In today's general industry, employees are occasionally required to work in confined spaces not designed for normal occupancy. Examples of these types of locations include, but are not limited to, storage tanks, sewers, underground storage, silos, and pipelines. These types of confined spaces pose the danger of entrapment, engulfment, and hazardous atmospheric conditions. Because of these hazards, it is the responsibility of employers to identify confined space requirements and mitigate hazards to the lowest possible level. This is generally accomplished through training and a written program that meets the requirements set forth in federal regulations. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) establishes standards for confined spaces subject to permitting with 29CFR 1910.146, which applies to all general industry. This standard was introduced on January 14, 1993 and went into effect on April 15, 1993. However, the proposal for this standard began many years earlier, after review of accident data revealed the need for regulation. OSHA issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (54 FR 24080) in June 1989, after determining that asphyxia was the leading cause of death in confined spaces. An OSHA analysis of accident data also found cases of victims being burned, coming into contact with moving augers and crushed by rotating parts inside machinery. OSHA believes that, as noted in the NPRM (54 FR 24098), failure to take adequate precautions for authorized space entry operations has resulted in deaths, rather than injuries, more frequently than would be predicted using the Bureau's applicable models of Labor Statistics (www.OSHA.gov). In determining what the regulation should consist of, OSHA studied information already gathered by the National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH), the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and the’