Document aDaYbN7nXzbXbeLGoyJBGBNkb

22676 .. Federal Register / Vol. 51<No. 119 / Friday, June 20, 1986 / Rules and Regulations concentration of a toxic substance. In exempted from most of the standard's addition, the use of such a concept requirements, e.g., medical surveillance, would necessarily depend on increased monitoring, spill/emergency procedures, reliance oh respiratory protection as a associated recordkeeping, etc. line of defense against hazardous Employers whose construction activities workplace exposures, which runs involved the handling of Category B counter to the Agency's staled products or the performance of Category preference for the traditional hierarchy B processes would be required to of controls: the use of engineering and observe less stringent requirements, for work practice controls as the first line of example less frequent employee defense, followed by respiratory monitoring, than employers involved in protection. For these reasons, discussed Category C work. For Category C further in the Summary and Explanation workplaces, e.g.. those involving the section for paragraph (g) of the general handling or performance of Category C industry standard. OSHA has not products or processes, the BCTD adopted ORC's suggested PAC/PEL recommended that employers be exposure limit approach. required to observe all of the provisions Recommended Standards for the Construction Industry Several rulemaking participants provided OSHA with recommended of its recommended standard. The BCTD aigued that adoption of such a categorization scheme would have a number of advantages: (1) It would concentrate control asbestos standards for construction, resources In the highest risk situations; including the BCTD. the A1A/NA. and. (2) It would encourage the testing and more generally, the Advisory Committee categorization of as-yet-untested (CACOSH). The general scope of these products and processes; standards and the major differences (3) It would encourage manufacturers between them and OSHA's revised to develop and employers to use less construction standard are described hazardous, i.e., Category A or B. below. products or processes; The BCTD Standard The Building Construction Trades (4) It would aid In the development of a substantial data base on employee exposures to asbestos in the Department (AFL-CIO) submitted a construction industry. comprehensive recommended standard The BCTD's suggested approach, to the docket (Ex. 330). along with which involves tiering the stringency of extensive commentary. OSHA has the standard's requirements to the found these recommendations and degree of hazard associated with the use analyses useful in standards - of various products or processes, development, and many of the BCTD's recommendations have been adopted, often in modified form, in the final essentially agrees with the structure adopted by OSHA in this revised standard for construction. That is, revised rule. The BCTD recommended that OSHA adopt a construction standard that OSHA has tiered the standard in accordance with the relative hazard associated with certain work operations differed considerably in format from in construction. Accordingly, the revised that traditionally, associated with OSHA standard reserves the Standard's most health standards. First, the BCTD stringent requirements, e.g,, the use of recommended a three-tiered scheme for daily exposure monitoring, negative- categorizing products and processes, pressure regulated areas, disposable depending on the airborne levels of protective clothing, and required, asbestos likelyto be produced during hygiene facilities, to asbestos these operations or when handling these renovation, demolition, and removal products. Category A products and operations. Therecord evidence, processes are.those that produce. discussed in connection with the airborne levels of asbestos no greater Summary and Explanation sections for than a 4-hour TWA of 30,000 fibers per these paragraphs (see Section XI). cubic meter (0.03 f/cc); Category B repeatedly emphasizes that these products and processes would produce operations, also known as "asbestos airborne levels no greater than 8-hour abatement" operations, are clearly the TWA levels of 0.5 f/cc; and Category C most hazardous asbestos-handling products' and processes would include operations in construction at the present materials and operations that produce time. airborne asbestos levels above the PEL In addition to the adoption of a tiered (or that produce as yet unknown or approach to cover asbestos renovation, untested concentrations of airborne demolition, and removal operations, the asbestos). revised standard for construction The BCTD recommended that , incorporates several regulatory employers using Category A products be- techniques that are designed to ensure that the impact of the standard is proportional to the degree of oecupational hazard 10 affected workplaces. These techniques include the use of the action level concept, which permits employers whose employees are no! exposed above the. action level to be exempted from complying with many of the standard's requirements, and the use of a "30-day. trigger," which allows workplaces that do not have airborne concentrations of the hazardous substance in question foi as many as 30 or more days in any given year to be exempted from certain requirements, e.g., the standard's medical surveillance provisions. In addition, small-scale, short-duration maintenance and renovation operations, such as those involving the installation of electrical conduit or the changing of a gasket made of asbestos-containing material, are specifically exempted from a number of provisions, e.g., protective clothing, regulated areas, and hygiene facilities. OSHA is confident that the use of these methods will ensure an adequate degree of correspondence between the seriousness of the hazard to be controlled and the stringency of . the control strategy imposed by the final standard. Although conceptually similar in many respects to the standard recommended by the BCTD, OSHA believes that the regulatory approach adopted by the Agency has several advantages over the BCTD's strategy. First, OSHA's approach is simple and can be implemented, immediately; without a delay to permit various processes and products to be tested arid categorized according to the amount of airborne asbestoB they generate. Second; the Agency's standard will be relatively simple and straightforward both to administer and to enforce. Third - . the revised standard's structure is similar to end-consistent with that of other OSHA health standards, Including the revised asbestos rule for general industry, which will permit employers who are already familiar with the formal of OSHA regulations to comply with the, standard and to understand its requirements more easily. For these, reasons, OSHA has chosen to adopt the . revised standard for construction that Is discussed in Section XI, below. Asbestos Information Association of North America. The AIA/NA also developed a 6et of recommendations that it suggested OSHA adopt to control . hazardous occupational exposures to asbestos in the construction industry (Ex. 84-307). The AIA/NA's recommended standard was notable for its lack of a requirement for a revised GLEASON-000924