regulation
garrettbrown | March 3, 2017by Garrett Brown
On February 10th, California’s Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) proposed revised and stronger regulations for oil refineries in the state after a 4½-year joint campaign by labor unions, environmental and community organizations to protect both refinery workers and nearby communities. The regulatory proposal now goes to the state’s Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board for consideration and final approval.
This successful “blue-green” coalition held off industry pressure and reversed earlier back-door revisions to the proposal by DIR to benefit the oil…
kkrisberg | March 1, 2017In 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a report finding 457 fracking-related spills in eight states between 2006 and 2012. Last month, a new study tallied more than 6,600 fracking spills in just four states between 2005 and 2014. But, as usual, the numbers only tell part of the story.
Not every spill counted in that new number represents a spill of potentially harmful materials or even a spill that made contact with the environment. In fact, the study’s goal wasn’t to tally an absolute number of fracking spills. Instead, researchers set out to collect available spill data…
garrettbrown | February 8, 2017By Garrett Brown, MPH, CIH and Deeg Gold, MPH CIH
In late January, Donald Trump’s press secretary described his immigration and refugee Executive Order as “ripping off the Band-Aid” to get at immigrants. The next week, Trump issued another Executive Order on regulations and is preparing other measures to “rip off the Band-Aid” to get at worker health and safety. Our strategic response has to be more than simply defending the status quo ante; we have to rebuild the social movement that was powerful enough 50 years ago to force another right-wing Republican president, Richard Nixon, to…
kkrisberg | February 7, 2017At the American Prospect, Justin Miller interviews Obama-era Labor Department officials on the future of worker protections under President Trump. Miller takes a behind-the-scenes peek at what it took to pass some of the Obama administration’s key labor rules, discusses the nomination of Andy Puzder to become the nation’s next labor secretary, and addresses rumors that the new administration might be gunning to abolish some Labor Department divisions entirely. Miller writes:
Not surprisingly, Obama’s top labor alums express pride in the many worker protections they were able to put in place…
kkrisberg | February 7, 2017Not violating federal labor law seems like a commonsense precursor for being awarded lucrative federal contracts. House Republicans, however, disagree.
Last week, majority members in the House of Representatives successfully passed a resolution to get rid of federal disclosure requirements included in President Barack Obama’s Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order, which he originally signed in 2014. Those disclosure requirements directed businesses bidding for federal contracts of $500,000 or more to report any violations of 14 labor laws within the prior three years. Among those 14…
cmonforton | January 30, 2017Hearing someone describe a situation as “one step forward, two steps back” is never a good thing. When it involves efforts to protect people’s health or public safety, the consequences can be dire. President Trump doesn’t care. He’s making good on a ludicrous campaign pledge that for every one regulation issued by a federal agency, the agency will have to offset the cost by eliminating two existing regulations. He issued that order today. The nonsense goes something like this:
FAA: “We need to enhance testing requirements to protect against flocking birds affecting airplane engines. That's…
cmonforton | January 12, 2017Chronic beryllium disease is a horrible illness, as is lung cancer. Both diseases are the rationale for a new health standard issued by OSHA on January 9.
The rule is designed to protect the health of an estimated 60,000 workers in the U.S. who are exposed to the light-weight, super-strong metal: beryllium. This includes about 10,000 workers involved in electric-power generation; 9,000 workers in dental laboratories and dental offices; 8,400 in specialty construction trades; 5,600 in motor vehicle parts manufacturing; and 3,000 in the maritime industry who are welders and abrasive blasters.…
kkrisberg | January 10, 2017Because taking health insurance away from millions of Americans isn’t bad enough, President-elect Trump has reportedly asked an outspoken critic of vaccines — a man who supported the thoroughly debunked notion that vaccines are linked to autism — to lead a commission on vaccine safety.
That man is Robert Kennedy Jr., who in 2005 wrote a “expose” published in Salon and Rolling Stone arguing that thimerosal, a preservative in vaccines, is tied to autism. Salon retracted the article after critics “further eroded any faith we had in the story’s value.” Rolling Stone dumped the story too. More…
lborkowski | January 3, 2017The Pump Handle is on a holiday break. The following, which was originally published on April 25, is one of our favorite posts from 2016.
by Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH
During 1999-2000, reporter Andrew Schneider blew the lid off the asbestos disaster in Libby, Montana. Schneider’s original stories, published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, drew national attention to the public health catastrophe in the town. The culprit was the W.R. Grace Company, with supporting roles played by lax regulatory agencies and cowardly public officials.
Schneider wrote dozens of articles for the Post-…
lborkowski | January 2, 2017The Pump Handle is on a holiday break. The following, which was originally published on Jan. 29, is one of our favorite posts from 2016.
by Kim Krisberg
In the midst of another national debate over gun safety regulations, some argue that higher rates of gun ownership will protect people from dangerous strangers with deadly intentions. Physician and public health researcher Michael Siegel set out to study that argument. He ultimately found no relationship between gun ownership and stranger-related firearm homicides. But he did find that gun ownership levels translated into higher homicide…
lborkowski | December 30, 2016The Pump Handle is on a holiday break. The following, which was originally published on May 23, is one of our favorite posts from 2016.
by Kim Krisberg
Last summer, 25-year-old Roendy Granillo died of heat stroke while he installed flooring in a house in Melissa, Texas, just north of Dallas. His tragic and entirely preventable death marked a turning point in advocacy efforts to pass a rest break ordinance for local construction workers.
About five months after Granillo’s death, the Dallas City Council voted 10-5 to approve such an ordinance, which requires that construction workers be given a…
lborkowski | December 29, 2016The Pump Handle is on a holiday break. The following, which was originally published on March 9, is one of our favorite posts from 2016.
by Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH
The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) continues to make the case that consumers and contractors should stay away from paint strippers that contain methylene chloride. The CDPH’s latest effort is a 7-minute video released last week by the agency's Occupational Health Branch. It features a painter named Jason who nearly died while working with a methylene chloride-based paint stripper. He and two co-workers were…
kkrisberg | December 20, 2016At the Center for Public Integrity, Jim Morris reports on working conditions at the nation’s oil refineries, writing that more than 500 refinery incidents have been reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency since 1994, calling into question the adequacy of EPA and federal labor rules designed to protect workers as well as the public. Morris begins the story with John Moore, who in 2010 was working at a Tesoro Corporation oil refinery north of Seattle — he writes:
Up the hill from Moore, in the Naphtha Hydrotreater unit, seven workers were restoring to service a bank of heat…
cmonforton | December 15, 2016Canada's Minister of Science Kirsty Duncan announced today that her country plans to implement a comprehensive ban on asbestos by 2018. The proposal includes:
Banning the import of asbestos-containing products such as construction materials and brake pads;
Expanding the on-line registry of asbestos-containing buildings;
Prohibiting the use of asbestos in new construction and renovation projects; and
Improving workplace health and safety rules to limit the risk of contact with asbestos.
Duncan indicated that the Canadian government's action will involve several agencies. Foreshadowing that…
cmonforton | December 13, 2016Poultry processing workers and food safety inspectors are being doused with chemicals in the name of food safety. A slew of antimicrobial agents are approved by the USDA to be used on meat and poultry. The chemicals are considered edible for consumers, but no assessments are made by USDA (or other agencies) on the health risks to workers.
The problem now has the attention of some Members of Congress. Representatives Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and others sent a letter last week to USDA Secretary Vilsack, HHS Secretary Burwell, and Labor Secretary Perez. They expressed "deep…
cmonforton | December 8, 2016EPA deserves another pat on the back. The agency is again moving swiftly to use its authority under the chemical safety law passed by Congress earlier this year. Yesterday the agency announced a proposed rule to ban the use of trichloroethylene (TCE) in two specific applications. If adopted, TCE would be prohibited from use as a spot- cleaning agent in dry cleaning operations and as an aerosol spray degreaser in commercial and consumer settings.
Exposure to TCE is associated with adverse health effects to the kidneys, liver, and immune and reproductive systems. It is a developmental toxin,…
cmonforton | December 7, 2016Bud Wesley, 65, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Wednesday, November 30, while working at Spectrum Industries in Belding, Michigan. The Daily News reports:
The incident occurred at about 5 a.m.
The city’s police chief said that Mr. Wesley “was a part of the night maintenance crew at the facility. They were doing some high-level work and he fell from his working position.”
The company’s president said that Mr. Wesley was employed by the firm since 1998.
Spectrum Industries is a privately-held firm with 400 employees. Its business involves “the application of functional and decorative…
cmonforton | November 30, 2016Good for them! They beat Congress’ deadline by 20 days.
That’s the first thing that came to mind yesterday when I read EPA’s announcement about the first 10 chemicals it's selected for risk evaluations. EPA’s announcement is the first major milestone established by Congress when it passed sweeping changes earlier this year to the Toxic Substances Control Act. One provision of the law (Section 2605(b)(2)(A)) directed EPA to select 10 chemical substances from its 2014 "TSCA Work Plan for Chemical Assessments" and begin risk evaluations on them no later than 180 days after the law was enacted (i…
egrossman | October 24, 2016The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced the first five chemicals it will “fast-track” under the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act for the 21st Century (LCSA). The EPA now has until June 22, 2019 to identify where these chemicals – all considered persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic – are used, how exposures occur, and propose possible restrictions on their use.
“The threats from persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic chemicals [PBTs] are well-documented,” Jim Jones, assistant administrator in EPA’s office of chemical safety and pollution prevention, explained in a…
egrossman | October 12, 2016Four years ago, in August 2012, a corroded pipe at the Chevron refinery in Richmond, California ruptured, resulting in a catastrophic fire and a toxic vapor plume that engulfed, not only the refinery, but also spread over the northeastern San Francisco Bay area. Nineteen Chevron employees were caught up in the vapor cloud and one was trapped by a fireball. Remarkably, all survived. In the next several days, some 15,000 people in communities surrounding the refinery sought medical attention for symptoms related to smoke exposure. According to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, among the reported…