DCHAS-L Discussion List Archive
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2008 11:19:51 EDT
Reply-To: NRCC6**At_Symbol_Here**AOL.COM
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From: NRCC6**At_Symbol_Here**AOL.COM
Subject: Workplace Toxins update
I post the following update on workplace toxins from today's Washington Post
for your information, not as a political statement.
Gilbert Smith, NRCC
Democrat Vows Bill to Block 'Secret Rule' on Workplace Toxins
.
(http://www.sphere.com/)
Saturday, July 26, 2008; Page A03
A congressional leader pledged yesterday to introduce legislation that would
block an eleventh-hour proposal by the Labor Department that would make it
more difficult to limit workers' exposure to chemicals on the job.
Rep. _George Miller_
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/George+Miller?tid=informline) (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor
Committee, said he is determined to stop a "secret rule" that he described
as a Bush administration effort to block the next president from trying to
regulate industry and reduce deaths and illnesses caused by workplace toxins.
The Labor Department has refused to discuss or release the proposal, which
was obtained by _The Washington Post_
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/The+Washington+Post+Company?tid=informline) and detailed in a
Wednesday article. Officials began developing the idea in September 2007 but did
not disclose their interest as early as required. The rulemaking became known
July 7, when a _White House_
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/The+White+House?tid=informline) agency noted on its Web site that it had
received a draft rule from Labor concerning risk assessments.
The proposed rule would add another step to the process of setting
regulations for workplace chemicals, requiring that the department allow a new round
of challenges to its staff risk assessments used to determine how much
exposure to certain chemicals is unsafe.
The rule could also increase the chances that future chemical regulations
would allow workers to come into contact with higher levels of toxins on the job
than previously allowed. It challenges the agency's practice of setting
limits based on the assumption that workers stay in the same job for 45 years,
and recommends using industry-specific data about the much shorter periods that
workers generally stay with the same employer.
Labor Department officials said criticism of the draft by public health
scientists, unions and Democrats is speculative until the proposal is made
public.
-- Carol D. Leonnig
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