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.
The White House’s two-year delay of OSHA’s proposed silica rule attracted media attention; West Virginia’s Governor orders mines to undertake a “safety stand-down” after a series of mineworker deaths; and a warming climate will necessitate stricter limits on outdoor work.
With five days left in calendar year 2012, the Obama Administration released its current regulatory plan and agenda, including new rules addressing health and safety hazards in workplaces. Neither OSHA nor MSHA have a good track record predicting when such rules will actually be completed.
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)
In our new report “The Year in U.S. Occupational Health & Safety,” we devote one section to key activities by the Obama Administration and the U.S. Congress.
Worker Health & Safety
Silica hazards in fracking continued: Where did NIOSH find unsafe dust levels?
Revealing the location of the hydrofracking operations where the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health found levels of respirable silica at 10-100 times above the recommended safety limits is important to the health of those who have worked at those sites or others like them.
Mining
House Republicans say the heck with black lung disease, have a coal miner postage stamp instead
While investigative reporters are exposing the plague of black lung disease in U.S. coal miners, the best Members of Congress are willing to do is ask for a postage stamp commemorating the American Coal Miner.
To understand the current boom in frack sand mining, the place to look is Wisconsin. What’s happening in Wisconsin also shows how limited current information is regarding potential air quality and environmental health effects this industrial activity, which is a source of silica dust – a known human health hazard.
Public awareness of water-contamination concerns related to hydraulic fracturing has been growing. But one of the more pernicious and pervasive potential occupational fracking hazards may come from sand.
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 […]