Environmental Compliance

The global COVID-19 pandemic has had a massive impact on workplaces, as levels of operation change or even cease due to lockdown measures, and employees find themselves more geographically spread out than ever. Unfortunately, these challenges may also reveal gaps in our EHS management system that we didn’t know about before.  During “normal” times, we […]

The demand for brighter, more energy efficient lighting has driven innovations to develop substitutes for incandescent sources. One of these substitutes are light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which are now widely used in commercial and domestic applications, such as computer and mobile devices. There has been some concern over blue light emission from these devices, particularly since […]

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2020 recently added 160 per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) to the list of chemicals covered by the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) under Section 313 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA). This addition creates immediate regulatory requirements for establishments that manufacture, process, or otherwise […]

The Chemical Safety and Investigation Board (CSB) recently issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that would create new accidental chemical release reporting requirements, in addition to those already in place under other regulations. In comparison to existing regulatory requirements, the CSB proposed rule would broaden reporting requirements by requiring reporting under a range of […]

Penalties for noncompliance with regulations enforced by EPA, OSHA and other U.S. environmental and occupational health and safety agencies are going up! Under the requirements of the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 2015, all U.S. federal agencies must annually revise their civil penalty amounts to account for the rate of inflation. Read on […]

Do you have hazardous chemicals in your workplace? What if there were an accidental spill? Would you be prepared to safely respond before it escalated into a serious emergency or dangerous environmental release? What systems do you rely on to prevent chemical spills in the first place, and are those systems as effective as possible? […]

by Phil Molé An employee at a popular chain restaurant recently died due to chemical exposures from a reaction between common, but incompatible, cleaning compounds. This incident, like many others before it, is disturbing because the chemicals used are so common, and tragic because it is avoidable. It’s an unfortunate reminder that HazCom management is […]

Do know your requirements for hazardous chemical safety and risk management under EPA’s General Duty Clause? If not, here’s what you need to know: Like the EPA’s Risk Management Plan (RMP) Rule, the EPA’s General Duty Clause is intended to help minimize the risk of chemical releases and chemical-related emergencies at facilities that store, process […]

VelocityEHS was in attendance Tuesday morning at the Society for Chemical Hazard Communication’s Fall 2019 Meeting in Arlington, Virginia. Representatives from OSHA and Health Canada, along with industry subject matter experts convened to deliver important regulatory updates, and lend their expertise on a wide range of hazard communication and chemical safety topics including OSHA’s Hazard […]

The job of an EHS professional is never over. There’s always work that needs doing, including an ever-growing list of tasks we need to complete to address risks and maintain effective workplace safety programs. Making life more difficult, the work has a way of multiplying. Sometimes, it seems that for every item we cross off […]