Last week, OSHA sent the draft of its final rule updating the Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for interagency review. OMB’s review of the HCS amendments is the last step in the rulemaking process to ensure that OSHA’s updates are consistent with applicable law, the president’s priorities, and a series of executive orders on federal regulation.

The draft is not publicly available.

OMB’s review takes about 45 days for most rulemakings, so the final HCS rule will likely be published in the Federal Register before the end of the year. 

OSHA proposed its HCS amendments in 2021. At that time, ILMA submitted extensive comments on the proposal and testified at hearings held by the agency. 

The last changes to the HCS were issued in 2012 to align the U.S. standards with the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS). When OSHA published its 2012 amendments, the agency said that the lubricants industry would be responsible for updating some 40% of the safety data sheets in existence and would incur approximately 25% of the regulatory compliance costs.