Editor's update: On April 9, 2021, President Biden nominated Doug Parker to lead OSHA. If confirmed, he'll replace Jim Frederick as Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health in the Department of Labor.
President Joe Biden has tapped three seasoned experts to jumpstart the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the federal government's main worker health and safety agency. Jim Frederick will serve as Deputy Assistant Secretary of OSHA and will head the agency until a permanent Assistant Secretary is confirmed. Frederick’s experience includes over two decades working for the United Steel Workers' health, safety, and environment department. In his latest role, Frederick served as the assistant director and principal investigator for the department. Biden has also named Chip Hughes, former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Worker Education and Training Program, as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Pandemic and Emergency Response. This will be a crucial role in the weeks and months ahead. Ann Rosenthal will join the team as Senior Advisor. Rosenthal served as the Associate Solicitor for Occupational Safety and Health at the Department of Labor until 2017 and has decades of legal experience protecting worker health and safety.
Throughout his tenure, former President Donald Trump repeatedly claimed to be looking out for America's workers. He exposed that lie many times over: He never appointed a permanent OSHA administrator, and he nominated regulatory ideologues to key positions at the U.S. Department of Labor. Meanwhile, he and his administrative appointees attacked and weakened a number of worker health and safety protections.
These direct attacks represent only some of the harm Trump did to America's workers. OSHA often takes years to issue new health and safety protections, but Trump’s team slowed progress further — even during a pandemic. Since last March, the agency has steadfastly refused to issue either an emergency or a permanent standard to protect workers from the coronavirus and other infectious diseases.
The Biden-Harris administration and OSHA’s leadership team must do better than the Trump administration. They must transform the agency into a proactive one that truly looks out for the health and safety of all workers.
Here are five actions they can take right away, with the first being the most essential:
Our main worker health and safety agency cannot be dormant, and these are just five of many actions OSHA must take during the Biden administration. COVID-19 and a host of other workplace hazards confront our nation's workers every day; if OSHA doesn’t have their backs, they can’t to do much to improve working conditions. Frederick, Hughes, Rosenthal, and the future head of OSHA have a perfect opportunity to guide the agency into a new era, one where hardworking individuals have the health and safety protections they deserve.
Editor’s note: This post is part of the Center for Progressive Reform’s Policy for a Just America initiative. Learn more on CPR’s website.
Showing 2,822 results
Katie Tracy | January 21, 2021
President Joe Biden has tapped three seasoned experts to jumpstart the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the federal government's main worker health and safety agency. Jim Frederick will serve as Deputy Assistant Secretary of OSHA and will head the agency until a permanent Assistant Secretary is confirmed. Frederick’s experience includes over two decades working for the United Steel Workers' health, safety, and environment department. In his latest role, Frederick served as the assistant director and principal investigator for the department. Biden has also named Chip Hughes, former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Worker Education and Training Program, as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Pandemic and Emergency Response. This will be a crucial role in the weeks and months ahead. Ann Rosenthal will join the team as Senior Advisor. Rosenthal served as the Associate Solicitor for Occupational Safety and Health at the Department of Labor until 2017 and has decades of legal experience protecting worker health and safety.
James Goodwin | January 20, 2021
The pro-Trump insurrection that took place at the United States Capitol on January 6 was the most serious threat to the rule of law in our country in well over a century. Unless we fully grapple with the conditions and causes that gave rise to it, this threat will linger, waiting for the next spark to reignite it.
Daniel Farber | January 19, 2021
Conservatives love to complain about faceless bureaucrats, but blaming bureaucrats for regulations is hopelessly out of date. When Elena Kagan was a professor, she wrote an article called “Presidential Administration.” The article applauded her former boss Bill Clinton for seizing greater control of the regulatory process, away from agencies. That trend has accelerated to the point where the White House controls even the fine details of regulation.
Michele Janin, Robert Verchick | January 14, 2021
Over the last six months, we had the honor of leading the search for a visionary new leader to guide our organization. Our search is over, and we're thrilled to announce that Minor Sinclair will be taking CPR's helm next month.
Daniel Farber | January 13, 2021
Donald Trump's hostility domestic environmental regulation is notorious. He also stalled or backpedaled on the international front. Here are seven steps that President Biden could take to remedy the situation.
Victor Flatt | January 12, 2021
One of the most vexing environmental law issues of the last three decades is the scope of the term "waters of the United States" (WOTUS) in the Clean Water Act -- and what marshes, lakes, and streams fall under its purview. A connected legal question stretching back even further is how much deference to give agencies in policymaking and legal interpretations. These issues are present in both the Trump administration's final "Waters of the United States" rule, which narrowly defines waters subject to the act, and the Biden administration's likely attempt to expand that definition. The Trump administration's narrow approach dramatically reduces the number of waterways under federal protection. A broader definition would restore and possibly expand protections to better safeguard public and environmental health.
Alice Kaswan, Shalanda H. Baker | January 11, 2021
The Black Lives Matter movement highlights long-standing inequities and amplifies the drumbeat for climate justice and an equitable transition to a clean economy. With the incoming Biden-Harris administration and a growing list of environmental justice advocates at the helm, it's time to move from rhetoric to reality. We offer concrete proposals to turn climate justice goals into climate justice policies.
Amy Sinden, Richard Parker | January 8, 2021
T'was the season of gift-giving and on December 9, outgoing EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler delivered a parting gift for his successor in the form of a new regulation: Increasing Consistency and Transparency in Considering Benefits and Costs in the Clean Air Act Rulemaking Process.
Darya Minovi, James Goodwin | January 7, 2021
In a last-ditch effort to further weaken the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) ability to protect public health, this week, the Trump administration published its final “censored science” rule. As stated in the Center for Progressive Reform’s comments on the draft rulemaking, this proposal unjustifiably limits the research that can be used in regulatory decision-making, giving more weight to studies where the underlying data is publicly available. These restrictions will apply to dose-response studies -- which measure how much an increase in pollution exposure increases public health harms -- and which often rely on medical and other private data. CPR urges the incoming Biden administration to repeal this misleading and harmful rulemaking.