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The White House announced today 10 nominations for senior administration positions, including Mr. Joe Main to serve as the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health (MSHA). The biography provided with the announcement notes that he:
“… began working in coal mines in 1967 and quickly became an advocate for miners safety as a union safety committeeman as well as serving in various local union positions in the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). He was employed by the UMWA in 1974 as a Special Assistant to the International President, and joined the UMWA Safety Division in 1976, serving as Safety Inspector, Administrative Assistant, and Deputy Director. In 1982 he was appointed Administrator of the UMWA Occupational Health and Safety Department, a position he held for 22 years, managing the international health and safety program and staff. “
In an article in the Louisville Courier-Journal reporting on Main’s nomination, mine worker advocate Tony Oppegard said:
“A year from today, you will see a very different agency in terms of the way it’s run.”
Here’s hoping for a speedy confirmation process [remember Senate Dem's, Bush's choice Mr. Dave Lauriski did not have a confirmation hearing] so Mr. Main can get to work.
Of the many disturbing and damaging policies instituted during the G.W. Bush Administration, high on my list is abuse of FOIA. It started with the post 9/11-Ashcroft memo, which was institutionalized into downstream agencies, and reconfigured and rejustified over Mr. Bush’s remaining 7 years. In the public interests, one journalist sought to find out how the Labor Department’s FOIA practices were “evolving” under G.W. Bush’s non-disclosure philosophy.
In March 2005, Mine Safety and Health News (MSHN) received an anonymous tip, urging the editor, Ellen Smith, to request records from a training session held for DOL FOIA officers on March 1-2, 2005. The tipster suggested that she’d likely be very interested in what had been communicated to DOL staff and that she should specifically ask for a copy of the videotape made of the two-day session. (Presumably, the officials who organized the FOIA training session decided to videotape the event for the benefit of employees who were not able to attend.)
cross-posted from OMBWatch
Despite the Obama Administration’s consistent theme of creating a new, more open government, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has yet to prove it will comply with the Administration’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) policies. In its response to a 2008 FOIA request, MSHA refused to release information that has been consistently released in the past. An appeal of that response provides a test of the administration’s approach to implementing its openness policies.
On his first full day in office, President Barack Obama issued a memorandum about the use of FOIA, writing that the presumption regarding government disclosure should be:
“In the face of doubt, openness prevails.”
Last week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act (aka the Waxman-Markey bill), which sets up a cap-and-trade system to cut greenhouse-gas emissions 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83% by 2050. It also includes other provisions to promote renewable energy, energy efficiency, and green jobs.
As Paul Krugman noted in a recent NYT column, this isn’t the legislation we’d ideally want, but it’s the best we’re going to get right now – and this isn’t a problem that can wait. A bill with more ambitious targets and fewer giveaways to polluting industries just isn’t possible with the current Congressional makeup.
In the Washington Monthly, Charles Homans provides some interesting context for the bill with a profile of Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman. Since his election to the House in 1974, Waxman has been mastering the mechanisms of influence and waging multi-year campaigns to achieve progress on health and environmental issues. Homans explains Waxman’s approach:
Two months ago, I applauded OSHA for announcing that its SBREFA panel meeting on a draft diacetyl proposed rule would be open to the public. Today, I feel schnookered. OSHA hosted its teleconference-meeting yesterday (5/19) and today (5/20) with specially-selected small employers, but failed to provide meaningful notice to allow the public to participate. Is a meeting really “public” if you don’t tell the public? Or is it really public if you only tell a select few?
Not in my book.
by Rena Steinzor, cross-posted from CPR Blog
With his attractive family and a phalanx of top aides in tow, Professor Cass Sunstein had a cordial, 45-minute hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee yesterday. He was introduced by former student and current Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) who praised Sunstein as a teacher, mentor, and eclectic thinker, all qualities for which he is rightly known. Ironically, however, the remainder of the hearing could be summarized as efforts by the three Senators in attendance— Chairman Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), ranking minority member Susan Collins (R-ME), and Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI)—to get Sunstein to pledge that eclectic thinking will not be his modus operandi at the White House.
by Pete Galvin
You never learn much from a “wired” confirmation hearing, and that was true yesterday at the hearing for Cass Sunstein to be director of OIRA. Only three Senators bothered to come (apart from his former student, now the Senator from Minnesota, who introduced him before leaving) and two short rounds of questions were designed to let him place on the record a few key statements to respond to interest groups.
He is, he assured them, not in favor of banning hunting; he thinks both OSHA and the Clean Air Act are constitutional; and his number one priority at OIRA is to follow the requirements of the Congress in each case. That last point is not unimportant for OSHA and MSHA, although it will be a while before either can get around to testing the proposition.
One trait of a good reporter is providing facts—facts that may make us uncomfortable, but ultimately force us to ask “is this really true?” That’s what happened to me on Friday when I read the Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward’s piece Solis plays fast and loose on MSHA budget, in which he accused the new Labor Secretary of spinning the data on mine safety enforcement spending—reminiscent of Chao and Stickler. He wrote:
“…what should I make of the way Labor Secretary Hild Solis tried to spin the Obama administration’s proposal to — when adjusted for inflation — pretty much flat-line MSHA spending for the next financial year?”
Humpph. Can’t that pesky Ken Ward, Jr. lay off the Labor Department for a bit longer? Do I really want to read criticism of Secretary Solis during our honeymoon?
Over the next week, two Senate committees will hold confirmation hearings on senior Administration officials who could play key roles in worker health and safety policy. First, the Senate HELP Committee will meet tomorrow (May 7) to consider the nomination of M. Patricia Smith for Solicitor of Labor. I wrote previously about Ms. Smith’s efforts as NY Commissioner of Labor to address the needs of vulnerable workers, including her creative and aggressive approaches to ensure that workers are paid their legally earned wages. I hope to hear Ms. Smith discuss how she will direct attorneys in SOL to use the Department’s full statutory and administrative authority to protect workers from employers who violate H&S, wage, whistleblower and other labor laws. Perhaps the new SOL will consider revising the performance measures of Regional SOLs to recognize the value of a trial (and potential positive precedent rulings on H&S) instead of the current emphasis on settlements, settlements, giveaways, settlements.
University of Maryland Law Professor Rena Steinzor called for fundamental changes to the role of OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in federal regulatory review, at a House Committee hearing held on April 30. The Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight of the Committee on Science and Technology has been examining OIRA’s functions and responsibilities, with the chairman stating:
“…Though rarely in the headlines, OIRA has, in the years since its creation under President Reagan, quietly become the most powerful regulatory office in the Federal government.”
Professor Steinzor noted that the nomination of Cass Sunstein, President Obama’s choice for OIRA chief,* is looming, thus it is appropriate to examine the office’s function. Steinzor made three specific points:
