Will Trump Roll Back EHS Regulations?

Update:

Since taking office, the Biden administration has re-instituted many of these changes instituted by the Trump administration and clearly stated their commitment to workplace health and safety and enforcement.

We decided to maintain this blog post as a reminder as to how an administration can quickly change environmental, health and safety regulations, even during a short 4 year term.

Update: The blog post below was originally posted at the start of the Trump presidency. Since then, many of these questions have been answered.

In summary, Trump has rolled back many environmental regulations, however these rollbacks haven’t impacted manufacturers. Most changes have impacted energy and other larger industries.

Luckily, the administration has mostly left OSHA alone other than cutting budgets to some degree. His base is largely made up of working class blue collar people who demand a safe workplace, and his agenda has supported that goal.

Will Trump Roll-Back OSHA and EPA Regulations As They Apply to Manufacturing?

Anyone who followed the recently completed Presidential election knows that one of Donald Trump’s major campaign platforms was/is his promise to improve the economy, jobs, and specifically US manufacturing. As President Elect Trump begins planning his transition into office, it’s worthwhile to get a better understanding of his proposed policies aimed towards achieving this goal. I’ve taken the liberty of reviewing his new website to get a better understanding of his intentions.

Under the heading of “Making America Great Again,” his website has a sub-heading called “Getting America Back to Work Again.” Under this section, there are several sub-sections including “Regulatory Reform.” A quick review of this section reveals the following summary points:

Temporary moratorium on ALL new regulations
Canceling of overarching executive orders
Review of all current regulations to eliminate unnecessary ones that kill jobs and bloat government

The section includes an interesting summary statement: “While reasonable regulations are needed to address issues ranging from ensuring public safety to ensuring proper stewardship of our National Parks’ crown jewels, this can be accomplished without the profound damage to our economy and our freedoms that is currently inflicted by the regulatory bureaucracy. The Trump administration is committed to regulatory reform that will produce sensible regulations that allow America to be great.”

What does it all mean in regards to OSHA and environmental regulations as they apply to manufacturing?

Here are my summary $0.02 thoughts and opinions:

It’s important to begin by pointing out that government regulations are vast and include a wide variety of topics including financial/banking, pricing practices, wages, discrimination, etc, and that environmental, health and safety laws make up only a small fraction of overall Federal regulations.

It’s also important to understand that small businesses are the “engine of the US economy” and account for the vast majority of existing employment and employment growth in our country, and that these same small businesses can incur significant costs when trying to meet their OSHA and environmental compliance requirements, especially when being fined and penalized for failing to do so. Many would argue that EHS compliance is not only their legal obligation, but also their moral and civic obligation in order to protect their employees, local communities and the environment, but not everyone agrees… According to the National Association of Manufacturers, over 99% of US manufacturers have less than 500 employees, and 75% have less than 20 employees. (Although Trump didn’t talk much about construction, the construction industry has an even larger % of small businesses as compared to manufacturing). The potential impact on small business could therefore factor into Trump’s calculus on this issue.

Temporary moratorium on ALL new regulations:
- No new OSHA standards and rule implementation until the “moratorium” is over?
- No new EPA, or corresponding state environmental regulations, until the “moratorium” is over?
Canceling of overarching executive orders
- Could this role back the recent 78% OSHA fine increases that went into effect in August?
- Could this role back the recent 50-100% environmental fine increases that went into effect in August?
- Given that these fine increases were part of the much larger “Bi-Partisan Balanced Budget Act” aimed at reducing the Federal Defecit, this might be hard to do,
Review of all current regulations to eliminate unnecessary ones that kill jobs and bloat government

By Russell Carr|2021-08-17T13:32:12-05:00November 14th, 2016|Fed Regulation|Comments Off

About the Author: Russell Carr

How A Sales Guy Transformed Into An Environmental, Health & Safety Expert & Advocate For Small Businesses I've spent my entire 30+ year career working within the manufacturing and “industrial services” sectors. The first 15 years of my career focused on sales of hazardous materials related products and services to the manufacturing sector, then for the last 16+ years transitioned into entrepreneurship, founding 3 small industrial services related contracting businesses. As you’ll see below, running these companies eventually lead me to found yet a 4th business, but more on that in a minute…. Here’s a brief description of the first 3 companies: Berg Environmental Services, Inc.: hazardous waste disposal & transportation services, founded in August of 2003 3rd party wind energy operations & maintenance services provider to utility scale wind farms throughout the US, founded in September 2007 3rd party oil & gas exploration & production services provider, founded in August of 2011 Each of these companies operated in extremely dangerous working conditions and exposed my employees to a wide range of serious health & safety hazards on a daily basis. To complicate matters, 2 of the companies also exposed the environment to significant potential harm. In other words, I learned very early the critical importance of managing environmental, health and safety issues so as to ensure the safety of our employees and the environment, as well as minimizing related risks. But I also learned how incredibly difficult and challenging this endeavor can be due to the wide range of complicated and continually changing environmental, health and safety rules and regulations that impacted the companies. To summarize the challenges: First I had to determine which regulations applied to each company, then I had to build compliance programs to meet those regulations, and finally I had to ensure that the programs were being managed and followed by our staff on a daily basis. All while trying to run and grow 3 profitable businesses…. It was overwhelming and I always struggled to keep up. To make matters worse, throughout this time I also witnessed the devastating price that companies, management and ownership can pay for failing to manage EHS compliance. This included seeing one of my hazardous waste management clients get sent to jail over environmental issues, another client’s management team threatened with jail time, a direct competitor get fined $378,000 by OSHA fine after an employee was nearly killed, and many others face major fines and penalties. Full disclosure, one of my companies got fined by OSHA at one point, & another was cited by TCEQ, so I know how it feels. In summary, I learned first hand how incredibly difficult it is for small companies to manage EHS compliance due to a common lack of the critical expertise, time and resources that are needed to keep up, and how this situation then ends up exposing them to these potentially catastrophic risks that can literally destroy lives and businesses. This later inspired me to found my 4th company, Berg Compliance Solutions in 2012, which is dedicated to helping other small businesses, and business owners, to manage EHS compliance and risk. Education BA, Philosophy, University of Colorado, Boulder, December, 1990. Summary of Professional Experience & Qualifications: 30+ years serving the manufacturing & industrial services sectors 30+ years of sales and marketing experience 16+ years as small business owner & entrepreneur: Founded and operated 4 small businesses since 2003. Environmental, Health & Safety Compliance & Program Related: 19 plus years of hazardous waste management including EPA, TCEQ & RCRA regulations 8 years of DOT/FMCSA compliance experience, including hazardous materials transportation 8 years of combined experience implementing and managing OSHA health and safety compliance programs for 2 high risk energy services businesses Successfully implemented and gained ISO 9001 Quality Management Certification and OHSAS 18001 (Occupational Health & Safety Advisory Service) Certification for wind energy maintenance business. Regulatory Enforcement Related Experience: Served as expert witness in criminal environmental compliance enforcement cases Superfund-CERCLA OSHA enforcement inspections, investigations and resolution in following industries: industrial services, manufacturing & construction. TCEQ enforcement inspections, investigations and resolution in manufacturing.