Less than a month ago, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued its final silica rule, an effort to reduce the amount of silica dust workers can legally be exposed to.

A week and a half later, a coalition of eight construction industry organizations filed a legal challenge to the rule, a result of concerns about the economic and technological feasibility of compliance.

Known as The Occupational Exposure to Respirable Crystalline Silica rule, it halves the permissible exposure for crystalline silica from 100 micrograms per cubic meter of air over an eight-hour shift to 50 micrograms. That’s for general industry; for the construction industry, the rule actually calls for an 80 percent reduction in permissible silica dust (down to 50 micrograms from 250).

The new rule is an effort to prevent or reduce the likelihood of silicosis, a lung disease that results from breathing in tiny bits of silica, a mineral found in sand, rock, and mineral ores. Over time, exposure to silica particles causes scarring in the lungs, which can impact one’s ability to breathe.

Few would argue against the importance of worker safety; but the coalition fighting OSHA’s new silica rule points out that over the last 50 years, deaths from silicosis have declined 93 percent. In 1968, more than 1000 people died from silicosis, but in 2004, there were 165 silicosis-related deaths in the United States.

There’s also a discrepancy in estimates of costs for compliance to the new rule. According to OSHA, the new rule will cost the construction industry about $659 million a year—but an economic analysis conducted a year ago found an estimated cost of $4.9 billion a year, with 75 percent of that going toward compliance expenditures such as additional equipment and monitoring.

According to OSHA, the new rule “is estimated to provide average net benefits of about $2.8 to $4.7 billion annually over the next 60 years. It is expected to result in annual costs of about $1,242 for the average workplace covered by the rule. The annual cost to a firm with fewer than twenty employees would be less, averaging about $550.”

Arguments about costs aside, there are questions about the feasibility of compliance. Because many labs don’t have the appropriate technology, it can be difficult or even impossible to measure levels of silica as low as 50 micrograms.

Now the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections is reviewing OSHA’s final silica rule, and legislators hinted that the rule may not be so final after all. In the meantime, employers should be following the new standard’s guidelines for controlling silica exposures including monitoring, medical surveillance, training, and other requirements.

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