The Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) is scheduled to host a stakeholder meeting on a proposed emergency wildfire smoke rule on June 18. We last wrote about this rulemaking in February.

The rule, which is still in development stages, is expected to require employers to offer training and personal protective equipment to workers at risk of smoke exposure. If smoke in an area were to reach a certain threshold, it would trigger a requirement for certain workers to wear appropriate PPE or for employers to take steps to reduce their employees smoke exposure to acceptable levels, like allowing them to work indoors with adequate filtration and ventilation. The emergency rule is likely to be based on a similar emergency rule in California.

The current rulemaking is for an emergency rule that L&I hopes to have in place for the 2021 fire season, possibly in late June or early July. With an emergency rule as a placeholder for this summer, L&I plans to do a full rulemaking on a permanent wildfire smoke rule. AWC and other employers have concerns about the scope of the emergency rule, especially given the lack of a full cost/benefit analysis, which is a standard component of the rulemaking process. There are also concerns about how city employers will need to measure smoke levels and what smoke thresholds should be chosen to trigger employer-provided PPE or smoke mitigation requirements. You can find L&I’s wildfire smoke rulemaking page here.

The stakeholder meeting will be on June 18 via Zoom. Attendance may be limited; cities that wish to attend should pre-register here.

Dates to remember

The next wildfire smoke rule stakeholder meeting is scheduled for Friday, June 18 at 1 pm.