Powered Industrial Trucks (forklifts) are the focus of a new Regional Emphasis Program (REP) that was announced by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The new program covers Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota – which are the federal-OSHA states located in the agency’s Region 8.

The new initiative follows another one that was taken earlier this year by the agency. In August, it announced a similar REP aimed at warehouse and logistics operations located in Region 3.

The federal-OSHA states in that region are Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Delaware and Washington, DC.

In addition, the Region 3 inspections began on Nov. 23, following a three-month employer education effort. This Region 8 REP stemmed from a consistently high number of forklift inspections and forklift-related citations issued by OSHA.

In recent years, OSHA has been deploying national and regional emphasis programs as part of an effort to target aggressive enforcement efforts against specific industries and workplace hazards.

In these efforts, federal OSHA continues to shift enforcement towards warehousing, logistics, and ecommerce, according to attorneys from the Seyfarth Shaw law firm.

Other REP efforts aimed at the warehousing industry covered industrial trucks were mounted in Region 5 in 2018, in Region 7 in 2019 and Region 4 in 2020

Also launched in 2019 was another REP for powered industrial trucks and other material or personnel handling motorized equipment in construction, general industry and maritime.