From: Politico
By Brian Mahoney and Marianne LeVine
The Labor Department plans to send its long-awaited final silica rule to the White House Office of Management and Budget next week, a senior administration official told POLITICO’s Marianne LeVine. The official said the agency has not settled on an exact date. The rule, which is one of the Labor Department’s top priorities, would lower drastically workers’ exposure to crystalline silica, which is associated with lung cancer, silicosis, and other diseases. When OSHA proposed the rule in September 2013 it reduced to 50 micrograms per cubic meter the permissible exposure over an eight-hour time period. The current standard for the construction industry is 250 micrograms per cubic meter, while the standard for general industry is 100 micrograms per cubic meter.