At its November 21 meeting in Los Angeles, the Cal/OSHA Standards Board approved a request from Cal/OSHA to empanel an advisory committee of stakeholders to examine agency regulations around the use of autonomous agricultural equipment including autonomous tractors. The advisory committee will be charged to make recommendations to revise occupational safety and health standards to allow for autonomous equipment use in workplaces regulated by Cal/OSHA.

Agricultural employers and equipment manufacturers have expressed concern that existing regulations requiring a human operator could retard adoption of technology that will remove human operators from dangerous occupations, like human-driven tractors which continue to be a source of agricultural workplace injuries. In recent years, some autonomous equipment has been utilized like autonomous air blast sprayers and weeders in locations where no employees are present.

Until an August memorandum to the Standards Board from Acting Cal/OSHA Director Debra Lee, it was unclear what limitations on use of autonomous equipment might apply when employees are not present where such equipment is in use. In the August memorandum, the Agency acknowledged it has no jurisdiction in locations where autonomous equipment is in use in the absence of employees since such a location would not be a workplace within Cal/OSHA’s regulatory jurisdiction.