BUSH's Labor Dept. Rushing Thru Another Anti-Workplace "Safety" Plan !
Billary
be placed in the White House, your Nicompoop-In-Chief has NOT proposed
nor implemented a single law to upgrade safety in the U.S. workplace.
Now, with FIVE months to go -- and with Russia showing the world how
useless and bereft of moral and leadership authority your "president"
is -- his Labor lackeys want to REDUCE or ELIMINATE the government's
flimsy pillars supporting safety measures, wherever they're found!
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"A Toxic Proposal"
"The Labor Department politicizes the regulation of workplace health."
Editorial
Monday, August 18, 2008; A10
FOR 7 1/2 YEARS, the Labor Department has neglected the workers it's
supposed to protect. Now it is rushing to make its pro-industry stand
official policy. The Post's Carol D. Leonnig reported that the Labor
Department has fast-tracked a proposal that would make it more
difficult to regulate workplace safety.
A last-minute policy push is nothing new to presidential
administrations, but the Labor Department's proposal is particularly
bold. The plan is an attempt by Labor's policymakers to wrest control
of the risk assessment process from scientists at the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration. Doing so would add another layer to
a byzantine regulatory process that would be difficult for future
administrations to untangle. It would also undermine OSHA, an agency
that already has too many procedural hurdles to clear.
The Office of Management and Budget released a report in 2006 stating
that risk assessment should focus on actual, rather than possible,
harm caused by toxins. This sounds reasonable, but Congress intended
for risk assessment to be a preventive measure; by the time the
dangers of toxins are apparent, it's often too late to protect
workers. At the request of the OMB, a National Academy of Sciences
committee reviewed the proposal. The scientists gave the report an "F"
and described it as "fundamentally flawed." The OMB shelved the
report, but the Labor Department's proposal resurrects much of its
substance. Meanwhile, Labor has adopted one major health rule for a
chemical in the workplace since President Bush took office -- and that
was under court order.
OSHA's problems did not begin with the Bush administration. The
Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that OSHA could regulate a toxin only if
it posed a "significant risk" to workers' health, a difficult standard
to satisfy. The judiciary and Congress have continued to pare OSHA's
authority. And while the nation's working population doubled from 1975
to 2006, OSHA's workforce dropped by 240 employees, to 2,165.
Some believe Congress should grant OSHA broader decision-making power.
Others believe that the Environmental Protection Agency should handle
the regulation of workplace toxins. But it is clear that the wrong way
to fix an agency overburdened by procedure is to add another layer of
regulation. The Labor Department should withdraw its proposal.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/17/AR2008081702047.html
lickable
provisions for consumer or worker safety or health care. And wonder
-- "Wha' happened?"