From: Health Data Management
Greg Slabodkin
The American Hospital Association is pushing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to promptly create a centralized repository on public health agency readiness to receive data hospitals must submit under the meaningful use program.
From: Occupational Health & Safety
SAN ANTONIO — Whether OSHA ever will update its permissible exposure limits (PELs) is debatable. The agency has tried before without success, and it agrees that these 40-year-old exposure limits are outdated and inadequate – so much so that it recommends that employers voluntarily adhere to NIOSH and ACGIH recommended limits and to Cal/OSHA’s PELs list.
Editor’s Note: In testimony before the House Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, the US Chamber of Commerce highlighted the importance of one of the lesser known “good government” laws, OMB’s Final Bulletin for Agency Good Guidance Practices. As the Center for Effective Government explains, “OMB issued the Final Bulletin for Agency Good Guidance Practices (with authority under the Data Quality Act) which required OIRA’s review of significant guidance documents as well as public notice-and-comment on guidance documents deemed “economically significant.”
From: American Bakers Association
by kkotche
ABA led a coalition of food industry organizations in a meeting with OMB on May 30 to discuss the coalition’s support for FDA’s public health goals but expressed concerns with the suggested approach of a PHO Tentative GRAS Determination Notice (TD). The Coalition recommended withdrawal of the notice and proposed that OMB should direct FDA to instead go through formal rulemaking which would include the safeguards, assessments and data required for such a significant action.
From: Association of Corporate Counsel
ByLeslie J. Levinson and Michaela B. Tabela/Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP
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On May 22, 2014, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced that it would begin reviewing a proposed rule revising the conditions of participation (CoPs) that home health agencies must meet to participate in the Medicare program. The home health CoPs have not been revised since 1989. The proposed rule was published in 1997, but was never finalized.
From: Ogletreet Deakins
Harold P. Coxson, Dara L. DeHaven, Alfred B. Robinson, Jr., Timothy G. Verrall and Hera S. Arsen, J.D., Ph.D.
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Wage and Hour Division
Within the DOL’s rule list of 91 items, the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) has five regulatory items. Two of the items are long-term actions for which the WHD did not specify a projected date of when it may issue a proposed rule. These items are the “Right to Know” rule under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) initiative and the Fair Labor Standards Act, Child Labor Hazardous Occupations Order, No. 7. As for the active items that WHD is pursuing, these include proposals on the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, as amended, establishing a minimum wage for contractors, Executive Order 13658, and defining and delimiting the exemptions for executive, administrative, professional, outside sales and computer employees.
From: Chemical Facility Security News
Editor’s Note: HM Government’s Regulatory Policy Committee (RPC) is an advisory non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills that provides “the government with external, independent scrutiny of new regulatory and deregulatory proposals.” The complete Guidance is available here. The seven recommendations below provide excellent guidance to all regulators—and their supervisors.
From: PennEnergy
By Nick Snow, OGJ Washington Editor
The White House Office of Management and Budget may recommend that the US Securities and Exchange Commission propose revised requirements for publicly traded US oil, gas, and mining firms to disclose payments to foreign governments.
Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act mandates that such disclosures be required, OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs said in a notice. US District Court for the District of Columbia vacated and remanded the SEC’s previous attempt to implement the rule in July 2013, it noted (OGJ Online, July 2, 2013).
From: E&E Publishing/Greenwire
Amanda Peterka and Jean Chemnick, E&E reporters
The White House on Friday released its latest regulatory agenda, a sweeping plan that includes rules on power plants, renewable fuels, ozone pollution, Clean Water Act jurisdiction and disclosure of payments by oil and gas companies.
The spring issue of the biannual “Unified Agenda of Federal and Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions” details both short- and long-term plans for every agency in the government.
The most notable goals include timelines for the release of greenhouse gas emission standards, proposed 2015 renewable fuel standard targets, a controversial stream protection rule, crude-by-rail safety standards, and methane and hydraulic fracturing regulations.