3.1 EHS Rules and Regulations

On this page:
3.1.1 Identifying and Interpreting EHS Rules and Regulations
3.1.2 Communicating EHS Rules and Regulations to Affected Parties

3.1.1 Identifying and Interpreting EHS Rules and Regulations

MIT's Environment, Health & Safety (EHS) Office manages environment, health, and safety programs and supports EHS performance including sustainability, good practices, and legal compliance throughout the MIT community. The EHS Office's Compliance Management Plan (PDF) identifies and interprets the laws, regulations, and other requirements that apply to MIT facilities and operations; describes the requirements of these regulations as applicable to MIT; and establishes a process for assigning an EHS Office staff member support and oversight responsibility to help ensure compliance with each requirement.

3.1.2 Communicating EHS Rules and Regulations to Affected Parties

Communicating within the MIT Community
MIT communicates regulatory requirements and accepted best practices to affected faculty, researchers, staff, and students through the EHS organizational structure described in Section 2, Roles and Responsibilities. Within this structure, information is transmitted from the EHS Office via the EHS Lead Contacts to the affected departments through the DLC's EHS Coordinators. Information is exchanged using a variety of mechanisms, including email and written communications, quarterly EHS Coordinators meetings, periodic DLC EHS Committees meetings, and direct communications between EHS Coordinators and Lead Contacts. EHS Coordinators are the primary points of contact that distribute and communicate information throughout their DLC. The EHS Office develops and maintains the EHS Communications Plan (pdf) to ensure proper targeting and systematic delivery of critical information.

MIT's EHS standards and regulatory requirements are also communicated directly to affected parties through training, inspections, and audits. Education and training, addressed in Section 4, Training of this Manual, is an integral component of the EHS Management System and is a significant tool for introducing and reinforcing MIT's regulatory requirements and MIT compliance programs to individual faculty, researchers, staff, and students.

Inspections and audits, discussed in Section 6, Inspections and Audits of this Manual, further serve to communicate and reinforce regulatory requirements that are applicable to each laboratory or facility space. As each Principal Investigator/ Supervisor registers space under his or her supervision in a central database and a hazard assessment is completed, and MIT's standards and regulatory requirements that apply to each space are identified. The inspections and audits then help to ensure that the appropriate requirements are being met.

MIT's regulatory requirements are communicated to contract service providers at the time of engagement through the provision of the Contractor EHS Handbook (pdf).

Other mechanisms for ongoing communication include an EHS newsletter, the EHS website, http://web.mit.edu/environment/, campus newspapers, such as Tech Talk and The Tech, an EHS Annual Report, and DLC meetings.

Communicating with Regulatory Agencies
MIT, as a complex, diverse organization, must communicate with a multitude of federal, state, and local regulatory agencies on a wide variety of topics and issues.

Any communications with regulatory or law enforcement agencies that concern environment, health and safety issues, or impact the whole Institute, including MIT policy, legal requirements, regulatory compliance, or the Institute's EHS performance, must be coordinated through the Environmental Programs Office and the EHS Office. These procedures are described more fully in the EHS Communications to External Parties SOP (pdf).

Communications with regulatory agencies that are of a routine nature, such as those that occur as a normal part of the Institute operations, and that are not precedent-setting or do not impact Institute-wide policies or issues, typically are conducted directly by employees with the relevant regulatory agency personnel.

The EHS Office has established an internal SOP for Regulatory Agency Visits. The SOP describes procedures for communications with federal, state, and local agencies, such as Environmental Protection Agency, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Department of Environmental Protection, Department of Public Health, Cambridge Fire Department, and Cambridge Inspectional Services.