After more than two years of White House review, OSHA has finally published its proposed new standards for silica exposure. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, Assistant Secretary David Michaels, and many other people both inside and outside the agency deserve congratulations for finally shaking the proposal loose from the clutches of the president’s regulatory review team in OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. The publication of the proposal is an important step towards protecting millions of Americans who are exposed to the deadly dust in their workplaces.
But this is no time for the agency to rest on its laurels. As GAO noted in a recent report, OSHA proposals published in the 2000s took an average of three years to reach the “final rule” stage. If it takes that long to publish the final silica rule, it will be in jeopardy of falling prey to election-year politics. The Obama administration’s regulatory agencies published fewer final rules in 2012 than the agencies published in any of the prior 15 years. (Thanks to Curtis Copeland for this analysis.) It is incumbent upon Secretary Perez, Assistant Secretary Michaels, and their entire team to keep this rule moving along expeditiously. That means no extensions of the comment periods, efficient management of the rulemaking hearings, and a hardline stance against the White House’s regulatory review team, which has a history of holding up this rule.
Today marks an important step forward for workers, but the finish line is a long way off.
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Thomas McGarity | August 23, 2013
After more than two years of White House review, OSHA has finally published its proposed new standards for silica exposure. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, Assistant Secretary David Michaels, and many other people both inside and outside the agency deserve congratulations for finally shaking the proposal loose from the clutches of the president’s regulatory review team […]
Erin Kesler | August 23, 2013
Yesterday, The Hill published an opinion piece by Center for Progressive Reform President Rena Steinzor entitled, “Regulatory backlog threatens health and the environment.” According to Steinzor: Opponents of regulation also seek to undermine the very legitimacy of agency rulemaking by fostering public hostility toward government and belittling life-saving regulation as “red tape.” What results is […]
Matthew Freeman | August 21, 2013
Update: Verchick’s testimony is here. On Thursday, August 22, CPR Member Scholar Robert R.M. Verchick will testify before California’s “Little Hoover Commission” about land-use planning to address the threat of climate change. The Commission is conducting a study of climate-change-adaptation efforts in the state, and Verchick, a professor at the Loyola University New Orleans College of Law and […]
Rena Steinzor | August 19, 2013
Like no other mammoth corporation that did very bad things—not Enron, not WorldCom, not Exxon, and not even HSBC (which, after all, laundered money for the Mexican drug cartel and was allowed to pay a fine without pleading guilty!)—BP has not lost its arrogant swagger. In a fit of high dudgeon it filed a lawsuit last […]
Rebecca Bratspies | August 15, 2013
This blog is cross-posted on The Nature of Cities. In my first blog post for The Nature of Cities, I wrote about environmental justice as a bridge between traditional environmentalism and an increasingly urban global population. I suggested that we had work to do to makes environmental concerns salient to a new, ever-more urban generation. Since then, […]
Celeste Monforton | August 13, 2013
More than 400 inspectors with the USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) worked, on average, more than 120 hours each two-week pay period. Those were the findings of the agency’s Inspector General in an report issued late last month. Their investigation covered FY 2012, and included field work conducted from November 2012 through February 2013. FSIS […]
Sandra Zellmer | August 12, 2013
A Nebraskan activist? Wait, you say, isn’t that an oxymoron? But the typically stoic, non-litigious citizens of Nebraska are indeed standing up and taking notice, and the nation is starting to take notice of them. A few days ago, a Washington Post headline predicted, “Nebraska trial could delay Keystone XL pipeline.” As you may already know from […]
James Goodwin | August 12, 2013
Last week, Regulatory Czar Howard Shelanski embarked on his maiden voyage into the glamorous world of White House blogging, penning a post that touts the latest burden-reducing accomplishment of President Obama’s dubious regulatory “look-back” initiative. On this auspicious occasion, he trumpets the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) proposed rulemaking to reduce the number of inspection reports […]
Erin Kesler | August 6, 2013
The following guest post is contributed by Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH. Dr. Monforton is an Assistant Research Professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. Finally! After far too much hullabaloo about the cost of regulations, there was a U.S. Senate hearing today on why public health regulations are important, […]