As you may be aware, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) released a notice of proposed rulemaking in February for a proposed Emergency Response Standard. If adopted as written, this proposed standard could impose requirements that would be economically infeasible for small volunteer fire departments to implement and could cause these departments to shut down.
Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) and Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY) are circulating a letter addressed to OSHA for other Members of Congress to cosign expressing concern about their proposed Emergency Response Standard. The letter highlights the issues and economic burdens the proposed standard poses for volunteer departments. The letter also requests that OSHA consider exempting volunteer fire departments from some or all parts of the proposed standard, identify additional areas where financial and logistical burdens could be reduced and extend the proposed standard’s public comment period by an additional 90 days.
It’s crucial that as many Members of Congress as possible cosign this letter to OSHA. Please use the NVFC Action Alert below to contact your Representative and ask them to cosign this letter.
Additionally, the public comment period for OSHA’s proposed standard is ongoing and concludes on June 21. The NVFC encourages all departments to submit comments. Please visit NVFC’s OSHA landing page for guidance on submitting comments and other resources at this link: https://www.nvfc.org/osha-standard/.
