By Gun Week Staff
After intense direct lobbying by the National Rifle Association (NRA), the National Shooting Sports Foundation and a blizzard of emails from gunowners and gun shops, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), an agency of the Department of Labor, has announced that it will review and revise a regulatory proposal that would have severely impacted gunowners and the ammunition industry.
The proposed OSHA rules were intended to expand protections to employees engaged in the manufacture, storage, sale, transportation, handling, and use of explosives, but as written would have included small arms ammunition, blackpowder, smokeless propellants and primers used by handloaders. The proposal, as originally published in the Federal Register in April, was estimated to have cost the industry and consumers more than $100 million per year.
For example, manufacturers and retailers would have had to shut down and evacuate a factory or retail shop when a thunderstorm approached. Customers with cigarette lighters or matches would not be able to enter a store or other facility or vehicle with blackpowder, small arms ammunition, primers, and smokeless propellants, which were treated like the most volatile high explosives.
The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute (SAAMI) had also met with OSHA representatives before the agency announced that a 60-day extension for public comment to Sept. 10 had been ordered.
Concerns about the safety regulation proposal were raised in a July 11 letter to OSHA signed by Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT) and 25 other members of the US House of Representatives. Rehberg had also planned to offer a floor amendment to the Labor, Health and Human Services appropriations bill that would prohibit federal funds from being used to enforce the proposed OSHA regulation.
On July 16, Kristine A. Iverson, assistant secretary of Labor for Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs, wrote to Congress to state “it was never the intention of OSHA to block the sale, transportation, or storage of small arms ammunition” and that OSHA is taking prompt action to clarify the purpose of the regulation.
While OSHA has not withdrawn the proposal altogether, Iverson’s letter promised that a significantly revised proposal would be filed promptly and “will be subject to substantial review and scrutiny to ensure that the revisions are prudent and the intent is clear.” She said the new proposal would endeavor to “eliminate unclear, inconsistent and repetitive requirements contained in the current standard.” OSHA undertook the rulemaking to update the existing explosives standard, which has not been changed for more than 35 years, Iverson explained.
OSHA had originally set out to update workplace safety regulations, but the proposed rules included restrictions that very few gun shops, sporting goods stores, shippers, or ammunition dealers could have complied with.
Also working with the NRA to gather signatures for the letter to OSHA from Congress was Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO). The letter called the proposal “an undue burden on a single industry where facts do not support the need outlined by this proposed rule” and “not feasible, making it realistically impossible for companies to comply with its tenets.”
Among the requirements heavily criticized by industry experts is a mandate that manufacturers of ammunition and smokeless propellants would have to shut down their operations and evacuate their factories if a thunderstorm approached. Under the same regulation, NSSF and others contend were onerous, retail customers would not be permitted within 50 feet of ammunition displays or counters unless they are first searched for cigarette lighters or matches.
The document as published in the Federal Register raises this as an issue for discussion, noting that OSHA is seeking specific comments on whether the proposed rule change would have an impact on the storage and retail sale of small arms ammunition, small arms ammunition primers and smokeless and blackpowder or substitutes.