Two Years Later, OSHA's Rule to Protect Workers from Deadly Silica Still in White House Review
Ed. Note: This post is a reprint, with minor updates, of McGarity’s post one year ago on the first anniversary of the proposed silica rule arriving at OMB. Little has happened on the issue in the past year – except more people have been sickened or killed by silica exposure.
Today marks the second anniversary of an event that received little media attention, but marked a major milestone in the progression of a regulation that is of great importance to thousands of Americans whose jobs bring them into contact with dust particles containing the common mineral silica. Exactly two years ago today the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) completed a proposed rule requiring employers in the mining, manufacturing and construction industries to protect their employees from silica dust particles as they engage in such activities as sandblasting, cutting rocks and concrete, and jackhammering.
Silica dust is no newcomer to the growing list of workplace hazards. Public health professionals have known for more than one hundred years that exposure to airborne silica dust can cause a debilitating disease caused silicosis.
In 1929, as the nation entered the Great Depression, hundreds of workers made their way to Gauley Bridge, West Virginia …
We will phase out fossil fuels. We have no choice. They are a finite resource and at some point they will run out. Admittedly, coal will not run out nearly as quickly as oil, but sooner or later all fossil fuel resources will run out.
The only question we face is whether we phase out fossil fuels before we have set in motion climate disruption’s worst effects or instead just allow a phase-out to occur through price shocks and shortages that we are ill-prepared to cope with, and risk a climate catastrophe. Obviously, a managed phase-out makes much more sense. Climate disruption will plague us with increasingly violent storms, flooding, drought, a spread of infectious diseases, and other calamities. A reasonably rapid phase-out will help us avoid some of these impacts by first reducing and eventually eliminating emissions of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas. At …
This post was written by CPR President Rena Steinzor and Media Manager Ben Somberg.
The White House issued a fact sheet last Friday presenting “Examples of How the Sequester Would Impact Middle Class Families, Jobs and Economic Security.” The consequences of the impending budget cuts from the “sequester” are not some abstract problem; they’re serious dangers, like this one:
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) could conduct 2,100 fewer inspections at domestic and foreign facilities that manufacture food products while USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) may have to furlough all employees for approximately two weeks. These reductions could increase the number and severity of safety incidents, and the public could suffer more foodborne illness, such as the recent salmonella in peanut butter outbreak and the E. coli illnesses linked to organic spinach, as well as cost the food and agriculture sector millions …
Taxes and energy are subject to constant partisan debate. Both are at play in politically-charged discussions about the government’s role in promoting renewable energy, particularly wind energy. Since 1992, the federal government has granted a production tax credit (PTC) (currently 2.2¢ per kilowatt/hour (kWh)) for production of certain renewable energy. The credit initially focused on wind, closed-loop biomass, and poultry-waste energy resources; in 2004 Congress expanded the program to include open-loop biomass, geothermal, and several other renewable energy sources. With this support, the wind energy industry has begun to take off. By 2011, installed wind capacity exceeded 45 gigawatts (GWs), accounting for about 4% of U.S. installed electricity capacity, 3% of total U.S. generation, and more than 10% of total generation in several states. And in 2012 alone, the industry added more than 13 GW of wind energy, surpassing the previous record …
Often lost in today’s debates over whether to continue tax benefits for renewable energy is a historical perspective on the significant support the federal government has provided and continues to provide the fossil fuel industry. Tax benefits for the energy industry as a whole totaled over $20 billion in 2011, which is, and historically has been, about 2% of total U.S. tax expenditures. In general, the United States has used tax benefits to first support development of domestic fossil fuel and nuclear production for nearly a century and, more recently, to support the development of domestic renewable energy. Until 2005, virtually all energy-related tax expenditures and benefits went toward stimulating domestic oil and gas production with the amount claimed by renewable energy almost negligible.
In recent years, tax benefits for renewable energy have surpassed that of fossil fuel production. For instance, in 2011, the breakdown …
Eighty percent of the antibiotics used in this country are given not to humans, but to animals destined for the human food supply. Most of these antibiotics are given to the animals not for the purpose of treating active infections, but for the purposes of promoting growth and preventing infection in the microbe-rich environment of the modern factory farm. For over 40 years, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been collecting evidence that this agricultural practice contributes to the development of antibiotic-resistant infections in the human population. Based on such evidence, in fact, the agency proposed to withdraw its prior approvals for two antibiotics used in animal feed due to the risks they posed to human health. The agency promised to hold hearings on the matter. That was over 35 years ago. On Friday, the future of this issue will be debated in oral arguments in …
Cross-posted from Legal Planet.
Cost-benefit analysis has become a ubiquitous part of regulation, enforced by the Office of Management and Budget. A weak cost-benefit analysis means that the regulation gets kicked back to the agency. Yet there is no statute that provides for this; it’s entirely a matter of Presidential dictate. And reliance on cost-benefit analysis often flies in the face of specific directions from Congress about how to write regulations. There are a few exceptions, such as regulations involving pesticides, bans on toxic substances, and thermal water pollution, where Congress called for EPA to balance costs and benefits equally. But almost all environmental laws direct agencies to use some standard other than cost-benefit analysis. The statutes generally place a greater weight on environmental quality and public health than on cost.
For example, it’s fairly obvious that Congress did not contemplate much of a role …
President Obama's focus in his second inaugural address on the need to address climate change was welcome after many months of near silence on this critical issue. While tackling climate change will require significant efforts limiting emissions from power plants, automobiles, and other sources, the President has recognized in the past that improving energy efficiency in general, and setting stricter energy efficiency standards for appliances specifically, can have a major impact on reducing both U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and consumer energy costs. Indeed, according to one recent study:
taking into account products sold from the inception of each national appliance standard through 2035, existing standards will net consumers and businesses more than $1.1 trillion in savings cumulatively. … On an annual basis, products meeting existing standards reduced U.S. electricity use in 2010 by about 280 terawatt-hours (TWh), a 7% reduction. The electricity savings will …
Congress created the Office of Advocacy (Office) of the Small Business Administration (SBA) to represent the interests of small business before regulatory agencies. It recognized that, unlike larger firms, many, if not most, small businesses can’t afford to lobby regulators and file rulemaking comments because of the expense involved. The Office was supposed to fill this gap by ensuring that agencies account for the unique concerns of small businesses when developing new regulations. Instead, as new reports from the Center for Progressive Reform and the Center for Effective Government document, the Office of Advocacy is using its resources and influence to weaken the regulatory process, usually at the behest of big business.
The Office of Advocacy has steadily expanded its role in the rulemaking process, creating numerous opportunities to oppose regulation, slow the regulatory process, and dilute the protection of people and the environment against unreasonable …
CPR Member Scholar David Driesen of Syracuse University has an op-ed in the January 28 Syracuse Post-Standard making the case that the President should reinvigorate his regulatory agenda, in part by diminishing the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs' power to stifle regulations. He puts the argument in the context of the pressing need for action on climate change, writing:
Obama should put an end to obstructionist OIRA review in light of the urgency of climate disruption and the failures this review has led to. Specifically, he should issue an executive order requiring prompt regulation of major sources of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, including a schedule for prompt rulemaking. This order should direct OIRA to work to speed and strengthen environmental, health and safety standards. He should also abolish OIRA's authority to review minor standards, since such reviews waste scarce government resources excessively …
