The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s adoption of the Globally Harmonized System into its existing Hazard Communication standard is being pushed back until February, according to OSHA spokeswoman Kimberly Darby.

OSHA originally submitted the text for the final rule to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) on Oct. 25.

Typically the office has 90 days to approve or deny submitted rules, but both OSHA and the OMB mutually agreed to extend the deadline until February to wrap up the remaining details, according to Darby.

OSHA began the process of adopting the GHS in September 2006 and originally planned on having the program in place by August 2011.

The adoption of the GHS is expected to impact millions of employers in nearly every industry across the United States.

The program will replace existing Material Safety Data Sheets with Safety Data Sheets and introduce new labels pictograms and universal system of hazard identification.

Once adopted OSHA will grant employers up to two years to train employees on the concepts of the new system. This training is expected to cost American employers more than $44 million.

In addition to the adoption of the GHS in the United States, both Mexico and Canada are working on putting in place the GHS system.

In Mexico there is already a system for voluntary compliance and in Canada work is being done to implement GHS as part of its WHMIS (Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System) regulations, but draft of the rule is yet to be published.

To help ease the transition Safety Services Company has created ww.GHSguide.com and is already offering a HCS training kit featuring the principles of the GHS.

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