In action that may portend how the 114th Congress will treat science, the House has passed two bills that would limit the EPA’s use of science. The White House is threatening to veto both – and an additional bill that in the White House’s view could weaken the Clean Air Act’s public health and environmental protections.
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.
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 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.
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.
Representatives of U.S. foundries met with White House officials behind closed doors to complain about a not-yet-proposed OSHA regulation. It was the group’s second such meeting. But they wouldn’t be necessary if the White House would simply allow OSHA’s public hearing process to take place.
Many 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. (Re-post)
Seven new worker safety regulations–both proposed and final rules—are stuck in the Obama White House. One proposed rule has been “under review” for 645 days.