You are currently browsing the monthly archive for September, 2007.
Before this week’s climate conference began, Climate Progress predicted, “The Bush Administration will use every opportunity to create the illusion of action without agreeing to meaningful, binding pollution reductions.” Today, that blog reports that Bush followed “the Frank Luntz playbook on how to seem like you care about the climate when you don’t,” while Bill Miller of DeSmogBlog describes it as “another opportunity lost to histrionics and political posturing.” David Roberts at Gristmill focuses his attention on the media coverage of the event, giving kudos to Washington Post reporters and finding humor in an LA Times piece. Hill Heat has links to even more blogger coverage.
FDA was also in the news this week. Angry Toxicologist is disgusted with the FDA’s record on auditing clinical trials and conducting food inspections. Ed Silverman at Pharmalot reports on drug contamination and the FDA’s plans to issue guidance on the matter. Anna Wilde Matthews at the WSJ Health Blog suggests that the shuffling of top FDA personnel may help the Bush administration avoid new complaints from Democrats.
Elsewhere:
The Senate HELP Committee is holding a hearing on Tuesday, Oct. 2 on “Current Mine Safety Disasters: Issues and Challenges.” The witness list includes the same familiar faces from MSHA, NIOSH, the UMWA and National Mining Association, but the Committee has also invited two “newcomers” to these mine safety hearings. One is former MSHA engineer Robert Ferriter (now with the Colorado School of Mines), who received some publicity in the wake of the Crandall Canyon disaster when he was critical of MSHA’s approval of the Murray Energy’s mining plan. The other is Joseph Osterman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), who is expected to provide information on his agency’s Family Assistance Program for Aviation Disasters. At a Sept. 5th hearing on the Crandall Canyon disaster held by Senator Harkin’s subcommittee on appropriations, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) mentioned the NTSB as a possible model for MSHA to follow to improve its procedures for communicating and providing support to family members of mining disasters.
While the House of Representatives was voting Wednesday to approve the Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act (here), OSHA’s Assistant Secretary Edwin Foulke had just mailed a letter rejecting a petition from a group of workers’ who’d asked for emergency protection from the respiratory hazards caused by butter-flavoring agents. Mr. Foulke’s response is not only tardy—it took them 14 months to write a 5-page letter—but its content is insulting. “I assure you that OSHA takes the concerns you expressed very seriously,” he writes. Oh, please. Your meager actions to protect diacetyl-exposed workers speaks volumes. Are we supposed to be impressed by your revelation that OSHA has “evaluated workplace exposure conditions at site visits to three microwave popcorn plants over the last 8 months”? Three plants in eight months? And then to use this paltry information to state
“Thus, OSHA does not have sufficient evidence that a grave danger currently exists in microwave popcorn manufacturing facilities to support the issuance of an emergency temporary standard (ETS) for diacetyl.”
If severely injured workers waiting for lung transplants does not constitute a hazard of a grave nature, what does?
By Kristen Perosino
Is FDA on the road to recovery? Will public confidence in the agency be restored?
In what is bound to be an interesting policy address (not to mention well-timed, as the recently passed FDA Amendments Act of 2007 awaits Bush’s signature), Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) is scheduled to present her vision of “The Future of the FDA” on Wednesday, October 3rd at George Washington University.
She’s quite an important figure for the agency. As Chair of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds FDA, DeLauro is influential in determining resource allocations to FDA programs. She demonstrated her clout earlier this year, for example, when FDA was rumored to cut funding for the Office of Women’s Health. DeLauro voiced her opposition and challenged Commissioner von Eschenbach to explain any such decision. FDA eventually maintained funding levels for the office after pressure from DeLauro and many women’s rights advocates. Translation: Women’s health is important to DeLauro.
Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) explaining his opposition to H.R. 2693, the Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act, which would require OSHA to protect workers from breathing toxic chemicals used in artificial butter flavor:
“If there’s something wrong with popcorn, how did Orville Redenbacher live so long?”
The recent recalls of dangerous toys and defective cribs have received a great deal of press attention, but closer analysis reveals that consumer product recalls are generally ineffective at getting most defective products out of consumers’ homes.
The big news is that the House passed the Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act, as David reports below. In other occupational health and safety news:
By David Michaels
Updated Below
By a vote of 260 to 154, the US House of Representatives has passed H.R. 2693, the Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act. This was not a pure party line vote – over the objections of the White House and the Chamber of Congress, 47 Republicans voted with the majority, and only 8 Democrats opposed the resolution. The vote demonstrates the widespread recognition that OSHA has failed to protect workers and Congress needs to step in to force the agency to do its job.
Our thanks go out to Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, Workforce Protections Subcommittee Chairman Lynn Woolsey, and the terrific Education and Labor Committee staff.
Please tell your Senators that the Senate needs to pass similar legislation. The Senate phone number is 202.224.3121.
Here’s how they voted: Read the rest of this entry »
By Liz Borkowski
Yesterday, the White House and the OSHA Fairness Coalition (which includes members like the International Food Distributors Association, National Association of Manufacturers, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce) wrote to members of the House of Representatives to express their strong opposition to H.R. 2693, the Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act.
No one who’s been following the Bush Administration’s approach to regulation will be surprised to hear that the responses from the White House and business coalition are strikingly similar to one another, and to arguments used in the past by Big Tobacco and other industries seeking to avoid regulation. They both rely on three main arguments that are easily refuted:
By David Michaels
Days before the House will vote on legislation to force OSHA to regulate diacetyl (the artificial butter flavor chemical that causes bronchiolitis obliterans), the agency has apparently decided that perhaps it is finally time to begin the rulemaking process for this substance. Yesterday, fourteen months after we petitioned OSHA for an emergency standard, the agency has called for a stakeholder meeting to discuss how it might address the problem.
Although OSHA’s press release claims that the agency is “initiating rule-making,” if you read the small print, it is clear that OSHA is simply saying it will start collecting information. Given its timing, it is apparent that this is an attempt to preempt legislation that would compel OSHA to issue a standard protecting workers. There is no commitment to anything beyond a single meeting.
We welcome OSHA’s effort to collect information; after all, a group of public health and union activists met with OSHA staff last December and told them to do exactly this.
But Members of Congress should not be fooled. Read the rest of this entry »
