OSHA’s pending rule on construction crane and derrick safety cleared OIRA review yesterday.
The cranes rule has been a long, long time in the making and was featured as a case study in our white paper last year on the Costs of Regulatory Delay. It’s good news that this life-saving rule is finally almost set.
Update: Celeste Monforton has more on this at The Pump Handle:
First, OIRA has completed its review of OSHA's final rule on cranes and derricks. The notation on the regs.gov website says "consistent with change," a phrase that has meaning only to those who have the secret decoder ring. Because the internal deliberations between OMB and the affected agency are considered confidential, (a policy dating back to OIRA's creation under President Reagan) we don't know whether the "change" required by OMB are good, bad or indifferent to worker protection.
As I said, this news may be mundane, or not. Once the final rule is published, we'll see how OSHA addressed the few sticky issues raised by interested parties. Looking on the bright side, it may mean that a new rule to protect workers (and the public) around cranes and derricks may be a reality very soon.
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Ben Somberg | June 23, 2010
OSHA’s pending rule on construction crane and derrick safety cleared OIRA review yesterday. The cranes rule has been a long, long time in the making and was featured as a case study in our white paper last year on the Costs of Regulatory Delay. It’s good news that this life-saving rule is finally almost set. […]
Rena Steinzor | June 22, 2010
Across the full spectrum of outside cognoscenti who are focused on the reality that a small office at the White House has final authority over the agencies charged with preventing catastrophes like the BP oil spill and the Big Branch mine disaster, one threshold assumption is sacrosanct. This tiny Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, now […]
Ben Somberg | June 22, 2010
Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is getting more and more attention. Here’s some of the reporting out this week. The documentary Gasland premiered Monday on HBO. Here’s the Daily Show interview and the Science Friday interview. Vanity Fair: A Colossal Fracking Mess Scranton Times-Tribune: Little oversight, looming problems for Pa. gas industry, Impact of natural gas drilling […]
Amy Sinden | June 21, 2010
With characteristic audacity, the Wall Street Journal editorial page today is arguing against the precautionary approach to environmental policy that undergirds our system of environmental laws, even as the oil continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico. Instead, they want to shift the burden of proof and only allow regulators to restrain corporate greed when […]
Ben Somberg | June 18, 2010
The latest from ProPublica and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune: At least a half-dozen homebuilders, installers and environmental consultants knew as early as 2006 that foul smells were coming from drywall imported from China – but they didn’t share their early concerns with the public, even when homeowners began complaining about the drywall in 2008.
Matthew Freeman | June 18, 2010
CPR President Rena Steinzor has an op-ed in this morning’s Baltimore Sun on the various regulatory failures at work in the BP oil spill. She writes that important questions need to be answered “about how the federal regulatory system allowed BP and other oil companies to drill in waters so deep without effective fail-safes,” and continues: In […]
John Echeverria | June 17, 2010
If further proof were needed that appointments to the Supreme Court matter, it was provided today by the Court’s decision in Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The so-called conservative wing of the Court came one vote short of issuing a decision that would have revolutionized the law of property […]
Matthew Freeman | June 16, 2010
CPR Member Scholar Dan Farber was on the PBS NewsHour on June 14 discussing the Obama Administration’s plan to force BP to establish an escrow fund to compensate victims of its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. You can see the entire interview with Ray Suarez, on the NewsHour site. Here’s a snip of the […]
Matthew Freeman | June 15, 2010
It’s fascinating to listen to the media, with lots of encouragement from the right wing, inch its way toward blaming the BP Oil Spill on President Obama. Apparently the President’s job description includes a previously unknown provision about deep-sea plumbing expertise. Let’s follow the media’s path for a moment here. First we heard media whining that the […]