Law Office of Adele L. Abrams PC

07/15/2025

OSHA penalty reductions are here for smaller employers. The new policy, outlined in the Penalties and Debt Collection section of OSHA’s Field Operations Manual, increases penalty reductions for small employers, so a penalty reduction level of 70%, which was previously only applicable for businesses with 10 or fewer employees, will now be expanded to include businesses who employ up to 25 employees. The revisions also include new guidelines for a 15% penalty reduction for employers who immediately take steps to address or correct a hazard.

Additionally, the updated policy expands the penalty reduction for employers without a history of serious, willful, repeat, or failure-to-abate OSHA violations. Under OSHA’s revised policy, employers who have never been inspected by federal OSHA or an OSHA State Plan, as well as employers who have been inspected in the previous five years and had no serious, willful, or failure-to-abate violations, are eligible for a 20% penalty reduction.

The new policies are effective immediately! Penalties issued before July 14, 2025, will remain under the previous penalty structure. Open investigations in which penalties have not yet been issued are covered by the new guidance. OSHA can withhold penalty reductions where penalty adjustments do not advance the goals of the agency.

For more information, contact me at [email protected].

03/31/2025

MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT! As of April 1, 2025, Adele Abrams will join the DC office of the Littler Mendelson PC law firm, where she will be part of their occupational safety and health group and head their national MSHA practice. Her Law Office is closing after 25 years but she will continue to provide OSHA/MSHA case representation, training and consultative services on safety and employment law. Adele can be reached at [email protected].

To our clients: Thanks for your business over these decades and join me at Littler.com!

With a focus on labor and employment law, Littler provides innovative legal strategies and solutions for employers of all sizes, everywhere.

02/13/2025

There are now nominees to head the two US workplace safety and health agencies (no hearing dates yet). They will be tasked with implementing the new 10-1 policy for regulations (the agency must rescind10 regulations for every new standard promulgated) and it is unclear what their position will be on legislation to abolish OSHA (HR 86) or deregulatory action impacting mining under the Energy Executive Order. Stay tuned!

The nominees are:
* Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA): David Keeling, a global EHS consultant who has worked for Amazon and also was former VP of UPS for health and safety, has been nominated to head OSHA.
* Mine Safety & Health Administration (MSHA): Wayne Palmer, former executive vice president of the Essential Minerals Association, was officially nominated by President Trump to serve as Assistant Secretary of Mine Safety and Health at the Department of Labor. Prior to joining EMA, Wayne served in the first Trump Administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary for MSHA.

For more information on regulatory changes and compliance assistance, contact Adele Abrams at [email protected]

05/20/2024

Hey FB friends who are also email friends. Someone has sent out some emails (scam) asking for confidential help. It’s not me! It is also from a different email that i’ve never used, not my usual one (IYKYK), but added my name. So I am not seeking help at this time!

05/17/2024

NEW HAZCOM RULE! OSHA is amending the Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) to conform to the United Nations’ Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS), primarily Revision 7 (Rev. 7), address issues that arose during the implementation of the 2012 update to the HCS, and provide better alignment with other U.S. agencies and international trading partners, while enhancing the effectiveness of the standard. The modifications to the standard include revised criteria for classification of certain health and physical hazards, revised provisions for updating labels, new labeling provisions for small containers, new provisions related to trade secrets, technical amendments related to the contents of safety data sheets (SDSs), and related revisions to definitions of terms used in the standard. The final rule will officially appear in the May 20, 2024, Federal Register and takes effect 60 days thereafter. For more information on these changes and impact on training, labeling and classification of products, contact me at [email protected].

04/16/2024

The U.S. Department of Labor announced today that its Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has issued a final rule to better protect the nation’s miners from health hazards associated with exposure to respirable crystalline silica, also known as silica dust or quartz dust.

The final rule lowers the permissible exposure limit of respirable crystalline silica to 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air for a full-shift exposure, calculated as an 8-hour time-weighted average. If a miner’s exposure exceeds the limit, the final rule requires mine operators to take immediate corrective actions to come into compliance.

The final rule also does the following:

- Requires mine operators to use engineering controls to prevent miners’ overexposures to silica dust and use dust samplings and environmental evaluations to monitor exposures.
- Compels metal and nonmetal mine operators to establish medical surveillance programs to provide periodic health examinations at no cost to miners. The exams are similar to the medical surveillance programs available to coal miners under existing standards.
- Replaces an outdated standard for respiratory protection with a new standard reflecting the latest advances in respiratory protection and practices.

Some provisions will take effect in 60 days following publication while others have extended implementation over 360 and even 720 days. The unpublished draft is nearly 700 pages long so more detail will be available following analysis. For assistance with silica issues, contact us at [email protected].

The Law Office of Adele L. Abrams is a nine-attorney firm, offering civil legal services in MD, DC an

03/28/2024

This impacts our publicly traded clients and their business partners (vendors and contractors)!

The Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) has published its final “ESG” rules that will require registrants to provide certain climate- related information in their registration statements and annual reports. The final rules will require information about a registrant’s climate-related risks that have materially impacted, or are reasonably likely to have a material impact on, its business strategy, results of operations, or financial condition.

In addition, under the final rules, certain disclosures related to severe weather events and other natural conditions will be required in a registrant’s audited financial statements.

The final rules are effective May 28, 2024. The early release of the long awaited and controversial rule effectively insulates it from rescission under the Congressional Review Act.

For more information on ESG compliance and policies, contact the Law Office at [email protected].

09/01/2023

OSHA has reopened the comment period on its Heat Injury and Illness Prevention rulemaking, to allow the public to respond more fully to the small business advocacy review panel report on the draft standard (Docket No. OSHA-2021-0009). Comments on this docket will be accepted until 12/23/2023. OSHA seeks comments on the potential regulatory framework for a potential rule, which covers both outdoor and indoor work settings, the alternatives and options that OSHA is considering, preliminary analysis of the unit costs of the framework, or any other aspect of the issue. For assistance on this issue, contact the Law Office at [email protected].

09/01/2023

The Law Office of Adele L. Abrams PC is delighted to announce a new addition! Joseph E. Ashley, Esq., has joined the firm as our latest attorney. Joe recently retired after 30+ years in federal OSHA enforcement, but has also been an attorney for decades. He will provide legal support to our clients in OSHA and MSHA cases nationwide and in general matters in MD and DC. He will also conduct OHS training and auditing. Welcome, Joe!

The Law Office of Adele L. Abrams is a nine-attorney firm, offering civil legal services in MD, DC an

08/10/2023

MSHA will extend the public comment period on proposed amendments to existing respirable crystalline silica exposure limits until 9/11/23. The agency published the notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register on July 13, 2023. This adds 15 days to the process. The extension responds to requests from the mining community and other interested parties for additional time to develop and submit comments on the proposal.

There are also public hearings scheduled, with the first at agency HQ on 8/3/23. The rule will also apply to contractors at mine sites, including construction companies, and the proposal differs substantively from the current OSHA rule. For assistance on this rule, contact the Law Office at 301-595-3520.

08/06/2023

Great moments in infrastructure design history!

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Well, because that's the way they built them in England, and English engineers designed the first US railroads. Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the wagon tramways, and that's the gauge they used. So, why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that same wheel spacing. Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break more often on some of the old, long distance roads in England . You see, that's the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England ) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since. And what about the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match or run the risk of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome , they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process and wonder 'What horse's as came up with this?', you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' ases.)  Now, the twist to the story: When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah . The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds. So, a major Space Shuttle design feature, of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system, was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's as. And you thought being a horse's as wasn't important? Ancient horse's as*es control almost everything. 😁
See also: 20 Most Unbelievable People In The World. Picture a girl with x-ray eyes, seeing through things, and think about a Metal-Eating Man who consumed more than nine tons of metal over four decades! Here’s an list of 20 amazing individuals, each with their jaw dropping superpowers👉 knovhov.com/most-amazing-unbelievable-people-in-the-world/

07/19/2023

OSHA is proposing to revise its Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) standard for construction, at 29 CFR 1926.95(c), to explicitly state that PPE must fit properly to protect workers from workplace hazards. The rule, which will appear in the 7/20/23 Fed. Reg., will have a 60-day comment period.

This revision would align the language in the PPE standard for construction with the corresponding language in OSHA’s PPE standards for general industry and maritime and affirm OSHA’s interpretation of its PPE standard for construction as requiring properly fitting PPE. For more information, contact the Law Office at [email protected].