Fall Protection across the state plans

“a beam shall be connected with a minimum of two bolts at each end; a beam may not be cut free until the minimum number of bolts have been installed; a connection of a beam by a wrench or drift pin does not meet the requirements of this paragraph.”

Fall protection arrives through a range rather than a blanket adoption: 8 AAC 61.1010(c) takes 1926.10 through 1926.29, 1926.31 through 1926.1153, Subpart AA and the crane sections, all "as amended". Note what is missing from that list: 1926.1 through 1926.9, and 1926.30. On steel, Alaska then adds its own sequence rules at 8 AAC 61.1150: a designated signaller, one end bolted before the other is started, two bolts minimum at each end before the load is cut free, anchor bolts fully tightened or temporary guys affixed before lifting falls are detached, and employees straddling the beam rather than walking the top flange where feasible.

“Approved personal fall arrest, personal fall restraint or positioning systems shall be worn by those employees whose work exposes them to falling in excess of 7 1/2 feet from the perimeter of a structure, unprotected sides and edges, leading edges, through shaftways and openings, sloped roof surfaces steeper than 7:12…”

California writes its own Construction Safety Orders and does not use 1926.501. The general trigger is seven and a half feet, not six, both for personal fall protection under §1670(a) and for railings under §1621(a), which reaches scaffolds, runways, ramps, platforms and wall openings alike. Roofing is carved out to its own section: §1730 sets thresholds by roof slope and covering type, and for single-unit (monolithic) coverings it requires protection above twenty feet, measured from the walking surface to the level below with parapet height excluded. So California is not uniformly stricter than the federal standard: its general trigger sits above the federal six feet, and roofs are structured entirely differently, which is why a federal-numbered fall protection plan does not map onto a California jobsite at all.

“Projects employing one (1) to ninety-nine (99) persons, at any single moment in the work day, shall have an employee assigned to make at least one inspection each workday; Projects employing one hundred (100) to one hundred ninety-nine (199) persons shall have two employees assigned, each to make at least one inspection each work day…”

Hawaii requires a daily safety inspection on every construction project, scaled to headcount, with one more designated inspector for each additional three hundred workers above 199, and written records kept. The general contractor arranges it; where there is none, the owner does or names a contractor to. Federal law has nothing equivalent: 1926.20(b)(2) asks for frequent and regular inspections by a competent person without setting a cadence or a ratio. Hawaii also defines a word the federal fall-protection scheme leans on but never defines: infeasible means it is impossible to perform the work using all available means and methods, or technologically impossible to use safety equipment or safe practices. That definition is what a fall protection plan written under 1926.501(b)(2) has to satisfy here.

“The employer shall use a measure that meets the criteria established in this section and shall not be required to demonstrate that it is infeasible or creates a greater hazard to use guardrail systems, safety net systems, or personal fall arrest systems before using a measure provided in this section.”

Kentucky adopts 1926.500 through 1926.501(b)(12) and 1926.501(b)(14) through 1926.503, the July 1, 2016 edition of the CFR. The paragraph missing from that list is (b)(13), residential construction, and 803 KAR 2:412 Section 3 replaces it. The practical effect is the sentence above: on a stand-alone single family dwelling, duplex, threeplex or fourplex, a Kentucky employer may use the state's prescribed measures without first proving that conventional fall protection is infeasible or more hazardous, which is the showing federal law requires. The six-foot trigger does not move, and the measures are prescriptive: for interior floor system work with joists 18 inches on center or less, the first truss is set from the ground, a ladder or a scaffold, and the rest from a secured temporary platform at least 18 inches wide that the worker must stay on.

“An employer shall: (1) Provide drinking water at no cost to exposed employees as close to the work area as practicable; and (2) Make available at least 32 ounces of drinking water per hour to each exposed employee per work day.”

Fall protection in Maryland is the federal standard, adopted through the notice-by-notice list in COMAR 09.12.31.01: Subpart M entries appear there with their own Maryland effective dates, which is where to confirm whether a federal amendment has been taken up. The state duty that reaches roofers and steel crews hardest is elsewhere: COMAR 09.12.32 fixes drinking water at 32 ounces per hour per exposed employee, provided free and as close to the work area as practicable, once the heat index reaches 80. It is a quantity, not a general obligation to make water available, and it is enforceable on its own terms.

“29 C.F.R. § 1926.501 "Duty to have fall protection," effective January 26, 1995.”

Michigan does not apply the current federal fall-protection text. R 408.44502 adopts 1926.501, 1926.502 and 1926.503 by reference at a named date (January 26, 1995) and 1926.500 at July 10, 2014, so later amendments to the federal sections do not reach a Michigan jobsite until MIOSHA amends the rule. Part 45 itself is short by design: it routes the actual criteria out to other MIOSHA parts, with ladders and stairways going to Part 11 and Part 21, scaffolds to Part 12, steel erection to Part 26 and aerial work to Part 32. Read the federal section on osha.gov and you may be reading text Michigan never adopted.

“In those instances where floor or wall opening covers are used, they shall be labeled, "Floor Opening -- Do Not Remove," or "Wall Opening -- Do Not Remove" as applicable with lettering at least two inches in height.”

Minnesota takes the federal fall-protection sections whole (its adoption rule names each Federal Register notice individually, 101 of them for Part 1926, the most recent dated December 12, 2024) so the six-foot trigger and the 1926.502 criteria are the federal ones. On top of that, Minn. R. 5207.0250 adds specifics: hole covers must carry that exact wording at a stated letter height, where 1926.502(i)(4) only asks for the word "HOLE" or "COVER"; covers must be secured against accidental displacement; and projecting rebar, conduit and pipe ends creating impaling hazards must be barricaded, guarded or covered.

“There may be activities that occur during and are part of steel erection where conventional fall protection methods may not offer adequate protection for employees. The employer shall establish and determine when to implement employee fall protection measures as described in 1926.760 or the more protective measures described in 1926.502 …”

North Carolina incorporates Part 1926 as promulgated on January 1, 2025 and expressly excludes later amendments, then modifies it in a handful of rules. Rule .0205 is the one that touches falls directly: it restates the steel erection scope (listing hoisting, connecting, welding, burning, guying, bracing, bolting, plumbing, rigging, installing metal decking and moving point-to-point) and puts the choice between the 1926.760 measures and the more protective 1926.502 criteria expressly on the employer. Rule .0204 adds a locking-snaphook requirement to 1926.104, a section that federally says nothing about keeper design.

“the provisions of 29 CFR Part 1910, Occupational Safety and Health Standards, identified by the United States department of labor as applicable to the construction industry and incorporated by 11.5.2 NMAC … are hereby made applicable to construction.”

Fall protection is incorporated federal text in New Mexico, with two structural points around it. Subpart A of Part 1926 (1926.1 through 1926.5) and Subpart B (1926.10 through 1926.16) are omitted, so the general interpretations a federal citation sometimes leans on are not part of the New Mexico rule. And subsection B does something most states leave implicit: it makes every Part 1910 standard that the Department of Labor identifies as applicable to construction expressly applicable here, incorporated through the general industry part.

“If a construction worker other than a supervisory employee fails to present his or her employer with a current and valid completion card for an OSHA-10 course not later than 15 days after being hired, the employer shall suspend or terminate his or her employment.”

Nevada is the state where fall protection training is a hiring condition rather than a program element. Every construction worker must hold an OSHA-10 completion card within 15 days of being hired and every supervisory employee an OSHA-30 card, and if the card is not produced the employer must suspend or terminate. The statute uses "shall". The Division fines the employer for failing to do so, starting at up to $500 for a first violation. Only a trainer authorized by federal OSHA, registered with the Division and displaying a trainer card, may give the course, and the trainer reports every completion to the Division.

“This subarticle is identical to federal regulations contained in 29 CFR 1926 … except for the following modifications: A. Subparts A and B of 29 CFR 1926 of federal standards do not apply to South Carolina.”

Fall protection itself is federal text in South Carolina: Subpart M is untouched. What the state changed is the front of the part: Subparts A and B do not apply, 1926.30 and 1926.31 are deleted in their entirety, 1926.32(a) is deleted, and 1926.20(a) is rewritten as a contractor requirement that no contractor or subcontractor may require a laborer or mechanic to work in surroundings that are unsanitary, hazardous or dangerous. Those are the general safety and health provisions a fall-protection citation is often paired with, so the companion sections in a South Carolina citation will not always be the ones a federal-trained safety manager expects.

“29 CFR 1926.6 and 1926.20 through the end of part 1926, of the July 1, 2018, edition are incorporated by reference.”

Two things follow from how Utah incorporates the construction standards. The edition is dated (July 1, 2018) so the operative text is that edition rather than the current CFR, and the rule's last substantive amendment was December 23, 2019. And the incorporation starts at 1926.6 and 1926.20: everything before it, the Subpart A and early Subpart B provisions, is outside the incorporation. The six-foot trigger and the 1926.502 criteria arrive whole, but the general provisions a federal citation is often paired with do not.

“The use of controlled decking zones is prohibited.”

Virginia adopts 1926.501 as federal-identical under 16VAC25-175, but it wrote its own rule for steel erection and gave it precedence: 16VAC25-145-10 states that where it conflicts with 1926.500, 1926.751 through 1926.759, 1926.761 or Appendix D, Virginia's chapter controls. The differences are real. Controlled decking zones, permitted federally under 1926.760(c), are banned outright. Connectors must be protected from ten feet, and provided with a personal fall arrest, positioning or restraint system from ten up to thirty feet. Perimeter safety cables go in at the final interior and exterior perimeters as soon as the metal decking is installed, and unsecured decking may not exceed 3,000 square feet.

“The employer must ensure that fall arrest systems, fall restraint systems, or positioning device systems are provided, installed, and implemented … when employees are exposed to fall hazards of four feet or more to the ground or lower level.”

Washington does not use 1926.501, and it no longer uses the construction fall-protection sections it wrote to replace it: WAC 296-155-24601 through -24624 were repealed on October 1, 2020 and folded into a single chapter covering every industry, WAC 296-880. The default trigger there is four feet, not six. Six feet survives only for roofing work on a low-pitched roof and for constructing a leading edge, and ten feet only for erecting structural members and for excavation work (296-880-30005). Separately, 296-880-10020 requires a written fall protection work plan wherever fall hazards of ten feet or more exist (identifying the hazards, the systems, the rescue method) and it must be on site for the department to inspect. There is no federal counterpart to that document.