Columbia Gas of Virginia Comments Regarding Final Permanent Standard and Proposed Amendments
Columbia Gas of Virginia respectfully offers the following comments to the proposed amendments to the Final Permanent Standard for Infectious Disease Prevention of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus, 16 VAC25-220, (“FPS”). We join with other commenters in asking that the FPS be revoked or, at a minimum, amended to provide better clarity for Virginians.
The FPS was born of an emergency involving a virus, COVID-19, about which little was known. Since the first cases of COVID-19 were reported, the knowledge, expertise, and experience as to how to limit the spread and treat the illness has grown rapidly. In addition, a growing percentage of the population has been vaccinated against the illness or otherwise has some level of natural immunity following infection and recovery. For these reasons, the emergency measures put into place are no longer necessary. Indeed, many are no longer relevant or in accordance with current best practices.
Should the FPS amendments proceed despite the lack of necessity, the Company objects to the difficult position the proposed amendments continue to place on employers and, by extension, employees.
At the outset, the goal of most employment-related government regulations is to prevent employers from treating employees disparately. This is not true of the FPS. The FPS potentially requires employers to draw distinctions between employees based on vaccination status. While some employees may be willing to share that information, others will not. And while an employee may choose not to reveal their vaccination status, that employee will be required by the FPS to self-identify by wearing a face covering and observing other social distancing requirements. Certainly, employers may, after careful consideration, choose to either require vaccination or proof thereof, but that decision should only be undertaken after careful consideration of all relevant laws and research related to COVID-19 and its vaccines, not in response to an emergency standard that is not capable of responding to new developments.
Second, the proposed amendments do nothing to address the myriad of operational inefficiencies and impossibilities created by the FPS. For example, the FPS requires restrooms to be cleaned once per shift. For employers with remote employees who use remote-stationed portable restrooms, the unworkable, and perhaps unnecessary given current guidance related to hygiene, cleaning requirements necessitated the removal of the portable restrooms or other onerous cleaning solutions. Additionally, the requirement that employers provide N-95 face masks for employees traveling together in vehicles led to confusion regarding compliance with OSHA fit testing requirements and ignored other mitigating measures or circumstances. Indeed, the amendments ignore the impact of employees who have some level of natural immunity as a result of having contracted and recovered from COVID-19.
Should the agency choose not to repeal the FPS, at a minimum, we would request the Board adopt substitute language to 16VAC25-220 to deem compliance with the FPS if the employer complies with the CDC guidance to mitigate the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which continues to responsibly evolve in response to the changing dynamic of COVID-19.