Resources for Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

Chronicling OSHA in 2007: Congressional Impact

www.occupationalhazards.com

As the Democratic Congress pledged to scrutinize OSHA in 2007, safety stakeholders were optimistic that Congressional oversight could help the agency shift its priorities. Today, these stakeholders maintain different views on whether such oversight was effective.

During 2007, Congress introduced legislation to compel OSHA to take immediate action on safety and health issues that were previously relegated to the back burner. For example, Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, introduced a measure to require OSHA to issue a rule protecting food processing workers from the chemical flavoring agent diacetyl, which has been linked to bronchiolitis obliterans, or “popcorn lung.”

And on March 6, U.S. Reps. Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Calif., a member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education, and George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, introduced H.R. 1327 – the “Protective Equipment for America's Workers Act” – in an effort to require OSHA to release a direct final rule on personal protective equipment (PPE).

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