May 31, 2012 Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH 2Comment

The Obama Administration’s quest to appease businesses’ claims about burdensome regulations awoke a giant in the form of the civil rights, public health and workers’ safety communities. From the Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Council of LaRaza, to the American Public Health Association, the feedback on USDA’s proposal to “modernize” the poultry inspection process is loud and clear: scrap the idea because faster line speeds will take a grave toll on poultry plant workers.

May 18, 2012 Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH 2Comment

The nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights organization issued an action alert to its members urging them to tell USDA Secretary Vilsack to withdraw a proposed rule that would allow poultry plant operators to increase assembly line speeds to 175 birds per minute. The majority of employees in poultry processing are Hispanic or other vulnerable workers.

April 12, 2012 Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH 3Comment

More than 425 days—-that’s 14 months—-have passed since the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) sent to the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) a draft proposed regulation designed to protect workers who are exposed to respirable crystalline silica. The hazard is one of the oldest known causes of work-related […]

March 12, 2012 Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH 2Comment

Making a $10,000 bet, insulting people for wearing plastic rain ponchos, and asserting that $374,000 is not much to earn in speaking fees are just a few examples of Mitt Romney being out of touch. The Republican Presidential hopeful doesn’t seem to have a clue either about how federal agencies like EPA and OSHA conduct […]

January 3, 2012 Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH 6Comment

When an organization fails to get the little things right, I have difficulty believing they are competent to get the big things right either. That’s the way I feel about the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). OIRA is part of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), was created by the […]

November 28, 2011 Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH

A new report by the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) confirms what some of us have suspected: there’s not much difference between the Obama Admininstration’s and GW Bush Administration’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) when it comes to meetings with industry lobbyists and giving lip-service to transparency. In “Behind Closed Doors at the […]

November 25, 2011 Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH

Before too long the US Department of Labor (DOL) and other federal agencies should be issuing their annual regulatory plans and semi-annual agendas. These documents serve as official public notice of agencies’ regulatory (and deregulatory) priorities. The Regulatory Flexibility Act and Executive Order (EO) 12866 direct agency heads to release these documents in April (agenda) […]