OSHA estimates that each year more than one million workers are exposed to hexavalent chromium, with hundreds dying prematurely. Yet the agency has been dragging its feet on the matter, repeatedly postponing regulatory action to update the existing hexavalent chromium standard.

The court ruling stems from a lawsuit filed last year by Public Citizen and the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union (PACE), who sought a safer exposure limit for the dangerous chemical.

The court found that OSHA’s failure to issue an updated standard violated the law, and ordered a three-year rulemaking schedule, calling for a proposed rule by October 4, 2004, and a final rule no later than January 18, 2006. “We would have liked the agency to move even faster,” said Dr. Peter Lurie, deputy director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group. “But the important point is that the agency has now been told that it has to act, and that the leisurely schedule it wanted won't adequately protect workers’ health.”