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Stringency of Workplace Air Contaminant Exposure Limits: A Case Study of OSHA Risk Management
Author(s) -
Hakes Jahn K.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
risk analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.972
H-Index - 130
eISSN - 1539-6924
pISSN - 0272-4332
DOI - 10.1111/j.1539-6924.1999.tb01132.x
Subject(s) - legislature , agency (philosophy) , discretion , clean air act , context (archaeology) , occupational safety and health , business , environmental health , public economics , actuarial science , air pollution , political science , economics , medicine , law , paleontology , philosophy , chemistry , organic chemistry , epistemology , biology
Political context may play a large role in influencing the efficiency of environmental and health regulations. This case study uses data from a 1989 update of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Permissible Exposure Limits (PELS) program to determine the relative effects of legislative mandates, costly acquisition of information by the agency, and pressure applied by special interest groups upon exposure standards. The empirical analysis suggests that federal agencies successfully thwart legislative attempts to limit agency discretion, and that agencies exercise bounded rationality by placing greater emphasis on more easily obtained information. The 1989 PEL were less significantly related to more costly information, contained “safety factors” for chemicals presenting relatively more ambiguous risks, and the proposed standard stringencies showed evidence of beinginfluenced by vying industry and labor interests.