above, and then address a wide variety of comments on other costs in
addition to those for the activities outlined above.

B. Costs

1. Sec.  1904.41(a)(1)--Annual Electronic Submission of Part 1904
Records by Establishments With 250 or More Employees
    In the Preliminary Economic Analysis (PEA), OSHA obtained the
estimated cost of electronic data submission per establishment by
multiplying the compensation per hour (in dollars) of the person
expected to perform the task of electronic submission by the time
required for the electronic data submission. OSHA then multiplied this
cost per establishment by the estimated number of establishments that
would be required to submit data, to obtain the total estimated costs
of this part of the proposed rule. This methodology was retained in the
FEA.
    To estimate the compensation of the person expected to perform the
task of electronic data submission in the PEA, OSHA suggested that
recordkeeping tasks are most commonly performed by a Human Resource,
Training, and Labor Relations Specialist, Not Elsewhere Classified
(Human Resources Specialist). In the PEA, OSHA estimated compensation
using May 2008 data from the BLS Occupational Employment Survey (OES),
reporting a mean hourly wage of $28 for Human Resources Specialists,
and June 2009 data from the BLS National Compensation Survey, reporting
a mean fringe benefit factor of 1.43 for civilian workers in general.
OSHA multiplied the mean hourly wage ($28) by the mean fringe benefit
factor (1.43) to obtain an estimated total compensation (wages and
benefits) for Human Resources Specialists of $40.04 per hour ([$28 per
hour] x 1.43).
    OSHA requested comments as to whether the Human Resources
Specialist was a reasonable wage rate, and received only a few comments
(Exs. 0211, 1110, 0194, 1198). Many comments on the subject of
occupation performing the collection and submission stated that the use
of a Human Resource Specialists was not reflective of their experience.
For example, the Food Market Institute (FMI) commented, ``For instance,
while OSHA asserts the new responsibilities will be shouldered by human
resources personnel, it is far more likely that each establishment's
safety professionals will be burdened with the task.'' (Ex. 1198) One
comment from the American Subcontractors Association stated, ``Instead,
among small and mid-sized ASA member firms, tasks like these are
performed by high level management personnel. In larger construction
firms, such tasks are likely to be performed by safety and health
professionals'' (Ex. 1322). Other commenters suggested that a more
senior person would be needed to go over the data. Aimee Brooks of
Western Agricultural Processors Association (WAPA) stated, ``It is
highly likely that upper level management would be inputting this
information, as giving this information sensitive task to office staff
at the workplace would be a liability to the business. If such
responsibility is given to office staff, it would need to be
accompanied with training regarding protecting sensitive information
and privacy'' (Ex. 1273).
    OSHA believes that throughout the economy, relatively low-wage
employees handle sensitive information, including PII such as employee
Social Security numbers, payroll information, and customers' credit
card information. OSHA further believes that specialized training is
not required before handling PII. For example, many restaurants do not
train wait staff specifically in the handling of credit card
information.
    OSHA does agree with commenters who argued that the average
compensation for recordkeepers might be greater than for a human
resources specialist. For this Final Economic Analysis (FEA), OSHA
updated those compensation numbers using the same sources, but a
different occupational classification. This change was made so that
this regulation will be consistent with OSHA's 2014 recordkeeping
paperwork package and OSHA's September 2014 recordkeeping regulation.
For the FEA, OSHA estimated compensation using May 2014 data from the
BLS Occupational Employment Survey (OES), reporting a mean hourly wage
of $33.88 for Industrial Health and Safety Specialists, and December
2014 data from the BLS National Compensation Survey, reporting a mean
fringe benefit factor of 1.44 for civilian workers in general. OSHA
multiplied the mean hourly wage ($33.88) by the mean fringe benefit
factor (1.44) to obtain an estimated total compensation (wages and
benefits) for Industrial Health and Safety Specialists of $48.78 per
hour ([$33.88 per hour] x 1.44). This represents an increase in the
wage rate of 22 percent over the wage used in the PEA.
    OSHA recognizes that not all firms assign the responsibility for
recordkeeping to an Industrial Health and Safety Specialist. For
example, a smaller firm may use a bookkeeper or a plant manager, while
a larger firm may use a higher level specialist. However, OSHA believes
that the calculated cost of $48.78 per hour is a reasonable estimate of
the hourly compensation of a typical recordkeeper. In the case of a
very small firm, this wage rate may exceed the owner or proprietor's
wage. BLS data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (2014)
show that the average weekly wage for a worker in a firm with 20 to 49
employees is $848 per week, while the average wage for a worker in a
firm with 1,000 or more employees is $1,699 per week--nearly twice as
high as the smaller firm.
    For time required for the data submission in the PEA, OSHA used the
estimated unit time requirements reported by BLS in their paperwork
burden analysis for the Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses
(SOII) (OMB Control Number 1220-

0045, expires October 31, 2013).\1\ BLS estimated 10 minutes per
recordable injury/illness case for electronic submission of the
information on Form 301 (Injury and Illness Incident Report) and Form
300 (Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses). BLS also estimated 10
minutes per establishment, total, for electronic submission of the
information on Form 300A (Summary of Work-Related Injuries and
Illnesses). For the FEA, OSHA used, where appropriate, the values
reported in the latest BLS SOII paperwork package (OMB Control Number
1220-0045, expires September 30, 2016).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \1\ The ODI paperwork analysis (1218-0209) estimates an average
time of 10 minutes per response for submitting Form 300A data. The
ODI does not require submission of Form 301 data. The 10 minute
estimate form the ODI is equal to the 10 minute estimate from the
BLS SOII for submission of the same data.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Many of the comments on the 10 minutes originally estimated by OSHA
for submitting the requested data were general in nature and often
conflated the time to submit the data with the time to audit the data
(Exs. 1113, 1092, 1192, 1421, 1366). A typical statement was, ``OSHA
estimates the electronic submission process would take each
establishment only 10 minutes for each OSHA 301 submission and 10
minutes for the submission of both the OSHA 300 and 300A. This fails to
accurately account for the time it would take employees to familiarize
themselves with the process and review reports to ensure compliance
with all regulations'' (Ex. 1421).
    Some comments directly addressed the issue of the relevance of the
BLS estimates to OSHA's requirements (Exs. 1328, 1411). Eric Conn,
representing the National Retail Federation (NRF), commented on the use
of BLS's time estimate for submitting data, stating, ``The data
submitted for the BLS survey, however, is more limited in terms of
information requested. BLS requests only certain data for up to 15
cases, but the Proposed Regulation would require all relevant Form 300
and/or 300A information from the entire injury and illness record. Thus
the time burden would actually be much greater than OSHA predicts''
(Ex. 1328).
    OSHA agrees that the final rule requires information on all
individual cases and not just on 15 or fewer lost workday injuries and
illnesses, as required by BLS. The requirement for information on all
cases from Form 301 was addressed in the PEA by estimating ten minutes
per form entered and multiplying this by the number of forms OSHA would
require to be submitted, rather than the number BLS requires to be
submitted. Such differences are trivial, with the possible exception of
the individual injury/illness entries on Form 300. In the FEA, OSHA has
added two minutes per injury or illness listed on the OSHA 300 Log to
account for this difference. Along with the 10 minutes per 300A
Summary, OSHA is estimating more time than the BLS paperwork burden.
For example, in the simplest case, OSHA estimates that an establishment
with more than 250 employees and a single injury will take (on average)
10 minutes to electronically submit the OSHA Summary (Form 300A), 10
minutes to submit the single injury report (Form 301) and 2 minutes to
submit the one line that would be on the 300 Log for each recorded
injury, for a total of 22 minutes. BLS estimates 20 minutes as the
average time across all employers for any number of injuries.
    In the PEA, using the information on estimated hourly compensation
of recordkeepers and estimated time required for data submission, OSHA
calculated that the estimated cost per establishment with 250 or more
workers for quarterly data submission of the information on Forms 300
and 300A would be $26.69 per year ([10 minutes per data submission] x
[1 hour per 60 minutes] x [$40.04 per hour] x [4 data submissions per
year]). Because the final rule now requires data to be submitted once a
year, rather than four times a year, the equation in the FEA for
submitting the Form 300A data is: $8.13 per year ([10 minutes per data
submission] x [1 hour per 60 minutes] x [$48.78 per hour] x [1 data
submission per year]). Note that $8.13 per year is nearly 75 percent
less than the annual cost in the PEA because OSHA will not require
quarterly submission. In addition, the estimated cost per recordable
injury/illness case in the final rule is $9.74 ([10 minutes per case
for form 301 entries plus 2 minutes per case for entry of form 300 log
entries] x [1 hour per 60 minutes] x [$48.78 per hour]).
    To calculate the total estimated costs of this part of the rule in
the PEA, OSHA used establishment and employment counts from the U.S.
Census County Business Patterns (CBP), data from the U.S. Census
Enterprise Statistics (ES), and injury and illness counts from the BLS
Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII).\2\ In the PEA,
CBP data showed that there were 38,094 establishments with 250 or more
employees in the industries covered by this section. The CBP data also
indicated that these large establishments employed 35.8 percent of all
employees in the covered industries. In the FEA, using newer CBP data,
OSHA finds that there are 33,674 establishments with 250 or more
employees, a decrease of 11 percent.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \2\ For the CBP see: http://www.census.gov/econ/cbp/. For the ES
see: http://www.census.gov/econ/esp/. For the SOII see: http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshsum.htm.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    For the PEA, the BLS data showed a total of 2,486,500 injuries and
illnesses that occurred in the covered industries. For the FEA, more
recent BLS data were aggregated, and a total of 1,992,458 injuries and
illnesses were found in the covered industries.
    In both the PEA and the FEA, to calculate the number of injuries
and illnesses that will be reported by covered establishments with 250
or more employees, OSHA assumed that total recordable cases in
establishments with 250 or more employees would be proportional to
their share of employment within the industry. Thus in the PEA, OSHA
estimated that 890,288 injury and illness cases would be reported per
year by establishments with 250 or more employees that were covered by
this section. In the FEA, using the same methodology and more recent
data, OSHA estimates that 713,397 injury and illness cases will be
reported per year by establishments with 250 or more employees covered
by this section.
    In the PEA, OSHA calculated an estimated total cost of quarterly
data submission of non-case information of $1,016,729 ([38,094
establishments required to submit data quarterly] x [$26.69 for
electronic data submission per year]). In addition, OSHA calculated an
estimated total cost of quarterly data submission of case information
of $5,938,221 ([890,288 injury/illness cases per year at affected
establishments] x [$6.67 per injury/illness case]). Summing these two
costs yielded a total cost of $6,954,950 per year for the proposed rule
($1,016,729 + $5,938,221), for an average cost per affected
establishment of $183 per year.
    In the FEA, OSHA used the same equations above, using newer data
plus an additional two minutes per injury and illness case to enter
Form 300 data, to estimate the total cost of annual data submission
under this section of the final rule. OSHA estimates a total cost of
annual data submission of non-case information of $273,770 ([33,674
establishments required to submit data annually] x [$8.13 for
electronic data submission per year]). In addition, OSHA calculates an
estimated total cost of annual data submission of case information of
$6,948,487 ([713,397 injury/illness cases per year at affected
establishments] x [$9.74 per injury/

illness case]). Summing these two costs yields a total cost of
$7,222,257 per year for the final rule ($273,770 + $6,948,487), for an
average cost per affected establishment of $214 per year.
    OSHA requested comments on all aspects of the PEA, including
examples of establishments with 250 or more employees that cannot
report electronically with existing facilities and equipment or data
sources showing that such establishments exist. Aimee Brooks commented
on behalf of Western Agricultural Processors Association (WAPA): ``. .
. in some areas of California, tree nut hullers and processors do not
have a computer or internet access'' (Ex. 1273). Aimee Brooks also
stated on behalf of California Cotton Ginners and Growers Association
(CCGGA): ``Cotton growers and ginners are usually remotely located and
access to internet or a computer is not only limited, but both hardware
and software are generally out of date, unreliable, and slow, meaning
the online reporting process will take much longer than the OSHA
estimate of 10 minutes per establishment'' (Ex.1274).
    As will be discussed below, many commenters were concerned that
requiring electronic submission might be a problem for some small
firms; however, no clear examples were provided of an establishment
with over 250 employees that did not have computers and Internet
access. Based on the comments to the proposed rule, and OSHA's own
experience, the Agency continues to believe that large establishments
with 250 or more employees have access to computers and the
Internet.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \3\ Note that the establishments subject to the requirements in
this section of the final rule include establishments that
previously submitted data under the OSHA Data Initiative (ODI).
However, OSHA has decided not to subtract the existing costs of
submitting data for the ODI from the total costs estimated for this
section of the final rule.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Sec.  1904.41(a)(2)--Annual Electronic Submission of OSHA Annual
Summary Form (Form 300A) by Establishments With 20 or More Employees
but Fewer Than 250 Employees in Designated Industries
    OSHA's methodology for estimating the costs of this section of the
proposed rule in the PEA was similar to the methodology for estimating
the costs of the previous section. OSHA first obtained the estimated
cost of electronic data submission per establishment by multiplying the
compensation per hour (in dollars) for the person expected to perform
the task of electronic data submission by the time required for the
electronic data submission. OSHA then multiplied this cost by the
estimated number of establishments that would be required to submit
data, to obtain the total estimated costs of this part of the proposed
rule.
    In the PEA, for compensation per hour, OSHA used the calculated
cost of $40.04 per hour as a reasonable estimate of the hourly
compensation of a representative recordkeeper. In the FEA, as discussed
above, OSHA has increased this per-hour wage to $48.78.
    In the PEA, OSHA used the BLS estimate of 10 minutes per
establishment for electronic submission of the information on Forms 300
and 300A (Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses) to estimate
the time required for this submission. The estimated cost per
establishment for electronic submittal under this part of the proposed
rule was $6.67 per year ([$40.04 per hour] x [10 minutes per data
submission] x [1 hour per 60 minutes] x [one data submission per
year]).
    For the FEA, the estimated cost per establishment for electronic
submittal under this part of the proposed rule is $8.13 per year
([$48.78 per hour] x [10 minutes per data submission] x [1 hour per 60
minutes] x [one data submission per year]).
    In the PEA, OSHA estimated that the number of establishments
subject to this part of the proposed rule would be 440,863. OSHA noted
in the PEA that many of these establishments were already submitting
these data to OSHA through the ODI. 47,700 establishments of the 68,600
establishments in the 2010 ODI (70 percent) submitted their data
electronically.
    As a result, OSHA estimated that the direct labor cost of this part
of the proposed rule would have been $2,622,397 ([$6.67 per
establishment per year] x ([440,863 establishments affected under the
proposed rule]-[47,700 establishments already submitting electronically
to the ODI])).
    This estimate is based on the assumption that all of the affected
establishments have on-site access to a computer and an adequate
Internet connection. However, as noted above, 30 percent of
establishments in the 2010 ODI did not submit data electronically. One
possible reason for this choice is that, for some of those
establishments, it was difficult to submit data electronically. Most
agencies currently allow non-electronic filing of information, and some
businesses continue to use this option, despite strong encouragement by
agencies to file electronically.
    OSHA searched for but was unable to find information on the
proportion of all businesses without access to a computer and the
Internet. However, OSHA did find a survey, conducted by a contractor
for the Office of Advocacy of the Small Business Administration (SBA)
in the spring of 2010, on the use of Internet connectivity by small
businesses, called ``The Impact of Broadband Speed and Price on Small
Business'' (http://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/rs373tot_0.pdf).
This survey suggests that at least 90 percent of small businesses
surveyed use the Internet at their business. Further, the survey noted
that 75 percent of all small businesses not using the Internet were
small businesses with five or fewer employees. Given the survey's
estimates that 50 percent of small businesses have fewer than 5
employees, this means that 95 percent of all small businesses with five
or more employees have Internet connections. OSHA believes that even
this 95 percent is an underestimate for two reasons. First, the survey
is five years old, and during the past seven years the cost of both
computer equipment and Internet access has fallen (for example, since
May 2008 the BLS Personal Computer Index has fallen by nearly 20
percent; http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUSR0000SEEE01?output_view=pct_3mths). Second, the survey is of small
entities, not establishments. OSHA can show that a significant
proportion of small establishments are a part of non-small entities,
and those larger entities are even more likely to have computers and
Internet connections.
    It also needs to be noted that the minimum establishment size
affected by this proposed rule is 20 employees. It is reasonable to
assume that an even smaller percentage of firms with 20 or more
employees lack a computer with an Internet connection.
    OSHA was able to find only two current Federal Government data
collection programs that require data to be submitted electronically.
     Effective January 1, 2010, the Department of Labor's
Employee Benefits Security Administration requires the electronic
filing of all Form 5500 Annual Returns/Reports of Employee Benefit Plan
and all Form 5500-SF Short Form Annual Returns/Reports of Small
Employee Benefit Plan for 2009 and 2010 plan years, as well as any
required schedules and attachments, using EFAST2-approved third-party
software or iFile. EFAST2 is an all-electronic system designed by the
Department of Labor, Internal Revenue Service, and Pension Benefit
Guaranty Corporation to simplify and expedite the submission, receipt,
and processing of the Form 5500 and Form 5500-SF.

These forms must be electronically filed each year by employee benefit
plans to satisfy annual reporting requirements under the Employee
Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and the Internal Revenue Code.
Under EFAST2, filers choose between using EFAST2-approved vendor
software or a free limited-function web application (IFILE) to prepare
and submit the Form 5500 or Form 5500-SF. Completed forms are submitted
via the Internet to EFAST2 for processing.
     Under the mandatory electronic filing provisions (11 CFR
104.18) of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), effective January 1,
2001, any political committee or other person that is required to file
reports with the FEC and that receives contributions or makes
expenditures in excess of $50,000 in the current calendar year, or has
reason to expect to do so, must submit its reports electronically.
    All other data collection programs identified by OSHA provide a
non-electronic option for data submission, including the OSHA Data
Initiative (ODI); various databases at the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), including the Toxics Release Inventory Program (TRI); and
programs administered by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Bureau
of Labor Statistics (BLS), and the U.S. Census Bureau (including
business data).
    As noted above, even a dated survey from 2010 found that 95 percent
of small businesses with 5 or more employees had a computer with an
Internet connection. The Department of Commerce estimated in 2009 that
69 percent and 64 percent of U.S. households, respectively, had some
kind of Internet access and broad-band Internet access specifically
(National Telecommunications and Information Administration, U.S.
Department of Commerce, ``Table 2 Households using the Internet in and
outside the home, by selected characteristics: Total, Urban, Rural,
Principal City, 2009 (Numbers in Thousands)'', http://www.ntia.doc.gov/legacy/data/CPS2009_Tables.html). By 2013, high-speed broadband and
Internet use had risen to 73 and 74 percent, respectively (Source:
http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2014/acs/acs-28.pdf). In addition, households with higher incomes and levels of
education were more likely to have Internet access at home, and home
Internet access among employed householders was 78 percent, compared to
65 percent among unemployed householders and 52 percent among
householders not in the labor force.
    It seems reasonable to assume that business owners, as a group,
have higher incomes and labor force participation rates than the U.S.
population as a whole. And data from the 2007 Survey on Small Business
Owners, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, show that business owners
have higher levels of education; 74 percent of the business owners had
at least some post-high school education and 45 percent had at least a
bachelor's degree, compared to 55 percent and 30 percent among the
general U.S. population aged 25 and older in 2010 (U.S. Census, ``Table
1. Educational Attainment of the Population 18 Years and Over, by Age,
Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin: 2010'', http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/2010/Table1-01.xls, accessed June 15, 2011).
Further, a small-business owner without an office or home computer may
own a smart phone, which could easily be used for transmitting the data
for the 300A summary because it is a very simple form.
    In the PEA, to account for the lack of direct data on computers and
Internet access among small businesses and the presumed increase in
Internet usage since the indirect data were obtained, OSHA estimated
that 95 percent of the 440,863 establishments subject to this part of
the proposed rule (i.e., 418,820 establishments) had access to a
computer with an Internet connection, either at home or at work. OSHA
believed that the actual percentage of establishments with Internet
access was larger than this estimated value. OSHA welcomed comment on
this issue. The remaining 22,043 establishments would have to either
buy additional equipment and/or services or use off-site facilities,
such as public libraries. OSHA estimated in the PEA that finding and
using such off-site facilities would add an hour (including
transportation and waiting time), on average, to the time required by
the recordkeeper to submit the data electronically. For some
establishments, they might need to travel next door to find a computer
or Internet access, while others might need to drive for an hour or
more. In the proposal this led to additional costs of $882,607 per year
([440,863 establishments] x [5% of these establishments] x [1 hour for
finding and using off-site facilities] x [$40.04 per hour]).
    OSHA requested comments on all aspects of this preliminary estimate
and received many comments. Some commenters requested that OSHA still
provide a paper reporting option (Exs. 0179, 0211, 0253, 0255, 1092,
1112, 1123, 1190, 1192, 1199, 1205, 1322). The American Forest and
Paper Association (AFPA) commented, ``Many businesses, particularly
small firms located in rural areas, do not have ready access to the
Internet or may find electronic reporting burdensome because they
currently have a paper-based record system and should not be burdened
with the cost of converting to an electronic format'' (Ex. 0179). Many
commenters incorrectly asserted that OSHA had assumed everyone had a
computer and kept records electronically (Exs. 1092, 1123, 1190, 1199,
1200, 1343, 1359, 1370, 1410, 1421). As discussed above, this
assumption was inaccurate. Perhaps because of this inaccurate
assumption, almost no commenters addressed OSHA's estimate of the
number of establishments without computer access or OSHA's estimates of
the costs for such establishments.
    However, one commenter, the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF),
provided information on computer use on farms: ``. . . only 68 percent
of farmers (both livestock/poultry and crop producers) have a computer
and only 67 percent have internet access . . .'' (Ex. 1113). Note that
the figure of 67 percent of farms with Internet access is only a bit
below the national average for households of 74 percent with Internet
access. OSHA does not expect that many farms will be subject to
reporting under this final rule, because few farms have 20 or more
workers. Of the 2.2 million US farms, only about 550,000 have any hired
help (about 25 percent). The 2012 Agricultural Census reports that
there are just 40,661 farms with 10 or more workers in the U.S. OSHA
believes that there are 20,623 farms with more than 20 hired workers
that would be subject to this final rule. OSHA believes that farms with
many workers are extremely large operations, heavily capitalized, and
likely to have computers or smartphones and Internet access.
    In the PEA, OSHA estimated the total costs of this part of the
proposed rule as the direct labor cost of electronic submittal
($2,622,397) for the 393,163 establishments subject to the rule and not
already electronically submitting the data to OSHA through the ODI,
plus the additional cost for 5 percent of the affected 440,863
establishments of going off-site to submit the data electronically
($882,607). A last cost of $189,935 in the PEA, for those
establishments that do not currently certify their records, is
discussed below. Thus, the total cost of the proposed rule was
$3,695,939 per year, or an approximate estimated average of $9.40 per
affected establishment ([$3,695,939 per year]/

([440,863 establishments affected under the proposed rule] - [47,700
establishments already submitting electronically to the ODI])).
    In the FEA, the estimate of affected establishments is smaller:
410,673 affected establishments versus 440,863 affected establishments
with 20 or more employees in the PEA, or 6.8 percent less. Note that,
since the ODI was not in effect in 2015, OSHA will not take an offset
for establishments submitting data for the ODI.
    The total costs of this part of the final rule are the direct labor
cost of electronic submittal ($3,338,771) for the 410,673 non-farm
establishments subject to the rule, plus the additional cost for 5
percent of the affected 410,673 establishments of going off-site to
submit the data electronically ($1,001,631). A last cost of $231,192,
for those establishments that do not currently certify their records,
is discussed below. Thus, the total cost is $4,571,594 per year, or an
approximate estimated average of $11.13 per affected establishment
([$4,571,594 per year]/([410,673 establishments affected under the
proposed rule]).
    In the PEA, OSHA recognized that a small percentage of
establishments currently subject to part 1904 do not fully comply with
the requirement in Sec.  1904.32(a)(3) to certify the accuracy of each
year's records. OSHA inspection data showed that in 2010, about 1.6
percent of establishments undergoing an inspection had a violation of
the recordkeeping certification requirement. OSHA had previously
estimated costs and a paperwork burden for the time these employers
would spend reviewing their data for certification purposes (see, for
example, OSHA's September 2014 recordkeeping paperwork package).
Because the data collection under this section of the proposed rule
would have made it obvious to these employers that the records had not
been certified, OSHA included the full costs of certification for those
not in compliance with Sec.  1904.32(a)(3) as a cost of this rule. In
the PEA, the number of not-in-compliance establishments was estimated
by multiplying 1.6 percent times 360,863 establishments subject to the
rule but not currently in the ODI (440,863 total establishments minus
80,000 in ODI). The resulting figure was only 5,774 establishments not
in compliance with Sec.  1904.32(a)(3). The cost for these non-
compliers to comply with Sec.  1904.32(a)(3) by completing
certification was $189,935. This was calculated by multiplying [(30
minutes) x (5,774 establishments) x ($65.79 per hour) x (1 hour per 60
minutes)], where $65.79 was the adjusted hourly wage for a certifying
official. This wage reflected the hourly wage plus benefits of an
Industrial Production Manager (OES 11-3051), the same occupation used
for certification of records in other OSHA recordkeeping regulations.
OSHA invited comments on whether 1.6 percent is the actual
certification non-compliance rate for firms subject to part 1904, and
on whether the adjusted wage of $65.79 was, on average, the correct
wage rate for individuals certifying annual recordkeeping logs. OSHA
did not receive any comments disputing these figures. As a result, OSHA
has retained the estimate of 1.6 percent of establishments not
certifying their annual records.
    In the FEA, OSHA updated the wage rate of the certifying official,
using 2014 data. Thus the wage rate for the certifying official, based
on the wage of an Industrial Production Manager (OES 11-3051), is
$70.37, based on a mean hourly wage of $48.87 and a fringe benefit
factor of 1.44 ($48.87 x 1.44 = $70.37). The estimated number of non-
compliant establishments is 6,571 (1.6 percent of 410,673 non-farm
establishments). The cost of certification for non-certifying
establishments is $231,200 [(30 minutes) x (6,571 establishments) x
($70.37 per hour) x (1 hour per 60 minutes)].
    OSHA believes, and current ICRs support, that 30 minutes is the
appropriate amount of time required, on average, for certification.
However, a range of time requirements is possible. For example, if the
certifying officials are especially productive at certification,
perhaps because the injury and illness records are well-maintained or
because the officials are able to work off existing finalized summary
reports sent to Workers' Compensation insurance agencies, then it may
only take 15 minutes, on average, to complete the certification. In
that case, the total cost would be just $115,596. On the other hand,
perhaps the certifying officials have become less productive since the
previous ICRs. If it now takes a certifying official one hour instead
of 30 minutes to certify, then the total cost for non-complying
establishments would be $462,384.
    OSHA also notes that in the PEA, farms with 20 or more employees
were not counted for cost purposes, though they were included in the
scope of the regulation. A separate analysis follows for the FEA.
    OSHA was not able to obtain a count of farms (crop and animal) with
20 or more employees. OSHA took the estimate of farms with 10 or more
employees (41,246 farms), provided by the Census of Agriculture, and
took 50 percent of that total (20,623 farms) as the best estimate of
the number of farms with 20 or more employees. This is still possibly
an over-estimate of the number of farms with 20 or more employees,
because the inverse relationship between the number of farms and the
number of farm employees rises geometrically. Other information, for
example farm revenue data, also help to show that there are very few
farms with revenues high enough to support 20 employees.
    Following the methodology used elsewhere in the FEA, those 20,623
farms will on average take 10 minutes to submit their summary
electronically to OSHA. OSHA has made two adjustments to this
methodology for farms. First, OSHA estimates that five percent of farms
subject to this section of the final rule (1,031 farms) will not have
access to a computer, a smart phone, or the Internet. Second, OSHA
estimates a travel time of one hour for data submitters at these
establishments to travel off-site to an Internet connection.
    OSHA estimates that 330 farms (1.6% x 20,623 farms) do not
currently certify their injury/illness records, leading to an
additional cost of $11,611 [(30 minutes) x (330 establishments) x
($70.37 per hour) x (1 hour per 60 minutes)]. The total cost for farms
included in electronic reporting is $229,568, which is derived by
multiplying [(20,623 farms) x ($48.78 per hour) x (10 minutes) x (1
hour per 60 minutes)] and adding [(1,031 farms without Internet) x
($48.78 per hour) x (1 hour)] and then adding [(330 farms that do not
currently certify) x ($70.37 per hour) x (30 minutes) x (1 hour per 60
minutes)].
    OSHA believes that the same computer ownership factor used in the
PEA and FEA for general establishments also applies to farms. While
there were comments, based on a USDA survey, that farms did not have as
many computers or as much Internet access as the rest of the private
sector, that survey was heavily weighted toward typical American farms,
i.e., farms operated by a single farmer or farm family, and many times
smaller than an operation with 20 or more employees. OSHA again
emphasizes that a smart phone with data access will be sufficient to
submit summary data from the Form 300A to the OSHA Web site.
    Several commenters expressed concern that OSHA was not allowing
enough time for initial startup or familiarization for establishments
that will be newly required to report their data electronically
(Exs.1338, 1276, 1351, 0160, 1112, 1205, 1394, 1190,

1342, 1281, 1397, 1343, 1402, 1199, 1113, 1092, 1192, 1421, 1372, 1401,
1356, 1332, 1198, 1279, 1366). In response to these comments, OSHA has
added ten minutes to the time estimate, in the first year the
regulation is in effect, to account for the time establishments take to
create their login accounts with OSHA and enter their basic information
from the OSHA 300A form, such as establishment name and address. These
ten minutes are not included in current paperwork packages, so the
costs will apply to every establishment subject to reporting
electronically to OSHA--a total of 431,296 establishments (including
the 20,623 farms). Note that number of establishments includes both
establishments with 20 to 249 employees, subject to the requirements in
this section of the final rule, as well as establishments with 250 or
more employees, subject to the requirements in the previous section of
the final rule. The total first-year cost for familiarization is
$3,506,436 [(431,296 establishments) x ($48.78 per hour) x (10 minutes)
x (1 hour per 60 minutes). This one-time, first year cost can be
amortized over 10 years at a 7 percent interest rate to yield $499,237
per year. At a 3 percent interest rate, it would yield $411,061 per
year.
3. Sec. Sec.  1904.35 and 1904.36
    The last cost element is from the non-discrimination provisions of
this final rule. In the economic analysis for the supplemental notice
to the proposed rule, OSHA stated that ``these provisions do not
require employers to provide any new or additional records not already
required in existing standards. (When the existing standards were
promulgated, OSHA estimated the costs to employers of the records that
would be required.) These provisions add no new rights to employees,
but are instead designed to assure that employers recognize the
existing right of employees to report work-related injuries and
illnesses.''
    After examining the rulemaking record and adjusting the final
regulatory text, OSHA now anticipates that the implementation of the
non-discrimination provisions will have one cost component, namely an
informational component that employers can meet by posting the new OSHA
poster (https://www.osha.gov/Publications/osha3165-8514.pdf). The final
rule requires employers to specifically inform employees that they have
the right to report injuries and illness, and that employers are not to
discourage or retaliate against an employee who reports an injury or
illness. Posting this new poster will allow employers to meet this
requirement, because it informs workers that they have the right to
report injuries or illness, without being retaliated against, and
informs employers that it is illegal to retaliate against an employee
for reporting an injury or illness. (Note that the old poster mentioned
that employees had the right to make safety/health complaints without
retaliation in general, but made no specific reference to the reporting
of injuries and illnesses.) Note also that this is not the only way an
employer can meet this requirement; an employer may inform the
employees in any way that the employer sees fit. However, OSHA believes
that the use of a professionally-designed poster that is easily
downloadable from many Web sites, including OSHA's, is the most
inexpensive way for most employers to meet this requirement.
    This section of the FEA accounts for the costs, discusses the
benefits, and in addition addresses comments provided by the public on
the subject of this part of the final rule.
    For the costs--although employers are required to post the OSHA
poster, OSHA is not requiring employers to replace the existing poster
with the new poster. Putting up the OSHA poster is therefore a new cost
for this final rule. To calculate the cost of posting the new OSHA
poster, OSHA used the following judgments. First, it will take an
employer five minutes to obtain and post the poster. Second, this task
will be undertaken by an industrial manager with an hourly wage of
$70.37, as above. Third, there are 1,364,503 establishments subject to
this requirement in the final rule (including farms with 10 or more
employees). The estimated one-time cost for posting the new OSHA poster
is thus $8,001,673 [(1,364,503 establishments) x $70.37 per hour) x (5
minutes) x (1 hour per 60 minutes)]. Annualized over 10 years at 3
percent interest, this is a total cost of $938,040 per year. OSHA
believes this cost estimate is a significant over-estimate because many
establishments routinely download and post newer versions of OSHA's
poster even without regulatory guidance. In addition, although OSHA is
using an estimate of five minutes in the FEA, OSHA wrote in the
supplemental notice to the proposed rule that posting the sign could
take as few as three minutes.
    OSHA received a few comments relating to the costs of the non-
discrimination provisions of the proposed rule. Some commenters noted
that OSHA already requires employers to post an OSHA sign that informs
workers of their right to not be discriminated against for reporting
(Exs. 1547, 1600, 1603). For example, the Association Connecting
Electronics Industries commented, ``Employees must already be made
aware that they are protected under the Act 'against discharge or
discrimination for the exercise of their rights under Federal and State
law.' Specifically, OSHA requires that employers post OSHA 3165, Job
Safety and Health--It's the law! This posting clearly states that
employees can file a complaint with OSHA within 30 days of retaliation
or discrimination by an employer for making a safety or health
complaint and employers must comply with the occupational safety and
health standards under the OSH Act'' (Ex. 1668). OSHA agrees that
workplaces must post an OSHA poster, but there is no requirement that
establishments download the latest OSHA poster, which is the one that
contains the specific information on the right to report injuries and
illnesses, as required by the final rule.
    OSHA did not quantify the benefits of the non-discrimination
requirement in the supplemental notice to the proposed rule, because
OSHA believed that since there would be no additional costs, there
would be no additional benefits. In the supplemental notice to the
proposed rule, OSHA stated, ``OSHA also expects that, because these
three potential provisions will only clarify existing requirements,
there are also no new economic benefits. The provisions will at most
serve to counter the additional motivations for employers to
discriminate against employees attempting to report injuries and
illnesses.'' [79 FR 47605-47610]
    However, OSHA believes that posting the newest OSHA poster will
encourage both employees and employers to accurately report and record
workplace injuries and illnesses. Many commenters commented that
informing workers of their right to report injuries and illnesses
without fear of discrimination was beneficial (Exs. 1489, 1529, 1603,
1640, 1647, 1679, 1682, 1688, 1695, 1696). The Communications Workers
of America (CWA) stated, ``Employer notification to employees of their
right to report occupational injuries and illnesses without fear of
employer retaliation, employer development and implementation of
reasonable injury and illness requirements, and the prohibition of
employer's adverse action against the workers who report injuries and
illnesses is extremely important towards improving and maintaining safe

and healthful working conditions and worker well-being'' (Ex. 1489).
4. Sec.  1904.41(a)(3)--Electronic Submission of Part 1904 Records Upon
Notification
    This part of the final rule has no immediate costs or economic
impacts. Under this part of the rule, an establishment will be required
to submit data electronically if OSHA notifies the establishment to do
so as part of a specified data collection. Each specified data
collection would be associated with its own particular costs, benefits,
and economic impacts, which OSHA would estimate as part of obtaining
OMB approval for the specified data collection under the Paperwork
Reduction Act of 1995.
5. Budget Costs to the Government for the Creation of the Reporting
System, Helpdesk Assistance, and Administration of the Electronic
Submission Program
    While OSHA has not typically included the cost of administering a
new regulation in the preliminary economic analysis, the Agency did
include such costs in the PEA, because they represented a significant
fraction of the total costs of the regulation. The program lifecycle
costs can be categorized into IT hardware and software costs, helpdesk
costs, and OSHA program management personnel costs. OSHA received
estimates for the lifecycle costs from three sources: an OSHA
contractor, the BLS, and the OSHA web-services office.
    According to OSHA's Office of Web Services, the creation of the
reporting system hardware and software infrastructure would have had an
initial cost of $1,545,162. Annualized over 10 years at 3 percent
interest, this is $181,140 per year.
    BLS provided a unit cost estimate of 28 cents per transaction. This
would have amounted to $372,000 per year for about 1.3 million
transactions. Adding annual help desk costs of $200,000 would have made
the total $572,000.
    The contractor and OSHA's Office of Web Services provided higher
budget estimates. The contractor suggested that annual costs could have
been as high as $953,000, while the OSHA Office of Web Services
suggested a cost of $626,000 per year.
    Under the proposed rule, OSHA would have also continued to require
three full-time-equivalent workers (FTEs) to administer the new
electronic recordkeeping system. OSHA believed these FTEs would have
cost the government $150,000 each, including salary and benefits, for a
total of $450,000 per year. Added to the BLS cost of $572,000 and the
annualized start-up cost of $220,000, this would have amounted to
$1,242,000, or just over $1.2 million. Adding the FTE costs to the
contractor and OSHA Office of Web Services estimates, along with the
annualized start-up cost, would have yielded a range of between $1.2
million and $1.6 million per year. For its best estimate in the PEA,
OSHA used the BLS estimated costs per transaction, because this
estimate is based on actual experience with implementing a similar
program.
    For the FEA, OSHA used the estimate for costs to the government as
published in the PEA and then adjusted the estimate by using the rate
of inflation determined by the GDP deflator (source: St. Louis Federal
Reserve Bank GDP deflator time series from January 2012 to January
2015: 3.0 percent) to adjust the estimated cost to the government. Thus
the cost to the government for this final rule is $1,279,260.
    Several commenters commented on the cost to the government. Several
commenters expressed concerns that this data collection effort would
strain the resources of OSHA by costing too much or requiring too many
Federal employees to work on this project (Exs. 1187, 1193, 1199, 1204,
1219, 1336, 1339, 1382, 1389, 1399, 1430, 1461). A typical comment
highlighting the possible additional costs to the government was
submitted by the MYR Group: ``Although not technically required for
notice and comment rulemaking under the OSH Act, MYR Group believes
that OSHA should evaluate the cost of its own resources which would be
required to be dedicated to this rule instead of other compliance
assistance or enforcement activities. OSHA would have to establish and
continuously maintain a special government Web site for these data
collections. This involves not only hardware and software expenses, but
also ongoing salaries. To utilize the data for injury and illness
prevention, or for enforcement, OSHA would have to establish positions
for analysis to review and interpret the data. MYR Group believes that
shifting resources from prevention activities to data management would
be detrimental to making the workplaces safer and certainly not worth
the minor potential for an incremental benefit in the collection of
statistically insignificant data'' (Ex. 1399).
    In response, OSHA believes that the number of OSHA employees who
will be assigned to collecting and analyzing the improved data will be
the same number as those who worked on the ODI program. Based on
examples of Web sites submitted by OSHA's contractor, OSHA believes
that the data collection Web site will be a turn-key operation that
will not require much human monitoring, just like the ODI data
collection Web site. Further, OSHA believes that this data collection,
even if it requires additional resources, will result in saving of
other resources through better targeting of resources and better
understanding of safety and health.
6. Discussion of Other Potential Costs of the Rule
    Some commenters suggested that there were other possible costs
associated with the rule, including costs for computers and computer
systems, for training, and for review of submissions. Others commented
that there might be indirect costs, for example through loss of
reputation to a firm (or, presumably, an establishment), loss of
confidential business data, higher OSHA fines, additional union
organizing, additional training, and opportunity costs, as well as
perhaps higher labor costs as the labor supply gets better information
on the safety and health of a workplace. Commenters also suggested that
liability costs might rise, or that the security of dangerous materials
or processes might be compromised. Finally, commenters suggested that
an untrained public might naively misinterpret the data. Each of these
groups of comments will be addressed briefly in this section.
a. Computers and Computer Systems
    Some commenters argued that OSHA was requiring the use of
computerized record keeping. Troy Miller, a private citizen, commented,
``The literature included with the proposed rule suggests that OSHA
assumes a majority of employers already keep their injury and illness
records electronically, so submission to OSHA should be doable without
much extra time or expense'' (Ex. 0160). A related set of comments
suggested that many establishments or firms would need to buy new
computer systems (Exs. 0035, 1205, 1225, 0179, 0210, 1092, 1123, 1189,
1190, 1192, 1199, 1275, 1281, 1092, 1113, 1279).
    OSHA notes that nothing in this final rule, or in the existing part
1904 regulation, requires employers to create or maintain records
electronically. Anyone who prefers to keep paper records for whatever
reason may continue to do so. Employers who keep paper records will
only have to enter the information from their paper records onto the
forms on OSHA's Web site. OSHA estimates that this data entry will

require 10 minutes per form and two minutes per line entry on Form 300.
It is possible that an employer who already keeps records
electronically could take fewer than ten minutes per form and two
minutes per line entry on Form 300 by electronically transferring the
appropriate data to the OSHA Web site.
b. Training
    Several commenters suggested that they would face additional
training costs to train employees who already administer or keep OSHA
300-series forms to upload either summary or Log data to the OSHA Web
site (Exs. 0160, 0179, 0194, 0196, 0210, 0215, 1091, 1092, 1326, 1339,
1340, 1372, 1393, 1394, 1396, 1401, 1408). A typical comment on
training was submitted by the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), which
commented, ``OSHA has failed to take into account the costs associated
with having to train employees to record injuries in a manner suitable
for publication . . .'' (Ex. 1326).
    OSHA continues to believe that additional training should not be
necessary either to fill in a web form or to transmit records from an
existing electronic system with which the employee is already familiar.
This will be no more difficult than filling in order forms on private
sites or other government forms online. It should be noted that more
than 70 percent of respondents to the OSHA ODI and the BLS SOII
collections choose to respond electronically. OSHA has already
accounted for training for recordkeepers to understand the OSHA
recordkeeping system and for the costs of familiarizing first-time
recordkeepers with the Web site. No additional training will be
necessary to transfer data from already-filled-in forms to a computer
form. Note that OSHA's estimate of an hourly wage of $48.78 for the
person entering the data assumes that the person is a technically-
proficient employee; the hourly wage for an employee who is not
technically proficient would typically be less.
c. Review
    Several commenters suggested that some establishments might
undertake an extra level of review, or an extra review effort, before
sending the information to OSHA (Exs. 0258, 1110, 1123, 1205, 1336,
1356, 1399, 1401, 1413, 1427). For example, the Phylmar Regulatory
Roundtable (PRR) commented, ``Online submission to OSHA will likely
include the labor not just of record keepers, but of more senior health
and safety staff to quality control the data before submission. Most
members believe strongly that senior management would seek to review
and approve all submissions (not just the 300A reports); again this
would involve additional cost to comply'' (Ex. 1110).
    As discussed above, comments on this issue were often conflated
with other issues, for example the confidentiality of employees'
records. The Texas Cotton Ginners' Association (TCGA), represents very
small establishments that ``will have up to 20 or 30 employees during
peak periods'' (Ex. 0211). The TCGA suggested that, because of the
possibility of revealing confidential employee information, a manager
might instead subject the data to further review and upload it
themselves: ``The concern of management will be that this type of
system will inherently set up situations where workers may feel their
privacy is violated, and the worker is likely to blame their employer
when this occurs. To minimize their liability, it is unlikely that a
company will simply hand all the forms to a clerk and tell them to key
the data into the public domain'' (Ex. 0211).
    In response, OSHA notes that OSHA's estimate of an hourly wage for
the recordkeeper submitting the data is based on the assumption of a
safety and health specialist familiar with the establishment's safety
and health records, and that this hourly wage may be larger than the
hourly wage for managers of small firms. Second, OSHA notes that a firm
with 20-30 employees is required to submit only the information from
Form 300A (the annual summary), which contains no employee-specific
information.
    OSHA believes that existing regulations already provide an entirely
adequate incentive to employers to thoroughly review their records and
that publication of establishment-specific data through the final rule
will require little further review. After all, OSHA records can already
be accessed by OSHA at the time of inspection, as well as by employees
and their representatives (including unions and employee attorneys). In
addition, employers are already required to certify records under
possible penalties of perjury.
    Some commenters were concerned about confidential business
information or personal information (Exs. 0038, 0150, 0159, 0210, 0215,
0252, 1090, 1091, 1110). As discussed above, there is no need for
confidential business information in OSHA records, and OSHA already
urges employers to avoid including confidential business information in
OSHA records because OSHA allows employees and their representatives
access to these records and places no limitations on the use of these
records. There is no need for such confidential business information in
OSHA records, and confidential business information should already be
excluded, as the records can be made public at any time. Employers
concerned with the time required to expunge personal information should
also consider that the information in question could already be made
public and that recordkeeping should exclude as much personal
information as possible, consistent with the use of the records. In
addition, OSHA intends to exclude the names and other PII of
individuals from the records before publishing the data.
d. Harm to Reputation
    Some commenters suggested that published injury and illness data
will tarnish the reputations of some establishments, or enterprises, or
perhaps their entire industry. The Pacific Maritime Association
commented, ``. . . an employee who has worked for one employer over a
long period of time, and complains about a cumulative injury on his
first day of work with a second employer will trigger an injury report
that will be attributed to that second employer. Publication of this
report is obviously unfair and inaccurate. Further, owing to
contractual obligations and developing regional working rules, the
standards and conditions at different ports change with a degree of
frequency. Accordingly, without the proper context--something that OSHA
has not proposed to provide as part of this database--it will be
impossible for the public to even compare the injury rates of a single
port'' (Ex. 1326). OSHA agrees that it is important for users of the
data to understand the rules under which the data was gathered, as
shown by the ``Explanatory Notes'' OSHA includes with its currently-
published ODI data. OSHA intends to include similar notes and
explanations with the data collected under this rulemaking to minimize
misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the data.
    Many commenters wrote that they feared that publication of
establishment-specific summaries of annual injuries and illnesses would
harm the establishments' reputations, and therefore, their businesses
(Exs. 0157, 0160, 0162, 0181, 0189, 0205, 0218, 0224, 0235, 0240, 0242,
0245, 0249, 0251, 0255, 1084, 1089, 1090, 1091, 1092, 1093, 1095, 1096,
1106, 1112, 1113, 1115, 1117, 1123, 1192, 1197, 1198, 1199, 1200, 1205,
1209, 1214, 1216, 1217, 1218, 1224, 1225, 1272, 1276, 1277, 1279, 1281,
1282, 1283, 1284, 1321, 1326, 1327, 1328, 1332,

1333, 1336, 1337, 1341, 1342, 1343, 1348, 1349, 1351, 1355, 1356, 1357,
1359, 1361, 1370, 1380, 1388, 1389, 1393, 1396, 1397, 1399, 1400, 1401,
1402, 1405, 1408, 1412, 1421). A typical comment was submitted by Grede
Holdings, LLC (GH), which stated that ``[p]roviding raw data in a
public forum to be viewed by individuals or groups that may not know
how to interpret the data could result in incorrect conclusions or
assumptions about the employer. This misunderstanding of the data could
further result in unwarranted damage to a company's reputation, related
loss of business and jobs, and unwarranted government inspections
consuming the limited agency and company resources that could be used
more effectively elsewhere'' (Ex. 1402). The National Association of
Home Builders (NAHB) commented that ``OSHA also does not consider the
adverse impacts on safety and health that could occur through the
implementation of this rule. These impacts have been discussed above
and include employers shifting resources away from safety and health
initiatives toward lagging indicators, employers including fewer
details of injuries and illnesses on recordkeeping forms, and employers
with sound injury and illness prevention programs being subjected to
reputation damage from employers, employees, and others making
incorrect assessments of their safety and health efforts from extremely
limited facts'' (Ex. 1408).
    Regarding the first comment, OSHA is not aware of damage to the
reputations of establishments or firms from other, similar data
collection efforts. For example, MSHA has been collecting and
publishing individual mine injury data on the Web for 15 years. OSHA
itself has, for many years, published establishment-specific results of
its inspections and, more recently, establishment-specific data
collected through the ODI. There are other types of web-published data,
which include public safety information (for example police or fire
responses to a business's location), health inspector reports, court
records, and information about a firm's financial condition. All of
these sorts of information are subject to misinterpretation by members
of the public.
    Regarding the second comment, OSHA strongly disagrees with the
commenter that a strong illness and injury prevention program can be
based on hiding basic information on injury and illness rates from
either employees or the public. Illness and injury prevention programs
work best when data on injuries and illnesses is collected and analyzed
frequently and used as a tool to improve safety and health. As
discussed above, this data collection effort will allow scholars and
public health experts to analyze establishment data, discover patterns
in injuries and illnesses, and recommend solutions.
e. Opportunity Costs of the Regulation
    Another comment about the proposed rule had to do with what one
commenter explicitly identified as ``opportunity costs'', that is, the
value of effort forgone due to the compliance costs for this final
rule. The Food Marketing Institute (FMI) commented, ``Thus, time spent
addressing the proposed rule's many requirements is time that the
safety personnel cannot spend providing safety training, completing
safety audits, or handling other matters critical to the ongoing safety
of the workplace. The opportunity costs created by the proposed rule
are potentially significant and must be accounted for in the proposal's
overall cost to employers'' (Ex. 1198).
    In response, the comment above is true for any government rule or
regulation, or for that matter, any internal firm regulation or
operating procedure. Time spent on compliance with any regulation is,
by definition, time that cannot be spent on something else. That is one
reason why OSHA has kept the requirements for this final rule as simple
and as economical as possible. OSHA does not believe that an extra ten
minutes, or even an extra hour, every year will significantly affect
the ability of an establishment to have a safety program or generate
profits. In fact, OSHA believes that when an establishment has access
to the injury and illness information for other firms that will be
generated by this final rule, it should make an establishment's safety
and health program more efficient. Further, in principal, the labor
costs of affected workers reflect the opportunity costs of that labor.
If the opportunity cost is significantly higher than the labor costs,
the firm should consider hiring more of the kind of labor in question.
f. Data Taken Out of Context
    Last, many commenters stated that OSHA injury and illness data
might be taken out of context or misinterpreted by the public. One
commenter, the National Grain and Feed Association (NGFA), commented,
``Providing raw data to those who do not know how to interpret it or
without putting such data in context invites improper and false
conclusions or assumptions to be drawn about the employer, which could
lead to unnecessary damage to a company's reputation, related loss of
business and jobs, and misallocation of resources by the public,
government and industry'' (Ex. 1351). OSHA strongly disagrees with
comments criticizing the value of raw and un-interpreted injury and
illness data. Standard economic principles show that information is
valuable, even if it is difficult to interpret. As economists as early
as Adam Smith, and including Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, have
shown, economic actors who have only a narrow view of the information
available in the economy work together to efficiently allocate
resources. Hayek wrote in ``The Use of Knowledge in Society'' (1945)
that ``The whole acts as one market, not because any of its members
survey the whole field, but because their limited individual fields of
vision sufficiently overlap so that through many intermediaries the
relevant information is communicated to all. The mere fact that there
is one price for any commodity--or rather that local prices are
connected in a manner determined by the cost of transport, etc.--brings
about the solution which (it is just conceptually possible) might have
been arrived at by one single mind possessing all the information which
is in fact dispersed among all the people involved in the process.''
    In addition, OSHA believes that the best solution to the ``problem
of information'' is more information. Establishments, corporations, and
industry groups will now have access to competitors' information on
injuries and illnesses, and they will be able to distinguish themselves
from others in their industry.
7. Total Costs of the Rule
    As shown in the Table VI-1 below, the total costs of the final rule
would be an estimated $15.0 million per year. These costs are shown in
the middle column of Table VI-1. Also note that the last column,
``First Year Costs'', is broken out separately, but is also included in
the Final Rule Annual Costs column, having been amortized over 10 years
at 3 percent interest. It would be double-counting to add the total of
the second and third columns together.

                             Table VI-1--Total Costs of the Final and Proposed Rule
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                         Proposed rule        Final rule          Final rule
                                                     -----------------------------------------------------------
                    Cost element                                                               First year costs
                                                         Annual costs      Annualized costs   (if different from
                                                                                annualized costs)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Electronic submission of part 1904 records by                 $6,954,950      \4\ $7,222,257  ..................
 establishments with 250 or more employees..........
Electronic submission of OSHA annual summary form              3,695,939           4,571,594  ..................
 (Form 300A) by establishments with 20 to 249
 employees in designated industries.................
This includes:
    Cost for establishments without a computer
     ($1,001,631)...................................
    Cost for establishments with non-certified
     records ($231,192).............................
Cost for Agricultural Establishments not in PEA.....  ..................             229,568  ..................
Familiarization.....................................  ..................             411,061           3,506,436
Cost for check by unregulated establishments........  ..................             370,283           3,158,593
Cost of non-discrimination provision................  ..................             938,040           8,001,673
Electronic submission of part 1904 records upon                      * 0                 * 0  ..................
 notification.......................................
                                                     -----------------------------------------------------------
    Total Private Sector Costs......................          10,650,889          13,742,804  ..................
    Total Government Costs..........................           1,242,000           1,279,260           1,545,162
                                                     -----------------------------------------------------------
        Total.......................................          11,892,889          15,022,064  ..................
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* This part of the proposed rule has no immediate costs or economic impacts. Under this part of the rule, an
  establishment would be required to submit data electronically if OSHA notified the establishment to do so as
  part of a specified data collection. Each specified data collection would be associated with its own
  particular costs, benefits, and economic impacts, which OSHA would estimate as part of obtaining OMB approval
  for the specified data collection under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.

    First, as noted elsewhere in this document, the final rule does not
add to or change any employer's obligation to complete, retain, and
certify injury and illness records. The final rule also does not add to
or change the recording criteria or definitions for these records. The
only change is that, under certain circumstances, employers will be
obligated to submit information from these records to OSHA in an
electronic format. Many employers have already done this through the
OSHA Data Initiative and BLS SOII survey; these employers have not
commented, either on the proposed rule or on the paperwork analyses,
that they incurred additional costs beyond those that OSHA estimated
(see for example the ODI ICR<PHONE_NUMBER>-012 and the SOII ICR 201209-
1220-001).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \4\ This is the cost for every year of the rule except the first
year. Because of the phase-in, in the first year establishments with
250 or more employees only have to submit their summary data, at a
cost of $239,197. All other costs are unaffected by the phase-in.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Second, employers are already required to examine and certify the
information they collect. Employers who are already sufficiently
satisfied with the accuracy of their records to accept the risk of a
criminal penalty are unlikely to do more simply because they must
electronically submit the records to OSHA. Therefore, the prospect of
submitting their data to OSHA would not provide any additional
incentive to carefully record injuries and illnesses.
    Third, injury and illness records kept under part 1904 are already
available to OSHA and the public in a variety of ways. The annual
summary data must be posted where employees can see it. Employees or
their representatives can also obtain and make public most of the
information from these records at any time, if they wish. These are the
people who are most likely to recognize if the records are inaccurate.
Finally, OSHA Compliance Officers routinely review these records when
they perform workplace inspections. While OSHA inspections are a rare
event for the typical business, they are much more common for firms
with over twenty employees in the kinds of higher-hazard industries
subject to this rule.
    OSHA requested comments on the issue of whether employers newly
required to submit records to OSHA may spend additional time assuring
the accuracy of their records, beyond what they spend now. If all
431,296 establishments were to spend an extra half hour for an
industrial health and safety specialist to double-check the data prior
to submission, then the costs of this final rule would increase by
$10.5 million. While this would be a substantial addition to the costs
of the rule, such an addition would not alter OSHA's conclusion that
this is neither an economically-significant rule nor a rule that would
impose significant costs on a substantial number of small businesses.
    OSHA received two comments that provided alternative estimates of
the total costs. OSHA will review these estimates here.
    Miles Free at Precision Machined Products Association (PMPA)
provided a detailed breakdown of estimated costs, itemizing the tasks
firms would have to undertake due to the proposed regulation change
(Ex. 194). The costs totaled $592 per firm. Most of these tasks were
not included in OSHA's cost estimate. The total of $592 includes the
use of a higher managerial wage ($30) and costs associated with reading
the rule, reviewing, training, and development of IT resources; he
notes ``many of these costs are initial setup''. OSHA believes that
many of these costs seem inflated. For example, the second largest
single cost element is for ``reading the rule'' which will require 4
hours. Given that the rule itself takes up less than one page of text,
and can be readily explained in less than another page of text, it is
difficult to imagine how someone could spend 4 hours reading the rule.
In addition, as noted above, review of records is already required; no
additional IT resources are required to submit a form electronically;
and it is difficult to see how technically-qualified personnel will
need training in order to submit already-gathered data on an Internet
form.
    For the Final Economic Analysis, OSHA added 5 minutes of time for
establishments that are required to keep records, but are not newly
required to submit annual records summaries to OSHA under this rule.
OSHA believes those establishments might need 5 minutes to check OSHA's
Web site, or various other Web sites or sources of

information to determine if they are covered under this recordkeeping
change. There are 889,327 establishments that are required to keep
records but are not required to report under this new rule. If each
establishment takes 5 minutes to check, using an Industrial Health and
Safety Specialist with a loaded wage of $42.62, then the unit cost will
be $3.55 [5/60 * $42.62] and the total cost, which occurs entirely in
the first year and can be annualized over 10 years at 3 percent
interest, is $370,283 [$3,158,593 in the first year, discounted at a 3
percent interest rate over 10 years].
    The Chamber of Commerce asserts that ``OSHA's cost-benefit analysis
is deeply flawed'' for multiple reasons and derives its own total costs
of the regulation at over $1.1 billion (Ex. 1396). In the submitted
comment, the Chamber states one of the sources of the higher cost would
``result from companies more closely scrutinizing whether an injury or
illness is recordable and hence reportable.'' The discussion of this
topic focused on the legal case of Caterpillar Logistics Inc. vs Solis,
to ``illustrate the time and resources that employers will be forced to
expend in making these recordability decisions.'' In their submitted
comments, they describe the difficulty of diagnosing the source of
musculoskeletal disorders (ergonomic injuries) which they cite as ``34%
of all purported nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses'' based on
BLS statistics. The Chamber stated that ``OSHA's estimated costs barely
scratch the surface of the resources that this proposed rule will
require.'' Given that the costs to Caterpillar are associated entirely
with OSHA's current part 1904 regulation, OSHA believes that this issue
is not relevant to this rulemaking.
    In their discussion of costs, the Chamber provides its own
estimates for three specific elements: reviewing the rule, re-
programming information systems, and training. They state, ``if each
firm on average spent just one hour to review the rule's compliance
requirements, the initial year cost would be over $342 million.'' The
Chamber based its cost estimate on the BLS 2013 average compensation
for private sector managers and administrators, and a total count of
7.4 million separate establishments. It should be noted that the
overwhelming majority of these establishments are very small firms with
fewer than 11 employees and firms in low-hazard industries that are
partially exempt from OSHA's recordkeeping requirements. These firms
already know that this rulemaking does not apply to them, because they
are not required to routinely keep OSHA injury and illness records
under part 1904.
    Using reports by companies surveyed about HR information systems
that would need to be modified, the Chamber estimates an initial-year
cost of over $440 million to re-program information systems and
software. The Chamber's comments describe multiple challenges
associated with the costs for electronic submissions, including the
integration of software or databases, and up to 16 hours of
professional labor to retool information systems and software. The
Chamber states, ``The majority of employers will find it necessary to
change existing records systems and procedures in order to compile and
submit information according to the format and periodicity of this
proposed rule's reporting requirement.'' The Chamber estimates startup
software modification costs of over $5,000 for large firms and $1,000
for small firms. These estimates seem high. The typical large firm has
to track an average of 21 one-page records. It is difficult to imagine
how it would be possible to spend $5,000 on a system designed to track
21 one-page records. In any case, however, firms must already track
these records, although they need not do so electronically, so there is
no need for a new system of any kind as a result of the final rule. In
the case of small firms, the Chamber estimated that there would be
$1,000 in software costs associated with submitting data on a one-page
form that the employer already is required to fill out. OSHA believes
that it is extremely unlikely that a small firm would spend $1,000 for
this purpose.
    Lastly in the submitted cost comments, the Chamber estimates
training costs at nearly $150 million, ``based on just one hour of
training plus the average cost for commercial occupational safety
training materials.'' The Chamber's estimated training cost would be
for corporate managers who ``will need to be trained to comply with the
reporting formats, schedules and procedures.'' As discussed above, OSHA
believes that such training is unnecessary for a person competent in
computer use (or smart phone use) to fill in an on-line form.

 C. Benefits

    As OSHA explained in the preamble to the proposed rule, OSHA
anticipates that establishments' electronic submission of
establishment-specific injury/illness data will improve OSHA's ability
to identify, target, and remove safety and health hazards, thereby
preventing workplace injuries, illnesses, and deaths. In addition, OSHA
believes that the data submission requirements of the final rule will
improve the quality of the information and lead employers to increase
workplace safety and health.
    The Agency plans to make the injury and illness data public, as
encouraged by President Obama's Open Government Initiative. Online
access to these data will allow the public, including employees and
potential employees, researchers, employers, unions, and workplace
safety and health consultants, to use and benefit from the data. It
will support the development of innovative ideas and allow everybody
with a stake in workplace safety and health to participate in improving
occupational safety and health.
    The data collected by BLS is mostly used in the aggregate. While
BLS makes micro data available in a restricted way to researchers, OSHA
will make micro data, including case data, available to researchers and
the public with far fewer restrictions.
    The BLS SOII is used as a basis for much of the research on
workplace safety and health in the US. Typical examples include
Economic Burden of Occupational Injury and Illness in the United
States, by J. Paul Leigh (2011); Analyzing the Equity and Efficiency of
OSHA Enforcement, by Wayne B. Gray and John T. Scholz (1991);
Establishment Size and Risk of Occupational Injury, by Dr. Arthur
Oleinick MD, JD, MPH, Jeremy V. Gluck Ph.D., MPH, and Kenneth E. Guire
(1995); and Occupational Injury Rates in the U.S Hotel Industry, by
Susan Buchanan et al. in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine
(2010). Some of these studies, such as Gray and Sholtz, use
establishment-specific data previously only available on site at BLS.
    The database resulting from this final rule will provide for the
use of establishment-specific data without having to work under the
restrictions imposed by BLS for the use of confidential data. It would
also provide data on injury and illness classifications that are not
currently available from any source, including the BLS SOII.
Specifically, under this collection, there would be case-specific data
for injuries and illnesses that do not involve days away from work. The
BLS case and demographic data is limited to cases involving days away
from work and a small subset of cases involving restricted work
activity.
    In order to determine possible monetary benefits to this rule, OSHA
calculated the value of statistical life (VSL) using Viscusi & Aldy's
(2003) meta-analysis of studies in the economics literature that use a
willingness-to-pay methodology to

estimate the imputed value of life-saving programs. The authors found
that each fatality avoided was valued at approximately $7 million in
2000 dollars. Using the GDP Deflator (Source: https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/GDPDEF/#), OSHA estimated that
this $7 million base number in 2000 dollars yields an estimate of $9
million in 2012 dollars for each fatality avoided.
    Many injuries, illnesses, and fatalities can be prevented at
minimal cost. For example, the costs of greater use of already-
purchased personal protective equipment are minimal, yet many
fatalities described in OSHA's inspection data systems could have been
prevented through the use of available personal protective equipment.
This includes fatalities related to falls when a person was wearing
fall protection but did not have the lanyard attached and to electric
shocks where arc protection was available but unused or left in the
truck. For such minimal-cost preventative measures, assuming they have
costs of prevention of less than $1 million per fatality prevented and
using the VSL of $9 million and other parameters typically used in OSHA
benefits, if the final rule leads to either 1.5 fewer fatalities or
0.025 percent fewer injuries per year, the rule's benefits will be
equal to or greater than the costs. Many accident-prevention measures
will have some costs, but even if these costs are 75 percent of the
benefits, the final rule will have benefits exceeding costs if it
prevented 4.8 fatalities or 0.8 percent fewer injuries per year. OSHA
expects the rule's beneficial effects to exceed these values.
    OSHA received many comments concerning the possible benefits, or
lack of benefits, for the final rule. Some of the benefit suggestions
were innovative. One commenter suggested that having establishment-
level injury and illness data on-line will be valuable for local
medical care practitioners who can check to see whether their patient's
illness or injury is because of their job (Ex. 1106). The Council of
State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) commented, ``Availability
of on line data on work-related injuries and illnesses will allow
health care practitioners to assess the occurrence of particular
injuries and illnesses at the establishments where their patients
work'' (Ex. 1106).
    CSTE provided an example of a similar regulation in Massachusetts
which did reduce workplace injuries (Ex. 1106). The study by Laramie et
al. (2011) showed that after implementing a needlestick injury
reporting program in Massachusetts, the hospitals required to submit
annual injury summaries had a 22 percent decrease in needle stick
injuries over 5 years. While OSHA does not claim that this data
collection initiative will result in a 5 percent annual decrease in
injuries and illnesses, even two-hundredths of a percent decrease in
injuries and illnesses would be an overall benefit of 400 fewer
workplace injuries and illnesses in the United States per year.
    Many commenters suggested that the benefits of this information
collection and dissemination would be dissipated because of the poor
quality of the information collected (Exs. 1219, 1333, 1391, 1199,
1343, 1342, 1110, 1110, 1402, 0258, 1359).
    In response, OSHA notes that information is a unique good, which
has special properties including non-exclusion and non-rivalness, and
that the absence of information can create a market failure. The
presence of some information can help to correct a market failure, even
if the information is not perfect. The information can still provide a
signal to the economic actors (firms, establishments, workers, etc.)
even if the information stream is noisy.
    The labor market may suffer from information asymmetries. If
employers know the actual risk of performing a job and job applicants
believe the job is safer than it actually is, then employees may accept
a lower wage, in other words, a less efficient wage. The classic
economics article on market information asymmetries is Akerlof's ``The
Market for Lemons'', which describes a theoretical model for the market
for used cars. For employers, there is an incentive to misrepresent the
safety of their workplace because it would allow them to hire labor for
less than the market clearing wage.
    As discussed above, a common complaint of commenters was that
injury and illness summaries are lagging, rather than leading,
indicators of safety problems (Exs. 0027, 0163, 0210, 0250, 0258, 1109,
1124, 1193, 1194, 1198, 1204, 1206, 1217, 1219, 1222, 1275, 1279, 1321,
1326, 1331, 1333, 1334, 1336, 1339, 1341, 1342, 1343, 1355,, 1360,
1363, 1373, 1376, 1380, 1389, 1390, 1391, 1392, 1393, 1396, 1399, 1400,
1402, 1406, 1408, 1409, 1410, 1411, 1413, 1416, 1417, 1430, 1467,
1489). One commenter, the American Health Care Association (AHCA)
commented, ``Despite OSHA's alleged position regarding the value of
leading indicators as opposed to lagging indicators, OSHA continues to
push employers into focusing resources and energy in the wrong
direction'' (Ex. 1194). Another commenter, the Mechanical, Electrical,
Sheet Metal Alliance (MCAA), stated: ``. . . OSHA Incidence Rates are
poor indicators of safety performance'' (Ex. 1363). MCAA writes further
that ``Construction owners often determine whether contractors are
eligible to bid on their projects based on the owner's perception of
the contractors' safety performance. Owner's evaluation of a company's
lagging indicators on the OSHA's [sic] Web site would be misleading
with regard to that company's safety culture and safety performance''
(Ex. 1363). OSHA disagrees, instead believing that OSHA's Web site
information is better than no information and that it won't be
misleading in the context of hundreds or thousands of other similar
establishments reporting their injury and illness rates, which will be
available for comparison.
    The nomenclature of leading versus lagging indicators is
unfortunate. OSHA is not requiring an annual data collection to attempt
to judge the safety performance of any particular establishment, but
rather to collect annual injury and illness data to use in ways similar
to how the data collected from the ODI was used already. OSHA does not
have a strong opinion on the question of injury and illness data as a
lagging indicator, but the Agency knows that on average, current-year
injury/illness rates are related to past-year as well as future-year
injury and illness rates. OSHA wants to collect this information;
further, the Agency has been requiring many establishments to record
this information for decades. As discussed elsewhere, this data
collection effort is not an exercise in judging safety and health
reputations.
    Other commenters who commented that the collection and electronic
publication of these records would be helpful included many labor
unions. A representative comment is from the International Brotherhood
of Teamsters (IBT), which wrote that they currently have great
difficulty obtaining these records for their membership from unionized
workplaces. The IBT wrote, ``The cases are provided as an illustration
of the fact that employers frequently deny union representatives access
to this information, forcing the union to pursue charges with the
NLRB'' (Ex. 1381).

D. Economic Feasibility

    OSHA concludes that the final rule will be economically feasible.
For the annual reporting requirement, affecting establishments with 250
or more employees, the average cost per affected establishment will be
$215 per year. For the annual reporting requirement,

affecting establishments with 20 to 249 employees in designated high-
hazard industries, the average cost per affected establishment will be
$11.13 per year. In addition, the non-discrimination provision, which
has a cost of $5.86, on average, in the first year for each of the 1.3
million establishments subject to the rule, should also be economically
feasible. These costs will not affect the economic viability of these
establishments.

E. Regulatory Flexibility Certification

    The part of the final rule requiring annual reporting for
establishments with 250 or more employees will affect some small firms,
according to the definition of small firm used by the Small Business
Administration (SBA). In some sectors, such as construction, where
SBA's definition only allows relatively smaller firms, there are
unlikely to be any firms with 250 or more employees that meet SBA
small-business definitions. In other sectors, such as manufacturing, a
small minority of SBA-defined small businesses will be subject to this
rule. Thus, this part of the final rule will affect only a small
percentage of all small firms. However, because some small firms will
be affected, especially in manufacturing, OSHA has examined the impacts
on small businesses of the costs of this rule. OSHA's procedures for
assessing the significance of final rules on small businesses suggest
that costs greater than 1 percent of revenues or 5 percent of profits
may result in a significant impact on a substantial number of small
businesses. To meet this level of significance at an estimated annual
average cost of $215 per affected establishment per year, annual
revenues for an establishment with 250 or more employees would have to
be less than $21,500, and annual profits would have to be less than
$4,300. These are extremely unlikely combinations of revenue and
profits for firms of this size and would only occur for a very small
number of firms in severe financial distress.
    The part of the final rule requiring annual electronic submission
of data from establishments with 20 to 249 employees in designated
industries will also affect some small firms. As stated above, costs
greater than 1 percent of revenues or 5 percent of profits may result
in a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small
businesses. To meet this level of significance at an estimated annual
average cost of $11.13 per affected establishment per year, annual
revenues for an establishment with 20 to 249 employees would have to be
less than $1,113, and annual profits would have to be less than $226.
These are extremely unlikely combinations of revenue and profits for
establishments of this size.
    As a result of these considerations, per section 605 of the
Regulatory Flexibility Act, OSHA proposes to certify that this final
rule will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial
number of small entities. Thus, OSHA did not prepare an initial
regulatory flexibility analysis or conduct a SBREFA Panel. OSHA
requested comments on this certification. Many commenters stated that
OSHA should have held a SBREFA Panel (Exs. 0179, 0205, 0250, 0255,
1092, 1103, 1113, 1123, 1190, 1199, 1200, 1205, 1208, 1209, 1211, 1216,
1217, 1275, 1278, 1343, 1356, 1359, 1370, 1387, 1395, 1396, 1408, 1410,
1411, 1421). Other commenters stated that specific aspects of the
proposed regulation brought it to the level that should require a
SBREFA Panel review. The American Public Power Association (APPA)
commented, ``While OSHA representatives have asserted that the new
elements of the proposed rule are only extensions of existing
requirements, APPA is of the opinion that the proposed rule includes
profound changes to the scope of the existing framework. As such, OSHA
should have convened a Small Business Advocacy Review panel per the
Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (``SBREFA'') to
analyze the potential impact on the small business community'' (Ex.
1410).
    In response, OSHA continues to assert that this regulation is
similar to the ODI, though with a larger number of participating
establishments. That data collection initiative ran successfully for
nearly 20 years.
    In another example, the International Association of Drilling
Contractors wrote, ``While OSHA acknowledges a small portion of
businesses do not have immediate access to computers or the Internet,
the agency has not put the rule before a small business review panel as
required under the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act
of 1996 . . .'' (Ex. 1199). OSHA's response to the issue of computer
and Internet access is discussed above.
    Despite the comments, OSHA continues to believe that even if the
costs per small establishment were ten or twenty times higher than the
tiny per establishment costs of about $10 per average small business,
those costs would be nowhere near one percent of revenues or five
percent of profits. OSHA does note that during its past two SBREFA
Panel exercises, in 2012 (on Injury and Illness Prevention Programs)
and again in 2014 (on Infectious Diseases), all small-business panel
participants had access to computers, the Internet, and email.

VII. Unfunded Mandates

    For purposes of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (2 U.S.C.
1501 et seq.), as well as Executive Order 12875, this final rule does
not include any federal mandate that may result in increased
expenditures by state, local, and tribal governments, or increased
expenditures by the private sector of more than $100 million.
    Section 3 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act makes clear
that OSHA cannot enforce compliance with its regulations or standards
on the U.S. government ``or any State or political subdivision of a
State.'' Under voluntary agreement with OSHA, some States enforce
compliance with their State standards on public sector entities, and
these agreements specify that these State standards must be equivalent
to OSHA standards. Thus, although OSHA may include compliance costs for
affected public sector entities in its analysis of the expected impacts
associated with the final rule, the rule does not involve any unfunded
mandates being imposed on any State or local government entity.
    Based on the evidence presented in this economic analysis, OSHA
concludes that the final rule would not impose a Federal mandate on the
private sector in excess of $100 million in expenditures in any one
year. Accordingly, OSHA is not required to issue a written statement
containing a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the anticipated
costs and benefits of the Federal mandate, as required under Section
202(a) of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (2 U.S.C. 1532(a)).

VIII. Federalism

    The final rule has been reviewed in accordance with Executive Order
13132 (64 FR 43255 (Aug. 10, 1999)), regarding Federalism. The final
rule is a ``regulation'' issued under Sections 8 and 24 of the OSH Act
(29 U.S.C. 657, 673) and not an ``occupational safety and health
standard'' issued under Section 6 of the OSH Act (29 U.S.C. 655).
Therefore, pursuant to section 667(a) of the OSH Act, the final rule
does not preempt State law (29 U.S.C. 667(a)). The effect of the final
rule on states is discussed in section IX. State Plan States.

IX. State Plan States

    For the purposes of section 18 of the OSH Act (29 U.S.C. 667) and
the requirements of 29 CFR 1904.37 and

1902.7, within 6 months after publication of the final OSHA rule,
state-plan states must promulgate occupational injury and illness
recording and reporting requirements that are substantially identical
to those in 29 CFR part 1904 ``Recording and Reporting Occupational
Injuries and Illnesses.'' All other injury and illness recording and
reporting requirements (for example, industry exemptions, reporting of
fatalities and hospitalizations, record retention, or employee
involvement) that are promulgated by state-plan states may be more
stringent than, or supplemental to, the federal requirements, but,
because of the unique nature of the national recordkeeping program,
states must consult with OSHA and obtain approval of such additional or
more stringent reporting and recording requirements to ensure that they
will not interfere with uniform reporting objectives (29 CFR
1904.37(b)(2), 29 CFR 1902.7(a)).
    There are 27 state plan states and territories. The states and
territories that cover private sector employers are Alaska, Arizona,
California, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan,
Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Puerto Rico,
South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and
Wyoming. Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and the Virgin
Islands have OSHA-approved state plans that apply to state and local
government employees only.

X. Environmental Impact Assessment

    OSHA has reviewed the provisions of this final rule in accordance
with the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.), the Council on Environmental Quality
(CEQ) NEPA regulations (40 CFR parts 1500-1508), and the Department of
Labor's NEPA Procedures (29 CFR part 11). As a result of this review,
OSHA has determined that the final rule will have no significant
adverse effect on air, water, or soil quality, plant or animal life,
use of land, or other aspects of the environment.

XI. Office of Management and Budget Review Under the Paperwork
Reduction Act of 1995

    The final rule contains collection of information (paperwork)
requirements that are subject to review by the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA) (44 U.S.C.
3501 et seq.) and OMB regulations (5 CFR part 1320). The PRA requires
that agencies obtain approval from OMB before conducting any collection
of information (44 U.S.C. 3507). The PRA defines a ``collection of
information'' as ``the obtaining, causing to be obtained, soliciting,
or requiring the disclosure to third parties or the public of facts or
opinions by or for an agency regardless of form or format'' (44 U.S.C.
3502(3)(A)).
    OSHA's existing recordkeeping forms consist of the OSHA 300 Log,
the 300A Summary, and the 301 Incident Report. These forms are
contained in the Information Collection Request (ICR) (paperwork
package) titled 29 CFR part 1904 Recording and Reporting Occupational
Injuries and Illnesses, which OMB approved under OMB Control Number
1218-0176 (expiration date 01/31/2018).
    The final rule affects the ICR estimates in two programmatic ways:
(1) Establishments that are subject to the part 1904 requirements and
have 250 or more employees must electronically submit to OSHA on an
annual basis the required information recorded on their OSHA Forms 300,
301, and 300A; and (2) Establishments in certain designated industries
that have 20 to 249 employees must electronically submit to OSHA on an
annual basis the required information recorded on their OSHA Form 300A.
In addition to submitting the required data, employers subject to
either of these requirements will also be required to create an account
and learn to navigate the collection system.
    The final rule also requires employers subject to the part 1904
requirements to inform their employees of their right to report
injuries and illnesses. This requirement can be met by posting a
recently-revised version of the OSHA Poster. The public disclosure of
information originally supplied by the Federal Government to the
recipient for the purpose of disclosure to the public is not included
within the definition of collection of information (5 CFR
1320.3(c)(2)).
    The burden hours for the final rule are estimated to be 173,406 for
the initial year of implementation and 254,029 for subsequent years.
There are no capital costs for this collection of information.
    The table below presents the new components of the rule that
comprise the ICR estimates.

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TR12MY16.000

    As required by 5 CFR 1320.5(a)(1)(iv) and 1320.8(d)(2), the
following paragraphs provide information about this ICR.
    1. Title: 29 CFR part 1904 Recording and Reporting Occupational
Injuries and Illnesses.
    2. Number of respondents: OSHA requires establishments that are
required to keep injury and illness records under part 1904, and that
had 250 or more employees in the previous year, to submit information
from these records to OSHA or OSHA's designee, electronically, on an
annual basis. There are approximately 34,000 establishments that will
be subject to this requirement and that will submit detailed case
characteristic data on approximately 700,000 occupational injuries and
illnesses per year. OSHA also proposes to require establishments that
are required to keep injury and illness records under part 1904, had 20
to 249 employees in the previous year, and are in certain designated
industries to electronically submit the information from the OSHA
annual summary form (Form 300A) to OSHA or OSHA's designee on an annual
basis. There are approximately 430,000 establishments that will be
subject to this requirement. Finally, OSHA proposes to require all
employers who receive notification from OSHA to electronically submit
specified information from their injury and illness records to OSHA or
OSHA's designee. This requirement will only incur a paperwork burden
when the agency implements a notice of collection. For each new data
collection conducted under this proposed provision, the Agency will
request OMB approval under separate PRA control numbers.
    3. Frequency of responses: Annually.
    4. Number of responses: 1,644,661.
    5. Average time per response: Time per response varies from 20
minutes for establishments reporting only under Sec.  1904.41(a)(2), to
multiple hours for large establishments with many recordable injuries
and illnesses reporting under Sec.  1904.41(a)(1). The average time of
response per establishment is 41 minutes.
    6. Estimated total burden hours: The burden hours for the final
rule are estimated to be 173,406 for the initial year of implementation
and 254,029 for subsequent years. Also, there is an adjustment decrease
of 750,637 burden hours due to decreases in (1) the number of
establishments covered by the recordkeeping rule; (2) the number of
injuries and illness recorded by covered employers; and (3) the number
of fatalities, amputations, hospitalization, and loss of eye reported
by employers. The proposed total burden hours for the recordkeeping
(part 1904) ICR are 2,667,251.
    7. Estimated costs (capital-operation and maintenance): There are
no capital costs for the proposed information collection.
    OSHA received a number of comments relating to the estimated time
necessary to meet the paperwork requirements of the proposed changes
published in the November 8, 2013 Improve Tracking of Workplace
Injuries and Illnesses Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (78 FR 67254-
67283) and its August 14, 2014 Supplemental Notice (79 FR 47605-47610).
References to documents below are given as ``Ex.'' followed by the
document number. The document number is the last sequence of numbers in
the Document ID Number on http://www.regulations.gov. For example, Ex.
17, the proposed rule, is Document ID Number OSHA-2013-0023-0017. The
comments are grouped and addressed by topic.
    Topic 1: A number of comments were submitted pertaining to the
extra time required to submit data on a quarterly basis, rather than an
annual basis (Exs. 157, 247). Paula Loht of Gannett Fleming Inc. wrote,
``Based on my calculations, if the proposed reporting requirements are
implemented, it would take my two-person staff two weeks of full-time
work every quarter to comply,

and would also require input from our technical staff. That would be
more than 160 person hours, four times per year.''
    Response: In the final rule, OSHA requires case-specific data to be
submitted electronically on an annual basis rather than a quarterly
basis. This will effectively reduce the time required to log into the
collection system multiple times per year. It will also allow employers
to comply with the existing review and certification requirements under
Sec.  1904.32 prior to submitting their data to OSHA, eliminating the
need for extra review employers would have taken prior to a quarterly
submission. An annual submission, rather than a quarterly submission,
results in a lower burden.
    Topic 2: Several comments were submitted pertaining to the time
required to verify the accuracy of the data prior to its submittal to
OSHA (Exs. 157, 247, 1205). Rick Hartwig of the Graphic Arts Coalition
wrote, ``The time estimates by OSHA with regard to the electronic
submission process also does not accurately account for the real time
it will take an employer or its staff to review the reports, verify
information, ensure accuracy of the data entered, enlist the assistance
of knowledgeable opinions as necessary, redacting personal information,
and to ensure compliance with all applicable regulatory requirements,
all prior to submittal to OSHA'' (Ex. 1205).
    Response: The data is submitted after the employer has certified to
the accuracy of the records in accordance with the already existing
requirements of Sec.  1904.32, Annual Summary. The time required to
review and certify the records is accounted for under this provision.
The new reporting requirements under Sec.  1904.41 require the employer
to submit the already verified information to OSHA. OSHA, therefore,
did not adjust its estimates for this provision.
    Topic 3: Several comments were submitted pertaining to the time
OSHA used to estimate the submittal of data from the OSHA form 300
(Exs. 247, 1328, 1141). Eric Conn, representing the National Retail
Federation (NRF), wrote, ``. . . OSHA bases its time estimates on the
time it takes employers to submit data to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics (BLS) in response to its survey. The data submitted for the
BLS survey, however, is more limited in terms of information requested.
BLS requests only certain data for up to 15 cases, but the Proposed
Regulation would require all relevant Form 300 and/or 300A information
from the entire injury and illness record. Thus the time burden would
actually be much greater than OSHA predicts'' (Ex. 1328).
    Response: OSHA agrees that using the estimate of 10 minutes per
establishment for entry of the OSHA Forms 300 and 300A data
underestimates the time that will be required to respond to this data
collection. Establishments with 250 or more employees will be required
to submit the Form 300 data for all cases entered on the log.
Accordingly, OSHA is now basing its estimation of the time required to
submit Log 300 data on the number of injury and illness cases that will
be submitted rather than on an estimate of time per establishment. OSHA
now estimates employers will require 2 minutes to enter the Form 300
one line entry for each of the 714,000 cases that will be submitted to
OSHA. This is in addition to the 10 minutes per establishment for the
data from the OSHA Form 300A. Basing estimates on case counts for Form
300 data provides a truer estimate of the total.
    Topic 4: Several comments were submitted pertaining to keeping
one's records electronically and to submitting a ``batch file'' in
response to the new collection requirements (Exs. 247, 1326, 1336,
1141, 1205). Michael Hall of the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA)
wrote, ``Under the current recording system, PMA and other employers
have not maintained electronic records that are capable of being
uploaded or transmitted because they are only inspected during an OSHA
inspection. Accordingly, moving to an electronic recording system
capable of transmission will be both time consuming and costly'' (Ex.
1326). Marc Freedman of the Coalition for Workplace Safety (CWS) wrote,
``OSHA does not estimate how many employers currently maintain
electronic records. As OSHA asserts, 30 percent of ODI respondents do
not submit records electronically; therefore, one can assume that these
records are not maintained electronically. From this, it can be safely
assumed that a sizeable number of employers will also be copying the
required injury and illness information from the establishment's paper
forms into the electronic submission forms--a cost OSHA simply ignores
when calculating the average cost per affected establishment with 250
or more employees. Moreover, OSHA has not analyzed whether current
existing electronic programs would present such data in a format
acceptable to be uploaded to OSHA. Without knowing what types of
electronic forms OSHA would consider for uploading, the regulated
community is unable to estimate whether uploading such information
would impose increased costs'' (Ex. 1141).
    Response: The final rule does not require employers to adopt an
electronic system to record occupational injuries and illnesses and to
maintain OSHA Forms 300, 301 and 300A. The new provisions only require
employers to submit to OSHA the information they have already recorded.
One or more methods of data transmission (other than manual data entry)
will be provided, but use is not required. If the employer has software
with the ability to export or transmit data in a standard format that
meets OSHA's specifications, they may use that method to meet their
reporting obligations and minimize their burden to do so. Most
commercially available recordkeeping software platforms have such
functionality and many large employers regularly use this method for
responding to the BLS SOII survey.
    OSHA believes many large establishments subject to this requirement
will already be keeping their records electronically and will export or
transmit the required information rather than entering it into the web
form. This will substantially reduce the time needed to comply with the
reporting requirement. However, the estimates contained in the Final
Economic Analysis (FEA) and the ICR are calculated with the assumption
that all submissions will be made by manually entering the required
data via the web form. No time savings are included in these estimates
for employers that will submit their data through a batch file upload
or electronic transmission. OSHA will adjust the estimates under
renewed ICRs when we have solid information regarding the percentage of
employers that take advantage of batch file upload or electronic
transmission.
    Topic 5: Several comments were submitted pertaining to the
necessity to train employees on how to use the newly created reporting
system (Exs. 1205, 1336, 1141). Susan Yashinskie of the American Fuel &
Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) wrote, ``This estimate is highly
inaccurate and significantly understates the costs given the amount of
time it will take for employers to learn how to use and navigate the
proposed electronic reporting system . . .'' (Ex. 1336). Rick Hartwig
of the Graphic Arts Coalition wrote, ``Regarding the cost estimates
outlined within the proposal, they do not account for actual activities
and efforts that will be required by the employer. These additional
costs can include the training of personnel . . . to

learn the different elements of the new system . . .'' (Ex. 1205).
    Response: OSHA agrees that employers will require time to create an
account and familiarize themselves with the Web site prior to entering
and submitting the required data. This will be a onetime cost in the
initial year with costs in subsequent years for establishment with
employee turnover. OSHA estimates employers will require 10 minutes to
accomplish this task.
    In addition to these five common topics, several comments were
submitted on miscellaneous issues pertaining to paperwork burden.
    Bill Taylor of the Public Agency Safety Management Association
(PASMA)--South Chapter wrote, ``. . . One of our member sites has
approximately 2,600 employees and their estimated cost of compliance
with this proposed quarterly reporting requirement is $7,250 . . . This
employer also assumed labor costs of $50 per hour, which includes
benefits'' (Ex. 157). PASMA's labor cost estimate of $50 per hour
including benefits is consistent with OSHA's estimate of $48.78 for an
Occupational Health and Safety Specialist to perform the employer's
day-to-day recordkeeping duties.
    Michael Hall of the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) wrote,
``OSHA's estimates do not take into account the costs described above
that are unique to the maritime industry. In particular, the man-hours
that will have to be devoted to attempting to prevent, if possible,
duplicative reporting will be enormous'' (Ex. 1326). The costs of
properly recording information on OSHA Forms 300, 301 and 300A are
already accounted for in the current recordkeeping requirements burden
estimates. The new reporting requirements under 1904.41 only require
the employer to submit the data that is already recorded.
    Marc Freedman of the Coalition for Workplace Safety (CWS) wrote,
``Because of the consequences of recording an injury under this
proposal, employers can be expected to involve more experts in some
cases. This is particularly the case with musculoskeletal disorders
(``MSD'') . . . employers are more likely to incur substantial costs to
conduct evaluations similar to Caterpillar's in order to determine
whether an injury is truly work-related. This is particularly the case
with musculoskeletal disorder injuries. OSHA has not accounted for
these additional costs that are likely to flow from this proposed
regulation'' (Ex. 1141). OSHA has not adjusted its estimate for the
time it requires to determine the recordability of an injury or
illness. Employers are already required to certify to the accuracy of
the OSHA forms prior to submitting these data. The time required to
record cases on the OSHA forms is already accounted for in the
estimates. It should be noted that the ``MSD'' column Mr. Freedman
references does not exist at this time. OSHA will account for burden
associated with future rulemaking requirements in future ICRs. It
should also be noted that OSHA currently publishes establishment-
specific injury and illness rates on its Web site and has not observed
any indication that publication of that data has increased the time
needed to record injuries and illnesses. OSHA does not agree with Mr.
Freedman's conjecture that publication of the data captured by these
revised requirements will result in additional burden for recording
injuries and illnesses.
    The PRA specifies that Federal agencies cannot conduct or sponsor a
collection of information unless it is approved by OMB and displays a
currently valid OMB approval number (44 U.S.C. 3507). Also,
notwithstanding any other provision of law, respondents are not
required to respond to the information collection requirements until
they have been approved and a currently valid control number is
displayed. OSHA will publish a subsequent Federal Register document
when OMB takes further action on the information collection
requirements in the Recordkeeping and Recording Occupational Injuries
and Illnesses rule.

XII. Consultation and Coordination With Indian Tribal Governments

    OSHA reviewed this final rule in accordance with Executive Order
13175 (65 FR 67249 (Nov. 9, 2000)) and determined that it does not have
``tribal implications'' as defined in that order. This final rule does
not have substantial direct effects on one or more Indian tribes, on
the relationship between the Federal Government and Indian tribes, or
on the distribution of power and responsibilities between the Federal
Government and Indian tribes.

List of Subjects

29 CFR Part 1904

    Health statistics, Occupational safety and health, Reporting and
recordkeeping requirements, State plans.

29 CFR Part 1902

    Health statistics, Intergovernmental relations, Occupational safety
and health, Reporting and recordkeeping requirements, State plans.

Authority and Signature

    This document was prepared under the direction of David Michaels,
Ph.D., MPH, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and
Health. It is issued under Sections 8 and 24 of the Occupational Safety
and Health Act (29 U.S.C. 657, 673), Section 553 of the Administrative
Procedure Act (5 U.S.C. 553), and Secretary of Labor's Order No. 41-
2012 (77 FR 3912 (Jan. 25, 2012)).

    Signed at Washington, DC, on April 29, 2016.
David Michaels,
Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health.

Final Rule

    For the reasons stated in the preamble, OSHA amends parts 1904 and
1902 of chapter XVII of title 29 as follows:

PART 1904--[AMENDED]

0
1. The authority citation for part 1904 continues to read as follows:

    Authority: 29 U.S.C. 657, 658, 660, 666, 669, 673, Secretary of
Labor's Order No. 1-2012 (77 FR 3912, Jan. 25, 2012).

0
2. Revise Sec.  1904.35 to read as follows:

Sec.  1904.35  Employee involvement.

    (a) Basic requirement. Your employees and their representatives
must be involved in the recordkeeping system in several ways.
    (1) You must inform each employee of how he or she is to report a
work-related injury or illness to you.
    (2) You must provide employees with the information described in
paragraph (b)(1)(iii) of this section.
    (3) You must provide access to your injury and illness records for
your employees and their representatives as described in paragraph
(b)(2) of this section.
    (b) Implementation--(1) What must I do to make sure that employees
report work-related injuries and illnesses to me? (i) You must
establish a reasonable procedure for employees to report work-related
injuries and illnesses promptly and accurately. A procedure is not
reasonable if it would deter or discourage a reasonable employee from
accurately reporting a workplace injury or illness;
    (ii) You must inform each employee of your procedure for reporting
work-related injuries and illnesses;
    (iii) You must inform each employee that:
    (A) Employees have the right to report work-related injuries and
illnesses; and

    (B) Employers are prohibited from discharging or in any manner
discriminating against employees for reporting work-related injuries or
illnesses; and
    (iv) You must not discharge or in any manner discriminate against
any employee for reporting a work-related injury or illness.
    (2) [Reserved]

0
3. Revise Sec.  1904.36 to read as follows:

Sec.  1904.36  Prohibition against discrimination.

    In addition to Sec.  1904.35, section 11(c) of the OSH Act also
prohibits you from discriminating against an employee for reporting a
work-related fatality, injury, or illness. That provision of the Act
also protects the employee who files a safety and health complaint,
asks for access to the part 1904 records, or otherwise exercises any
rights afforded by the OSH Act.

Subpart E--Reporting Fatality, Injury and Illness Information to
the Government

0
4. Add an authority citation to subpart E of 29 CFR part 1904 to read
as follows:

    Authority:  29 U.S.C. 657, 673, 5 U.S.C. 553, and Secretary of
Labor's Order 1-2012 (77 FR 3912, Jan. 25, 2012).

0
5. Revise Sec.  1904.41 to read as follows:

Sec.  1904.41  Electronic submission of injury and illness records to
OSHA.

    (a) Basic requirements--(1) Annual electronic submission of part
1904 records by establishments with 250 or more employees. If your
establishment had 250 or more employees at any time during the previous
calendar year, and this part requires your establishment to keep
records, then you must electronically submit information from the three
recordkeeping forms that you keep under this part (OSHA Form 300A
Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses, OSHA Form 300 Log of
Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses, and OSHA Form 301 Injury and
Illness Incident Report) to OSHA or OSHA's designee. You must submit
the information once a year, no later than the date listed in paragraph
(c) of this section of the year after the calendar year covered by the
forms.
    (2) Annual electronic submission of OSHA Form 300A Summary of Work-
Related Injuries and Illnesses by establishments with 20 or more
employees but fewer than 250 employees in designated industries. If
your establishment had 20 or more employees but fewer than 250
employees at any time during the previous calendar year, and your
establishment is classified in an industry listed in appendix A to
subpart E of this part, then you must electronically submit information
from OSHA Form 300A Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses to
OSHA or OSHA's designee. You must submit the information once a year,
no later than the date listed in paragraph (c) of this section of the
year after the calendar year covered by the form.
    (3) Electronic submission of part 1904 records upon notification.
Upon notification, you must electronically submit the requested
information from your part 1904 records to OSHA or OSHA's designee.
    (b) Implementation--(1) Does every employer have to routinely
submit information from the injury and illness records to OSHA? No,
only two categories of employers must routinely submit information from
their injury and illness records. First, if your establishment had 250
or more employees at any time during the previous calendar year, and
this part requires your establishment to keep records, then you must
submit the required Form 300A, 300, and 301 information to OSHA once a
year. Second, if your establishment had 20 or more employees but fewer
than 250 employees at any time during the previous calendar year, and
your establishment is classified in an industry listed in appendix A to
subpart E of this part, then you must submit the required Form 300A
information to OSHA once a year. Employers in these two categories must
submit the required information by the date listed in paragraph (c) of
this section of the year after the calendar year covered by the form or
forms (for example, 2017 for the 2016 forms). If you are not in either
of these two categories, then you must submit information from the
injury and illness records to OSHA only if OSHA notifies you to do so
for an individual data collection.
    (2) If I have to submit information under paragraph (a)(1) of this
section, do I have to submit all of the information from the
recordkeeping form? No, you are required to submit all of the
information from the form except the following:
    (i) Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses (OSHA Form 300):
Employee name (column B).
    (ii) Injury and Illness Incident Report (OSHA Form 301): Employee
name (field 1), employee address (field 2), name of physician or other
health care professional (field 6), facility name and address if
treatment was given away from the worksite (field 7).
    (3) Do part-time, seasonal, or temporary workers count as employees
in the criteria for number of employees in paragraph (a) of this
section? Yes, each individual employed in the establishment at any time
during the calendar year counts as one employee, including full-time,
part-time, seasonal, and temporary workers.
    (4) How will OSHA notify me that I must submit information from the
injury and illness records as part of an individual data collection
under paragraph (a)(3) of this section? OSHA will notify you by mail if
you will have to submit information as part of an individual data
collection under paragraph (a)(3). OSHA will also announce individual
data collections through publication in the Federal Register and the
OSHA newsletter, and announcements on the OSHA Web site. If you are an
employer who must routinely submit the information, then OSHA will not
notify you about your routine submittal.
    (5) How often do I have to submit the information from the injury
and illness records? If you are required to submit information under
paragraph (a)(1) or (2) of this section, then you must submit the
information once a year, by the date listed in paragraph (c) of this
section of the year after the calendar year covered by the form or
forms. If you are submitting information because OSHA notified you to
submit information as part of an individual data collection under
paragraph (a)(3) of this section, then you must submit the information
as often as specified in the notification.
    (6) How do I submit the information? You must submit the
information electronically. OSHA will provide a secure Web site for the
electronic submission of information. For individual data collections
under paragraph (a)(3) of this section, OSHA will include the Web
site's location in the notification for the data collection.
    (7) Do I have to submit information if my establishment is
partially exempt from keeping OSHA injury and illness records? If you
are partially exempt from keeping injury and illness records under
Sec. Sec.  1904.1 and/or 1904.2, then you do not have to routinely
submit part 1904 information under paragraphs (a)(1) and (2) of this
section. You will have to submit information under paragraph (a)(3) of
this section if OSHA informs you in writing that it will collect injury
and illness information from you. If you receive such a notification,
then you must keep the injury and illness records required by this part
and submit information as directed.

    (8) Do I have to submit information if I am located in a State Plan
State? Yes, the requirements apply to employers located in State Plan
States.
    (9) May an enterprise or corporate office electronically submit