lborkowski | October 5, 2010Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House roof; Ronald Reagan took them down. Today, at the GreenGov Symposium (taking place here at George Washington University), Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced that the Obama administration will install solar panels and a solar hot water heater on the White House roof by the end of this spring. (Visit Adam Werbach's blog for a video of the announcement.)
This doesn't address the problem of Congress being unable to pass the climate legislation we need, but it does show that the Obama administration recognizes the importance of renewable…
cmonforton | October 4, 2010Ever since the Reagan Administration, the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), which is part of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), has been reviewing rules proposed by federal agencies. These regulations might come from the Dept of Energy (DOE) on efficiency standards for home refrigerators, HHS rule on premarket safety report for drugs or devices, or the Dept of Transportation (DOT) on limiting the use of wireless devices by commercial drivers. Presidential Executive Order (EO) 12866, issued in 1993 by President Clinton, is the instrument that grants…
lborkowski | October 4, 2010
New Solutions: The Drawing Board is a monthly feature produced by the journal New Solutions. Read more about it here.
By Madeline Kangsen Scammell
The following poem was written by Genevieve K. Howe, MPH, a former student and colleague of Professor Richard W. Clapp, DSc, MPH, to honor him upon his retirement from the faculty of the Boston University School of Public Health's Department of Environmental Health. Dr. Clapp is a world-renowned cancer epidemiologist. The following poem addresses only one of the countless issues he has worked on.
The poem refers to the struggles of IBM electronics…
cmonforton | October 1, 2010The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) is preparing to propose new regulations to protect coal mine workers from the respirable dust hazards that cause black lung disease. In May, the Labor Department's regulatory agenda indicated that MSHA would propose a rule in September. The White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) completed its review of the rule, deemed to be economically significant, on September 29. The proposal was returned to MSHA from OIRA with the notation that it is approved "consistent with change." Depending on the complexity of…
cmonforton | September 30, 2010Federal OSHA offered praise for some States, and warnings to others, in its 26 evaluations released this week of State-run worker safety programs. Hawaii's and Utah's programs were identified as having "significant program deficiencies," with evaluators expressing uncertainty about the States' "ability and commitment to operate an effective enforcement program." * Findings about the Aloha State's worker safety enforcement program were particularly grim, compelling OSHA asst. secretary David Michaels to write to Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle with a special offer: Hawaii gives up its…
lborkowski | September 29, 2010Becoming a mayor or a journalist might not seem like a particularly life-threatening career choice, but in parts of Mexico wracked by drug violence these have become dangerous jobs. Tim Johnson of McClatchy Newspapers reports:
As if Mexicans needed more evidence that criminal groups are trying to hijack the political life of the nation, it came with a ferocious triple-whammy punch in the past 24 hours.
Assailants shot and seriously wounded the mayor-elect of a town in the border state of Chihuahua Friday afternoon, less than a day after commandos in Nuevo Leon state executed a sitting mayor…
lborkowski | September 28, 2010Peter Janiszewski at Obesity Panacea has posted a fascinating series on the issue of people who are obese but metabolically healthy. We worry about rising rates of obesity because obesity increases the risk for health problems like diabetes and cardiovascular disease -- but what if that's not universally true? And if it turns out that some obese people aren't at an increased risk of chronic diseases, should they still be urged to lose weight?
The first post in the series introduces the definitions of "obese" and "metabolically healthy":
To date, countless epidemiological studies have shown…
lborkowski | September 27, 2010The latest issue of The Economist features a special report on forests, which perform valuable services like sequestering carbon and regulating runoff. Because people can easily get paid for timber (or crops grown on deforested land) but not so easily for preserving forests, deforestation is rampant. As countries become wealthier, they generally start taking more actions to preserve their forests, but that process won't happen quickly enough to avert an environmental crisis. The Economist's leader article highlights one strategy to speed the transition - and the challenges it faces:
The main…
cmonforton | September 25, 2010Updated below (9/28/2010)
Is anybody else getting tired of hearing Obama Administration officials say "sunlight is the best disinfectant?" It was uttered again on Thursday (9/23) when the President's regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, was speaking at an event hosted by the Small Business Administration. His speech was loaded with all the transparency catch terms: "disclosure," "openness," "sunshine," "open government," "accountability," blah, blah, blah. The rhetoric was annoying to read because I'd been wrestling this week with OIRA's lack of transparency. I've been in the midst of trying…
lborkowski | September 22, 201044-year-old Iraq veteran Tim Wymore suffers from brain lesions, a blood disorder, and other health problems that leave him unable to walk unassisted. His wife, Shanna, quit her job to be his full-time caregiver. Wymore is one of several hundred veterans who've fired lawsuits related to exposure to open-air burn pits at US miliatry installations. Yet he's struggling to get benefits for himself and his family. Phillip O'Connor reports in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
The Department of Veterans Affairs acknowledges that Wymore's health problems are war-related.
But the VA believes his condition…
lborkowski | September 22, 2010September 22nd is World Car-Free Day, when people everywhere are encouraged to get out of their cars and try different modes of getting around. The Metro DC Car-Free Day is also encouraging people to try "Car-Lite" options like carpooling, or to eliminate the need for a trip to the office by working from home. They're asking people to pledge to "eliminate or reduce" their driving today - and the form does ask whether people normally drive or not, so I hope they'll report both numbers.
I thought the bus was a little more crowded than usual this morning (though I also got to the stop a few…
cmonforton | September 21, 2010MSHA announced today that it will be issuing on September 23 an emergency temporary standard (ETS) to improve a practice to prevent coal dust explosions. The rule addresses "rock dusting"----the decades old practice of generously applying pulverized limestone dust throughout a coal mine to dilute the potential power of a coal dust explosion. As NIOSH's Man and Teacoach explain:"...the rock dust disperses, mixes with the coal dust and prevents flame propagation by acting as a thermal inhibitor or heat sink; i.e., the rock dust reduces the flame temperature to the point where devolatilization…
cmonforton | September 21, 2010At today's 2nd annual Distracted Driving Summit, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood laid out the U.S. statistics: "thousands of people are killed or injured every year in accidents caused by distracted drivers" and 500,000 more are injured. Distractions while driving can be new age, such as using a Blackberry or IPhone, or classic like looking at a map or unwrapping a sandwich. Distractions for drivers fit into three categories:
Visual: Taking your eyes off the roadManual: Taking your hands off the wheelCognitive: Taking your mind off what you're doing
Its easy to see how certain…
lborkowski | September 20, 2010If you're working on a major global problem like poverty, it's important to have goals to work towards. Back in 2000, world leaders came together and adopted the United Nations Millennium Declaration, which commits to reducing extreme poverty and sets out a series of goals to be reached by 2015. Each of the eight Millennium Development Goals, as they've come to be known, has between one and five specific targets, many of which involve reducing the proportion (by half, two-thirds, etc.) of people who suffer from a particular condition or lack access to an essential resource like clean drinking…
lborkowski | September 17, 2010In the words of Myron Levin at Fair Warning:The Government Accountability Office (GAO) once again has ripped the whistleblower protection program. ....[It] blames glaring weaknesses on chronic inattention from OSHA leaders."
This latest GAO assessment, "Sustained management attention needed to address long-standing program weaknesses," is an update on a more comprehensive review the oversight agency released in January 2009. GAO analysts continue to identify serious deficiencies in the practices and procedures used by OSHA to ensure that the investigation and disposition of whistleblower…
lborkowski | September 17, 2010Earlier this week, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg presented Frances Kelsey with the first in what will be a series of awards bearing Kelsey's name. Fifty years ago, as a new medical officer with the FDA, Kelsey refused to approve US sale of Kevadon, a drug widely recognized by its generic name, thalidomide. The drug was widely used as a sleep aid and anti-morning-sickness drug in Europe, but Kelsey questioned its safety.
While thousands of children were being born in Europe with missing limbs and other thalidomide-induced birth defects, the US avoided such widespread tragedy. In 1962,…
egrossman | September 16, 2010by Elizabeth Grossman
In mid-June, while reporting from the Gulf Coast, I asked the Deepwater Horizon Incident's Joint Information Center (JIC) who the federal on-scene coordinator had appointed to serve as site safety officer, and for a copy of the Regional Contingency Plan's health and safety plan. Both are requirements under the National Contingency Plan - developed in the wake of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill - that establishes the framework for the emergency response to an oil spill.
Neither the first Coast Guard officer I spoke with, nor the officer who handled the follow-up call…
cmonforton | September 16, 2010The Center for Public Integrity's Jim Morris reports this week on a civil lawsuit between the chemical manufacturer Rohm and Haas, and the family of Franklin Branham, 63, who died just a month after being diagnosed with a glioblastoma brain tumor. The Branham family is the first of 31 victims who lived in McCullom Lake, Illinois and are suing the Dow Chemical subsidiary for contaminating their air and water with vinyl chloride and other carcinogens. In "Brain cancer trial may influence science on toxic chemical," Morris provides a preview of the duel likely to ensue between the plaintiff's…
cmonforton | September 14, 2010Following the suffocation death of Wyatt Whitebread, 14 and Alex Pacas, 19, in Haasbach, Inc.'s grain elevator in Mount Carroll, Illinois, OSHA asst. secretary David Michaels sent a personal letter to more than 3,300 grain storage operators. He sternly reminded them of their legal duty under OSHA's safety standards related to grain handling, including prohibitions against "walking down grain" in the silo to make it flow, and requirements to provide a body harness for workers entering the bin. The asst. secretary warned:"OSHA will not tolerate non-compliance," and "if any employee dies in a…
egrossman | September 14, 2010by Elizabeth Grossman
On September 9th, OSHA announced the award of its 2010 Susan Harwood Capacity Building Grants. The grants will support training in industries that range from meatpacking and agricultural work to beauty salons, supermarkets, and construction - in both remote rural and urban environments. Almost all programs are designed to reach workers in both English and Spanish - among other languages - as well as workers in what OSHA describes as "high risk" industries."The programs funded by these grants will have a long-lasting, positive impact on workers and employers alike,"
said…