ASSP leaders Jim Thornton, Pam Walaski and Jennifer McNelly recently spent several days in Washington, D.C. meeting with public sector leaders on significant issues impacting occupational safety and health.

The team met with:

• Chemical Safety Board
• EPA
• National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
• NIOSH
• Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission
• OSHA
• Representative Joe Courtney
• Senator Sherrod Brown
• U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Throughout the discussions, ASSP leaders focused on a range of key topics:

• Ongoing commitment to ensuring that occupational safety and health remains a significant public policy issue
• Advocacy of OSH consensus standards
• Success and support of the OSHA Ambassador Program
• Heat stress
• Child labor
• Continued expansion of OSH management systems and standards
• Appreciation of strong NIST support of the ANSI/ASSP consensus standards program

Another focus of the meeting with EPA was the memorandum of understanding between EPA/DOL that was signed in July 2023. This MOU will impact many ASSP members, and we were interested to learn about opportunities to participate in this initiative and support these joint initiatives.

While meeting with the Army Corps, a significant focus was the continued recognition of ANSI/ASSP standards in the EM-385 OSH Manual, which is used on many construction and demolition sites and not only Corp sites.

Advocacy for the profession is a key element of ASSP's strategic goal to be a trusted advisor and visits like these continue to elevate awareness of ASSP. They also position the Society as an honest broker with a primary focus on ensuring that workers return to their loved ones at the end of the day.