regulation
sb admin | September 3, 2008On Friday, August 29, Carolyn Merritt, 61, the former chair of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (2002-2007) passed away after a valiant battle against metastic breast cancer. Advocates for workers' safety will remember Ms. Merritt as an outspoken expert who minced no words when she insisted that work-related injuries and fatalities are PREVENTABLE.
Tammy Miser of United Support and Memorial for Workplace Fatalities (USMWF) came to know the CSB chairwoman after Tammy lost her brother, Shawn Boone, in an aluminum dust explosion at his workplace in Huntington,…
revere | September 1, 2008This really makes me crazy. I've already ranted about it at least twice (here and here), going back to January 2005. I thought this one was settled in the only way commonsense would allow. But commonsense isn't very common with some judges.
Here's the gist. Back in 2004 a small meatpacker, Creekstone Farms, wanted to test its cattle for mad cow disease (BSE or bovine spongiform encephalopathy). There is no cure for BSE. In fact there isn't even a treatment for it. It's fatal 100% of the time. The best you can do is prevent it. You do this by not allowing cattle that harbor the agent, an…
sb admin | August 28, 2008Will someone just go and put up a sign "Proudly Screwing Workers: 2,827 Straight Days" on the Labor Department building?Â
Late yesterday I learned that Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, Asst. Secretary Leon Sequeira and her other political minions sent a proposed rule to the Federal Register which will change the process by which OSHA and MSHA assess workers' risk to health-harming contaminants.Â
The proposed rule confirms Chao's desire to make it more cumbersome and time-consuming for OSHA and MSHA to issue health-protective standards. It mandates, for example, that the agencies issue…
sb admin | August 27, 2008by Tom Bethell
(Posted with permission from The Mountain Eagle, Whitesburg, KY)
Just when you think youâve seen it all, somebody in the Bush administration comes up with another way to compromise somebody elseâs rights. The latest example is Richard Stickler, director of the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
MSHA has been much in the news since 2006. Coal miners have suffered a string of disasters â Sago, Aracoma Alma, Kentucky Darby, Crandall Canyon â that might have been avoided or mitigated if MSHA since 2001 had stuck to its congressionally mandated job, which is law enforcement. But…
sb admin | August 26, 2008Hmph!  I just read on the OMB/OIRA website that they have completed their review of Labor Secretary Chao's proposal to change the way that OSHA and MSHA assess workers' risk of health hazards. The OIRA website notice says their review was completed on August 25, and it was approved "consistent with change."Â
Well, I guess I didn't really expect Secretary Chao or one of her political associates to call me personally to discuss the August 14 letter that 80 public health scientists sent to her. In that letter, we urged Elaine Chao to withdraw her proposal from OMB review. I…
sb admin | August 25, 2008It looks like California is once again picking up the slack for a federal agencies failing in their regulatory responsibilities. In this case, theyâre addressing the issue of chemicals in consumer products, as a step toward a broader âGreen Chemistry Initiative,â which is âaimed at promoting development of safer chemicals with policies to spur green design, manufacturing, use and disposal.â
The Sacramento Beeâs Steve Wigand explains this latest move from California:
The two-bill deal, negotiated among legislators, the Schwarzenegger administration and environmental and chemical industry…
sb admin | August 25, 2008On Saturday afternoon, I sat at my computer screen and watched Barack Obama announce Senator Joe Biden as his running mate. I think it's a good pick for a multitude of reasons---some personal, some political and some practical. When Biden spoke on Saturday, I found myself smiling and nodding my head in agreement. When he said the following,
"...of all my years in the Senate, I have never in my life seen Washington so broken. I have never seen so many dreams denied and so many decisions deferred by politicians who are trying like the devil to escape their responsibility and…
sb admin | August 24, 2008Imagine being an MSHA inspector and being asked by independent investigators for your honest and frank opinion about the events surrounding the August 2007 disaster at the Crandall Canyon mine, which took the lives of nine men. You decide to participate because you genuinely believe in MSHA's mission---enforcing safety and health laws to protect miners' lives---and hope that your insight will help to improve the agency's ability to do just that.Â
Imagine now a sucker-punch in your gut as you learn that the transcript of your confidential interview has been read by your boss' boss' boss…
sb admin | August 20, 2008First, the good news: A federal appeals court has struck down a 2006 EPA rule that prohibited state and local governments from strengthening efforts to monitor pollution from power plants, factories, and refineries.
Under the Clean Air Act, state and local governments are tasked with issuing pollution permits to power plants, factories, and other polluters. Theyâre supposed to update their monitoring requirements with EPA guidance, but such guidance hasnât been forthcoming. When EPA proposed requiring that state and local governments improve their monitoring without that guidance, industry…
revere | August 20, 2008Everyone seems to agree about one thing concerning Vice President Cheney's senior aide, F. Chase Hutto III. He never met an environmental regulation he didn't just hate and oppose on principle. According to the Washington Post he has been instrumental in keeping our air and water dirtier than it needs to be. Just another day at the office in the Bush administration. Now, in the waning days of the Bush Reich, they want to name him a high official in the Department of Energy where he will in charge of policies related to climate change. The foundation of the climate change debate is the science…
sb admin | August 18, 2008Today, the Washington Post editorial page weighs in on the Department of Laborâs attempt to erect more hurdles to worker protection. (For more details on the proposed rule, see this case study or this blog post.) Like the New York Times editorial published two weeks ago, this one begins by noting that the Department has failed its duty to workers for the past 7+ years, but that itâs now going even further by writing its pro-industry stance into policy.
Hereâs the Washington Postâs description of what the proposed rule would do:
A last-minute policy push is nothing new to presidential…
sb admin | August 14, 2008Celeste Monforton was the first to publicize the nine-word item on the White House website that turned out to be a risk-assessment rule that would make it harder for OSHA and MSHA to protect workers from hazards. (Read more about it here.) Now, Celeste has teamed up with NRDCâs Jennifer Sass and gathered 80 scientists and occupational health experts to tell Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to withdraw the rule.
Their letter, sent earlier today, cites three concerns with the proposed rule:
It alters the definition of a working life from 45 years to an average number of years, which would result…
revere | August 13, 2008The Bush administration wants to slow walk worker protection regulations, even when required by law, through the use of additional layers of review by the Office of Management and Budget. We wrote about this recently here (and see Celeste Monforton's excellent work at The Pump Handle). But let's be fair. The Bush administration doesn't always want to slow up rule making. At least not when wealthy land developers or their cronies in federal agencies are concerned:
The Bush administration wants federal agencies to decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction…
sb admin | August 12, 2008Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, her Solicitor and other political operatives in DOL continue to dismiss requests from Cong. George Miller (D-CA) and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) for documents related to the development of her draft risk assessment proposal. The latest non-response, dated Aug 5, refers five times to the almighty "deliberative process" as a reason for refusing to disclose information related to the outside contractors who were involved in its development. That's just plain hogwash.
If you look closely at Congress' request for records, they ask for:
a list of all…
sb admin | August 12, 2008The Bush Administration wants to make it easier for federal agencies to get around the Endangered Species Act. The Washington Postâs Juliet Eilperin explains:
Under current law, agencies must subject any plans that potentially affect endangered animals and plants to an independent review by the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service. Under the proposed new rules, dam and highway construction and other federal projects could proceed without delay if the agency in charge decides they would not harm vulnerable species.
But how is, say, the Department of Transportation…
sb admin | August 12, 2008The Whole Foods chain is recalling fresh ground beef sold in several states between June 2 and August 6, 2008 after seven people in Massachusetts were sickened by E. coli 0157:H7 that was linked to the meat. Illnesses have also been reported in 11 other states, DC, and Canada. The meat came from Nebraska Beef, and was sold to Whole Foods by Coleman Natural Meats.
In todayâs Washington Post, Annys Shin notes that this recall highlights a difference in the way USDA treats different cuts of meat:
The ground beef that Whole Foods recalled was made using primal or intact cuts -- meat typically…
sb admin | August 7, 2008Kathy G directs our attention to Thomas Frankâs Wall Street Journal column (sub only), which uses the AgriProcessors meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa to illustrate Labor Secretary Elaine Chaoâs record. In May this plant, which happens to be the countryâs largest kosher meatpacking facility, was the site of the largest single immigration enforcement operation at a single workplace: 389 workers were detained. It turned out that several of these workers were underage â an especially serious problem given that meatpacking is such a dangerous job.
The New York Times followed up on the issue of…
sb admin | August 7, 2008by Nathan Fetty
An editorial in today's New York Times is the latest media piece about the abysmal failures surrounding last summer's Crandall Canyon mine disaster in Utah. Now that investigators have revealed how the company knew of the mine's dangers, the Times says, a criminal probe is in order. Plus, MSHA's deference to the company's flawed engineering plan only made matters worse.
Clearly, as the Times points out, MSHA's aversion to hands-on enforcement has led to disastrous consequences.
The New York Times'Â editorial: Greed Above, Death Below or (full PDF) reminds readers of why a…
sb admin | August 5, 2008Tom Bethell of The Mountain Eagle urges us (and policymakers) to read the independent investigation of MSHA and the Crandall Canyon disaster, by two former MSHA District Managers, to understand how the Secretary of Labor's demand for 'compliance assistance' programs set the groundwork for the deadly workplace conditions for our nation's mine workers.Â
Posted with permission from The Mountain Eagle (Whitesburg, KY), "Destined to Fail"
by Tom Bethell
Exactly a year ago â on August 6, 2007 â the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah caved in, trapping six coal miners. Here in eastern Kentucky weâre…
sb admin | August 4, 2008Tom Barton, the editorial page editor of the Savannah Morning News, blasts the behavior and attitude of the Imperial Sugar CEO John Sheptor and other senior executives in the wake of last week's Senate hearing and the July 25 announcement by OSHA of a $8.8 million penalty against the firm. Thirteen inviduals were killed in the combustible-dust disaster, three remain hospitalized and 33 other workers were injured.
In Heads should roll at Imperial, Barton writes about how two former Savannah families used to own and operate the sugar refinery:Â
"...workers were treated like extended…