Regulatory Adaptation in the Construction Industry: Case Study of the OSHA Update to the Respirable Crystalline Silica Standard
Publication: Journal of Legal Affairs and Dispute Resolution in Engineering and Construction
Volume 12, Issue 4
Abstract
This paper presents a case study of a proposed regulatory future-proofing framework for the construction industry. The update to the crystalline silica standard by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was selected and reviewed. The standard applies uniformly to the entire construction industry and experienced typical areas of regulatory uncertainties during the rulemaking process. The case study presents the organizational responses to the standard by two construction companies and a trade association. The study results demonstrate the importance of each process of regulatory future-proofing (i.e., horizon scanning, stakeholder engagement, risk and opportunity assessment, response strategy development, and compliance implementation) in proactive adaptation to regulatory uncertainties during the rulemaking process. Additionally, the results highlight several practices (such as robust communication with all relevant parties and allocating right-sizing resources) for effectively achieving implementation of regulatory future-proofing.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code generated or used during the study are proprietary or confidential in nature and may only be provided with restrictions.
The interview data used in this research received Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval for human subject research. As a part of the IRB data protection requirement, only the research team has access to the data, and the data cannot be shared with others.
This study strictly followed the Construction Industry Institute’s (CII’s) policy for data confidentiality. All data provided to CII and the research team by participating organizations in support of research activities were considered confidential information. The data provided by participating individuals and companies were not communicated in any form to any party other than CII-authorized academic researchers. The information and insights provided in the rest of this paper were screened to remove any identifying information. The organizational descriptions in the paper painted a general picture of the participating stakeholders, with only the pertinent details necessary to understand the insights discussed in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This study is part of a research effort that has been supported by the Construction Industry Institute (CII) Power, Utility, Infrastructure Sector Research Team (RT-PUI01), and focuses on identifying and evaluating the impact of regulations throughout a project life cycle. The opinions expressed in this paper represent those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the CII. The authors would like to acknowledge the extensive help from the following industry team members: Nik Corno, Stephen Fyfe, Karen Furlani, Jeffrey Gans, Kai Guo, Michael Hatchell, Randy Kulhanek, Steve Morrison, Susan Rapin, Jeremy Rasmussen, Carmelo J. Torrisi, David M. Turner, and Carzell Walton. The authors thank John Paddison for copy editing the paper.
References
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Legal Affairs and Dispute Resolution in Engineering and Construction
Volume 12 • Issue 4 • November 2020
Copyright
©2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 7, 2019
Accepted: Apr 14, 2020
Published online: Jun 19, 2020
Published in print: Nov 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Nov 19, 2020
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