July 23, 2008 Arlington, Va. -- On July 22, NUCA Vice President of Safety, George Kennedy, testified during an informal, fact-finding public hearing at the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. on OSHA's proposed rule on Confined Space Entry in Construction. Kennedy summarized member concerns about the proposed rulemaking as follows: "Although we do not oppose the idea of having a confined space standard that is applicable to construction, our members believe that OSHA's new proposed rule will create considerable confusion and also place an unnecessary burden, with no improvements in safety, on all contractors who have been successfully utilizing the General Industry-Permit Required Standard (1926.146) for 15 years."

At the end of his allowed 10 minutes, Kennedy said, "NUCA recommends that OSHA simply incorporate by reference the General Industry-Permit- Required Confined Space standard (29 CFR 1910.146) into the OSHA Construction Standards (29 CFR 1926)."

Most of the construction organizations represented at the hearing appeared to agree with NUCA. For example, the representative from the American Society of Safety Engineers said that the proposed rule "fails to recognize current and widely understood safety practices that have proven successful both in general industry and construction, and inadequately addresses several vitally important confined space issues."

Click on the following links for Kennedy's oral summary, www.nuca.com/files/public/Confined_Space_Oral_Comments.pdf, or NUCA's written comments, www.nuca.com/files/public/Confined_Space_Written_Comments.pdf, submitted to the docket.