As I was saying …

News flash: The state of Arizona, which has a state-managed occupational safety and health administration, has agreed to comply with residential fall-protection rules developed by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) after OSHA threatened to take over enforcement of all construction regulations in the state. The reason? OSHA believes Arizona's fall-protection rules are not as "effective" as the federal rules—and that's what the law requires.

An innocent observer might ask how does one define "effective"? A rational answer might be it would be related to actual experience (such as rates of accidents and fatalities). Ah, but that would, apparently, be naïve

In 2013, there were 699 fatal injuries resulting from "falls, slips and trips" in the U.S. In Arizona, there were 11. Arizona has just more than 2 percent of the nation's population, so all things being equal, a rational person might have expected Arizona to have had 14 fatal fall-related injuries or surely more than the national average if the current regulations aren't as effective as the federal one.

NRCA has reviewed relevant statistics about fatalities resulting from falls specifically in the construction industry in states governed by the federal rules, and generally, the experiences in those states are worse than in Arizona.

We understand OSHA is considering similar action in California (another state-plan state) where the fall-protection requirements, developed through a comprehensive process involving employers, employees and government, are apparently not "effective" either. California's experience is even better than Arizona's.

What's ironic is in Arizona and California, fall-protection rules were developed in a manner consistent with what OSHA has been preaching for years: evaluate the hazard, identify the best safety solutions and see they are put in place. Instead, OSHA now is arguing (in Arizona, at least) its one-size-fits-all approach to residential fall protection, meaning personal fall-arrest systems, is the only "effective" way to prevent falls. Why? Because that's what the folks in Washington, D.C., believe.

Here's a thought: What if those folks at OSHA took a good look at the fall-protection history in the states where federal OSHA has jurisdiction? What if they took some time to gather actual facts? Or—even better—what if they worked with employers, like the state-plan administrators in Arizona and California have done, to find the best solutions?

Well, that would be too inconvenient. NRCA consistently has urged OSHA to work with contractors to provide more flexibility in federal regulations to ensure they promote the safest options in all situations, but the agency has steadfastly refused.

And that's a shame because professional contractors—those who try the hardest to comply with the law—understand that when regulations are unreasonable, it becomes far too tempting for unprofessional contractors to simply ignore them. And that, in turn, will only lead to more accidents and injuries, which are nothing short of needless tragedies.

Bill Good is NRCA's executive vice president.