CONSAD Research Corporation

Occupational Safety and Health

DOCKET ANALYSIS AND OTHER TECHNICAL SUPPORT IN THE AREA OF THE PROPOSED OSHA INDOOR AIR QUALITY STANDARD

U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration,

On April 5, 1994 (59 FR 15968), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to address indoor air quality (IAQ), including environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), in indoor work environments. The basis for this proposed action is a preliminary determination that employees working in indoor environments face a significant risk of material impairment to the health due to exposure to ETS and poor indoor air quality, and that compliance with the provisions proposed will substantially reduce the risk.

In response to the NPRM, over 104,000 comments were submitted to the record, entailing more than 250,000 pages. In addition, there were 77 days of informal public hearings, producing a transcript of 15,000 pages. When the record finally closed, over 115,000 comments had been submitted to the IAQ/ETS Docket H-122.

Under a previous task order , CONSAD was directed to support the Office of Regulatory Analysis by updating the preliminary regulatory analysis assessing the technological feasibility and economic impacts of the IAQ/ETS rule. In this task order, CONSAD was directed to review the public submissions and hearing testimony, as well as conduct additional analyses related to the ETS provisions of the proposal.

Specifically with respect to the review of public submissions and hearing testimony, CONSAD focused on those comments addressing issues that are most relevant to the development of an economic analysis of the proposed standard. In addition, in support of the Office of the Solicitor, CONSAD also examined legal and regulatory text issues raised in the comments submitted to the docket. CONSAD created a computer accessible database consisting of abstracts of the documents examined, with the docket number, commenter, and author identified. In addition, each document was coded and key worded according to the subject matter and industries they address. This database was developed to be compatible with current OSHA databases developed for this rulemaking.

In addition, CONSAD analyzed and synthesized the information contained in the abstracts of the docket submissions, in order to assist the Agency in the development of a final economic analysis for a final standard on IAQ/ETS. Specifically, as directed by OSHA, CONSAD examined the abstracts related to the ETS provisions of the proposed standard in order to provide additional and updated data in the following areas of the economic analysis:

• describing the regulatory environment and the affected industry sectors;
• describing current levels of compliance with the proposed requirements of the ETS provisions;
• ascertaining the technological feasibility of achieving compliance with the proposed standard by means of engineering controls and work practices;
• estimating benefits to be achieved through compliance with the standard;
• estimating appropriate compliance costs;
• assessing the economic feasibility and economic impacts of compliance, especially on different sectors of the economy and on small business; and
• describing possible regulatory alternatives and the impacts of those alternatives.

The results of this work were organized by commenter within each of the specified areas above and delivered in a report to OSHA.