Reporters were shut out during the shutdown of access to agency information. That situation didn’t stop two of them from continuing to report on deaths of workers in the U.S. mining industry.
The Obama Administration, at the urging of chemical manufacturers, withdrew two EPA actions proposed under the Toxic Substance Control Act. The measures would have provided the public more information about the hazards associated with certain chemical substances.
The second annual report on US worker health and safety offers a review of activities and new policies at the federal scene, and a recap on the best reporting about it by the nation’s journalists.
OSHA’s recently released proposed rule on silica gives us a good opportunity to see if President Obama’s new regulatory czar will keep his promise for transparency in the rulemaking process.
A long-awaited proposal to protect 2 million workers from occupational silica exposure was announced today by OSHA.
Three months after a WV coal miner is killed on the job, the company decides to install safety equipment that could have saved his life.
The newly created Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on Oversight, Federal Rights and Agency Action held today its first hearing. Witnesses described the toll on public health and safety when the regulatory process is paralyzed by powerful interests and required analyses with no proven benefits.
President Obama’s nominee for regulatory czar has an affinity for timeliness. It will be interesting to see how he deals with a backlog of rules “under review” and an office plagued by missed deadlines.
Spring 2013 looked like it would be a banner season for progress by the Obama Administration on new worker safety regulations; not so much anymore.
Since the White House Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) began reviewing the Labor Department’s proposed rule to reduce by one-half the permissible workplace exposure to respirable crystalline silica more than two year ago, the US has seen a dramatic increase in industrial sand mining, a major route of workers’ exposure to silica dust. Industry groups claim the more-protective standard would be too expensive.