while more technical information is presented later. Headings
for the sections (e.g., First Aid Measures, Handling and Storage) are
standardized to facilitate locating information of interest. Thus, with
the exception of differences in language, only one label and one data
sheet would be necessary for national and international commerce for
any given product.
The GHS establishes standardized criteria for determining the
health, environmental, and physical hazards associated with chemicals.
GHS establishes standardized and more detailed requirements for labels
and safety data sheets, including consistent use of pictograms (e.g.,
skull and crossbones), signal words (e.g., Danger), and harmonized
hazard statements (e.g., Fatal if Swallowed). Under this approach,
employers would know exactly how to convey the hazards of the chemical
once they complete the hazard classification. The harmonized label
elements are provided for each hazard category and class within that
category.
The details of the elements of the GHS are still being worked out,
but the AIHA supports the overall goals of the GHS. However, if the GHS
is to be adopted in the United States, it would undoubtedly require
Federal rulemaking. This Federal rulemaking would also likely have to
include more than one Federal agency. And last, prior consideration
must be given to the stakeholders involved in the issue. Such a list of
stakeholders is extensive (i.e., MSDS preparers, employers, employees,
occupational health and safety professionals, emergency response
personnel, process engineers, R&D chemists) and should be discussed
prior to any movement toward rulemaking.
What About the Science of Hazard Communication?
OSHA has stated that the original comprehensive approach to hazard
communication, training, labels and MSDSs together was based in part on
information about communication theory that was identified during the
rulemaking. For example, the more information that appears on a label,
the less likely it is that someone will read it and use it.
The AIHA suggests that there is a need for a review of the most
current science of communication and perhaps new scientific studies
that determine the comprehensibility of model language for each target
audience. Scientific studies
that demonstrate efficacy of language to the target audiences could
greatly improve MSDS effectiveness.
Mr. Chairman, when these questions are addressed, I believe the US
will have taken the correct path to ensure that valuable information
and guidance is provided to IH professionals and others that utilize
MSDSs to anticipate, recognize, evaluate and control workplace
exposures and for those that prepare MSDSs.
AIHA believes that industrial hygiene professionals have a key role
in improving the quality and value of information available on a MSDS.
We intend to educate our members and others about the current
activities related to the preparation and use of MSDSs, including
efforts to increase their quality and utility, implementation of a
globally
harmonized approach to their presentation, and updating the
existing voluntary consensus standard that provides guidance for
development.
In closing, AIHA stands ready to assist you, Congress, and others
in every possible way. Together we can move MSDSs into the 21st century
workplace.
Again, I appreciate the opportunity to appear here today and
provide some of my experience and knowledge. At this time I would be
more than happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.
Senator Enzi. The next person to testify is Jon Hanson, who
is director of safety at the Wyoming Medical Center in Casper,
WY. Mr. Hanson will discuss the issues he has faced in
protecting hospital workers from chemical hazards.
Mr. Hanson.
Mr. Hanson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me to
testify this morning.
I am the director of safety at the Wyoming Medical Center
in Casper. It is my honor to appear before you today and help
you better understand the issues that I confront on the front
lines daily in hospital risk management.
Before I discuss recommendations that I have for improving
the Federal Hazard Communication Standard, I would like to
share some personal stories of why I believe these improvements
are necessary in the first place.
At our facility, we inventory over 2,500 chemicals
representing more than 20,000 pages of MSDSs. They are manually
archived into 26 4-inch binders. These sheets are developed to
inform me and my fellow employees to include physicians,
nurses, cooks, and even environmental service workers of the
potential physical and environmental risks, hazards and threats
for each chemical.
You can just imagine the chaos that ensued when two gallons
of a chemical, xylene, was spilled in my lab. By the time the
hospital employee had noticed that the spill had happened, the
HVAC system had picked it up and sucked it into the
ventilation. Not knowing that xylene was heavier than air, she
decided, by the time she realized it was there, she was going
to call engineering and just clean it up with solid waste rags.
During this time frame, it had suspended in the ceiling
tile over our radiology department and sent 12 people to the
emergency room for exposure. So in essence, she took solid
waste rags known for spontaneous combustion, not knowing as
well that xylene had a flash point of 75 degrees fahrenheit,
cleaned up this chemical and put it into a plastic bag full of
air and walked it to our incinerator room.
During this process and what led her to do this is she
became frantic and started trying to thumb through the MSDS
book in her area, unable to find xylene, and when she did find
xylene, there were eight different types of xylene based off
the percentages.
All I can say is she was very frantic. She kept stating
that she could not find the MSDS, she could not find the MSDS,
and when she found it, she could not understand it.
Mr. Chairman, this story is not unique. Every workplace
that houses chemicals has potential victims. What happened to
my employees can happen to anybody. And ironically, the system
which was designed to promote chemical safety in the workplace,
the MSDS, is actually contributing to the fear that hospital
employees endure on a daily basis.
With this as a backdrop, I urge the subcommittee to
consider my recommendations. One, plain and simple, the
regulations governing HAZMAT communications in the workplace
are too lengthy, much too vague, and way too confusing to
effectively empower me to do my job. I recommend that Congress
work with OSHA to provide workplaces with the clear and
specific means of complying with the standard.
My job is to ensure the safety of the entire facility, all
the staff and anyone who enters, including patients. I should
be spending my time on those critical responsibilities, not
trying to interpret the technical language in the Federal
regulations.
I have seen MSDSs ranging in length from a single page all
the way up to 65 pages. Manufacturers use their own formats to
detail the information required by the Federal law. They are
written defensively and in a language too technical for an
audience that needs to rely on the ability to act quickly in
case of an incident.
There is no doubt we are dealing with a multilingual and
somewhat illiterate society. We have to be able to educate
these people, and they have outlined the educational
requirements, saying here is what you need to educate. However,
OSHA has no vertical as far as competencies or documentation of
education. There is no safeguard to put in place where the
employer says, okay, I have to document and retain these
records of education for a duration of time--now, if you are
exposed, yes, there are mandates--but there is nothing that
says the employer has to document that he has educated and that
the employee has a level of competency for understanding. So
this again puts it back on the employee to be able to decipher
what is going on.
The new format should be a single page for each chemical.
Potential hazardous chemicals, safety precautions, emergency
response and first aid could be easily documented on a single
page or sheet, written in sixth-grade language.
An appendix to my testimony includes a six-page MSDS for a
chemical, glutaraldehyde. It includes a much more sufficient
version of an MSDS that was developed by a chemical
categorization company in Arizona. My hospital has used this
version for the past 2 years, and it has created a magnitude of
efficiencies.
I think that instead of looking at how are we going to
train on the work process, we need to train on the chemical
categorization. For emergency response people, it is the same
thing--they need to know if it is flammable, combustible,
oxidizer, and if not, they refer to their ERG for clean-up
instead of trying to figure out what is what off the MSDS.
In my hospital lab, all the employees are required to be
trained on the safety and potential risk for each of the
chemicals in the facility. In our lab, we house 800 chemicals
and we have 40 FTEs, and again in the lab, we have MSDSs that
go all the way up to 65 pages, in the event that a chemical
changes, or additions or subsequent training is required.
For improved efficiency, I recommend that Congress work
with OSHA to develop a standardized training program based on
chemical categorization. It cannot be disputed that the
650,000-some chemicals used today fall into much smaller
categories. Under the category-based training program, less
time would be necessary to train staff on these risks and
interventions, without compromising the safety and training of
the people who use them, the end-users.
Education is only the first step. Labeling comes into it as
well. When you take a chemical from its original container and
put it into a secondary container, it has to be labeled with
all the same requirements. What happens--if you picture a
plastic glass or a plastic cup here, you put masking tape on it
and write with a marker on it what it is, and if you can
interpret the handwriting, that is one thing. The person sets
it down and walks away. His right-to-know has been established.
If that chemical spills, and the people who are coming to
respond to the spill do not know what it is, so they either
have to wait for that user to come back and identify what it
is, or they have to expose themselves by picking up the
container and trying to read this now blurred marker on this
masking tape. So what is establishing their right-to-know?
Mr. Chairman, I applaud OSHA's work to start promoting
workplace safety. However, 20 years have passed since the
regulations were published, and it is now time to harness the
power of technology to finish the job. The current MSDSs are
antiquated, archaic, and they simply do not work. Plus, when
you talk about the cost to comply with them in a health care
setting, it is more of a burden than a necessity.
Information included in these documents is written in a
language that can even stretch an engineer's capability to
interpret it.
Given these liabilities, I strongly urge you to remove the
complexity of the Hazardous Communication Standard by
developing a national framework for hazard determination,
employee training, with competencies, and preparation of
chemical-related documentation.
For example, I recently reviewed two cleaning chemicals at
our facility for approval for use. Each, although from
different manufacturers, had exactly the same chemical
information, the same ingredients, make-up, percentages of
ingredients used. However, one chemical was listed as having a
health hazard of one, while the other had a health hazard of
three.
So it is obvious that things need to be done, and I think
we need to take a more specific approach to things instead of
having 50 fires burning in one basket. We need to get back to
the basics. This is what we need to focus on.
I thank you for inviting me to testify, and I would be
happy to answer any questions.
Senator Enzi. Thank you very much, particularly for the
examples.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hanson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jon Hanson
INTRODUCTION
Chairman Enzi, Senator Murray, and Members of the Subcommittee,
thank you for inviting me to testify this morning. My name is Jon
Hanson, and I am the Director of Safety at Wyoming Medical Center in
Casper, Wyoming. The issue under the subcommittee's consideration this
morning will have a significant impact on the future of workplace
safety, and it is my honor to appear before you today to help you
better understand the issues that I confront daily on the frontlines of
hospital risk management.
Before I detail the specific recommendations I have for improving
the Federal Hazard Communication Standard, I would like to share some
personal stories about why I believe these improvements are necessary
in the first place. These two stories, together with the expert
testimony you will have received by the end of this historic hearing,
should provide the evidence necessary for the subcommittee to begin
exploring mechanisms for reform.
MSDS: A RECIPE FOR DISASTER PART 1
As the safety director at Wyoming Medical Center, I am responsible
for managing the inventory, use, and safety applications for
approximately 2,500 chemicals. As you know, current law requires me to
maintain an archive of material safety data sheets, or MSDSs, for each
chemical in my hospital. These sheets were developed to inform me and
my fellow hospital employees (including physicians, nurses, cooks--even
environmental service workers) of the potential physical and
environmental risks, hazards, and threats of each chemical.
These MSDSs vary significantly in length. I have one chemical in my
hospital which has an accompanying MSDS from the manufacturer that is
one page long. In the other extreme, I have another chemical with an
MSDS from the manufacturer that is 65 pages long. All of the 2,500
MSDSs in my hospital fall somewhere between these two in length. This
represents more than 20,000 pages of MSDSs, which I had manually
archived in 26, four-inch binders.
Now, fast forward to July of 2000 when two gallons of the chemical
Xylene spilled in the lab of my hospital. By the time an employee had
noticed the spill, the ventilation had already sucked most of the
vapors into the HVCA. This, in turn, became suspended in the ceiling
tile over our radiology department. Twelve employees were sent to the
emergency room. To make the matter worse, the lab employee was
frantically searching through the MSDS binder in her area for the
Xylene MSDS. Once she found it, she had difficulty locating the spill
response section. After notifying our engineering department, she began
to clean up the spill with solid waste rags, known for spontaneous
combustion, and placing the rags into a clear plastic bag for disposal.
She did not know that Xylene has a flash point of 75 degrees
Fahrenheit. She then walked the bag down to our incinerator room and
left it there, basically creating a live bomb. Twelve people were
treated from this exposure. The lab employee was very upset and
concerned about the safety of the affected employees and visitors, and
hysterically kept stating that she could not find the necessary spill
response information.
MSDS: A RECIPE FOR DISASTER PART 2
The next story is equally as frightening. An industry colleague of
mine recently shared his experience with me in conducting HAZMAT and
MSDS training on an excavation site for a pipeline company in Colorado.
He had no more finished the training when a project engineer noticed
several five-gallon buckets placed in the dirt all along the site. The
gentleman read the labels on the buckets as he was trained. It read
``de-greaser, clear, colorless, odorless standard PH.'' He then placed
his foot on top of the bucket to give him an extra boost to call his
supervisor over to this find. His foot went directly into the top of
the bucket, and the substance inside came splashing out. The blue-green
substance smelled of ammonia and gelled when it hit the ground. The
chemical was indeed a de-greaser, but not the one on the label. It was
Monster de-greaser. The facility had extra buckets left over, and used
them to store other chemicals to be used on the pipeline at a later
time. Because of the inaccuracies in labeling, the employee ended up
losing his leg from the knee down.
Mr. Chairman, Wyoming Medical Center is not unique here. Every
hospital, healthcare facility, manufacturing plant, and other
workplaces that house chemicals has potential victims. What happened to
these employees can happen to anybody. And, ironically, the system
which was designed to promote chemical safety in the workplace--the
MSDS--is actually contributing to the fear that hospital employees
endure on a daily basis.
I was asked to come this morning to offer specific recommendations
for changing the Federal Hazard Communication Standard. With my
personal stories as a backdrop, please consider the following
recommendations.
REGULATORY TREATMENT OF TOXIC AND HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES
Title 29 of the Code of Federal Regulations, 1910.1200--Subpart Z
was written to provide me with clarity on how to do an effective job of
managing hazardous material communications. The problem is the section
is much too lengthy. Many different sections offer multiple ways to
comply with the Federal standard. It is a challenge, though not
insurmountable, to effectively translate the information in these
regulations to ensure my hospital's compliance with Federal law. Couple
this with the 64 Federal and State agencies that have each promulgated
regulations governing my department, and you have a bureaucratic maze
that is seemingly impossible to navigate. In short, the section is too
vague and leaves significant margin for error in interpretation.
I recommend that Congress work with the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration (OSHA) to provide workplaces with a clear and
specific means for complying with the standard. My job is to ensure the
safety of the physical plant and that of the hospital's staff and
patients. I should be spending my time on that critical responsibility
and not on trying to interpret the technical language in Federal
regulations.
THE MSDS FORMAT
As I reported, I have seen MSDSs ranging in length from a single
page to 65 pages. Every chemical manufacturer uses different formats to
detail the information required by Federal law. They are written
defensively, with an eye toward litigation, in a language that is too
technical for an audience who needs to rely on the ability to act
quickly in the case of an incident. I have numerous certifications and
accreditations in engineering, safety, and risk management, and even I
have a difficult time in interpreting these technical documents. I ask
you to consider the outcome of a chemical spill when the hospital's
night environmental service crew, with only basic English language
skills, happened upon the incident.
I recommend this morning that Congress and OSHA, in concert with
industry, work to produce a standardized format for the MSDS in the
HAZCOM arena. The new format should be a single page for each chemical.
The following could easily be documented on a single sheet in language
a 6th grade student could easily understand:
1. Potential hazards (fire or explosion, health)
2. Safety precautions
3. Emergency response (fire, spill)
4. First aid
As an example, an appendix to my testimony includes a six-page MSDS
for the chemical Glutaraldehyde. It also includes a much more succinct
version of the MSDS that was developed by a chemical categorization
company in Arizona. My hospital has used this version for the past 2
years, which has created a multitude of efficiencies. I ask, Mr.
Chairman, that these be included as part of the hearing record.
TRAINING ON CHEMICAL SAFETY
In my hospital, our laboratory alone houses more than 800 chemicals
and employs more than 40 full time employees. Each of these employees
is required to be trained on the safety and potential risks of each of
the 800 chemicals before they commence working. In the event there are
chemical changes or additions, subsequent training is required. Couple
this training requirement with thousands of pages of MSDSs, and chaos
ensues.
I recommend that Congress work with OSHA to develop a standardized
training program based on chemical categorization. Many toxicologists
and chemists agree that each of the more than 2 million chemicals in
use today can undoubtedly fall into a much smaller number of specific
categories, based on their potential hazards, safety precautions, and
emergency responses. Under a category-based training program, less time
would be necessary to train staff on these risks and interventions,
without compromising the safety that the training is designed to
advance. This would enable staff to spend more time doing the jobs they
were hired to do, and less time on overly burdensome administration.
As an example, an appendix to my testimony details the chemical
categorization program in use at Wyoming Medical Center. We have 2,500
chemicals at my hospital that can fall into every category. Rather than
spend time training staff on each of the chemicals, we provide training
on the identified categories. We have found this to result in
significant cost savings. I ask, Mr. Chairman, that these be included
as part of the hearing record as well.
IMPACT OF HCS REFORM ON GLOBAL HARMONIZATION SYSTEM
The hearing this morning also provides an opportunity to comment on
the Global Harmonization System. As you know, international trade in
chemical products brings differences in hazard determination, criteria
for defining cutoffs, classifications, as well as language and cultural
sensitivities. In 1992, an international effort to develop a globally
harmonized system for hazard classification and labeling was adopted at
a United Nations conference on Environment and Development. Part of the
mandate was a globally harmonized classification and compatible
labeling system, including MSDSs and easily understandable symbols,
which was to be made available by the year 2000. The United States is a
member of the development team, but has not yet committed to the
Globally Harmonized System involving OSHA, EPA, Department of
Transportation, and many other regulatory agencies.
MSDSs in the United States, as it stands, is no small issue. The
original, two-page MSDS has grown to a dozen or more pages. This
suggests that substantial proportions of MSDSs today have serious
deficiencies.
For example, I recently reviewed two cleaning chemicals at our
facility for approval of use. Each chemical, although from different
manufacturers, had the exact same chemical ingredients and make up,
with the exact same percentages of ingredients used. However, one
chemical was listed as having a health hazard of three while the other
a health hazard of one. This inadequacy and inefficiency is among the
current public health problems Congress should work to address.
CONCLUSION
Mr. Chairman, the Federal effort to strengthen the standards for
workplace safety more than two decades ago should be applauded. The
pioneering work of OSHA in this regard should be recognized. But 20
years have passed since these regulations were published, and it is now
time to harness the power of technology to advance workplace safety
once and for all. The current paper-based system has run its course,
and desperately needs to be updated. The current MSDS model is
antiquated and archaic. We are suffocating under the countless reams of
paper that are causing more problems than solutions. A majority of the
MSDSs in use today are inaccurate, and there is no standard for how the
embedded information is relayed from the manufacturers to the
workplace. Information included in these documents is written in a
language that would stretch even an engineer's capacity to interpret
them.
Given these liabilities, I strongly urge you to remove the
complexity from the Hazard Communication System by developing a
national framework for hazard determination, employee training, and the
preparation of chemical-related documents.
Thank you for inviting me to testify, and I would be happy to
answer any questions.
APPENDIX A
APPENDIX B
APPENDIX C
Senator Enzi. Our next presenter is Anne Jackson, who is
the corporate safety director for Pepperidge Farm. Ms. Jackson
is testifying on behalf of the American Bakers Association. She
oversees the health, safety and workers' compensation programs
for Pepperidge Farm's eight manufacturing plants and its thrift
stores and sales distribution centers.
Ms. Jackson will discuss the challenges for effective
hazard communication in her facilities.
Ms. Jackson.
Ms. Jackson. Thank you. Good morning.
As you said, my name is Anne Jackson. I am the corporate
safety director for Pepperidge Farm, and I am based in Denver,
PA. I am pleased to testify this morning on behalf of the
American Bakers Association.
We thank the subcommittee and Chairman Mike Enzi for
holding this important hearing on OSHA's Hazard Communication
Standard and the utility of MSDSs in protecting employees.
ABA is the trade association that represents the Nation's
wholesale baking industry and has devoted substantial efforts
to enhance workplace safety. Pepperidge Farm is based in
Norwalk, CT. As you said, we have 5,000 employees at eight
bakery facilities across the United States, including a brand
new, $72 million state-of-the-art bakery in Bloomfield, CT. We
make a variety of high-quality bakery goods, including bread,
rolls, cookies, and crackers.
My responsibilities at Pepperidge Farm include the
management of all company health and safety programs and
initiatives, including safety training programs. In this role,
I am an advocate for our employees and their families in
maintaining a safe workplace. Safety is an integral part of our
company's value system. This commitment to safety has helped us
maintain a superior safety record.
Protection from hazardous substances is of paramount
importance to Pepperidge Farm and the baking industry as a
whole. Material Safety Data Sheets are the cornerstone of
fulfilling employees' right to know about chemicals in the
workplace. MSDSs must clearly provide the necessary information
to employees, supervisors, and in the worst case scenario, to
first responders. Sadly, MSDSs seem designed for liability
protection rather than employee protection.
We are extremely excited to hear about OSHA's decision to
review MSDSs in the workplace. If done properly, this is an
excellent opportunity to improve the quality of information
available to employees, as well as streamline the
administrative burdens on safety professionals. However, OSHA
must open its process to those who work with MSDSs every day,
employees and employers. Failure to do so will result in
guidance that provides no increase in safety for employees and
no assistance to safety professionals.
To give you some perspective, we receive thousands of MSDSs
into our system. Every manufacturer sends us MSDSs, including
our own parent company, Campbell Soup. We receive them for
cleaners, solvents and maintenance supplies. We receive them
for the printing materials that we use on packaging and,
despite exemptions under the Hazard Communication Standard for
food products, we also receive MSDSs for ingredients.
At Pepperidge Farm, we include any and all substances that
employees may come in contact with, including food ingredients.
One never knows if an employee may have a sensitivity to a
particular ingredient.
Managing the sheer volume of incoming MSDSs is an enormous
administrative challenge. This is one binder. This is just the
maintenance department--and I brought the MSDS binder--just for
the maintenance department at one facility. Even minor changes
in the composition of substances requires an update to our
files. In addition, we must follow up with our suppliers to
receive missing or new MSDSs.
Our industry buys many of the substances in use in our
facilities in bulk quantities. As you have talked about, after
receiving these products, they are redistributed into smaller
containers. Unfortunately, they arrive with a single MSDS and
no labels for the smaller containers.
The most important thing is to quickly and accurately
communicate to employees about workplace substances.
Unfortunately, this is where the current MSDSs fail miserably.
The shortcomings start with a lack of focus by OSHA and by
suppliers on their true purpose--protecting employees.
The MSDSs that I work with fall into two categories--those
written by attorneys for attorneys, and those written by
chemical engineers for chemical engineers. Most of our safety
professionals and our production employees are neither. The
most important improvement that OSHA could make would be to
standardize the MSDS format.
I just brought several--I did not even choose them for any
particular reason other than that they were the first few in
the binder--and each one has a different format. I have a one-
page, I have a 3-page, I have a 6-page here with different
sections included. Some MSDSs have the information up front, as
I said. Some are one or two pages of overly brought
descriptions and no useful exposure information. Many are
multipage chemical abstracts or legal treatises. Some MSDSs are
identified by chemical names, brand names, or some other
proprietary label.
One challenge--and this was mentioned before--facing our
industry is the growing work force diversity. Some bakers have
30 countries and a dozen separate languages represented. In our
bakery in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country, you would
not think we would have this issue. In fact, we have Ukrainian,
Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean, Laotian, and many other dialects.
The diverse population includes wide-ranging education and
literacy levels as well, even for native English-speakers. Many
entry-level employees require assistance in reading and basic
math training to meet their duties.
With the sheets barely comprehensible in English,
attempting to train someone from another country or with
limited literacy skills is very daunting. I am concerned about
whether we are reaching employees so that they understand what
substances they need to be careful around and how to respond in
the case of potential exposure.
As I said, we are pleased to see that OSHA is addressing
the shortcomings of the MSDSs. OSHA should actively reach out
to all stakeholders in this process. If OSHA attempts to make
unilateral decisions about MSDSs, then it risks wasting a
tremendous opportunity to improve employee protection. We would
like to make the following recommendations to the subcommittee
and to OSHA.
First, clarify the requirements of when and where to
provide MSDSs. The first step toward making MSDSs less
confusing is to definitively State when and where MSDSs are to
be provided. OSHA needs to clearly delineate between those
common products that pose no risk to employees and those that
have the potential to cause serious harm.
Second would be to develop uniform standard MSDS formats.
ABA strongly recommends that OSHA develop uniform standard
formats for MSDSs. This month's ``Facility Safety Management
Magazine,'' which I brought a copy of here, notes that many
manufacturers include--and this is a quote--``so many health
hazards that the average worker would need a doctorate in
toxicology just to decipher the information, defeating the
purpose of the standard in the first place.''
OSHA needs to lay out a standard format that includes all
of the information necessary to identify and educate employees
on the potential hazards of the substance and what to do in
emergency situations--on the front page. They should include
brief information on hazards, exposure limits, reactivity,
flammability. The MSDSs then can contain brief descriptions and
information for first responders.
OSHA should also decide how MSDSs should be catalogued,
either by chemical name or by manufacturer or brand name. It
makes no sense to sort through MSDSs in our binder here that
can be kept in any number of ways. OSHA needs to look at the
ANSI Z400.1-1993 consensus standard for guidance. This standard
recommends a voluntary 16-section format for MSDSs.
Currently, MSDSs suggest that personal protective equipment
be used but do not answer the important question of what type
of protective equipment to use and at what levels. Many bakers
struggle with this vital question, especially when trying to
conduct employee training.
OSHA should also set guidance on how often MSDSs need to be
updated by the manufacturer. Many manufacturers are still using
generic MSDSs developed when the Hazard Communication Standard
was first issued. The MSDS could also contain an expiration
date for when it needs to be replaced--if you will allow me a
baking analogy.
The proposed Globally Harmonized System may present a good
opportunity for OSHA to implement MSDS standards. Even in the
baking industry, we face a global marketplace. Pepperidge
Farm's parent company, for example, Campbell Soup, might
benefit from a more uniform MSDS standard, and that would
obviously impact us as well.
One caveat we would add, however, is to examine the impact
of such a standard on ABA's smaller members. Adding another
layer of hazard communication bureaucracy should be avoided.
The third recommendation is to promote the use of
electronic MSDS systems. These systems can be very effective in
collecting, storing, updating MSDSs on literally millions of
substances. The benefit is obvious during potential exposures,
situations when we can receive immediate treatment, exposure,
and first aid information on any substance.
While we fully comply with the paper requirements of the
Hazard Communication Standard, we rely on electronic MSDS
service for actual safety issues. Our provider keeps an up-to-
date repository of all the substances in our facilities. They
do provide a fax copy within minutes if we have a situation
that requires it. This immediate access is far more preferable
to thumbing through binders with thousands of MSDSs.
I can honestly say that employees have only asked on a
couple of occasions to see the paper MSDSs, but I can
personally attest to the strength of the system we do use. We
put it through extensive testing before agreeing to bring it
into our facilities.
OSHA needs to do more to encourage companies to utilize
emerging technologies. If doctors and surgeons can rely on
wireless and handheld technology to effectively diagnose
patients from a distance, employers should be able to use the
same technology to protect and train employees.
The fourth and final recommendation would be to use labels
more effectively in employee communication. OSHA could
incorporate into HAZCOM and MSDSs the use of labels for
immediate response. Requiring a label that includes some
universally-recognized symbols, such as the National Fire
Protection Association coding or the Hazardous Materials
Identification system, would be far easier to explain and
understand in a diverse workforce like ours. Training on these
labels would be far more effective than the complex and
confusing MSDSs we currently use.
In conclusion, thank you again for the opportunity to share
the wholesale baking industry's thoughts on OSHA's Hazard
Communication Standard and the role of MSDSs in informing,
educating, and protecting employees. We offer these suggestions
on how to improve the quality of MSDSs, but clearly, OSHA must
be willing to open this process. This opportunity to improve
hazard communication, to everyone's benefit should not be
missed.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee.
Senator Enzi. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Jackson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Anne Jackson
INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY
The American Bakers Association (ABA) thanks the Senate
Subcommittee on Employment, Safety and Training, and especially
Chairman Mike Enzi, for holding this important hearing on the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) Hazard
Communication Standard, particularly the role and utility of Material
Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) in informing and protecting employees.
By way of background, ABA is the trade association that represents
the Nation's wholesale baking industry. Its membership consists of more
than 200 wholesale bakery and allied services firms. These firms
comprise companies of all sizes, ranging from family-owned enterprises
to companies affiliated with Fortune 500 corporations. Together, these
companies produce approximately 80 percent of the Nation's baked goods.
The members of the ABA collectively employ tens of thousands of
employees nationwide in their production, sales and distribution
operations. The ABA, therefore, serves as the principal voice of the
American wholesale bakery industry.
My name is Anne Jackson and I am the Corporate Safety Director for
Pepperidge Farm and am based in Denver, Pennsylvania. I am pleased to
be testifying this morning on behalf of the American Bakers
Association. Pepperidge Farm is a moderately sized wholesale baking
company based in Norwalk, Connecticut with 8 bakery facilities spread
across the United States, including a new $72 million state-of-the-art
bakery in Bloomfield, Connecticut. In total, the company employs around
5,000 employees. Our facilities make a variety of high quality bakery
goods including breads, rolls, cookies and crackers with which I am
sure you are familiar. Our delicious and healthy products are available
nationwide and in 40 countries around the world.
My responsibilities at Pepperidge Farm include the management of
all company safety and health programs and initiatives, including
regulatory accountability and workers compensation. Employed by
Pepperidge Farm since 1998, I have held the position of Corporate
Safety Director for the past 3 1\2\ years. Prior to my current
position, I was Employee Relations Manager at Pepperidge Farm's Denver,
PA plant, where safety was one of my principle responsibilities. I
currently oversee the health, safety, and workers' compensation
programs for Pepperidge Farm's eight manufacturing plants and its
thrift stores, and sales distribution centers. In addition, I develop
and deliver 2-day safety training programs to all levels of employees
at our plant locations. Prior to joining Pepperidge Farm, I had 15
years of human resources experience for several other companies.
In my role as Corporate Safety Director, I work very closely with
both facility leadership and production employees to help ensure our
company is a safe place to work for all. I consider myself an advocate
for our employees and their families in the ongoing business of
maintaining a safe work environment. Pepperidge Farm is strongly
committed to providing a safe and healthy workplace to our highly
trained and valued employees. Our objective is to provide all
Pepperidge Farm employees with a work experience so special it changes
their lives. We seek to create an environment where inspired people set
and achieve high standards in everything they do. We try to achieve
these goals by hiring, engaging and retaining passionate individuals .
. . and by living the values of our founder, Margaret Rudkin,
throughout the company every day:
Passion for our products, our community, our dreams and
our combined power to achieve them
Uncompromising commitment to Quality
Genuine Caring about people as individuals, ensuring that
everyone's role is valuable and valued
Teamwork as a strategy for success
A continuous drive for Innovation in everything we do--
including safety.
Safety is an integral part of our company's value system. This
front line commitment to Safety at all levels of our organization has
helped us maintain superior performance when it comes to preventing the
occurrence of significant injuries and illnesses in our facilities. Our
OSHA Recordable Injury and Illness Rate has been lower than the baking
industry average for the past 4 years according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics.
The ABA and its member companies long have devoted substantial
efforts to enhance workplace safety and health programs in the
industry, and to share expertise for the benefit of injury and illness
prevention activities at individual facilities. Towards these ends,
ABA's Safety Committee--comprised of corporate safety directors at ABA-
member companies of various sizes--has routinely focused on the impact
of OSHA compliance obligations on company operations, as well as other
pro-active measures that reduce illnesses and injuries in bakery
production and distribution activities. As a result, wholesale baking
operations have substantially improved their safety and health
performance in recent years. For a number of industry facilities, these
improvements have been reflected in the rates of injuries and illnesses
that are recorded on OSHA logs, as well as their workers compensation
cost experience, which reflect both the frequency and severity of
compensable work-related injuries and illnesses.
The ABA, through the active participation of its Safety Committee,
also develops numerous strategies and training programs to address
specific workplace safety and health issues including hazard
communication. The comments that follow largely are based on the
observations and experience of the corporate safety directors, from
large and small wholesale baking companies, who are active members of
the ABA's Safety Committee.
The identification and protection from hazardous substances in the
workplace, is of paramount importance to Pepperidge Farm and the
wholesale baking industry. Towards that end we spend a tremendous
amount of time and resources implementing hazard communication plans as
spelled out by our own company policies and by OSHA's Hazard
Communication Standard. Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDSs) are the
cornerstone of fulfilling employees' right to know about chemicals in
the workplace requirements as embodied in the Hazard Communication
Standard. It is critically important that those MSDSs be clear, concise
and provide the necessary information to employees, supervisors and in
the worst case scenario--first responders. Sadly, the proliferation of
MSDSs designed solely for liability protection rather than employee
protection has led to widespread confusion and can be particularly
intimidating for employees.
Therefore, we are extremely excited to learn about OSHA's decision
to review the role and composition of MSDSs in the workplace. If done
properly, this is an excellent opportunity to improve the quality of
information available to employees as well as streamline the
administrative burdens on safety professionals. However, in order to
achieve these needed results, OSHA must be willing to open its process
to the ones who work with MSDSs every day--employees and employers.
Failure to do so will result in a rule that provides no increase in
safety for employees and no assistance to safety professionals such as
myself. Here is an opportunity to improve hazard communication to
everyone's benefit that should not be missed or diverted due to
inertia. To assist the Subcommittee and OSHA in this effort, I would
like to share with you my perspective as a safety professional who
works on these issues with employees every day.
OVERVIEW OF MSDSS
Let me take a few moments to describe for the subcommittee how
MSDSs are handled in our company and for most baking companies. To put
this in perspective you need to understand that we literally get
thousands of MSDSs coming into our system. Every manufacturer that we
receive materials from sends us MSDSs, including our own parent company
Campbell Soup. We receive them for all types of cleaners, solvents and
maintenance supplies. We also receive them for the printing materials
that we use on packaging. And despite broad exemptions under the Hazard
Communication Standard for food products we also receive MSDSs for
ingredients. At Pepperidge Farm, our policy is to include any and all
substances that employees may come in contact with, including food
ingredients. One never knows if an employee may have a particular
sensitivity to an ingredient and we like to have that information
available.
Managing the sheer volume of MSDSs we receive is an enormous
administrative challenge. Even minor changes in the composition of
substances we use require an update to our files. In addition, we need
to follow up with our suppliers when we do not receive MSDSs with
shipments or to determine if we need to receive updated MSDSs for
substances already in the facility.
Another important issue is that of items purchased in large bulk
quantities. Pepperidge Farm and most wholesale bakers now buy many of
the substances in use in our facilities in large bulk quantities in
order to save on expenses. After receiving the products in bulk form
they are commonly redistributed into smaller containers for use within
our operations. Unfortunately, when these products are delivered in
bulk they come with a single MSDS and no labels for the smaller
containers.
COMPOSITION OF MSDSS CRITICALLY IMPORTANT
The most important aspect of the Hazard Communication Standard is
the ability to quickly and concisely communicate to employees the
information they need to know about the substances with which they
work. Unfortunately, this is where the current MSDSs fail miserably.
The shortcomings of today's MSDSs are numerous, but it all starts with
a lack of focus by OSHA and by suppliers on what their true purpose
is--protecting employees.
The MSDSs that I have to work with at Pepperidge Farm usually fall
into one of two categories--those written by attorneys for attorneys
and those written by chemical engineers for chemical engineers. Most of
our safety professionals and certainly our production employees are
neither. The most important improvement OSHA could make would be to
have a standard format that is developed by all of the people that have
to use MSDSs--specifically employees and company safety professionals.
What is particularly troubling with MSDSs is it seems that every
substance has a different type of MSDS. Some have critically important
information up front where it can be quickly referenced. Some are one
or two pages of overly broad descriptions of the substance and no
useful information on what to do in cases of exposure. On the opposite
extreme, many are multipaged with lengthy chemical abstracts or
extensive legalese. Some MSDSs are identified by complex chemical names
while others include the manufacturers' brand name or other proprietary
label.
Additionally, many of the MSDSs don't truly match the substance
with which they arrive. On many occasions, very dated MSDSs will arrive
with similar but different types of products. Worse are the MSDSs that
arrive with commonly available products, such as cleaners, but are
identifying full strength substances when in reality the product
contains very small percentages of the substance. This provides
employees with misleading information or a false sense of concern. For
employers it gives little useful information to assist in potential
exposure situations.
EMPLOYEE DIVERSITY PRESENTS CHALLENGES
A particular challenge facing the wholesale baking industry, and I
would suggest probably many other industries, is the growing diversity
of our workforce. Some bakers in major metropolitan areas have upwards
of 30 countries and a dozen separate languages represented on their
workforces. This situation is not limited to just metropolitan areas.
In our Denver, Pennsylvania bakery located in the heart of Pennsylvania
Dutch country we have several different languages spoken including
Ukrainian, Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean, Laotian and several other
southeastern Asian dialects.
The baking industry's diverse population also includes wide ranging
education and literacy levels as well. More and more entry level
employees require some assistance in reading and basic math training in
order to fully participate in the workforce and meet the duties of
their employment.
Whether it is ethnic, cultural or educational diversity, there are
enormous challenges in training on MSDSs. With the sheets barely
comprehendible in English, attempting to train someone from another
country or with limited literacy skills is daunting to say the least.
As a safety professional, I am concerned about whether we are reaching
employees so that they understand what substances they need to be
careful around and how to respond in the case of a potential exposure.
RECOMMENDATIONS
As I said at the outset, we are particularly pleased to see that
OSHA is trying to address some of the shortcomings of the MSDSs. The
key to success is for OSHA to recognize that the MSDSs are designed to
inform employees and their employers--both large and small--on
hazardous substances in the workplace, how to handle them and what to
do in an emergency situation. OSHA should be actively reaching out to
include all interested stakeholders in this important process. If OSHA
attempts to make unilateral decisions about MSDSs then it risks wasting
a tremendous opportunity to improve employee protection as well as
allow safety professionals and employers to maximize their safety and
health resources.
Specifically, we would like to make the following recommendations
to the subcommittee and to OSHA:
1. CLARIFY REQUIREMENTS OF WHEN AND WHERE TO PROVIDE MSDSs
The first step to making MSDSs less confusing and more effective is
to definitively State when and where MSDSs are to be provided. You have
no doubt heard ad nauseam about the confusion of whether common retail
products, food items and ingredients must be accompanied by an MSDS
from the manufacturer. OSHA needs to clearly delineate between those
common products that pose no risk to employees from those that have the
potential of causing serious harm to employees.
One area OSHA could easily address is the arbitrary and ambiguous
reliance upon outside nonconsensus organizations standards that are
based on conjecture and perception rather than peer-reviewed scientific
and medical evidence. Some groups issue their own standards without
regard for transparency, public input or scientific fact--the biggest
violator being the American Conference of Governmental Industrial
Hygienists (ACGIH). OSHA should never rely upon ACGIH standards unless
it can independently verify, with proper public participation, the
validity of science underpinning ACGIH's arbitrary standards.
2. DEVELOP UNIFORM, STANDARD FORMATS
ABA strongly recommends that OSHA meet with all interested
stakeholders to develop uniform, standard formats for MSDSs. As
mentioned earlier, there are almost as many formats as there are MSDSs.
The important information--that most needed to protect employees--can
be located just about anywhere on the MSDS. In addition, there is way
too much non essential information on the sheets. In fact, this month's
Facility Safety Management magazine notes ``many manufacturers include
so many health hazards that the average workers would need a doctorate
in toxicology just to decipher the information--defeating the purpose
of the standard in the first place''.
OSHA needs to lay out a standard format that includes all of the
information necessary to identify and educate employees on the
potential hazards of the substance and what to do in emergency
situations--on the front page. They should be as brief as possible
without losing the important information of hazards, exposure limits,
reactivity and flammability. The MSDSs then can contain brief
descriptions and information for first responders. It also is important
to note that OSHA could do safety professionals a big favor by deciding
how MSDSs should be catalogued--either by chemical name or by
manufacturer brand name. It makes no sense if the purpose is safety to
have to sort through MSDSs that can be kept in any number of ways. At
the very least, OSHA needs to look at the ANSI Z400.1-1993 consensus
standard. This standard which recommends a voluntary 16-section
standard format was enacted to combat quality problems with MSDSs.
All too often an MSDS will suggest that personal protective
equipment be used with a particular substance. Unfortunately the MSDS
will not answer the important question of what type of protective
equipment and at what protection level it should be used. Many bakers
struggle with this vital question especially when trying to conduct
proper employee training. OSHA also could go a long way toward
providing meaningful safety information if it required MSDSs to
specifically what type and level of protection is required to protect
employees.
OSHA should also set standards on how often MSDSs need to be
updated by the manufacturer. Many substance manufacturers are still
using overly generic MSDSs developed when the Hazard Communication
Standard was first issued--despite the fact that there have been
formula changes that have made the MSDS obsolete. The MSDS also could
contain an easily identifiable code or id that indicates when it
``expires'' and needs to be replaced--expiration date if you will allow
me a baking analogy.
Finally, it seems like the proposed globally harmonized system is a
good opportunity for OSHA to implement these recommended MSDS
standards. While most of my comments today have been focused on U.S.
operations, even in the baking industry we are facing a more global
marketplace. Pepperidge Farm's parent company, Campbell Soup, sets many
safety and health policies for the entire company. As a global company,
Campbell Soup might benefit from a more uniform MSDS standard and that
would obviously impact Pepperidge Farm as well.
One caveat we would add, is that the impact of such a globally
harmonized standard might have on ABA's small members. It is difficult
enough to manage the MSDSs and conduct appropriate safety training with
limited resources that adding another layer of hazard communication
could be particularly burdensome. Before OSHA moves the U.S. toward
this new global standard it may need to determine if it is just for
those involved in the global marketplace or can the standard be used to
bring OSHA's standards in line and alleviate many of the burdens of the
current Hazard Communication Standard on small businesses.
3. PROMOTE USE OF ELECTRONIC MSDS SYSTEMS
One area that OSHA seems extremely reluctant to embrace is the use
of electronic MSDS systems. These systems can be tremendously effective
in collecting, storing, updating MSDSs on literally million of
substances. The benefit of such systems really comes through during
potential exposure situations when we can receive immediate treatment,
exposure and first aid assistance on any substance.
While Pepperidge Farm is in full compliance with all of the paper
requirements of the Hazard Communication Standard, we rely on an
electronic MSDS service for actual safety related issues. Our third-
party provider keeps an up-to-date listing of all of the substances in
our facilities. They provide a copy of the appropriate MSDS if we have
a situation that requires us to identify potential hazards and
appropriate safety measures. We have access via fax to the precise
safety information in a matter of a couple of minutes. We also have
poison control access through this same system at all of our locations.
This immediate access is far more preferable to thumbing through
binders with thousands of MSDSs. (Refer to binders again.) The binders
literally sit on shelves in various parts of our facilities gathering
dust. I can honestly say that employees have only asked on a couple of
occasions to see the paper MSDSs.
We can appreciate OSHA's concerns about having immediate access to
electronic MSDSs via fax or the Internet, however, I can personally
attest to the strength of the system we use. I put it through extensive
testing before agreeing to bring it into our facilities and I still
randomly test the system to make sure our third-party vendor is keeping
up to date.
As the technology continues to advance at breakneck speed, OSHA
needs to do more to encourage companies to utilize the technology. If
doctors and surgeons can rely on wireless and handheld technology to
effectively diagnose patients from a distance, then employers should be
able to use the same technology to protect and train employees about
hazardous substances in the workplace. It isn't hard to imagine a
wireless handheld where a safety manager or first responder scans a
substance package or even the substance itself and gets an immediate
response about the identity, concentration and abatement measures for
that substance.
4. USE LABELS MORE EFFECTIVELY IN EMPLOYEE COMMUNICATION
One aspect of the globally harmonized system for hazardous
substances that OSHA could incorporate into updating the Hazard
Communication Standard and MSDSs is the reliance upon proper labeling
for immediate situation response. Requiring substance manufacturers to
include a label on their substances that includes some universally
recognized symbols such as the National Fire Protection Association
coding or the Hazardous Materials Identification System would provide
employees with important information that would be far easier to
explain and understand than the current MSDSs. Similar labels to be
attached to small volume containers also would be very helpful.
I mentioned earlier the diversity of our workforce and the simplest
way to communicate the proper use and protection of hazardous
substances is through universally recognized labels. Training on these
labels would be far more effective than on the overly complex and
confusing MSDSs we currently rely upon.
CONCLUSION
Thank you again for the opportunity to share the wholesale baking
industry's thoughts on OSHA's Hazard Communication Standard,
particularly the role and utility of MSDSs in informing and protecting
employees. We are extremely excited about the opportunity to improve
the quality of information available to employees as well as help
safety professionals effectively protect employees on hazardous
substances. We offer these suggestions on how to achieve these results
but clearly, OSHA must be willing to open its process to the ones who
work with MSDSs every day--employees and employers. This opportunity to
improve hazard communication to everyone's benefit should not be
missed.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee. I would be
happy to take any questions you have.
Senator Enzi. Our next presenter is Dr. Michele Sullivan,
who is a hazard communication consultant. Dr. Sullivan is
chairman of the board of directors of the Society for Chemical
Hazard Communication, which has entered into an alliance with
OSHA to provide training and information on hazard
communication.
As an internationally recognized hazard communication
specialist, Dr. Sullivan participated in the development of the
Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of
Chemicals.
Dr. Sullivan.
Ms. Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I appreciate this opportunity to appear before the
subcommittee as it considers hazard communication.
The Society for Chemical Hazard Communication, known as
SCHC, is a professional society of individuals who are engaged
in the business of hazard communication. The Society's purpose
is to educate and provide information on hazard communication.
The Society offers over 25 professional development
courses, and these courses mainly focus on the information and
guidance needed to prepare the global 16-section MSDSs. The
courses are open to members and nonmembers, and as has been
mentioned several times earlier, there are no degrees currently
in MSDS and label-writing.
Recently, SCHC and OSHA have signed an alliance to provide
information and training on hazard communication MSDSs and the
GHS. Through the alliance, SCHC and OSHA will work
collaboratively to promote effective hazard communication.
As Mr. Henshaw mentioned, alliance activities currently
under discussion include the development of MSDS training for
OSHA staff and also for small businesses. We are also working
on the development of MSDS checklists to be used by OSHA, and
we will be working on ways to promote awareness of the Globally
Harmonized System.
The Globally Harmonized System could be viewed as the next
step in the hazard communication journey of continuous
improvement. Representatives from government, industry,
workers, and international organizations all participated in
developing the GHS. These representatives were all experts in
areas of hazard communication, and they worked not only to
create a Globally Harmonized System but to incorporate
enhancements based on their knowledge, experience, and past
learning.
Adopting the GHS would harmonize hazard communication
requirements among U.S. regulatory agencies, as mentioned
earlier, agencies like EPA, OSHA, CPSC, and DOT, as well as
globally.
The GHS would promote consistency and improve the quality
of MSDSs. The GHS requires the defined sequence for the MSDS
section, it specifies minimal information requirements for each
section, and it prioritizes the placement of different types of
information.
Adopting the GHS would standardize hazard definitions, both
domestically and globally; standardize hazard warnings and
hazard symbols on labels, both domestically and globally; and
standardize MSDS format and information, domestically and
globally.
The GHS can improve hazard communication by allowing
information to be more easily compared by utilizing symbols and
by utilizing standard phrases to improve awareness and
understanding. Consistent information would be communicated on
labels and MSDSs, and therefore, workers should have improved
comprehensibility. By providing detailed and standardized
physical and health hazard definitions, the GHS can lead to
better-quality information. Facilitation of international trade
in chemicals is also expected to be a GHS benefit.
However, implementation of the GHS offers challenges for
industry, probably particularly for small businesses, and
government. The hazard definitions for all chemical products
would have to be reviewed and their MSDSs and labels
potentially revised, and as was mentioned earlier, it is
estimated that there are over 650,000 chemical products.
The interests of workers, users of chemicals, the public,
regulators, and the chemical industry could be served by
adopting the GHS. A major benefit would be improved safety for
workers through consistent and simplified communication on
chemical hazards and practices to follow for safe handling and
use.
I appreciate the opportunity to provide you these comments,
Mr. Chairman, and I would be happy to answer any questions.
Senator Enzi. Thank you very much, Dr. Sullivan.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Sullivan follows:]
Prepared Statement of Michele R. Sullivan
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee: My name is Michele
Sullivan. I am a hazard communication professional with over 20 years
experience in industry, trade associations and consulting for
companies, government agencies, and international organizations. I was
a member of the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety &
Health (NACOSH) Hazard Communication Work Group (1995-96). I
participated on the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development
(OECD), the International Labor Organization (ILO) and international
groups that developed the new Globally Harmonized System (GHS) of
Classification and Labeling of Chemicals. I have been a member of the
Society for Chemical Hazard Communication (SCHC) for over 20 years and
I'm the Chairman of the SCHC Board of Directors.
I appreciate this opportunity to appear before the Subcommittee on
Employment, Safety, and Training this morning as it considers hazard
communication.
SCHC
SCHC is a professional society of individuals who are engaged in
the business of hazard communication. The members' jobs are diverse.
Many prepare labels and material safety data sheets (MSDSs) for their
employers' products. Others train users of hazardous chemicals, act as
expert witnesses or implement government regulations. They work in
industry, government and academia. SCHC membership has grown from 40
people in 1979 to approximately 700 today.
SCHC's purpose is to promote effective communication about chemical
hazards. The Society is committed to sharing knowledge and resources
and educating its members and the public about communicating chemical
hazards on product labels, MSDS and other literature.
SCHC strives to keep its members aware of the latest developments
concerning hazard communication. The Society holds meetings to provide
up-to-date information on current developments and education and
networking opportunities for its members. Recently the development,
content and implementation of the new Globally Harmonized System (GHS)
of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals have been covered. Training
workers about hazard communication is frequently a topic at meetings.
The Society's purpose has always been to educate and provide
information on hazard communication. Today the society offerings have
grown to over 25 professional development courses. These courses mainly
focus on information and guidance needed to prepare a global 16-section
MSDS. The students in these courses are generally people involved in
writing or developing MSDSs. The courses range from introductory MSDS
workshops, to courses on first aid statements and advanced courses on
assessing and communicating toxicological results. SCHC also offers
several courses on the diverse hazard communication labeling
requirements for the USA and other countries. SCHC students have a
broad range of occupations--for example chemistry, industrial hygiene,
and toxicology. There are no degrees in MSDS and label writing.
SCHC is one of the organizations canvassed for the American
National Standards Institute (ANSI) Z129.1 Labeling Standard and the
ANSI Z400.1 MSDS Standard. The society compiles comments on the draft
standards from its members and provides the comments to the ANSI
committees for consideration.
Outreach/Alliance
The Society has a history of collaboration and outreach. Shortly
after the OSHA Hazard Communication Standard, 29 CFR 1910.1200, (HCS)
was published, SCHC and OSHA collaborated to educate stakeholders by
jointly sponsoring seminars on a regional basis with both OSHA and SCHC
participating.
Recently, SCHC and OSHA have signed an Alliance to provide
information and training on hazard communication, MSDSs and the new
Globally Harmonized System (GHS) of Classification and Labeling of
Chemicals. Through the Alliance, SCHC and OSHA will work
collaboratively to promote effective hazard communication.
Some Alliance activities that SCHC is pursuing include: Creating an
Alliance page on the SCHC website that highlights hazard communication
and GHS resources and links; Having OSHA speakers participate at SCHC
meetings; and Serving on the editorial board for OSHA's Hazard
Communication Safety and Health Topics page.
Promoting awareness of the GHS by: Participating in the MSDS Round
Table at American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) 2004 spring
conference; Sponsoring GHS sessions at the 2004 National Safety
Council's Annual Congress and 2005 World Safety Congress; and Including
GHS topics on SCHC programs.
Alliance activities under discussion include the development of
MSDS training and checklists to be used by OSHA, and more GHS forums.
GHS
As an internationally recognized hazard communication expert, I had
the opportunity to participate in developing the GHS. Representatives
from governments, industry, workers and international organizations all
participated. These representatives were all experts in areas of hazard
communication. These specialists worked not only to create a globally
harmonized hazard communication system but to incorporate enhancements
based on their knowledge, experience, and past learnings. The GHS could
be viewed as the next step on the hazard communication journey of
continuous improvement.
Traditionally, hazard communication has had a three-prong approach:
labels, MSDSs and training for workers. These hazard communication
elements are all interrelated. While recognizing the importance of
training, the GHS focuses mainly on hazard definition, labels and
MSDSs.
It is instructive to examine the hazard communication elements and
how the GHS could enhance them.
Hazard Definitions
The starting point for all hazard communication is the definition
of what is hazardous. This forms the foundation for understanding a
product's characteristics and how to safely handle and use the product.
It triggers label warnings, hazard and precautionary information on
MSDSs, and packaging, transport and storage requirements.
The definition of what constitutes a hazardous chemical product
varies today among USA government agencies that regulate consumer
products, pesticides, transport, workplace, etc. Generally, the same is
true for most other industrialized countries that have a mature
chemical industry. What this means is that the same chemical product
can be hazardous and nonhazardous for different end uses in the USA,
requiring different labels. In the workplace workers can see labels
with different warnings for the same product and different MSDSs.
The GHS has criteria-based hazard definitions. The GHS would
harmonize hazard definitions among domestic regulatory agencies as well
as globally. Since hazard definitions are the starting point for hazard
communication, global adoption of the GHS elements could promote
consistency and comprehensibility.
MSDSS
In 1983 the OSHA Hazard Communication Standard's performance
oriented approach for MSDS seemed appropriate. Twenty years later, the
benefits of a standardized MSDS format have been recognized.
The Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA) and the American
National Standards Institute (ANSI) developed the first 16-section MSDS
(ANSI Z400.1). The format was not selected randomly. Information needed
in an emergency appears first and useful nonemergency information on
what regulations apply and toxicological/ecological data, etc., appear
later in the MSDS. The 16-section MSDS sequence is based on 4
questions:
1. What is the material & what do I need to know in an emergency?
2. What should I do if a hazardous situation occurs?
3. How can I prevent hazardous situations from occurring?
4. Is there any other useful information about this material?
This MSDS format prioritizes the placement of different types of
information.
The International Standards Organization (ISO), the International
Labor Organization (ILO) and the European Union all adopted similar 16-
section MSDS formats during the 1990's. The 16-section MSDS format is
common today for companies doing international business.
The audience for MSDSs has expanded from health and safety
professionals, workers, employers and customers to include fire
departments, emergency responders, State and local emergency planning
groups and members of the community. In recognizing that MSDS are
complex technical documents, the ANSI Z400 MSDS Standard currently
lists target audiences for each MSDS section so that the MSDS writer
can determine the appropriate language level. It recommends using
nontechnical lay language for the worker MSDS sections. Such an
approach to writing MSDSs could help readability.
Near the beginning of the MSDS, the ANSI MSDS format includes an
emergency overview that provides health, physical and environmental
hazards in straightforward language. This corresponds in the new GHS
MSDS to requiring hazard and label information in MSDS section 2.
Providing hazard information on MSDSs in an way that can be easily
identified and understood by nontechnical people is in agreement with
the NACOSH Hazard Communication Work Group (1995-96) recommendations.
The GHS requires a defined sequence for the 16 MSDS sections. It
specifies minimum information requirements for each section. Adoption
of the GHS would promote consistency and the quality of MSDS.
Labels
Guidance for labeling industrial chemicals has existed for many
years. Initially there was a Labels and Precautionary Information
(LAPI) Manual (1945-75) developed by CMA. This evolved to the ANSI
Z129.1 Labeling Standard which is a voluntary industry standard often
used to decide what is an appropriate hazard warning for performance-
oriented regulations. However, not all companies use the ANSI hazard
statements on labels and workers see different statements for the same
hazards.
In other countries many workplace hazard communications systems
require hazard symbols or pictograms as well as hazard statements. USA
workers currently see these different symbols on imported products. The
GHS will standardize hazard statements and hazard symbols. To reinforce
understanding, the GHS conveys information in more than one way--using
symbols with colored frames, signal words and hazard statements. Under
the GHS, words used in hazard statements would have a precise meaning
that would not change from company to company. Although training would
be necessary, particularly on the use of symbols, this standardization
should help with worker comprehensibility.
The GHS also includes an option for ``supplemental information''.
This is label information that is not standardized. Considering the
liability situation and the duty to warn requirement in the USA,
``Supplemental Information'' could be a key GHS label element for
companies.
SUPPORT/GUIDANCE/ASSISTANCE
Hazard communication and MSDSs are complex technical topics. It
requires expertise in many different areas to develop a quality MSDS.
It requires resources that are scarce in major corporations and often
lacking in small businesses. The necessary tools/assistance/guidance
should be available for small businesses to enable them to handle this
complex subject in-house, if so desired.
There is more information available today than ever before.
However, this can make the task more difficult. It is helpful for small
and medium enterprises to know what are good sources of information for
hazard communication. Information is needed on chemical hazards. But
information on related topics is also needed: personal protective
equipment, controls, decomposition products, process hazards, first
aid, fire-fighting measures, spill and leak control, disposal, etc.
Some excellent information is available on the Internet. OSHA has
recently updated its hazard communication page so that it is easier to
access and has new links. Some organizations (e.g., NIOSH) have
published CDs with hazard related information and made them available
for free or at nominal costs. Many types of guidance and assistance
could be valuable in promoting effective hazard communication: e-tools,
local training, distance learning, mentoring, etc. Guidance and
assistance would be particularly helpful in relation to the GHS.
Assistance with obtaining quality information and how to use that
information in hazard communication is an area that could be looked
into. There are opportunities for government agencies, trade
associations, professional associations, alliances/consortiums and
companies to contribute. There could be value in exploring partnerships
to promote effective hazard communication.
It is hard to imagine that any company would intentionally develop
poor quality MSDSs. With that in mind, one approach would be that
whenever inadequate or poor quality MSDSs are found, assistance could
be offered the company to improve its hazard communication program.
SUMMARY
The GHS would: standardize hazard definitions; standardize hazard
warnings and hazard symbols on labels; standardize MSDS format and
information.
The GHS can improve hazard communication by allowing information to
be more easily compared and by utilizing symbols & standard phrasing to
improve awareness and understanding. Consistent information will be
communicated on labels and MSDSs. Therefore, workers should have
improved comprehensibility. By providing detailed and standardized
physical and health hazard criteria, the GHS can lead to better quality
information. By providing an infrastructure for the establishment of
national chemical safety programs, the GHS can promote the sound
management of chemicals globally. Facilitation of international trade
in chemicals is also expected to be a GHS benefit.
Implementation of the GHS offers challenges for both industry and
government. The hazard definitions for all chemical products would have
to be reviewed and their MSDSs and labels potentially revised. OSHA has
estimated that there are over 650,000 chemical products.
The USA has some unique issues that affect hazard communication.
Liability and the duty to provide an adequate warning have always been
considered in developing USA labels. These considerations are now also
being applied to MSDSs. In considering the GHS as a means to improve
hazard communication, these issues should be kept in mind.
The GHS does NOT require hazard or other testing of chemical
products. Some of the differences in hazard communication, particularly
for topics like personal protective equipment, controls, decomposition
products, process hazards, first aid, fire-fighting measures, etc., can
be related to lack of knowledge, testing and standardization in these
areas. The GHS does not address these issues.
Implementation of effective hazard communication provides benefits
for governments, companies, workers, and members of the public. The
interests of workers, users of chemicals, the public, regulators and
the chemical industry could be well served by pursuing the GHS. A major
benefit would be improved safety for workers through consistent and
simplified communications on chemical hazards and practices to follow
for safe handling and use.
If the USA adopts the GHS, there will be some discretion in
implementation. However, modifications could cause loss of global
harmonization.
Again, I appreciate the opportunity to appear here today and to
provide input on the issue of hazard communication, MSDSs and the GHS.
Mr. Chairman, I would be pleased to answer any questions the committee
may have.
Senator Enzi. The next presenter is Michael Wright, who is
director of health, safety and environment for the United
Steelworkers of America. Mr. Wright is a former member of the
National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health
and is a current member of EPA's Clean Air Act Advisory
Committee and NIOSH's Mine Health Research Advisory Committee.
He also served on the international coordinating group
overseeing the development of the Globally Harmonized System of
Classification and Labeling of Chemicals.
Mr. Wright.
Mr. Wright. Thank you, Chairman Enzi, and thank you also
for your great leadership on this issue. If we get to a
Globally Harmonized System in this country, it will be largely
through your efforts.
My written comments include a history of the continuing
effort to achieve effective hazard communication in the U.S.
and worldwide. I will not repeat that here, because it is in
the written comments, but I do want to restate the two
conclusions that can be drawn from it.
First, workers' unions and the public health community work
so hard for good hazard communication not just because it is a
good idea for improving safety, although it is, but because we
believe that right to know--in this case, the right to know the
names and hazards of the chemicals you are exposed to--is a
fundamental right that should be enjoyed by all workers.
Second, right to know is an international issue, one that
can only be addressed internationally, and as the other
participants have said, we now have a magnificent new tool for
addressing it, and that, of course, is the Globally Harmonized
System. What remains is for countries of the world, including
the United States, to adopt it.
Currently, there are three major systems in place in the
U.S., Canada, and the European Union. A dozen or so other
countries have systems of their own, usually based on one of
those three. Those systems all work pretty well within their
own countries, but internationally, they conflict with each
other, which creates major problems for global public health
and for global trade.
In my office, I have a bag that is designed to hold a
particular toxic chemical. If you count the front and the back
and the bottom and the sides, it has about 12 square feet of
surface area on that bag. Every square inch contains a label or
a hazard warning required by one of those systems--every square
inch. There must be 14 different labels on that bag, because
the different systems require different labels. I thought to
bring it as a visual aid this morning, and then I realized if I
tried to get that through Senate security, both I and the bag
would be in a holding cell someplace--but it makes a statement.
In addition, and I think more seriously, most workers in
developing countries and countries in transition still lack the
right to know the names and hazards of the chemicals they use
on the job. The International Labor Organization estimates that
2 million people die worldwide each year from workplace
injuries and disease, most of them from disease. Many of those
deaths could be prevented if workers and their employers had
good chemical information in their own language.
However, countries without effective systems rarely have
the resources to develop one of their own. And whose system
should they model it after? Existing systems are after all
incompatible.
The GHS would solve both of these problems by establishing
a single unified system in and between countries that adopt it.
And since the technical work of developing the criteria and
designing the information system has already been done,
countries without a system could adopt the GHS relatively
easily.
Earlier I said that most systems work pretty well in their
own countries. But there are in fact two problems with the OSHA
Hazard Communication Standard. The first--and you have heard
about this extensively--is the low quality of the Material
Safety Data Sheets, and the second is the lack of an effective
training requirement. I will leave training to my written
statement. I do want to talk a little about the quality of
Material Safety Data Sheets.
Many manufacturers produce clear, readable, and informative
labels and Material Safety Data Sheets. However, we have seen
many that seemed designed to hide information rather than
communicate it. Some are internally inconsistent, and some are
just plain wrong. Let me give just two examples.
Several years ago, one of our local unions sent me two
safety data sheets for a type of refractory fiber from two
different manufacturers. They wanted to know which was safer.
In fact, the two products were identical. But the hazard
warning on one data sheet stated, and this is a quote:
``Warning: Similar material has been shown to cause malignant
and nonmalignant neoplasms in experimental animals exposed via
interperitoneal installation. As this route of exposure does
not mimic the human experience, the significance of this
finding is uncertain.''
The other safety data sheet said: ``Warning: Causes
cancer.'' Both warnings are accurate and both are legal under
the OSHA Hazard Communication Standard.
A second example can be found in almost every plant that I
or members of our staff visit. We almost always look at the
safety data sheets for the chemicals used in the plant, and we
can usually find one that says at the top ``This product
contains no hazardous ingredients.'' At the bottom, it says:
``Use with adequate ventilation. Do not breathe vapors. Avoid
skin contact. Use approved respiratory protection and
protective closing''--for a product that contains no hazardous
ingredients.
The GHS would solve this problem. Safety data sheets
prepared under the GHS contain specific elements in a specified
order. Hazard and warning phrases would be standardized and
comprehensible. In addition, there would be pictograms for
workers with low literacy.
I want to commend OSHA for its partnership with the Society
for Chemical Hazard Communication and for its recent Hazard
Communication Initiative. The initiative will be more effective
if it is informed by the views of chemical workers and small
business, and not just chemical suppliers and experts.
In addition, Congress should provide an adequate budget for
the initiative without detracting from OSHA enforcement or
other OSHA programs.
But OSHA's voluntary initiative can only go so far. The
problem with voluntary initiatives is that not everybody
volunteers. There is a role for the U.S. Congress, and that
role is legislative. In the last few years, we have seen lots
of ideas for tinkering with safety data sheets or establishing
yet another group to study the issue. Those ideas are well-
intentioned, but most of them would have little impact.
One thing, however, would make a dramatic difference. Mr.
Chairman, we would urge the Congress, beginning with your
subcommittee, to begin the work of adopting the GHS. In fact,
the only effective way for the United States to adopt the GHS
is through legislation. The ordinary OSHA rulemaking process is
too cumbersome and too constricted for ordinary standards, much
less one derived from a decade of international negotiations
that will have to be adopted as is to be effective with respect
to international trade. There will have to be OSHA rulemaking
to decide how the elements of the GHS best fit into existing
U.S. law and regulation. But Congress can set the stage by
requiring the adoption of those elements.
Mr. Chairman, in a period of intense partisanship, this is
not a partisan issue. Today you heard widespread agreement on
the value of workplace hazard communication, on the right of
workers to good information about the chemical hazards they
face, and on the virtue of U.S. leadership on the issue of
chemical safety. The participants in this hearing often
disagree on health and safety issues, but not on this one.
You and your subcommittee have a rare opportunity. By
taking the lead on the GHS, you can speak to the needs of
chemical users, especially small business, who are so
frustrated with the confusing and misleading safety data sheets
they often receive. You can support the efforts of responsible
chemical manufacturers who have worked to supply good
information to the users of their products. You can make
workplaces safe in the U.S. and, by example, around the world.
And you can demonstrate strong U.S. leadership on chemical
safety.
Finally, and to us most important, you can contribute to
what we think is a fundamental right of workers--the right-to-
know.
Thank you very much. I would be glad to answer questions
either orally today or in writing later.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wright follows:]
Prepared Statement of Michael J. Wright
Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Subcommittee: Thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you this morning on the issue of hazard
communication in the workplace. My name is Michael Wright. I am a
member of the United Steelworkers of America, and I lead the union's
Health, Safety and Environment Department. The USWA has approximately
600,000 members in the United States and Canada. Notwithstanding our
name, we represent workers in virtually every segment of the
workforce--steel of course, but also mining, aluminum and other
nonferrous metals, chemicals, plastics, tires and rubber, plastics,
glass, health care, services, and even public employment.
Like other participants in this hearing, I have spent a large part
of the last 25 years on the issue of workplace hazard communication.
Often, however, we in the labor movement called it by a different
name--``the right to know,'' specifically the right of every worker to
know the names and the hazards of the chemicals to which he or she is
exposed. Indeed, the history of chemical hazard communication is a
history of the struggle to assure the ``right to know,'' first in the
United States and other developed countries, and now, through
instruments like the Globally Harmonized System (GHS), worldwide.
Right-To-Know in the United States
Perhaps a brief review of that history would be useful. In the late
1970s, the labor movement in the United States began working toward an
OSHA Right-to-Know Standard. It was an uphill battle. Sadly, most
corporations and trade associations opposed us. The prevailing view was
that workers did not need, would not understand, and would probably
misuse information about toxic chemicals. I still have a copy of a
safety and health guide published by a large steel company, warning
managers not to give workers access to chemical information, on the
grounds that it would complicate labor relations. Safety and health
professionals, within both OSHA and industry, too often saw chemical
safety as their job exclusively, with no real role for workers except
to follow instructions. Nevertheless, OSHA began work on a Hazard
Communication Standard, and released a proposal in the closing days of
the Carter Administration. That proposal was promptly withdrawn by the
incoming Reagan Administration.
Of course, the issue did not die. Spurred by coalitions of unions
and environmentalists, State legislatures across the country began to
pass worker and community right-to-know laws. These laws often
conflicted, potentially forcing chemical manufacturers and suppliers to
use different labels for different States. Chemical users and
purchasers began to realize that the lack of chemical information hurt
them as well. And, safety and health professionals in industry and
government increasingly came to understand that a trained and informed
workforce is essential to a good safety and health program.
As a result, OSHA published a new Hazard Communication proposal in
1982, and issued the final standard in 1983. Organized labor strongly
supported the standard, but we thought it was deficient in two areas.
First, it applied only to manufacturing, leaving millions of workers in
other sectors unprotected. Second, the trade secret exemption was much
too broad, allowing chemical manufacturers and formulators to hide
information from workers, even when that information was known to
competitors. We asked for judicial review on those two issues in the
Third Circuit Court of Appeals, even as the standard went into effect.
We won that case in 1985, although it took 2 years and a subsequent
court order before OSHA finally fixed the deficiencies in the original
standard. Even then, the Office of Management and Budget attempted to
revoke parts of the standard by administrative fiat. It took a
subsequent decision by the Third Circuit, upheld in 1990 by the U.S.
Supreme Court, to turn back OMB's end run around the legitimate
rulemaking process. It had taken more than a decade but most American
workers had finally achieved the right to know the names and the
hazards of chemicals they use on the job. (The major exceptions were
miners, and public employees in those States without a State plan. MSHA
finally promulgated a final hazard communication rule in 2002; public
employees still lack coverage.)
Right-To-Know Internationally
Meanwhile, right-to-know was becoming an issue internationally.
Workers in Canada won the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information
System in 1988. Some European countries had effective systems in place
at the beginning of the 1980s; European Union directives ultimately
created a unified system across the continent.
By the end of the 1980s, two problems remained. First, the systems
in place in the United States, Canada and the European Union were
mutually inconsistent. Labels and Safety Data Sheets produced in one
country often were not acceptable in another. This is especially a
problem in trade between the United States and Canada. The Canadian
WHMIS system specifies a detailed format for chemical labels; the U.S.
Hazard Communication standard does not. As a result, chemicals labeled
in Canada can be sold freely in the U.S., while most chemicals labeled
in the U.S. have to be relabeled before they can be sold in Canada. As
more countries adopted chemical labeling and information regulations,
this problem only became worse. In my office, I have a bag designed to
hold 10 kilograms of a toxic chemical called acrylamide. The bag has
about 12 square feet of surface area, and almost every square inch is
needed to contain the different labels required for the United States,
Canada, the European Union, Japan, and other countries.
Second, and more serious, most workers in developing countries and
countries in transition still lack the right to know the names and
hazards of the chemicals they use on the job. The International Labor
Organization estimates that two million people die worldwide each year
from workplace injuries and disease. Many of those deaths could be
prevented if workers and their employers had good chemical information
in their own language. However, countries without effective systems
rarely have the resources to develop one on their own. And whose system
should they model it after? Existing systems are, after all,
incompatible.
There is an answer to both these problems--global harmonization,
the worldwide adoption of a single unified system, combining the best
elements of existing national systems. Happily, we have achieved the
first step toward global harmonization. After a decade of work by a
number of international organizations, we have a Globally Harmonized
System for the Classification and Labeling of Chemicals. What remains
is for countries to adopt it.
The idea of a globally harmonized system was first proposed at the
1989 Conference of the International Labor Organization in Geneva. One
of the items on the Conference's agenda was a new international
convention on ``Safety in the Use of Chemicals at Work.'' ILO
conventions normally require discussion at two consecutive ILO
conferences. The draft convention that emerged from the first year's
discussion in 1989 contained extensive language on chemical labeling
and the right of workers to good chemical information. But for a
country to fulfill those obligations, it would have to adopt a system
for chemical classification and labeling. Developing countries
maintained that they could never adopt such a system unless there was a
globally harmonized system to adopt. Led by the Government of India,
they pushed through a resolution calling for such a system. (The ILO is
a tripartite organization; I am proud to have been the chair of the
workers delegation in the discussions on the Chemicals Convention. In
1990 the Convention was adopted by the full ILO Conference by a near
unanimous vote. The only vote not in favor was an abstention by the
United States employers delegation.)
Three years after the ILO Resolution, the United Nations Conference
on Environment and Development identified harmonization as one of its
action programs. Working groups were set up under the ILO, OECD, and
the UN Committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods. The
work was coordinated by the Interorganizational Program for the Sound
Management of Chemicals. Jennifer Silk of OSHA chaired that group;
Michelle Sullivan, who testified earlier, represented industry. I was
one of the labor representatives. We quickly agreed on a set of general
principles--most importantly, that the GHS should not weaken protection
in any existing system. However, the technical work on classification
criteria, and the painful political work of reconciling differing
systems took the better part of a decade.
The Road Ahead
I included this history to make two points. First, ``hazard
communication'' is more than a technical measure designed to increase
safety. It is also at the heart of what should be seen as a fundamental
worker right--the right to know.
Second, right-to-know is a worldwide issue best addressed by a
worldwide instrument--the Globally Harmonized System. In fact, the GHS
would help with what I think are the two most serious problems of the
OSHA Hazard Communication Standard--the low quality of Material Safety
Data Sheets and the lack of an effective training requirement.
The OSHA HazCom Standard is an almost pure ``performance''
standard. During the original rulemaking, chemical manufacturers urged
OSHA to let each company decide how best to communicate chemical
information on its own labels and safety data sheets. Unions and some
chemical users thought a specified format and phrasing would make
labels and safety data sheets more readable and more easily understood,
but the manufacturers' views prevailed.
Indeed, many manufacturers produce clear, readable and informative
labels and safety data sheets. The American Chemistry Council and the
Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association have produced
useful guidance to their members, and the American National Standards
Institute has provided a model format to the industry as a whole.
However, most chemical suppliers are not members of the ACC or SOCMA,
and relatively few companies have adopted the ANSI format. The problem
with voluntary standards is that not everyone volunteers. We have seen
many safety data sheets that seem designed to hide information, rather
than communicate it. Some are internally inconsistent or just plain
wrong.
Let me give just two examples. Several years ago one of our local
unions sent me two safety data sheets for a type of refractory fiber
from two different manufacturers. They wanted to know which was safer.
In fact, the two products were virtually identical. But the hazard
warning on one data sheet stated: ``Warning: similar material has been
shown to cause malignant and nonmalignant neoplasms in experimental
animals exposed via interperitoneal installation. As this route of
exposure does not mimic the human experience, the significance of this
finding is uncertain.''
The other safety data sheet said: ``Warning: causes cancer.'' Both
warnings are legal under the OSHA HazCom standard.
Incidentally, the local union was far more worried about the first
product. They worked with carcinogens all the time. They knew what
precautions to take. But they thought that if the first company had
taken the trouble to write such an incomprehensible statement, their
product must be especially dangerous.
The second example can be found in almost every plant I or our
staff visit. We usually look at the safety data sheets for chemicals
used in the plant. We almost always find one that, at the top, says:
``This product contains no hazardous ingredients.'' At the bottom it
says: ``Use with adequate ventilation. Do not breathe vapors. Avoid
skin contact. Use approved respiratory protection equipment and
protective clothing.''
As for training, there is no question that good training greatly
improves the ability to understand chemical labeling and safety data
sheets. Unfortunately, the OSHA standard is vague, requiring only that:
``Employers shall provide employees with effective information and
training on chemical hazards in their work area.'' [29 CFR 1910.1200
(h)(1)] That training need only be provided once in the employee's
entire working life, unless new chemical hazards are introduced into
the work area. OSHA provides additional guidance in a nonmandatory
appendix to the standard, but the guidance is unenforceable.
OSHA has written many citations to companies that did no training
at all, but to the best of my knowledge, they have never written a
citation for inadequate training. In my office, we have a betting pool
to see who can find the company that got away with the shortest HazCom
training. So far, the record is 7 minutes. In contrast, when the USWA
does HazCom training for safety representatives and first responders,
it takes 6 hours. The training done by the University of Oregon Labor
Education and Research Center--typical of university-based extension
programs--takes 4 hours. And those sessions only include the standard
itself and the fundamentals of chemical safety. Employers have the
additional obligation of training their workers on the chemical hazards
specific to their jobs.
The GHS would help solve both these problems. Safety data sheets
prepared under the GHS contain 16 specific elements in a specified
order. The GHS labeling criteria contain specified hazard and warning
phrases, which are also applicable to safety data sheets. In addition,
the GHS specifies a number of pictograms that guide workers who cannot
read, and provide additional emphasis for those who can.
The GHS also contains a strong endorsement of training, although it
does not specify a detailed agenda for training or training methods. I
understand that the United Nations subcommittee on the GHS will be
looking at the training issue in the future, and that UNITAR--the
United Nations Institute for Training and Research--is developing a set
of general training materials. Adoption of the GHS would give the
United States an opportunity to upgrade our own training requirements.
The Next Steps
I want to commend OSHA for its partnership with the Society for
Chemical Hazard Communication, and for its recent Hazard Communication
Initiative. The initiative will be more effective if it is informed by
the views of chemical users, and not just chemical suppliers and
experts. The initiative should include small businesses that use
chemicals. Many of them are overwhelmed by the complexity,
inconsistency and low quality of the safety data sheets they receive,
and could contribute greatly to OSHA's work. Workers are the ultimate
consumers of chemical information, and those most at risk from chemical
hazards. Their voices should be heard as well.
In addition, Congress should provide an adequate budget for the
initiative, without detracting from enforcement or other OSHA programs.
But OSHA's voluntary initiative can only go so far. There is a role
for the U.S. Congress, and that role is legislative. In the last few
years, we have heard ideas for tinkering with safety data sheets, or
establishing yet another group to study the issue. Those ideas are well
intentioned, but most of them would have little impact.
One thing, however, would make a dramatic difference. Mr. Chairman,
we urge the Congress, beginning with your subcommittee, to begin the
work of adopting the Globally Harmonized System.
Let me outline what ``adoption'' means. The GHS is described as a
voluntary system, but it is voluntary only in the context of
international law. In other words, it is not the subject of a binding
convention or treaty. No country can be forced to adopt it. A
government can adopt the GHS and later reject it without violating
international law. (However, once the GHS is widely adopted, a country
that tries to enforce a different system for imported chemicals may be
guilty of a trade violation.)
Once adopted, however, the GHS would be mandatory within the
adopting country. Chemical suppliers and employers would be obligated
to follow it. Within the U.S., for example, the GHS--or more
accurately, regulations based on the GHS--would replace the OSHA HazCom
Standard and other labeling rules for some consumer products.
The only effective way for the U.S. to adopt the GHS is through
legislation. The ordinary OSHA rulemaking process is too cumbersome and
constricted for ordinary standards, much less one derived from a decade
of international negotiations. There will have to be OSHA rulemaking to
determine how the elements of the GHS best fit into existing U.S. law
and regulation, but Congress can set the stage by requiring the
adoption of those elements.
Fortunately, there is no need to adopt the GHS all at once. In
fact, the GHS celebrates a building block approach. For example, the
United States could first adopt the GHS as it applies to workplace
health and safety, leaving consumer products to a later date.
While we are at it, the United States should also ratify the ILO
Convention on Safety in the Use of Chemicals at Work. Nothing in that
convention is inconsistent with U.S. law, and it would do nothing to
change U.S. regulations for hazardous chemicals. However, ratification
would send a message that the U.S. believes in chemical safety
worldwide, and expects all countries and corporations to provide safe
working conditions.
Mr. Chairman, in a period of intense partisanship, this is not a
partisan issue. Today you heard widespread agreement on the value of
workplace hazard communication, on the right of workers to good
information about the chemical hazards they face, and on the virtue of
U.S. leadership on chemical safety. The participants in this hearing
often disagree on health and safety issues--but not on this one.
Mr. Chairman, you and your subcommittee have a rare opportunity. By
taking the lead on the GHS you can speak to the needs of chemical
users, especially small businesses, who are so frustrated with
confusing and misleading safety data sheets. You can support the
efforts of responsible chemical manufacturers, who have worked to
supply good information to the users of their products. You can make
our workplaces safer, and by example, workplaces around the world. You
can demonstrate strong U.S. leadership on chemical safety. And you can
contribute to a fundamental right of workers--the right-to-know.
Thank you again for the chance to testify this morning.
Senator Enzi. Thank you very much.
I want to thank the whole panel for the information that
they have provided. There is a lot of tremendous information
there, and we will make sure that OSHA looks at it some more,
and we will also take a look at the Global Harmonizing System
and see what sorts of legislative things are possible with it.
I really appreciate all the comments and suggestions on how
we can do this, and the need for simpler sheets, one page, and
also the training that needs to go with that, because if the
employees do not understand how to use the information that is
there--and it is very complicated information--it still will
not achieve our objective.
I do have a few questions. I will start with Mr. Grumbles.
You said that outreach assistance on Material Safety Data
Sheet and hazard communication should be provided to small
business. How do you recommend that OSHA's compliance
assistance efforts take into account and reach small
businesses?
Mr. Grumbles. First of all, I am sure they cannot do it by
themselves, and I think the efforts that have happened in the
last 2 years to develop multiple alliances with groups of
interested parties are the perfect framework for OSHA to use
to, in essence, multiply their resources and their capabilities
to deliver the messages, and in fact, as we have heard this
morning, actually develop the information that can be delivered
to those small businesses.
So I think that in working with the alliances and looking
at the large number of companies that are involved in those
alliances, no matter how you count, that can be done.
I also think that in their alliances with associations like
ours--we have developed infrastructures, for instance,
electronic infrastructures, to develop telewebs and other
mechanisms that, with cooperation between the alliances, we can
develop delivery mechanisms to perhaps even more efficiently
deliver the messages.
So I really think that the alliance work that OSHA has done
in the last 2 years can really pay off and really be a good
framework to develop this, perhaps in further cooperation with
the small business development centers.
Senator Enzi. That is a great idea. I have appreciated the
mention of electronics that everybody has done. One of the
things that I had to do in this job was to allow electronic
data sheets to be acceptable as opposed to paper, so they are a
recognized means now.
I would like all of you to think about the question that I
posed to Mr. Henshaw, which was what do we do about limited
English proficiency. If you have any specific suggestions on
that, I would really be interested, because it is a problem out
there in the work force. You may have run across it with the
things that you have done.
Is there anything specific that any of you would like to
contribute on that at this moment?
Mr. Wright?
Mr. Wright. I guess I got my hand up first. I think that in
many ways, the GHS will help that, because the kind of hazard
warnings in the GHS are quite standard, so they would be easily
translated into different languages.
In addition, a lot of chemical suppliers supply chemicals
to many different markets, so especially large chemical
companies probably have MSDSs available in different languages
already. The problem now is that those MSDSs are not
standardized, so the MSDS that they send to, say, China is
going to be quite different from the one they send to the
United States and different from the one they send to Canada.
But as the GHS standardizes MSDSs, the only remaining task will
really be to translate between different languages, and that
will be made much more easy because of the phrasing of the
MSDSs--the particular way that you warn about a carcinogen, for
example, will be standardized. So I think the problem will
begin to solve itself.
Senator Enzi. Dr. Sullivan, do you want to comment on that
as well?
Ms. Sullivan. Yes. I would just add to what Mike said that
besides helping with having standardized phrases that will be
translated sometimes by the international organizations and
other regional organizations, the GHS will also include
pictograms, which would be helpful for people who either have
some illiteracy or language problems. There are pictograms that
can be used both on labels and on the Material Safety Data
Sheets, which will at least allow them to understand what the
hazards are. They represent the hazards, whether it is a
flammable or whether it is toxic or irritant to the skin or
those types of things. So there is some help in the GHS.
Senator Enzi. We have the GHS recommendations now. How many
countries are participating in that at the moment? We mentioned
the difference between requirements from one country to
another. Has this been adopted? We have adopted it kind of
globally, but as far as country to country, are we getting some
uniformity there?
Ms. Sullivan. There are several goals for GHS adoption that
have been put forward by different organizations. The
International Forum on Chemical Safety, and the World
Sustainable Development, the follow-up to the Rio work in 1992,
have come out with adopting by 2008, and the APIC Ministers
have recommended adoption of the GHS by 2006. But as yet, as
far as I understand, there are not any countries that have--
several of them have committed to those dates.
For example, I just came from the Society for Chemical
Hazard Communication meeting in New Orleans, and we had
speakers both from the European Union and from Canada, and they
are both looking at considering adoption of the GHS in the
2006-2008 time frame.
But I have to admit, Mr. Chairman, as several of my
colleagues have mentioned, they are all waiting to hear what
the United States is going to do, sine we are a major player in
the world trade.
Senator Enzi. I think our Government alone is the world's
largest customer, so it probably does have an effect.
Mr. Hanson, I want to thank you for coming all the way from
Casper, WY. Since I get out there almost every weekend to a
different place in Wyoming, I understand the travel
difficulties that you had and will have before you get back,
with or without the Material Safety Data Sheets that are
involved with the airlines.
How many notebooks did you say you had?
Mr. Hanson. We started with 26 4-inch binders. We have
since then condensed our system down to one 1\2\-inch ring
binder with the chemical categorization system. And just like
GHS, instead of pictograms, it categorizes chemicals
numerically. All chemicals can fall into the numbers one
through 36.
Senator Enzi. And the reason you have the 26 books is for
different areas, or does everybody have to use all 26?
Mr. Hanson. That was just our main inventory. You have to
have a master index of all MSDSs in your organization. So our
master index made up 26 4-inch ring binders. Now, taking into
consideration the MSDSs for each individual floor, unit, and
area where they are required--as per the standard, it has to be
readily accessible in the area where they work--take that into
consideration, and patient registration may have just a little
file folder with three or four MSDSs, where our radiation
oncology department, where you are getting into anti-
neoplastics and some of the pharmaceuticals that require MSDSs,
you could have several hundred.
Senator Enzi. OK. You listed some of the things that you
thought could help; I think there were five different ones in
your testimony dealing with the 2,500 different Material Safety
Data Sheets in your hospital. Can you tell me a little more
about the clarity, accuracy, and consistency that you are
seeing on those?
Mr. Hanson. There is none. That sums it up.
Senator Enzi. OK. Have you had a chance to look at the
Globally Harmonized System?
Mr. Hanson. Yes.
Senator Enzi. Will that solve some of the problems, from
your perspective?
Mr. Hanson. Well, it is definitely going to help identify
some of the processes that were going to need to help focus on.
However, MSDSs in the United States still, as it stands, is no
small issue. You have to format the MSDS first and get
consistency before we can go to a GHS system. This alone
suggests that substantial portions of the MSDS have serious
deficiencies, and unless we correct those, coming on board with
the GHS is not going to be appropriate. So I think you have to
almost align the two simultaneously.
Senator Enzi. Thank you.
Ms. Jackson, when I think of Pepperidge Farm, somehow I do
not think of hazardous chemicals--I think more of Milano
cookie.
Ms. Jackson. Well, you should.
[Laughter.]
Senator Enzi. Well, good. I am on the right track, then. I
am pleased with that.
Your testimony demonstrates how widespread and important
this issue of hazardous communication is to all types of
employers, and I appreciate the detail that you went into on
the need for a standard format.
How do you see that standard format improving the
communication and protecting your workers?
Ms. Jackson. I think just the ease of training is one
aspect; being able to point to an MSDS--which we all do in our
jobs when we do employee training--this is what it should
contain, and then, when you actually show them examples, you
have to really look hard to find one that actually fits what
you are training to.
So I think a standardized MSDS format would certainly ease
that, the employee training, employee communication. We need to
come up with, as I said, some kind of standardized hazard
identification system. Whether it is the NFPA diamond or the
HMIS numbers, we need to stick with one and then make sure that
they are on the labels that go onto the secondary containers--
all the styrofoam cups, as you mentioned, or the spray bottles
that are used. Sanitation chemicals, for example, are
downloaded into smaller spray bottles. Think of your bottle of
Windex, for example.
Senator Enzi. But of course, on those bottles, you do not
have the 12 square feet that we heard about earlier.
Ms. Jackson. No, but you can convey a lot of information in
a two-by-two label, which we do.
Senator Enzi. How does that all fit in with the electronic
Material Safety Data Sheets that you have been using? How are
those working?
Ms. Jackson. Well, the electronic is great as far as
retrieval. When we do have an issue or we do have employees who
want to see what it is they are working with, that is a great
means--within 2 minutes, we can have a faxed copy of that MSDS.
As far as helping us with the labeling, yes, we can verify
that how we are labeling is correct per the MSDS. But again, if
the MSDS sheet is not correct, then, the label that we put onto
our secondary container is not correct, and employees are not
getting the proper information.
Senator Enzi. I think that has been a real consistent
message today.
Mr. Hanson, did you want to comment on that?
Mr. Hanson. Yes. I think one thing that is important to
understand, too, is that just having an online MSDS system does
not alleviate the problems. You are taking it from paper in a
book and putting it on a computer with a more capable search
function, but the issue still remains. So going back to
formatting the MSDS first is a key priority.
Senator Enzi. Thank you.
I want to thank all of you for your testimony and your
answers. I do have some other questions here, but we are going
to have to finish the hearing.
I really do appreciate all the information, and as we
gather this together, I think it will be extremely helpful, and
I will be pushing for us to get this globally harmonized. I do
recognize that the United States is a leader and has to be a
leader, and since it fits with all the testimony that we have
gotten from everybody and, in my opinion, will be driven by the
small businesses who have the most difficulty working with
this, I see that as particularly important.
The reason we held this hearing is because I have had
extensive complaints about the Material Safety Data Sheets from
employees and employers, and we do want to come up with a
system that is actually usable and that saves lives.
So thank you all for the time that you have given and the
information.
The record will remain open. The hearing is adjourned.
[Additional material follows.]
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Statement of the American Society of Safety Engineers
Chairman Enzi and Respected Subcommittee Members: The American
Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) is the oldest and largest society of
safety professionals in the world. Founded in 1911, ASSE represents
about 30,000 dedicated safety, health and environmental (SHE)
professionals. Our members are dedicated to excellence, expertise and
commitment to the protection of people, property and the environment
worldwide. The Society has thirteen Practice Specialties across every
type of SHE practice--Academics, Construction, Consultants,
Engineering, Environmental, Healthcare, Industrial Hygiene,
International, Management, Mining, Public Sector, Risk Management and
Insurance, and Transportation. ASSE's members in these specialties are
leaders in their fields with the knowledge and expertise needed to
advance occupational safety and health forward on a global level. On
behalf of our members, ASSE is pleased to submit this statement for
inclusion in the formal hearing record.
ASSE commends the subcommittee for addressing the issue of hazard
communication (HazCom) in the 21st Century workplace, especially as it
pertains to global harmonization and the HazCom system cooperatively
developed last year under the auspices of the United Nations with
significant input from the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the
Department of State.
With more than 32 million workers exposed to 650,000 hazardous
chemical products in more than 3 million American workplaces, HazCom is
a significant workplace and public safety and health issue. Moreover,
each year emergency responders are seriously injured or killed because
of deficient information about chemicals on site when they are
addressing situations such as fires, explosions or transportation
disasters. Our expanding multilingual population also requires
consideration of a HazCom system that has greater utility than the
present Anglo-centric system in place. Significant challenges face
Congress and both Federal and State agencies tasked with managing
HazCom as the United States continues to cooperate with other nations
in implementing a unified system that can protect individuals across
international boundaries.
BACKGROUND
All existing HazCom rules and guidance in the United States--
whether codified by various governmental entities or developed by
consensus organizations--recognize that not only can certain chemicals
present physical hazards such as fires and explosions, they can cause a
variety of health problems, including sterility, cancer, chemical and
thermal burns, and heart, kidney or lung disease.
In 1983, OSHA enacted its Hazard Communication (HCS) Standard (29
CFR 1910.1200) to reduce injuries and illnesses related to exposures in
the chemical industry. Today, the standard covers chemical exposures
that occur in all nonmining workplaces. In 2002, the Mine Safety and
Health Administration (MSHA) adopted a system quite similar to OSHA's
standard (30 CFR Part 47). OSHA's standard is the second most cited
Federal occupational safety and health standard. More than 7,000
citations were issued in fiscal year 2003, amounting to more than $1.3
million in penalties. MSHA's standard, while newer, also ranks among
the most-often cited rules. In addition, other Federal agencies,
including the Department of Defense, NASA, and the Department of
Transportation, have regulations that include hazard communication
components and/or have published ``hazard communication'' guidance. \1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ In addition to the OSHA and MSHA standards explained below,
other codified Federal standards with Hazard Communication implications
are contained in 10 CFR (Energy), 39 CFR (Postal Service), 40 CFR
(Protection of Environment), 49 CFR 171.8, 172.101, 172.102 (Hazardous
Materials Regulations), and DOT-HM-181 Regulations (Dangerous Goods
Regulations). These cannot be ignored as Congress and the Federal
Government as a whole explores the best approach to efficiently
developing a conforming system of hazard communication.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Increasingly, these United States measures must be reviewed against
international HazCom developments. In 2003, the United States and other
nations cooperatively developed a Globally Harmonized System (GHS) of
hazard communication. In addition, the global safety and health
community has moved into the mainstream a new method termed ``control
banding'' that can be utilized to minimize potential worker exposures
to hazardous chemicals. This new method utilizes key statements
included in MSDSs to assist in the selection of appropriate chemical
control methods.
OSHA/MSHA HAZCOM STANDARDS
Current U.S. Department of Labor Hazard Communication (HazCom or
HCS) regulations (29 CFR 1910.1200 and 30 CFR Part 47) apply to all
employers producing or using a hazardous chemical to which a worker can
be exposed under normal conditions of use or in a foreseeable
emergency. If a hazardous chemical is ``known to be present'' by the
chemical manufacturer or the employer, it is covered by the standard.
The basic requirements of OSHA/MSHA Hazard Communication mandate that
employers:
Inventory the chemicals at the workplace and determine
which are hazardous.
Keep a list of the hazardous chemicals.
Establish a written HCS program.
Prepare a label and Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for
hazardous chemicals that the employer produces on site.
Make sure that containers of hazardous chemicals are
labeled.
Keep MSDSs for the hazardous chemicals at the worksite.
Train all employees about the HCS program and the
hazardous chemicals to which they can be exposed.
Allow workers (and other workers on site) to access at the
HCS information and provide them with a copy upon request.
Only chemical manufacturers and importers are required to perform
hazard determinations on all chemicals they produce or import, although
distributors and employers may also choose to do so. Hazard
determination procedures must be in writing and made available, upon
request, to employees, and to representatives from OSHA/MSHA and/or the
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).
Employers are responsible for conducting a hazard assessment to
determine which hazardous chemicals are currently being used by doing a
``walk-around inspection'' and checking records, obtaining an MSDS for
each identified chemical hazard, determining which workers may be
exposed in the normal course of their duties, and providing appropriate
training. The employer must also, of course, take remedial actions to
control the hazards, limit worker exposures to the maximum extent
feasible, and provide workers with appropriate personal protective
equipment.
In an effort to harmonize HCS with analogous environmental
statutes, OSHA and MSHA exempted hazardous substances defined by the
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act
(CERCLA) when the hazardous substance is the focus of remedial or
removal action being conducted under CERCLA. There is some interface
between chemicals listed in an employer's chemical hazard inventory and
community right-to-know laws, including the EPA's SARA Title III. The
standard also exempts consumer products and hazardous substances, which
are defined in the Consumer Product Safety Act and Federal Hazardous
Substances Act respectively, where the employer can show that it is
used in the workplace for the purpose intended by the chemical
manufacturer or importer, and the use results in a duration and
frequency of exposure not greater than the range of exposures that
could reasonably be experienced by consumers when used for the purpose
intended.
Labeling requirements--The OSHA/MSHA HCS also includes labeling
requirements, and the employer must ensure that containers of hazardous
chemicals are marked, tagged, or labeled with the identity of the
hazardous chemical and appropriate hazard warnings. The label must be
in English and prominently displayed, although OSHA and MSHA permit
employers to add warnings in other languages or use symbols to help
workers understand the label contents. This is critical in light of the
growing number of multilingual workplaces in the U.S. The information
on a container label varies depending on what type of container it is
and how it is used. Chemical manufacturers, importers, and distributors
are required to ensure that every container of hazardous chemicals they
ship is appropriately labeled with such information and with the name
and address of the producer or other responsible party. Employers
purchasing chemicals can rely on the labels provided by their
suppliers, but if the employer subsequently transfers the chemical from
a labeled container to another, the employer must label that container
unless subject to the agencies' portable container exemptions.
The OSHA/MSHA hazard communication standards recognize the use of
alternative in-plant labeling systems such as the ``HMIS'' (Hazardous
Materials Information System), National Fire Protection Association
(``NFPA''), and others that may be used in industry. These systems rely
on numerical and/or alphabetic codes to convey hazards and are
generally nonspecific. These agencies permit these types of in-plant
labeling systems to be used when an employer's overall HCS program is
proven to be effective despite the potential absence of target organ
information on container labels. The employer must assure through more
intensified training that its employees are fully aware of the hazards
of the chemicals used and that their training program instructs
employees on how to use and understand the alternative labeling
systems.
MSDS--Chemical manufacturers and importers must obtain and develop
an MSDS for each hazardous chemical they produce or import. Employers
must maintain and use a material safety data sheet in the workplace for
each hazardous chemical they use. The MSDS provides information about
the nature of the chemical, necessary personal protective equipment,
how to handle unexpected spills or releases, and emergency procedures.
Under the current Federal standards, each MSDS must be in English,
although the employer may maintain copies in other languages as well,
and must contain specific information including contact data for the
chemical manufacturer, importer, employer or other responsible party;
the identity used on the label; the substance's chemical and common
name(s); information on mixture ingredients, information on
carcinongenicity, physical and chemical characteristics, health
hazards, routes of entry, permissible exposure limits (PELs) and other
relevant exposure limits; precautions for safe handling and recommended
control measures; and, appropriate personal protective equipment for
workers and emergency responders. The sheets must also be dated and
note when it was last revised.
This month, OSHA has launched a multipart initiative of enforcement
and compliance assistance activities relative to HazCom. From the
enforcement end, OSHA will focus on MSDSs. Compliance officers will
have a list of critical information for selected chemicals to be used
as a reference when reviewing MSDSs on file at a worksite. If an
inspector finds an MSDS is inaccurate, the manufacturer will be
notified of the deficiencies, and will be cited if the manufacturer
does not take corrective action. Employees will also be provided with
telephone and fax numbers for use to articulate concerns about the
content of MSDSs.
ASSE applauds OSHA's initiative in developing guidance materials
and also in making international chemical safety cards covering over
1,300 substances available on the agency website, www.osha.gov.
However, ASSE cautions against over-investing OSHA's limited financial
resources in developing HazCom materials now that may soon be outdated,
if modifications to 29 CFR 1910.1200 are determined to be necessary in
order to achieve conformity with the U.N. global harmonization system.
OSHA has also solicited public comment on two new publications,
Draft Guidance for Hazard Determination for Compliance with the OSHA
Hazard Communication Standard and Draft Model Program for Hazard
Communication. ASSE plans to participate in the stakeholder process for
these instructional materials.
GLOBAL HARMONIZATION SYSTEM
The genesis of the Global Harmonization System (GHS) addressing
hazard communication occurred at the 1992 ``Rio Earth Summit.'' The
stated goal was to develop a ``globally harmonized hazard
classification and compatible labelling system, including national
safety data sheets and easily understandable symbols, should be
available, if feasible, by the year 2000.'' Although the developers
missed this target date, the GHS was finalized in early 2003, with a
final implementation goal of January 2008. The GHS is a voluntary
system and, as such, does not impose binding treaty obligations on
countries. However, to the extent that countries adopt GHS into
national regulatory requirements, it will be binding upon the regulated
community.
The United Nations' Recommendations on the Transport of Dangerous
Goods was predecessor project, which developed criteria for classifying
and labeling dangerous goods for purposes of transportation but which
did not address environmental, worker or consumer safety regulations. A
core concept agreed upon by participants in developing the GHS was that
the level of protection offered to workers, consumers, general public
and environment should not be reduced.
Benefits of the new GHS include
Greater regulatory consistency among countries;
Safer transportation, handling and use of chemicals;
Improved understanding of hazards;
Increased compliance and reduced costs for companies
involved in international activities; and
Enhanced protection of workers, consumers and potential
exposed populations.
The GHS hazard classification criteria were adopted by consensus
for physical hazards and key health and environmental classes.
Standardized label elements--symbols, signal words, hazard statements--
were developed along with standard format for Safety Data Sheets (SDS),
the GHS counterpart to MSDS. The GHS also addresses product
identifiers, confidential business information, and precedence of
hazards. Target audiences include consumers, workers, transport workers
and emergency responders.
The GHS requires the following information on product and container
labels:
Signal Words;
Hazard Statements;
Precautionary Statements and Pictograms;
Product Identifier;
Supplier Identification;
Multiple Hazards and precedence of hazard information;
Arrangements for presenting the GHS label elements; and
Special Labeling Arrangements.
Guidance on the preparation of SDSs was drawn from the following
sources:
ILO Recommendation 177 on Safety in the Use of Chemicals
at Work;
ISO Standard 11014;
European Union SDS Directive 91/155/EEC; and
ANSI Standard Z400.1.
Training is also a critical component of the GHS, and the
developments encourage such training to address workers, emergency
responders, and those involved with preparation of labels, SDS and
HazCom strategies as part of risk management systems.
Participants in the GHS project agreed that validated data already
generated for classification of chemicals under existing systems should
be accepted when reclassifying the chemicals under GHS. However, the
new harmonized system may require adaptation of existing methods for
testing of chemicals. Significantly, the GHS was not intended to
harmonize risk assessment procedures or risk management decisions such
as the establishment of a PEL for employees). It also leaves to
participating countries the decision as to which of the GHS ``building
blocks'' will be applied in different parts of their systems.
The current OSHA/MSHA standard is much less prescriptive than the
GHS, which contains specific pictures and phrases that companies must
place on their goods. Therefore, modification may be required at some
point in the future as the OSHA/MSHA HCS contains general performance
requirements for communicating hazards, but allows flexibility for
companies that have their own hazard labeling system.
VOLUNTARY CONSENSUS STANDARDS
ASSE serves as Secretariat of nine American National Standards
Institute (ANSI) Committees and projects that develop safety and health
standards used by private sector organizations and State and Federal
governmental agencies. ASSE members sit on over forty additional
standards development committees, including the ASTM E34 Committee that
addresses occupational safety and health, including hazard
communication.
Some voluntary consensus standard organizations, such as ANSI and
ASTM, have developed standards that address hazard communication. ANSI
promotes the use of U.S. standards internationally, and encourage the
adoption of international standards as national standards where
appropriate to the needs of users. ANSI is also the U.S. representative
on two major nontreaty international standards organizations--the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the
International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Therefore, its role
should not be overlooked in the global harmonization process.
To the extent that ANSI and ASTM standards have utility and are
consistent with the GHS, Congress and the Federal regulatory agencies
should consider them for incorporation in any new government-wide
hazard communication system. This is consistent with directions given
by Congress in the Technology Transfer Act of 1995 (P.L. 104-113) and
the Office of Management and Budget's Circular A-119.
Some relevant consensus standards include the ANSI Z535 series
(addressing safety color codes for facility environmental and safety
systems), ANSI Z-400.1 (Hazardous Industrial Chemicals--Material Safety
Data Sheets), ANSI Z490.1 (Criteria for Accepted Practices in Safety,
Health and Environmental Training), ASTM E1445-03 (Standard Terminology
Relating to Hazardous Potential of Chemicals), and two standards
developed by the ASTM E34.40 subcommittee on hazard communication, ASTM
E1628-98 (Standard Practice for Preparing Material Safety Data Sheets
to Include Transportation and Disposal Data for the General Services
Administration) and ASTM E2238-02 (Standard Guide for Evacuation Route
Diagrams).
CONTROL BANDING
For the past year control banding has become a topic of
international significance and John Henshaw, Assistant Secretary of
Labor for Occupational Safety and Health, recently has discussed
publicly the benefits of control banding. Control banding is a risk
assessment method that couples information on MSDSs with actual usage
information in order to select one of four control methods--
substitution of less hazardous chemicals, engineering controls,
ventilation, and containment. Using MSDS information and tables,
chemicals are placed into exposure classes or ``bands'' based on
volatility, toxicity, and common properties. Consideration is given to
the use and quantity of the chemical to select the appropriate control
method.
Although this method provides what appears to be a simple and
largely useful way to select exposure control methods, several
limitations must be taken into consideration if and when control
banding is promoted in the U.S. as a leading tool to advance HazCom.
PELs are not incorporated into the current scheme. Given that OSHA
regulates exposures and selection of personal protective equipment on
the basis of PELs, if the method is to be used in the United States, it
would need to be amended to either incorporate PEL considerations or
current regulations would need to be amended to eliminate the need for
PEL measurement. In addition, selection of control methods in the
United Kingdom is based on inclusion of specific information in MSDSs
that is not currently incorporated into MSDSs used in the United
States. Finally, control banding, though useful, does not adequately
address every chemical in a band. Some chemicals, though included in
certain bands, may cause reactions outside the norm of the band and
require unique responses that banding simply will not address. Care
must be taken to ensure that control banding is used with this kind of
warning always in mind.
CONCLUSION
In the current economic climate, global harmonization has taken on
heightened importance, and any issue surrounding HazCom must be
carefully scrutinized from an international perspective for the purpose
of helping United States companies and their SHE managers achieve
greater global conformity and, as a result, competitiveness. ASSE and
its members were involved throughout the GHS development process and
recognize that its implementation in the U.S. will require ongoing
cooperation between the private sector and numerous Federal and State
agencies. State plan states may also need to revise HazCom programs
that differ from OSHA's requirements. Moreover, adoption of the GHS
system will likely require significant revision of EPA standards with
unique labeling requirements, including the Federal Insecticide,
Fungicide and Rodenticide Act and chemical ``risk management''
provisions of the Clean Air Act. Again, State agencies that have their
own environmental right-to-know laws may also face challenges in
properly adapting those statutes to fit the GHS model.
The issue of whether OSHA should continue a leadership role in this
regard or delegate its powers in the hazard communication spectrum to a
single nonregulatory agency that would direct the efforts of other
regulatory agencies must not be decided without full consideration of
all ramifications. There is also value in considering how existing
voluntary consensus standards fit into the framework of HazCom global
harmonization.
Although the U.S. Department of State was in charge of the U.S.
activities on GHS, this is not likely to be the appropriate agency to
carry out this function in the long-term. Because of the implications
for modification of existing statutes and realignment of regulatory
powers, it is likely that congressional action will be warranted. As
Congress and the affected agencies consider how to create a new
coordinating body to handle the domestic implementation of GHS, ASSE
pledges its assistance in advancing this project. It is critical that
any such committee include input from Certified Safety Professionals,
Certified Industrial Hygienists and others with the requisite
demonstrated qualifications to have full understanding of chemical
safety and related processes. Any such system must achieve the goal of
being transportable for multinational companies while still providing a
level of protection for American workers that is equivalent to, or
greater than, the protections now afforded under Federal and State
laws.
Statement of the International Truck and Engine Corporation
International Truck and Engine Corporation was pleased to see
Senator Enzi's position on the globally harmonized system for
classification and labeling (GHS) and would like to support it. Please
add the following comments to the record of the Committee on Health,
Education, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee on Employment, Safety and
Training March 25, 2004 hearing on ``Hazard Communication in the 21st
Century Workforce'':
International Truck and Engine Corporation has been using Material
Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for over 30 years as part of a hazardous
materials control program that predates the OSHA hazard communication
standard. During this time there has been an evolution in the design
and content of MSDS documents. Mostly there has been improvement but a
number of challenges to effective communication remain:
There is a great deal of variability between MSDSs from
different manufacturers that makes it difficult to compare the degree
of hazard. Some data sheets seem to be written by the law department,
others by the marketing department. Operations have substituted a more
hazardous material for a less hazardous one because the warnings seemed
less ominous.
Some warnings are excessive. Some data sheets contain
directions to use personal protective equipment that may only be
appropriate for the worst case scenario but are unnecessary for
ordinary uses. This may cause users to discount the instructions on
other data sheets where specifications are appropriate.
Most materials (over 99 percent) used in our operations
are mixtures of several ingredients. The hazards of each component are
listed as the hazard of the product as a whole. For example, a Loctite
thread sealer sold in hardware stores and used as a glue to keep bolts
from coming loose contains 2 percent saccharine and must be designated
as a carcinogen on a par with benzene.
MSDS documents are often six or eight pages long and do
not work well as training documents. We find it easier to distill the
pertinent information from each data sheet into a separate one-page
training summary.
While not the complete solution to these issues, the globally
harmonized system for classification and labeling (GHS) would be a
significant improvement. The GHS could be improved from its current
form. For example, criteria for listing occupational exposure limits
should be more clearly specified to only require limits set by
governmental agencies or as a result of a recognized open consensus
process. All listed exposure limits or risk characteristics used for
regulatory purposes should comply with FACA guidelines for review.
Nevertheless, even in its present form the GHS would bring welcome
consistency and order to hazard communication.
Noting the comments of Senator Enzi and Assistant Secretary Henshaw
at the March 25, 2004 hearing, International Truck and Engine
Corporation would like to add its support to calls for adopting the
globally harmonized system.
Please feel free to contact me or Thomas Slavin (312-836-3929) with
any questions.
Prepared Statement of Carolyn W. Merritt
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for the
opportunity to submit written testimony on behalf of the U.S. Chemical
Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) for this hearing to discuss
the communication of hazards in the workplace.
This is an issue of great interest to the CSB as the independent
Federal agency that investigates major chemical accidents at fixed
facilities around the country. The CSB became operational in 1998 and
is governed by a five-member board of technical experts, appointed by
the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Since opening its
doors, the Board has investigated and issued reports on 19 major
accidents that killed or injured workers, impacted communities, and
caused property or environmental damage. CSB has also issued several
studies and bulletins on broader chemical safety issues.
Our investigations show that lives continue to be lost in accidents
because chemical hazards are not being effectively communicated in the
workplace. Among accidents we have investigated, faulty communication
of material hazards contributed to 12 deaths among workers and 79
injuries to workers, first responders, and members of the public.
Ongoing CSB investigations also raise serious concerns whether the
hazards of combustible dust products are being communicated effectively
to users. The Board is currently investigating three catastrophic dust
explosions that occurred in 2003; together these explosions caused 14
deaths and scores of injuries.
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
Accidents rarely result from a single cause, and CSB investigations
usually uncover several root causes and contributing factors behind
each accident. In ten of the 19 cases investigated, deficiencies in
hazard communication were identified. In nine of these ten
investigations, the deficiencies were found to be a root cause,
contributing cause, or significant causal factor. In eight cases, CSB
identified specific deficiencies in Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDSs)
or found that the required MSDSs did not exist. Descriptions of
specific accidents follow.
I. NO MSDSS PROVIDED FOR HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
BLSR Operating Ltd.: On January 13, 2003, a vapor cloud fire
erupted at the BLSR Operating Ltd. oilfield waste disposal facility in
rural Texas, south of Houston. The fire occurred as two tank trucks
were delivering flammable gas condensate waste for disposal at the
facility. Three workers were killed, and four others suffered serious
burns. CSB's investigation found neither the truckers nor the disposal
company workers knew that the wastes were highly flammable, and allowed
the waste to run over open ground into a trench, which was their usual
practice for nonflammable drilling mud. CSB found that the company that
generated the flammable wastes had not provided any MSDSs to either the
truck drivers or the disposal company where the fire occurred.
What CSB Recommended: The Texas Railroad Commission, which
regulates oil and gas operations in the State, should require that all
drillers and producers provide accurate MSDSs on waste liquid hazards
to workers and contractors, in languages they can understand. This
action would allow State inspectors to help enforce basic MSDS
requirements. In addition, the Board recommended that OSHA issue a
Safety and Health Information Bulletin emphasizing the responsibility
of drillers and producers to identify waste hazards and provide workers
with MSDSs.
Kaltech Industries: On April 25, 2002, an explosion occurred at
Kaltech Industries, a sign manufacturer in the Chelsea neighborhood of
New York City, injuring 36 people, including 14 members of the public.
The explosion, which was the result of a reaction between waste
chemicals, originated in the basement of a mixed-use commercial
building and caused damage as high as the fifth floor. CSB's
investigation found that the company had not provided any MSDSs to its
workers, including the MSDS for nitric acid, the highly reactive
chemical CSB found was involved in the explosion. CSB also found that
OSHA had never inspected Kaltech Industries in the previous 10 years.
Investigators noted that many Kaltech workers had limited proficiency
in English.
What CSB Recommended: OSHA Region II should disseminate information
on the Hazard Communication Standard in the major nonEnglish languages
spoken by workers in New York City. The Board also recommended that New
York City modernize its 1918-era fire code to include modern hazardous
materials controls, such as the requirement that MSDSs be made
available to the workforce. In March 2004, following two hearings of
New York City Council where the CSB testified, the New York Fire
Department said it would institute a modern model fire code, such as
the International Fire Code. With a modern code in place, city fire
inspectors would be authorized to enforce MSDS requirements during
their annual inspections of workplaces.
II. DESPITE MSDSS, WORKER NOT TRAINED ON HAZARDS
Georgia-Pacific: On January 16, 2002, highly toxic hydrogen sulfide
gas leaked from a process sewer manhole at the Georgia-Pacific paper
mill in Pennington, Alabama. The gas was formed because sodium
hydrosulfide--a feedstock chemical used at the mill--had been spilled
and released into an acidic sewer system, where a chemical reaction
occurred to produce hydrogen sulfide gas. Two contract construction
workers who were near the sewer were overcome by the gas and killed;
seven other construction workers and a truck driver were injured.
CSB's investigation showed that although the supplier's MSDS for
sodium hydrosulfide contained warnings about its reaction with acid,
the mill's procedures and training did not include this information.
Investigators concluded that if workers had understood the risk, they
would likely have prevented the sodium hydrosulfide from entering the
sewer system. CSB also found that the construction workers lacked
appropriate training on the hazards of hydrogen sulfide--such as how to
identify and respond to a leak of the gas--and did not attempt to
evacuate the area when the leak began.
What CSB Recommended: Georgia-Pacific Corporation should require
all its paper mills to identify hydrogen sulfide risk areas and train
personnel who work in those areas on how to respond to leaks of the
gas. The CSB also recommended that the construction company provide
similar training to its employees.
Environmental Enterprises: On December 11, 2002, a maintenance
worker at the Environmental Enterprises hazardous waste treatment plant
collapsed after he walked near a waste treatment tank and inhaled toxic
hydrogen sulfide. The worker stopped breathing but was later pulled to
safety and resuscitated by fellow employees. The gas formed because
another worker earlier had added sodium sulfide and an acidic substance
to the treatment tank, causing a chemical reaction. Although the MSDS
for sodium sulfide warned about this potential reaction, not all
workers were aware of the hazard or were trained on the warning signs
of hydrogen sulfide, such as its characteristic rotten-egg odor. The
victim did not recognize this odor as a sign of life-threatening
danger.
III. PRODUCT FLAMMABILITY NOT DESCRIBED IN MSDSS
Bethlehem Steel: On February 2, 2001, a flash fire at the Bethlehem
Steel Corporation mill in Chesterton, Indiana, killed two workers and
injured four others. Workers were attempting to remove a cracked valve
from a coke oven gas line, when they were suddenly sprayed with highly
flammable liquid gas condensate, which ignited. CSB's investigation
found that the workers expected the line to contain condensate but
believed it was essentially made of water and not flammable. The
company's own MSDS had not indicated any potential flammability for gas
condensate, whereas CSB's testing found that material in the line was
highly flammable with a flash point of 29 +F.
What CSB Recommended: Bethlehem Steel Corporation should revise the
Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for gas condensate to highlight its
potential flammability and provide training and information for its
workers and contractors.
Motiva Enterprises: On July 17, 2001, a large sulfuric acid storage
tank exploded at Motiva Enterprises' Delaware City refinery, killing
one worker, injuring eight others, and releasing more than a million
gallons of acid. The work crew had been repairing an overhead catwalk
when a spark from their welding equipment ignited flammable vapors in
the tank below. The tank had holes in its roof and shell due to
corrosion. CSB's investigation found that although the used sulfuric
acid in the tank was known to contain a significant percentage of
flammable hydrocarbons, the company's MSDS indicated a flammability
rating of ``0'' [zero] and stated ``the product is not combustible.''
What CSB Recommended: The refinery should upgrade its system of
reporting unsafe conditions to ensure communication of hazards to
affected plant personnel.
IV. PRODUCT REACTIVITY NOT DESCRIBED IN MSDSS
BP Amoco Polymers: On March 13, 2001, three people were killed as
they opened a process vessel containing hot plastic at the BP Amoco
Polymers plant in Augusta, Georgia. They were unaware that the vessel
was pressurized due to a decomposition reaction affecting the plastic
inside. The workers were killed when the partially unbolted cover blew
off the vessel and expelled the hot plastic. CSB's investigation found
that the MSDS for the plastic Amodel, which BP Amoco produced, stated
it should not be heated above 660 +F to avoid product decomposition but
did not warn of the hazards of doing so.
What CSB Recommended: BP Amoco should revise the MSDSs for Amodel
plastics to warn of the hazards of accumulating large molten masses.
Morton International: On April 8, 1998, an explosion and fire
occurred at Morton International's plant in Paterson, New Jersey, when
a runaway chemical reaction over-pressurized and ruptured a 2,000-
gallon chemical vessel used to produce dye. Nine workers were injured,
and the surrounding community was showered with chemical residues.
CSB's investigation found that the dye was chemically reactive and
could decompose and release heat and gas just above the normal
processing temperature. However, the company's MSDS for the dye
indicated ``0'' [zero] reactivity. Investigators found that plant
personnel were generally unaware of the hazards of a runaway reaction.
What CSB Recommended: Morton should revise the MSDS for the dye to
correctly identify its reactivity.
First Chemical Corporation: On October 13, 2002, a violent
explosion occurred in a nitrotoluene distillation tower at First
Chemical Corporation in Pascagoula, Mississippi, sending heavy debris
over a wide area. The control room was damaged and explosion debris
narrowly missed a large storage tank that contained highly toxic
anhydrous ammonia. A nitrotoluene storage tank at the site was
punctured by debris, igniting a fire that burned for several hours.
CSB's investigation found that First Chemical's MSDS for nitrotoluene
lacked warnings about the chemical's tendency to decompose and explode
when subjected to prolonged heating.
What CSB Recommended: First Chemical Corporation (now a Dupont
subsidiary) should revise its warnings about nitrotoluene and other
process chemicals and train workers appropriately.
V. LANGUAGE BARRIERS PREVENT UNDERSTANDING MSDSS
Sierra Chemical: On January 7, 1998, two massive explosions
destroyed the Sierra Chemical munitions reclamation plant in Mustang,
Nevada, killing four workers and injuring six others. The company used
reclaimed military munitions to produce explosive boosters for the
mining industry. The accident likely occurred when a worker restarted a
mixer containing solidified explosive material. CSB's investigation
found that Spanish was the only language understood by most plant
workers, but MSDSs for the chemicals used on-site were only in English.
CSB found that workers were not aware of the specific hazards of
materials at the plant.
What CSB Recommended: Sierra Chemical should ensure that hazard
information and safety procedures are communicated in the language
understood by workers.
VI. MSDSS NOT RELIABLE FOR REACTIVE HAZARD INFORMATION
In September 2002, the CSB completed a 2-year study of serious
incidents that resulted from uncontrolled chemical reactions, which can
occur when chemicals are improperly combined or heated. The study
uncovered 167 serious incidents in the U.S. over a 20-year period that
caused 108 deaths and extensive injuries and property damage. The CSB
investigation pointed out that OSHA's Process Safety Management
standard--the main safety standard for highly hazardous chemical
processes--allows companies to use MSDSs to compile hazard information.
But in 1996, OSHA itself issued a Hazard Bulletin stating that MSDSs do
not always contain information about the hazards from mixing or
blending chemicals.
CSB INVESTIGATING ADEQUACY OF MSDSS FOR CHEMICAL POWDERS
CSB is currently investigating three major dust explosions that
occurred in 2003 at factories in North Carolina, Kentucky, and Indiana.
In two of these cases, CSB is investigating the adequacy of MSDSs that
should have warned of the explosion hazards of fine chemical powders
used at the plants.
West Pharmaceutical Services: On January 29, 2003, an explosion and
fire destroyed the West Pharmaceutical Services medical rubber plant in
Kinston, North Carolina, causing six deaths, dozens of injuries, and
hundreds of job losses. CSB investigators have found that the fuel for
the explosion was a fine plastic powder used in producing rubber goods.
Combustible polyethylene dust--accumulated over a manufacturing area at
the plant--ignited and exploded.
The company that produced the powdered polyethylene understood its
potential to explode and included a warning in the MSDS. However, West
purchased polyethylene from a formulation company, which bought the
polyethylene powder and then prepared a slurry with water. Although the
formulation company was aware of how West intended to ultimately use
the material, the MSDS for the slurry did not indicate that once it
dried, potentially explosive dust could be released.
CTA Acoustics: On February 20, 2003, an explosion and fire damaged
the CTA Acoustics manufacturing plant in Corbin, Kentucky, killing
seven workers and injuring more than 30 others. The facility produced
fiberglass insulation for the automotive industry, using a powdered
resin as a binder. CSB investigators have found that the explosion was
fueled by resin dust accumulated in a production area. Although the
MSDS for the resin powder indicated it was ``combustible,'' it did not
describe the catastrophic potential if the dust was allowed to
accumulate, and many plant personnel remained unaware of the danger.
Based on these events, CSB is concerned that neither the OSHA
Hazard Communication Standard nor the corresponding American National
Standards Institute (ANSI) standard contains a definition for
combustible dust. MSDSs for combustible dusts often lack critical
technical information on the hazards, including what are known as the
deflagration index, minimum ignition energy, minimum explosive
concentration, and volume resistivity. Employers need this information
to accurately assess the hazards of dust in the workplace.
In written comments to ANSI on the upcoming revision to the
consensus standard on preparing MSDSs, the CSB staff on August 22,
2003, recommended that ANSI incorporate a definition for combustible
dust. However, on November 19, 2003, ANSI declined to do so stating
that OSHA had not yet incorporated the concept of combustible dusts
into the Hazard Communication Standard.
CONCLUSION
Deficiencies in hazard communication and Material Safety Data
Sheets are among the common causes of major chemical accidents that
result in loss of life, serious injuries, and damage to property and
the environment. Approximately half of the CSB's root-cause
investigations of major accident uncover such deficiencies. Since 1998,
the Board has identified ten specific accidents where chemical hazard
communication was inadequate.
The CSB believes that improving the quality of hazard communication
and Material Safety Data Sheets will help prevent major chemical
accidents and should be an important goal of government agencies as
well as the producers and users of hazardous materials.
Statement of Karan Singh
INTRODUCTION
Thank you for inviting me to submit this statement for inclusion in
the hearing record. There is no question that the Federal Hazard
Communication Standard is an important vehicle for promoting safety in
the workplace. However, specific improvements are necessary to ensure
that public policy represents the spirit of the original regulations. I
hope this statement provides some clarity on the weaknesses in the
current standard and the proposed areas for reform.
As is widely recognized, there is general consensus that the
current program for evaluating the impact of hazardous chemicals on
workplace safety is inaccurate, outdated, and complex. This program,
which relies on Material Data Safety Sheets (MSDSs) developed by
chemical manufacturers, is based on Federal regulations developed in
1983 by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
While OSHA's intent was admirable in this regard, and extended a
host of new rights to employees to know the potential chemical threats
that exist in the workplace, the regulations fall short. There is no
standard for the format of MSDSs, and a vast majority of them are
inaccurate. They are drafted in complex and technical language, which
makes it nearly impossible for the average workplace employee to
decipher the information embedded in the MSDS to respond correctly to a
chemical incident. Ironically, the Employee Right-to-Know Act will
continue to render employees virtually helpless until the Federal
standard is improved. An improved standard would empower those who use
chemicals in the workplace with information they can use to make quick,
informed, and accurate decisions to reduce the threat of acute chemical
incidents, as well as chronic exposure.
BACKGROUND
The assumption in the Hazard Communication Standard was that
employees have a right to know the hazards that they are being exposed
to, and that they will be able to protect themselves once aware of such
hazards. As I indicated, the tool to communicate hazards of chemicals
is the MSDS. Over the years, the main objective of MSDSs to communicate
potential hazards to employees has been obscured by the addition of
information suitable for emergency responders, toxicologists,
transporters, and the like. Consequently, the MSDSs no longer
effectively communicate hazards of chemicals to an average employee,
and have become documents created by technical people for technical
people.
Approximately 33 percent of the adult population in the U.S. reads
at or below 8th grade level, and 22 percent is functionally illiterate.
In our multiethnic society, a large immigrant population does not
comprehend English well enough to comprehend MSDSs written at an
advanced level of reading, analysis, and interpretation. Lack of
standardization, incomplete, inaccurate, and contradictory information,
and hazard warnings inconsistent with relevant and scientific evidence,
collectively render MSDSs all but irrelevant to an average employee.
RECOMMENDATIONS
In an effort to improve hazard communications, I respectfully
propose the following recommendations:
1. Development of standardized phrases that could be translated
into all of the major world languages. Employees not only have a right
to know but also a right to understand. This will also bridge the gap
between our system and the Global Harmonization System (GHS).
2. Minimum levels of testing for acute hazards such as
corrosiveness, flammability, and toxicity. A test to determine the
flash point, pH, and reactivity is inexpensive and costs less than
$10.00. Chronic health effect determinations are difficult, expensive,
and time consuming. However, there is no reason why manufacturers
cannot provide information available from extrapolation of available
data from compounds with identical functional groups.
3. The NFPA and HMIS symbols used to designate relative levels of
hazard are not intended to address the intent of the HCS and, in
certain circumstances, can be dangerous. When applied by chemical
manufacturers, almost half the numbers are incorrect and misleading. No
distinction is made between corrosiveness and toxicity, even though
both are very different types of hazard and require different
protective equipment. For example, manufacturers regularly declare
aerosols to be noncombustible, even though they are filled with
flammable propellants. There is a need to categorize hazards--as
primary, secondary, and tertiary--based on relative severity and
provide explanation in plain English. Additional warnings about the
potential of chemicals being lethal on any route of exposure should be
instantly communicated by use of pictograms similar to those used in
Canada, Europe, and in the Global Harmonization System (GHS).
MC TECHNOLOGIES
A few years ago, I began working with a small company in the
Midwest on a project to divide a large number of hazardous chemicals
into a small number of categories and hazard levels. My work revealed
that most of the chemicals in use today could readily be assigned to
one of 36 categories, in terms of physical and environmental risks and
proposed responses to spills or other incidents. It was from this
research that the MAXCOM program was developed. This patent-pending
program is now under the license of MC Technologies, where I currently
serve as Chief Scientific Officer.
This program provides information on the potential hazards of each
chemical category, provides effective training on how to safely use the
chemicals, and prescribes a specific intervention should a spill or
other incident occur. The language in this program is written at a 6th
grade level of reading and comprehension. The system reduces a
facility's paper archive of MSDSs, often times exceeding more than
20,000 technical pages, into a single, 1-inch binder. It is the only
system which is fully compliant with OSHA regulations.
I have appended this statement with a review of the inherent flaws
in the Federal standard, along with the mechanisms through which MC
Technologies has addressed them. I would be happy to review these in
further detail with subcommittee staff.
CONCLUSION
The time has come to renew the Hazard Communication Standard. The
promulgation of the Employee Right-to-Know regulations put in place a
bold new standard to promote safety in the workplace. However, this
addressed only part of the problem. It is one thing for employees to
know about these hazards, but to understand and act on them when time
is critical is an entirely different issue. MC Technologies looks
forward to working with Congress and OSHA in this effort, to promote a
standard that provides guidance on hazard determination, effective
training of employees on those hazards, and guidance on preparation of
chemical-related documents.
APPENDIX--HAZARD COMMUNICATION IN THE WORKPLACE
``Employee Right-to-Know''
The assumption in the Hazard Communication Standard, promulgated by
OSHA in 1983, was that employees in the workplace have a right to know
the hazards that they are being exposed to, and that they will be able
to protect themselves once aware of such hazards.
Currently, the tool to communicate hazards of chemicals is the
Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS). Due to the preference of a
performance-based approach by OSHA, there is no standard format for the
MSDSs.
The following is a list of problems inherent in the current MSDS
model and how MC Technologies has addressed them:
1. Problem: Hazard warnings are often inconsistent with the weight
of relevant, scientific evidence.
Solution: MC Technologies has categorized hazards as primary,
secondary, and tertiary based on the relative severity. An employee
would know in an instant, if the hazards could be life-threatening.
2. Problem: Lack of testing requirement for the finished products
means that MSDSs often make no distinction between a diluted and a
concentrated product.
Solution: The MC Technologies program separates chemical categories
into Red, Yellow, or Green, representing decreasing levels hazards. Red
represents properties that could be life threatening, whereas Green, at
the other extreme, represents relatively safe chemicals. Color blind
employees further benefit from the use of numbers and letters, in
addition to color.
3. Problem: MSDSs for the same chemicals from different companies
provide different degrees of thoroughness in coverage.
Solution: MC Technologies provides additional relevant warnings for
users of MSDSs with inadequate information.
4. Problem: MSDSs are too long and technical. Generic description
of symptoms etc., do not often match with the working condition
exposures.
Solution: MC Technologies provides an Executive Summary of the MSDS
in user-friendly terms, avoiding technical language and jargon.
Similarly, abbreviations and acronyms are avoided.
5. Problem: Foreign MSDSs. Symbols used in MSDSs from other
countries do not currently match with those used in the U.S. Data in
the Metric System in foreign MSDSs can result in misinterpretation of
the hazard severity.
Solution: MC Technologies interprets different symbols and
pictograms for the American audience.
6. Problem: Redundant information. MSDSs are being used by many
professionals such as emergency responders, toxicologists, and
transporters. Additional information provided to meet the needs of
other professionals has no relevance for an employee. Even the new ANSI
format of MSDS is full of irrelevant information for the protection of
the employee.
Solution: MC Technologies filters out all of the irrelevant
information, and provides a summary of only the relevant information.
7. Problem: Incomplete/Inaccurate MSDSs.
Solution: MC Technologies brings to attention contradictory or
inaccurate information in its Executive Summary of the chemical. Also,
if inadequate information is available due to lack of relevant
scientific research, then a warning is provided.
8. Problem: Comprehensibility of MSDSs. One-third of the U.S. adult
population reads at or below the 8th grade level, and 22 percent of the
population is functionally illiterate. The average MSDS is written at a
collegiate reading level.
Solution: MC Technologies provides instructions in short and direct
sentences, using active voice and phrases that recommend positive
action. Technical words, whenever used, are provided with an
explanation in simple English. Employees are tested for their
comprehension, not their reading abilities. Training materials are
sensitive to employees without basic language and math skills.
9. Problem: Legibility. Many chemical manufacturers provide too
much information in a very small space, often in English, French, and
Spanish.
Solution: Hazards of all chemicals and incident response procedures
are provided in easy to use ``Safe-Use Guides'' that follow the same
format.
10. Problem: Effective training. In businesses with hundreds of
chemicals, it is impossible to provide chemical-specific training for
each chemical. OSHA has, therefore, recommended category-based
training.
Solution: MC Technologies assigns categories based on a step-by-
step hazard determination process. Each category is assigned a Safe-Use
Guide number. The training program provides instructions in following
the information in Safe Use Guides followed by a test for
comprehension.
[Whereupon, at 11:39 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]