regulation
sb admin | April 11, 2009
by Ken Ward, Jr., cross-posted from Sustained Outrage: A Gazette Watchdog blog
Last August, Kanawha Valley residents lived through the spectacle of their public safety officials practically begging the folks who run the Bayer CropScience chemical plant to tell them what was on fire, and what toxic chemicals residents nearby were being exposed to.
Remember the exchange between Metro 911 officials and the plant?
âWell, I canât give out any information, like I say, weâll contact you with the, with the proper information,â a plant gate worker who identified himself only as Steve told a 911…
sb admin | April 10, 2009Bill 167's purpose is quite simple:
"to prevent pollution and protect human health and the environment by reducing the use and creation of toxic substances, and to inform Ontarians about toxic substances"
The bill, introduced on April 7 in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, is compared favorably to the 1989 Massachusetts' Toxics Reduction Act (TURA). Under the Massachusetts' program, hundreds of companies have reduced their use of highly hazardous compounds like anhydrous ammonia, cyanide, trichloroethylene and lead and saved millions of dollars in the process. The Ontario…
sb admin | April 6, 2009For four days last month, the staff working on OSHA's cranes and derricks rule listened to testimony and exchanged information with witnesses during the agency's public hearing on the proposed safety standard.  The hearing concluded on March 20, yet another step in the now five-year process by OSHA to update its crane standards. The standards on the books date back to 1971.  Troubling to me is the post-hearing notice issued by DOL's Solicitor's Office.  SOL (for its client OSHA) announced that the hearing record would remain open for another 90 days to allow participants…
sb admin | March 18, 2009University of California Berkeley's Health Research for Action is calling on OSHA to revise its occupational health standard on lead, which is now 30 years old. In a report entitled "Indecent Exposure: Lead Puts Workers and Families at Risk," the authors describe the adverse health effects of lead in workers with blood-lead levels of 5-10 ug/dL---a fraction of OSHA's medical removal trigger of 60 ug/dL. They note:
"...extensive research has shown that lead causes significant health problems in adults at much lower levels. Cumulative exposure to low to moderate levels of lead has been…
sb admin | March 17, 2009With an announcement today in the Federal Register, Labor Secretary Solis' OSHA is moving in a new direction to address occupational exposure to diacetyl. The butter-flavoring agent is associated with respiratory harm, including bronchiolitis obliterans. Just six days ago, Ronald Kuiper, 69, a former American Pop Corn Co succumbed to the disease.
OSHA announced it is withdrawing the advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) issued on January 21, 2009, and planning to convene a panel of small business representatives (SERs) as required by SBREFA.* With this move, OSHA may be …
sb admin | March 10, 2009On March 17, OSHA will begin the public hearing phase of its rulemaking to improve workplace safety standards for cranes and derricks used in construction.  More than 30 individuals or organizations have notified OSHA of their intent to give testimony at the hearing, including several who also participated in the year-long negotiated rulemaking (NegReg) process used in 2003-2004 to develop the proposed rule.  The NegReg members' participation at the public hearing may be a blessing, or it might make me wonder whether "consensus" is ever possible under the current OSH regulatory…
revere | March 9, 2009I'm sure it will be years before we have cleaned up all the garbage -- literally and figuratively -- from the Bush administration's Environmental "Protection" Agency. The notoriously conservative DC Appeals Court, in a unanimous decision, did its part recently when it declared the Bush EPA's standards for air particulates “contrary to law and unsupported by adequately reasoned decisionmaking." The language doesn't get much stronger than that. Just a few days before the Supremes refused to hear a challenge to a lower court decision striking down Bush EPA mercury standards from coal-fired power…
revere | March 8, 2009I might be an atheist but I'm glad when the food industry "gets religion." How observant they will be is another question, but for now, they are making noises to suggest they know which side their bread is peanut-buttered:
The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) issued the following statement from GMA President and CEO Pam Bailey regarding the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act cosponsored by U.S. Senators Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire. Additional cosponsors include: Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Christopher J. Dodd of…
sb admin | March 2, 2009Cross-posted from Sustained Outrage: a Gazette Watchdog Blog Â
by Ken Ward, Jr.
Bayer CropScience hasnât said yet if it will challenge $143,000 in fines issued by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration for 13 serious and 2 repeat violations related to the August 2008 explosion and fire that killed two Institute plant workers. But a vigorous court fight seems likely, given who Bayer has hired as its lawyer in the matter.Â
Robert C. Gombar is well known for his efforts to help companies that butt heads with OSHA over allegations that they werenât complying with workplace…
sb admin | March 2, 2009Updated below (3/17/09)
OMB Director Peter Orszag announced in a Federal Register notice last week that his office is interested in hearing your views on the federal regulatory process. The Request for Comments on new Executive Order on Federal Regulatory Review comes 4-weeks after President Obama's January 30 memorandum to department and agency heads (previous post here) announcing his plan to issue a new E.O., noting "...the principles governing regulation in generalâshould be revisited.â You better hurry if you want to share your views with OMB on a new E.O.; the comment…
sb admin | February 27, 2009The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued a decision this week on legal challenges to OSHA's 2006 rule to protect workers from exposure to hexavalent chromium. In the simpliest terms, Public Citizen's Health Research Group and the Steelworkers argued that OSHA's rule was not protective enough, while the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) argued that they should be exempt from it. The three-judge panel, which included retired U.S. Supreme Court judge Sandra Day O'Connor, rejected all but one of the petitioners' claims, deferring largely to OSHA's authority. Circuit Judge…
revere | February 23, 2009DemFromCT continues his public health series over at DailyKos, thus also continuing to make my early week blogging easier. This week is a brief look at this year's flu season, already in full swing, including what is happening in pediatric deaths from flu. He follows this with another interview, this time the American Lung Association's Director, National Advocacy, Erika Sward. Topics are timely: SCHIP (the Children's Health Insurance bill, just signed into law) and tobacco control.
These topics are intimately connected. Children are harmed by second hand smoke and are the next generation of…
revere | February 22, 2009I've seen surgeons blow up in the operating room but never saw an operating room blow up. But according to the Wall Street Journal, it's not that rare for them to catch fire and sometimes worse. Operating rooms are full of flammable gases and materials and oxygen. Moreover it isn't just a matter of taking a fire extinguisher off the wall or dumping a pail of water on the patient. There is the little matter of sterile procedures. So I was quite taken aback by a figure given in the article of 650 surgical suite fires each year in the US and maybe four times that number of "almost" fires (e.g.,…
revere | February 20, 2009Nothing like a massive food contamination outbreak from a plant in your state to concentrate the minds of state legislators (more here and links therein). Especially when an important industry is involved. We're talking Georgia peanuts, of course. Peanuts employ an estimated 50,000 workers in Georgia, accounting for some $2.5 billion in the state's economy. So yesterday the Georgia Senate unanimously passed a food safety bill and sent it on to the Georgia House. On the surface it seems like a good move, but its chief sponsor was a Republican, so that automatically makes me look closer. I'm…
revere | February 17, 2009The plant in Blakely, Georgia that was the apparent source of the salmonella peanut butter outbreak didn't make peanut butter for retail consumption. It made bulk peanut butter and peanut butter paste which became an ingredient in many other products. The number of products is now around 2000, the largest product recall in US history. So if you bought peanut butter retail you're safe, right? Not so fast.
The Peanut Corporation of America (RIP; filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy Friday) owned another plant in the Texas panhandle. Maybe you didn't know that. Neither did the Texas authorities,…
revere | February 14, 2009Another death to add to the nine already attributed to the peanut cum salmonella affair. This one is the company itself and the jobs of its employees. The Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) is going belly up. I don't mean Chapter 11 (reorganizing under the bankruptcy laws). I mean Chapter 7, as in liquidating. I wonder if this is an effort to wring as much private cash out of the business as possible before it gets its nuts sued off of it.
So one company, many jobs, the deaths of 9 people and the illness of more than 600 others, half of them children. In dollar terms there's also the lost…
revere | February 13, 2009People who make products containing peanut butter are seeing a dramatic drop in sales because of the salmonella problem (other posts here, here, here, here, here, here, here). That includes jarred peanut butters found in supermarkets (down 22% over the same period last year), although none are known to be contaminated. The Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) only sold peanut butter in bulk, to institutions and as an ingredient (peanut paste). Consumers aren't differentiating. This seems like a fairly prudent behavior, since everyday new products are being recalled, now surpassing a stunning…
sb admin | February 12, 2009Linda Reinstein is a mother and grandmother.  Linda Reinstein is an asbestos-disease widow. Her husband Alan Reinstein, 67, died on May 22, 2006 from mesothelioma. Like her husband, Linda Reinstein is a fighter, an organizer, an activist.  Following Alan Reinstein's mesothelioma diagnosis in 2003, they founded the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) which is now entering its sixth year. The organization strives to serve as the "voice of the victims."
Next month, the ADAO will host its 5th annual Asbestos Awareness Day conference (March 27-29, Manhattan Beach,…
sb admin | February 10, 2009Cross-posted from CPR Blog, by Rena Steinzor
Weâve written a great deal about Cass Sunstein, the Harvard law professor who is expected to get the nod to be the âregulatory czarâ for the Obama Administration.  In a nutshell, our concern is that Sunstein will stifle the efforts of health, safety, and environmental protection agencies to struggle to their feet after eight long years of evisceration by the Bush Administrationâs regulatory czars, John Graham, and his protégé, Susan Dudley.
But, we got to thinking. Just because the 30-year tradition of regulatory czars is to kill regulations…
revere | February 8, 2009The peanut butter with a side of salmonella story just keeps getting worse (other posts here, here, here, here, here, here). The toll so far is 8 dead, 575 confirmed salmonella cases (and undoubtedly many more never reported) and 1550 products recalled, one of the largest recalls in US history. The Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) plant in Blakely, Georgia, sold peanut butter in bulk to institutions (like nursing homes and schools) and peanut paste and similar ingredients to many other companies. And even as it did so, its own and government agency records showed there was a problem. The…