Yesterday afternoon, if you happened to MSHA’s website and click on the Asst. Secretary’s button, you’d see this, with the ominous caption: “The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.” That was a tell-tale sign that Richard Stickler’s recess-appointment tenure as MSHA’s chief has come to […]
Consumer Product Safety Commission
As If Taking Down Your Christmas Tree Wasnât Depressing Enough ⦠Now You Can Worry About Lead!
In all the rigmarole of the holiday season, you might not have heard about the consumer safety hazard associated with Christmas lights (or noticed the fine print warnings on their boxes). Itâs no secret that lead is used in light stringsâ polyvinyl chloride insulation to prevent deterioration and to guard against fire. But what is […]
A coal mine operator in Hazard, Kentucky received a $220,000 penalty from MSHA for flagrantly violating electrical lockout/tagout procedures (such as padlocking an on/off switch to ensure that a machine is not unexpectedly turned-on, plugged in or energized while it is being serviced.)  The hefty monetary penalty was authorized under the 2006 MINER Act for flagrant violations, defined as: “a reckless […]
This time next year, the “Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National Government Act” will be in effect. The new law, which amends the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), was signed into law by President Bush on December 31, 2007 and becomes effective in one year. The bill, sponsored by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and John Cornyn (R-TX), was endorsed by dozens […]
As 2007 drew to a close, Occupational Hazards asked a panel of industry leaders to make some predictions about the future of workplace safety. Laura Walter reports: The discussion revealed a variety of emerging trends that could impact the practice of safety in the future. Some were familiar themes, such as globalization, the aging workforce, […]
The town of Odessa, Texas had never had a police officer die in the line of duty in its 73-year history. That changed in September 2007, when three Odessa officers, Arlie Jones, 48, Abel Marquez, 32 and Scott Gardner, 30 were gunned down responding to a domestic disturbance complaint.*Â These three worker-victims were among the […]
Over at AlterNet, Grist’s David Roberts and Lisa Hymas have compiled a list of the top 15 environmental stories of 2007. Climate change is the dominant theme, with scientists and Al Gore sounding the alarm and politicians responding (not necessarily in a productive way — see the ethanol item). The list also includes stories we’ve […]
The Pump Handle will be on hiatus for the remainder of the year. We wish all of our readers and friends a healthy, peaceful 2008.
OSHA? No. It’s Andrew Schneider and his colleagues at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. In “Flavoring Additive Puts Professional Cooks at Risk,” the reporter describes a study commissioned by the newspaper to determine how much of the butter-flavoring agent diacetyl becomes airborne when used in a restaurant cook’s work setting. Exposure to diacetyl is associated with the severe lung disease bronchiolitis […]
With so much attention focused on the energy bill, itâs easy to forget some of the other important legislation coming out of Congress these days. Revere at Effect Measure reports on the NIH and CDC funding figures in the latest version of the appropriations bill, and Jake Young at Pure Pedantry goes into detail about […]