Confined Spaces across the state plans

“Notwithstanding 29 C.F.R. 1910.146, the employer shall ensure that double block and bleed systems are not used as a means of isolation when the ambient air temperature at the point of isolation or the temperature of the product in the line at the point of isolation is at or below 32° Fahrenheit (0° Celsius).”

Alaska changes permit-space entry in two ways that matter in cold weather and on thin crews. Double block and bleed cannot be used as isolation once the ambient temperature at the isolation point, or the product temperature in the line, reaches freezing. And the federal note allowing an attendant to monitor more than one permit space is replaced outright: attendants may not be assigned to more than one space, and must be in direct and constant communication with the entrants. Alaska also defines "calibrated direct-reading instrument" for atmospheric testing, a term the federal standard leaves open.

Permit-required confined spaces are adopted federal text at the July 14, 2020 cut-off. On a jobsite the governing rule is Subpart AA of Part 1926, which arrives through R20-5-601 at the same date. Arizona applies both to public and private employers alike (the adoption rules say so in terms), so a municipal water utility entering a vault is inside the same standard as a private contractor, which is not the federal position.

Permit-required confined space entry in California sits at §5157 and tracks the federal program: permits, attendants, entry supervisors, atmospheric testing, rescue. The structural difference is what sits beside it: §5158 covers confined spaces in the industries and operations listed in §5156(b)(2) that are not run under a permit program, and it defines its own trigger, a space where existing ventilation is insufficient to remove dangerous air contamination and where removing a suddenly disabled employee would be difficult. Dangerous air contamination is fixed at 20 percent of the lower explosive limit for a gas or vapor. Running a §5157 permit program satisfies §5158, so the practical effect is that California leaves no gap for a space that is confined but not permit-required.

“Materials, devices, structures, and methods and procedures of operation which are required by these standards, and which are described by general descriptive terms such as adequate, proper, sufficient, and the like, shall be of such kind and quality as a reasonable and prudent person experienced in the work would require in order to effect a safe operation.”

The permit-space program is incorporated federal text in Hawaii, at the 2017 edition of Part 1910. What Hawaii adds is an interpretive rule that bites hardest in exactly this kind of standard: wherever a requirement uses a word like adequate, proper or sufficient (and a permit-space rule uses them repeatedly, on ventilation, on rescue, on testing) the measure is what a reasonable and prudent person experienced in the work would require. Hawaii turns those words into a stated standard rather than leaving them to argument.

“All wells, pits, shafts, and other similar spaces shall be barricaded or covered. Upon completion of exploration and similar operations, temporary wells, pits, shafts, and other similar spaces shall be backfilled.”

The permit-space program in Minnesota is the federal one, adopted through the citation list at Minn. R. 5205.0010. What Minnesota adds is upstream of the permit: Minn. R. 5207.0510 requires wells, pits and shafts to be barricaded or covered while they exist and backfilled once the work is done, which is a duty about the space's whole life rather than about entry. The Employee Right-to-Know chapter also matters here: its written program covers harmful physical agents and infectious agents, categories a confined-space hazard assessment built only from 1910.146 would not reach.

“incorporation of the existing standard for Bloodborne Pathogens, 29 CFR 1910.1030, excluding subparagraph (e) HIV and HBV Research Laboratories and Production Facilities, into the Safety & Health Regulations for Construction at 29 CFR 1926.1130.”

Permit-space entry is incorporated federal text in North Carolina. The state addition that reaches rescue teams and attendants is elsewhere: North Carolina created a construction bloodborne pathogens standard at 1926.1130, a section number that does not exist in the federal Part 1926. It carries the 1910.1030 requirements with the research-laboratory paragraph removed, and it narrows the definition of occupational exposure to contact arising from collateral first aid duties. A confined-space rescue plan on a North Carolina site sits inside that standard, not outside it.

Permit-required confined spaces are incorporated federal text in New Mexico. What the state changed nearby matters for the entry program: because 11.5.3.9(B) makes Part 1910 standards identified as applicable to construction expressly applicable on jobsites, the general industry permit-space rule reaches New Mexico construction work through the state rule rather than only through federal practice. And the amended data sheet paragraph applies here too: a crew entering a space at a remote location may hold the sheets at a central location provided immediate emergency access by phone, radio, computer or paper copy.

Permit-required confined space entry in Nevada runs on the federal standard; the Division's own chapter adds no entry rules. The state layer is the program around it: the written safety program required by NRS 618.383 must be carried out within 90 days of establishment, delivered in a language and format each employee understands, and, above 25 employees, overseen by a safety committee that includes representatives the employees themselves select. An employer using a temporary employment service must give those workers specialised safety training before they start at each site, or as soon as possible after, which is exactly the population that ends up attending a permit space.

“In order to be a competent person for the purpose of this standard one must have had specific training in, and be knowledgeable about … the use of protective systems, and the requirements of this standard.”

The permit-space program is federal text in South Carolina. The state's one modification in this territory is next door, in excavations: it rewrites the competent person definition at 1926.650(b) to require specific training and demonstrable knowledge, where the federal definition asks only for capability to identify hazards and authority to correct them. On a trench that is also a permit-required confined space, both apply, and the person signing the entry permit has a state-defined training threshold to meet that the federal definition does not state.

Permit-required confined spaces are adopted federal text in Tennessee. The state overlay to remember is the chemical one: atmospheric testing in a permit space is measured against the exposure limits Tennessee adopted at 0800-1-1-.07(2), which come from the 1989 air contaminants rule rather than the current federal Table Z. A reading that clears the federal limit does not automatically clear the Tennessee one, and the entry permit has to reflect the limit that actually applies.

“Employees shall be provided with and use approved type safety harnesses and shall be tied off securely so as to be suspended above the level of the product before entering any bin, chute or storage place containing material that might cave or run.”

Utah writes engulfment protection as its own rule rather than leaving it inside the permit-space program. Before entering any bin, chute or storage place holding material that can cave or run, the worker is in an approved harness tied off so as to be suspended above the product, not merely attached. Cleaning and barring down starts from the top, using bars blunt on one end or with a ring or D handhold. Employees may not work on top of material stored above chutes, drawholes or conveyors while material is being withdrawn unless protected, and those openings must carry grizzlies or equivalent devices to prevent a fall in. The federal standard reaches the same hazard through permits and atmospheric testing; Utah reaches it through prescribed physical measures.

Vermont keeps the federal split between general industry permit spaces and construction confined spaces, and publishes the construction rules as their own adopted document. Nothing in either is rewritten. The Vermont layer that reaches inside a permit space is the exposure table: atmospheric testing is measured against Vermont's Table Z-1-A rather than the federal Table Z, so a reading that clears the federal limit does not automatically clear the state one.

“New systems under construction or new installations which have not yet been connected to a used system, may substitute forced ventilation for the testing requirements of chapter 296-809 WAC…”

Federal law splits confined spaces in two: 1910.146 for general industry, Subpart AA of Part 1926 for construction. Washington runs one chapter, 296-809, and WAC 296-155-203 sends all construction work into it, which is why host-employer and controlling-contractor duties appear in the same rule a plant would use. Washington also carries an allowance with no federal counterpart: on sewer systems still under construction and not yet connected to a used system, WAC 296-155-20307 permits forced ventilation in place of atmospheric testing, but only with ventilation running at least five minutes before entry, a continuous air supply, exhaust discharged clear of other workers, and an attendant at the surface who cannot leave until everyone is out and the cover is back on.

“29 C.F.R. §§ 1926.1200 - 1926.1213 (2015) as it was in effect on September 13, 2024.”

Wyoming splits confined spaces the way federal law does, and pins the two halves differently. General industry permit spaces sit in Chapter 10 at the 2016 edition as in effect June 19, 2018. Construction confined spaces have their own Chapter 27, holding 1926.1200 through 1926.1213 at the 2015 edition as it stood on September 13, 2024, a later refresh than most of the construction chapters received. On a jobsite it is Chapter 27 that governs, and it is one of the more recently updated rules in the Wyoming set.