After months of negotiations, the House of Representatives passed the Build Back Better Act (BBBA), H.R. 5376—also known as the reconciliation bill—on November 19, 2021. The BBBA is intended to fulfill aspects of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Plan. And while some would consider the most recent version less ambitious than previous iterations, it retains many major provisions related to social programs, taxes, climate change, family aid, and worker safety.

Amendments to the Occupational Safety and Health Act

As currently proposed, the BBBA would include the first amendment to the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act in nearly 20 years, when it was updated to reflect bioterrorist threats to workers in the aftermath of 9/11. This includes increasing funding to make significant improvements in workplace safety protection for American workers:

• $707 million to Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for carrying out enforcement, standards development, whistleblower investigations, compliance assistance, funding for state plans, and related activities within OSHA.
• $133 million to Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) for carrying out enforcement, standard setting, technical assistance, and related activities.

Perhaps even more immediately impactful to industry, the BBBA would also include significant increases to OSHA’s maximum penalties:

• Penalties for serious violations would increase from a current maximum of $13,653 (inflation adjusted) to $70,000.
• Penalties for willful, repeated, and failure-to-abate violations would increase from a maximum of $136,530 (inflation adjusted) to $700,000 (and from a minimum of $9,753 to $50,000).

Note that these are maximum penalties on a per-day basis. Small- to medium-size businesses would likely incur lesser fines based on the four factors OSHA considers when deciding the actual penalty level, including:

• Gravity of the violation
• Employer’s size
• Employer’s “good faith”
• Employer’s history of compliance 

According to former OSHA head David Michaels, “Many large employers treat current OSHA fines as cheaper than the cost of a safety consultant. This dramatic increase will save lives by encouraging firms to eliminate hazards before workers are hurt.”

House Education and Labor Committee Chair Bobby Scott (D-VA) agreed with these sentiments in a September 9, 2021, press release, stating, “As part of the Build Back Better Plan, workers’ rights are strengthened with provisions to apply civil monetary penalties for labor law violations and by updating the dollar amount of worker safety penalties so they are large enough to serve as an adequate deterrent.”

Get Ready…

There may still be a lot of work to do for the Senate to pass the BBBA—and what the Act’s final provisions will include is still not entirely certain. However, the latest iteration provides a good picture of where OSHA is headed. The federal government recognizes that OSHA’s penalty levels are significantly lower than other agencies and, correspondingly, that OSHA’s rigor in application of penalty has been much lower. 

Over 50 years since the OSH Act was passed, the government is trying to remedy both. The BBBA changes would authorize OSHA to enforce high enough penalties to significantly impact businesses that violate the law and injure or kill workers.

While OSHA doesn’t have the resources to audit or fine everyone, the agency will likely make an example of a few major violators to deter others from non-compliance. The best way to get ready for this potential wave of new enforcement is to be prepared:

• Make sure you have the processes, programs, and systems in place—and documented—to ensure you are always protecting employees’ safety and health and meeting OSH Act requirements.
• Establish a centralized location, like a Compliance Management System (CMS), to track and manage all safety-related information to not only help ensure going compliance but to also provide the documentation required should an inspection occur.
• Understand what to expect from an OSHA inspection and prepare your staff to respond appropriately and locate requested documentation.

And, as always, good faith goes a long way. If there are issues, fix them and document them. Abatement efforts matter.

KTL will once again be sponsoring the Midwest Environmental Compliance Conference (MECC) held by live streaming video October 26-27. MECC takes a fresh, regional approach to the increasingly difficult task of environmental compliance, permitting, enforcement, and other critical environmental issues that impact Midwest facilities and institutions. KTL will a featured presenter as part of the technical agenda:

Preparing for U.S. EPA Inspections in Region 7
Tuesday, October 26
2:00 pm – 2:40 pm CT

In recent months, regulated facilities have experienced an uptick in U.S. EPA information surveys and multimedia inspections. KTL’s Becky Andersen will present guidance on steps you can take to prepare for inspections and minmize your risk of compliance findings and enforcment actions.

BioForward Wisconsin recently reached out to KTL to tell more of our story and to highlight how our company is helping to support the rapidly growing biotech/biohealth industry. Read our recent interview to learn more about KTL’s work with BioForward, its member companies, and the industry overall.

Get to know our KTL team! This month, we are catching up with KTL Senior Consultant and Partner Andy Smith.  Andy has over 10 years of experience providing project oversight, technical support, and IT solutions on a variety of EHS and engineering projects for a wide range of clients and industries. Andy is based out of our Madison, WI office.

Tell us a little bit about your background—what are your areas of expertise?

I started working at KTL in 2011, mainly to support a large data gathering and management project. From there, I managed to prove myself useful in other areas and stuck around. Since joining KTL, I’ve worked on a wide variety of projects and developed plenty of IT skills, including SharePoint development, GIS, statistics/data analysis, etc. My primary areas of expertise these days would be leveraging those IT skills on projects involving asset retirement obligations (AROs), EHS and regulatory compliance, and general project management.

What types of clients do you work with? What are the biggest issues you see them facing right now?

Most of my client work has been focused on the private sector, with the bulk of my current time spent with chemical manufacturing companies. However, I have also worked extensively with transportation and manufacturing companies.

Overall, the most common issue the clients I work with face is managing regulatory, environmental, and workplace safety risks while balancing the need to maintain and manage a productive company.

What would you say is a highlight of your job?

I enjoy working on a wide variety of projects and continuously improving the work KTL performs. Sometimes this will show up in doing a task more efficiently than we had in the past. Other times it might mean leveraging an IT platform like SharePoint or management system approach to make the work considerably more repeatable and manageable.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I bike a fair amount and play semi-convincing soccer regularly. Beyond that, my free time is consumed by books, random stuff, and hanging out with the cat.

Read Andy’s full bio.

The Food Safety Consortium Fall Edition is kicking off this October with five weekly sessions featuring critical thinking topics that have been developed for both industry veterans and knowledgeable newcomers. KTL will be a featured presenter during the Recalls: Trends and Analysis episode on Thursday, October 14:

How to Respond to Recalls
Thursday, October 14
1:10 pm – 1:55 pm ET (includes Q&A)
Presented by KTL Senior Consultant Roberto Bellavia

Get to know our KTL team! This month, we are catching up with KTL Consultant Joseph Kunes.  Joseph supports KTL’s information management projects, including Microsoft SharePoint®, dynaQ™, and other database applications. As an educator by training, he excels at guiding clients through technology implementation. Joseph is based out of St. Louis, Missouri. 

Tell us a little bit about your background—what are your areas of expertise?

I started my professional career as a French teacher and taught Middle School French in Milwaukee, Wisconsin before I joined KTL in 2012. My first project at KTL was performing some outreach work with the National Association of Chemical Distributors (NACD). At that time, KTL offered a dynaQ™ assessment/audit tool designed to help our clients establish and/or maintain compliance with NACD’s Responsible Distribution standard.

This initial assignment of providing dynaQ support to KTL’s chemical distribution clients, allowed me to start developing a greater skillset and deeper understanding of KTL’s database tools and the information technology (IT) side of developing them. As my technology skills have grown, my role at KTL has also changed and expanded over time. To this day, however, I continue to work directly to provide IT support on KTL projects (e.g., dynaQ, database applications, and SharePoint tools) and to maintain and grow our client relationships.

What types of clients do you work with? What are the biggest issues you see them facing right now?

I work with public and private clients across a number of sectors—most of which are focused on developing or improving environmental program management. Despite this diverse clientele, I continually see a universal challenge of staying organized enough to grow operational productivity while maintaining the various aspects of regulatory compliance. It is a difficult balance for many organizations to strike, particularly when so many are resource-constrained right now.

What would you say is a highlight of your job?

I take great pride in seeing the fruits of my labor evident in everyday life.  I am currently part of a team tasked with maintaining bridge and rail infrastructure, thus leading to the distribution of goods throughout the nation. In the past, I have worked with organizations to rebuild the electrical grid in the southeast and Puerto Rico after having been devastated by hurricanes. It’s rewarding to play a role on projects like that. I also truly enjoy the client satisfaction and appreciation we often experience once we have restored order to sometimes chaotic systems by setting up custom SharePoint sites with the appropriate tools tailored to suit the client’s needs.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I’m a man of simple pleasures—I enjoy good food and good drink in good company. I am also (and hope to soon be again) an avid traveler and enjoy exploring new places to take in the local fare.  I’m also a big fan of the arts—be it musical, performance, or material—as well as any cultural experiences.

Read Joseph’s full bio.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 48 million Americans—about one in six—get sick with a foodborne illness every year. Of that number, CDC estimates 128,000 end up hospitalized and 3,000 will die from a foodborne disease. Correspondingly, consumers rank safety higher than anything else (e.g., affordability, healthful eating) when selecting a restaurant. Consumers want—and need—to know more about their food. 

It is not surprising, given this information, that improving food traceability is a key objective for the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA). Food traceability is the ability to track any food through all stages of the supply chain—production, processing, distribution—to ensure food safety and operational efficiency. Over the past year, the Agency has launched three major initiatives to create safer and more traceable food supply chain.  

Read KTL’s recent article in Food Safety Magazine about these initiatives and FDA’s focus on food traceability.

Get to know our KTL team! This month, we are catching up with KTL Senior Consultant Kasia Branny. Kasia’s expertise is in international and U.S. regulatory and legal compliance. She has worked for nearly 15 years as an attorney and EHS regulatory consultant for clients across the globe. Kasia is based out of the Washington, D.C. metro area.

Tell us a little bit about your background—what are your areas of expertise?

I have a law degree from Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland and an LL.M. from the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. I joined KTL in January 2021 as a Senior Consultant supporting some of our government contracts, as well as food safety and EHS projects. Prior to joining KTL, I worked with a number of consulting companies as an attorney and regulatory consultant helping clients across the globe address their EHS compliance issues. I have specialized expertise in advising companies on regulatory compliance in the U.S. and internationally; developing regulatory compliance programs; creating audit/assessment content, protocols, and tools; and providing regulatory compliance training.

What types of clients do you work with? What are the biggest issues you see them facing right now?

I work with a diverse cross-section of KTL’s clients—from USAID to food companies needing food safety support to EHS projects for manufacturing organizations.

For several of our clients, one of the biggest struggles they encounter is a limited budget. Unfortunately, this can put new projects on hold until funding is available. With respect to many of the EHS projects I have worked on, COVID-19 has presented many challenges. From regulatory perspective, restrictions/new requirements adopted and imposed on industry have required innovative solutions to comply. As many have experienced, the restriction on onsite audits is one challenge we have had to navigate with our clients. Some audits have been suspended, but in many cases, onsite audits have been replaced by remote audits. We are finding remote audits continue to provide a very viable alternative for many of our clients, even as the COVID restrictions are lifted.

What would you say is a highlight of your job?

The most rewarding part of my job is definitely having a client who is happy with our services and who recommends us to others or for future work.

Another highlight for me is the opportunity to learn new things, which I do on daily basis. Food safety is a new area for me, so there is much to learn! I really enjoy diving into this field, and I have witnessed over the past several months a great interest in the development of electronic Food Safety Management Systems (FSMS). We see many companies in the food industry struggling with data management. For example, just think about the documentation food companies must collect from all their suppliers. That task alone becomes much more efficient with some sort of electronic data management tool. KTL’s Microsoft SharePoint® system provides a simple and intuitive tool that can be easily integrated into a company’s existing operations. There are many data sets and compliance/certification requirements that can be captured, tracked, and managed in a SharePoint FSMS to ensure ongoing compliance.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I enjoy working out and try to exercise at least five times a week. I love nature, so I regularly take my kids and my dog for walks, hikes, and trips to the beach in the summer. With my international background, traveling is my passion. Now that COVID restrictions are being lifted, I’m hoping to start traveling again!

Read Kasia’s full bio.

Department of Transportation (DOT) code (49CFR172.702) requires that any employee involved in the transportation (shipping or receiving) of hazardous materials must be trained and tested in general awareness, safety, site-specific job functions, and transportation security.

8-hour DOT General Awareness Training (ONLINE)
June 16 (part A) & June 22 (part B), 2021
8:30 am – 12:30 pm CT
REGISTER NOW!

KTL’s 8-hour DOT General Awareness Training (held as two 4-hour sessions online on June 16 and June 22) is applicable for all companies that ship hazardous materials, ship hazardous waste, or prepare shipments of hazardous materials/waste for transport. It teaches all topics required for DOT general awareness training and general security training and will meet the requirements for triennial training certification.

Topics covered include:

• Code training requirements
• Shipping papers
• Hazardous materials table
• Incident reporting
• Hazard classes
• Common violations and confusing specifics
• Marking, labeling, and placarding

Cost: $198/participant. This online DOT training is held as two 4-hour sessions: June 16 (Part A) and June 22 (Part B) from 9 am – 1 pm. To receive CERTIFICATION, participants MUST complete Part A and Part B and pass both post-tests with 80%.

REGISTER NOW!

Training Details

• Training sessions will be held via Zoom. Link will be provided prior to class.
• Training is scheduled to begin at 8:30 am and end at 12:30 pm CT (or until material is complete).
• Participants will receive a training manual, pre-/post-competency test, exercises, and a certificate of completion, provided they receive an 80% or above on the test.
• Registration closes 72 hours prior to the scheduled training. KTL has the authority to cancel training with 72-hours notice if class size is not large enough.

Get to know our KTL team! This month, we are catching up with KTL Consultant April Greene. April is an experienced EHS professional with a history of working in the environmental services industry. She has significant experience creating and managing corporate programs, plans, policies, and procedures to ensure compliance with EHS and food safety requirements. April recently moved to our Madison, Wisconsin office. 

Tell us a little bit about your background—what are your areas of expertise?

I held various science-related positions working while getting my degrees. I have done everything from making and testing butter to testing sewage and wastewater. I obtained my Master of Science degree in Environmental Chemistry, with a concentration in Toxicology and Hydrology, while working as an Assistant Supervisor of an inorganic environmental laboratory. Most recently before joining KTL, I spent almost five years as an EHS Specialist in the electronics recycling industry. This is an industry that changes frequently with the technology produced, requiring me to stay current on a lot of different types of regulations.

My work background has taken me in and out of the foods industry, which I am still involved in at KTL. My passion, however, remains environmental work and finding sustainable solutions to progress toward a more circular economy, including reuse and recycling. Regardless of the work I’m doing, I enjoy coming up with creative solutions for industry that are outside the box but fit the client’s unique needs. As just one example, one of my favorite projects from my past work involved using glass from recycled electronics as a base for artesian Italian tiles.

What types of clients do you work with? What are the biggest issues you see them facing right now?

I am extremely lucky to not have a “type” of client that I work with. I shift back and forth between organizations of all kinds that have either EHS or food safety needs (or both), which keeps my creative brain fueled. The biggest issues I see them facing right now involve trying to find cost-effective ways to do the right thing. People want to do what is best for the environment and for their communities, but they don’t always know where to start. That is where I come in!

What would you say is a highlight of your job?

My favorite thing is the sigh of relief that comes when my clients realize that I am here to help. I am lucky that I have amazing colleagues at KTL to work with. We work as a team to bounce ideas off each other and to make sure we find the best solution available for our clients.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I have 14-year-old and 4-year-old kids, so free time is not something get a lot of! I am a nerd at heart who loves reading. There is not a genre of book that I will not devour. When I am traveling, I listen to podcasts. When I am with my extended family, we really enjoy playing games together, especially Dungeons and Dragons.

Read April’s full bio.