President Obama’s regulatory czar testified before Congress on Tuesday and proclaimed the transparency of his office’s operations. His claims about disclosures of private meetings don’t jive with my experience.
President Obama is entering the last year of his final term in office, so now we’re all supposed to be panicking over a dreaded phenomenon known as “midnight regulations.” Scared? Well, you shouldn’t be.
A business consulting firm submitted comments to OSHA on the agency’s proposed beryllium rule. The firm calls out OSHA for offering way too many regulatory alternatives. It suggest OSHA return to its past practice of proposing a particular approach (or two) and justifying it.
OSHA is proposing a new health standard to protect workers who are exposed to beryllium from a debilitating respiratory disease and lung cancer.
Testifying before the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform, OIRA chief Howard Shelanski was criticized from both sides of the aisle for his office’s lack of transparency in handling reviews of agencies’ regulatory actions.
The latest edition of the Labor Department’s regulatory agenda offers a mixed bag of unaddressed workplace hazards and slipped deadlines, as well as a few new topics for possible regulatory action to protect workers.
FOIA
Final USDA poultry rule: Line speeds stay the same, but no word from OSHA; food safety advocates call it a step backwards
For 17 years, Salvadora Roman deboned chickens on the processing line at Wayne Farms in Decatur, Alabama. Because of the repetitive movement and speed of the processing line, Roman developed a chronic and painful hand injury that affects her ability to do even the most basic household chores. About three years ago, she was fired from the plant for taking time off work to visit a doctor for the injury she sustained on the line.
Three hours after I wrote this “The US Department of Labor has a plan to eliminate coal mine dust lung disease (a.k.a. black lung.) It’s been stuck in White House review for eight months, under the watch of a reg czar who promised timeliness of reviews,” they announced they were issuing the new rules.
Government
No tsunami of regulations, proposals to improve safety for miners languish in White House review
The Obama Administration continues to let proposals to improve worker safety waste away in internal review.
Will President Obama’s new regulatory czar make good on his promise to conduct reviews of agency rules in a timely manner? The 90-day deadline will expire this week for the office’s review of the Labor Department’s final rule to protect coal miners from black lung disease.