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Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Compliance Safety and Health Officers (CSHOs) as well as other Agency personnel may be exposed to a variety of respiratory hazards while conducting safety and health compliance inspections, consultations or monitoring visits. These hazards include a wide range of airborne contaminants and in some cases represent immediately dangerous to life or health (IDLH) conditions.
OSHA considers respirators to be necessary to protect the health of its employees at those work sites where feasible engineering controls are not available or are not sufficient to protect employee health, in emergencies, and where the health of a CSHO could be at risk. Respirators selected must be capable of protecting against overexposure by reducing and maintaining exposure to or below the relevant exposure limit. In addition to the OSHA permissible exposure limits (PELs), other relevant exposure limits include: American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) recommended Threshold Limit Values (TLVs), National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Recommended Exposure Limits (RELs), and other occupational exposure limits. Furthermore, appropriate respirators must be worn whenever requested by the employer.