By James L. Curtis and Craig B. Simonsen

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has recently released its FY 2013 Comprehensive Federal Annual Monitoring Evaluation (FAME) Reports.

The FAME Reports include OSHA’s evaluation of the twenty seven approved State Plans each fiscal year. According to federal OSHA’s Reports, penalties proposed by state workplace safety and health regulators continue to lag behind penalties proposed by the federal OSHA. A Bloomberg BNA analysis indicates that “when inspections were conducted, just six states cited serious, willful or repeat violations at the same rate or higher than federal OSHA’s average – 2.04 violations per inspection.” States Aren’t Meeting Inspection Goals, Issue Too Few Citations, OSHA Reviews Find, 162 DLR A-8 (August 21, 2014). In other words, federal OSHA’s “goal” for the state plan states is to have them issue more citations with higher penalties.

The state OSHA programs include: Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut (partial), Hawaii, Illinois (partial), Indiana,  Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey (partial), New Mexico, New York (partial), North Carolina, Oregon, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Virgin Islands (partial), Washington, and Wyoming.

Employers in these twenty seven state OSHA programs take note. Federal OSHA continues to pressure the state plans to increase enforcement activities.