DOL Relaunches Opinion Letter Program; Should MSHA Join the Party?

The Department of Labor recently issued a memorandum announcing the relaunch of the opinion letter program. The memorandum announced that several agencies within the DOL, including OSHA, will offer the public the opportunity to obtain opinion letters to address particular questions regarding compliance. While MSHA is included in the memorandum, it will not be offering opinion letters in this way. Instead, MSHA is offering an “Information Hub,” which is essentially a reconfiguring of information that it already provides. In this episode, Arthur and Chris explain the DOL opinion letter program and call on MSHA to also offer this option to the regulated community in the same manner that OSHA does for general industry.