BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de Le�n, Chair
AB 2146 (Skinner) - Occupational Safety: Firefighters
Amended: June 17, 2014 Policy Vote: L&IR 5-0
Urgency: No Mandate: No
Hearing Date: August 4, 2014
Consultant: Robert Ingenito
This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill Summary: AB 2146 require that the Occupational Safety and
Health Standards Board review new standards adopted by the
National Fire Protection Association to determine if these
standards provide a greater degree of protection to CA
firefighters, and if so, consider modifying our standards to
ensure the highest protection possible.
Fiscal Impact:
The Department of Industrial Relations that the bill
would result in annual costs of $28.000 (special fund).
Significant state and local cost pressure, potentially
in the millions of dollars, should DIR determine existing
regulations need to be updated. If the regulations are
found to constitute a new program or higher level of
service, possible state mandated reimbursable costs could
result.
Background: The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) is
an international nonprofit organization established in 1896
comprised of firefighter professionals, industry
representatives, and others concerned with fire safety.
According to the NFPA website, the organization's mission is to
reduce the worldwide burden of fire and other hazards on the
quality of life by providing and advocating consensus codes and
standards, research, training, and education. NFPA develops,
publishes and disseminates over 300 codes and standards that are
designed to minimize the risk and effects of fire by
establishing criteria for building, processing, design, service,
and installation in the United States, as well as many other
countries.
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The NFPA also establishes minimum requirements related to fire
prevention and suppression activities, including Personal
Protective Equipment (PPE) standards. According to NFPA, in
order to ensure the optimum protection of firefighters,
regardless of condition, PPE should be updated at least every
five years and pulled from the field after ten years, which
equates to two NFPA standard cycles. Adherence to the NFPA
standards, as well as to a PPE retirement criteria is crucial to
ensuring that the clothing and equipment used by firefighters is
as up-to-date as possible. NFPA states that fire protection
entities that ascribe to such criteria ultimately are able to
better protect their first responders by reducing or eliminating
altogether those on-the-job injuries that can otherwise be
attributed to the use of outdated or inadequate PPE.
The Occupational Safety & Health Standards Board within DIR is a
seven-member body appointed by the Governor whose objective is
to adopt reasonable and enforceable standards at least as
effective as federal standards. Under current law, all employers
in California are required to provide, at minimum, Personal
Protective Equipment (PPE) for their employees who engage in
firefighting activities that meet specified standards adopted by
the Standards Board. Some of the firefighting PPE standards,
such as those pertaining to head, hand and wrist protections,
have not been updated by the Board in over 25 years. Other state
PPE standards, such as respiratory and body protections have not
been updated by the Board in roughly 15 years.
Proposed Law: This bill requires the Occupational Safety and
Health Standards Board (Standards Board), within 30 days of the
adoption by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) of
new standards for firefighters' personal protection equipment
(PPE), to commence a review of existing regulations for personal
protective clothing and equipment for firefighters to determine
if the new standards provide a greater degree of protection to a
firefighter. The Standards Board shall consider modifying
existing regulations if they determine that the NFPA standards
provide a greater degree of protection and reflect a new safety
standard for firefighters.
Related Legislation: AB 2184 (De Le�n) of 2008 would have
required the Standard Board to review and adopt revised state
regulations that are, at a minimum, in conformance with the NFPA
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PPE standards by December 31, 2009. AB 2148 was held under
submission in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
Staff Comments: Unlike AB 2184, this bill (AB2146) requires the
review of state standards when a new NFPA PPE standard is
adopted but only encourages the Standards Board to consider
modifying state regulations to reflect these updates.
DIR's costs reflect a subscription for the NFPA standards and
their updates as well as the staff time to review and monitor
the updates as they become available.