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Ben Somberg | July 7, 2010

Back in Black, Consumer Product Safety Edition

Sorry to link to the Daily Show again, but I swear it’s relevant. On last night’s show, Lewis Black covered recent food safety and consumer product safety news. “But knowingly selling us broken cars, poisoned medicines — if I didn’t know any better, I’d think these companies were just in for the money!”

Celeste Monforton | July 2, 2010

New Worker Safety Bill Introduced in House, Protects Whisleblowers, Targets Bad Actors

Cross-posted from The Pump Handle. Cong. George Miller (D-CA) is a man of tough talk and swift action. Today, along with 15 other House members, he introduced H.R. 5663 a bill to upgrade provisions of our nation’s key federal workplace health and safety laws. Every year, tens of thousands of workers are killed or made […]

Ben Somberg | June 23, 2010

Cranes and Derricks Rule Clears OIRA Review

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. […]

Ben Somberg | May 28, 2010

NY Governor Paterson Holding up Mercury Reduction Initiative; Who Pays the Price?

The Albany Times Union had a nifty, if depressing, scoop over the weekend in “Paterson bottling up mercury ban at plant“: Efforts by the state Department of Environmental Conservation to ban mercury-tainted coal fly ash used by a Ravena cement plant have been bottled up for more than 19 months in a special regulations review […]

Rena Steinzor | May 20, 2010

Sending Don Blankenship to Jail: A Legal Argument

Today, the Senate appropriations subcommittee chaired by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) will discuss “Investing in Mine Safety: Preventing Another Disaster” and hear testimony from the notorious Don Blankenship, chief executive officer of Massey Energy, owner of the Upper Big Branch disaster where 29 miners lost their lives on April 5.  Workers safety and health advocates […]

Celeste Monforton | May 5, 2010

Perplexed by OSHA’s Latest Reg Agenda

Cross-posted from The Pump Handle. Beginning in December 2006, I’ve written five blog post commenting on the content of the Department of Labor’s (DOL) regulatory agenda for worker health and safety rulemakings.  Most of my posts see links below have criticized the Labor Secretary and senior OSHA and MSHA staff for failing to offer a bold vision for progressive worker […]

Matthew Freeman | April 21, 2010

Food, Inc. Airs on PBS; Put Your Hands on the Table and Step Away from the Hamburger

The tagline that the producers of Food, Inc. are using to promote their Academy Award-winning documentary is “You’ll never look at dinner the same way.” They’re quite right. The film airs on many PBS stations this evening (and on others throughout the course of the next week). See for yourself. I came to it expecting that I’d end […]

Ben Somberg | April 16, 2010

Crane Safety Rule One Step Closer to Reality

As the Pump Handle noted earlier this week, OSHA submitted its draft final rule on construction cranes and derricks to OMB on Friday of last week. It’s good news that the process is now moving along. The cranes and derricks rule has been a long saga, and it was one of the case studies in […]

Celeste Monforton | April 12, 2010

MSHA’s Band-Aid Approach Turns Deadly

Cross-posted from The Pump Handle. Last month, the US Dept of Labor (DOL) and MSHA were celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Coal Mine Health and Safety Act.  Their proclamations said: “…this law represents a watershed moment in the improvement of occupational health and safety in the United States. It was the precursor to the […]