Worker safety

Though their plans for legislation to track health on the Gulf Coast are on hold, Democrats on the Energy and Commerce committee have hardly dropped the issue.

Instead, Reps. Henry Waxman (Calif.), Frank Pallone Jr. (N.J.) and Bart Stupak (Mich.) want information about the health effects surrounding another oil-related disaster: the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill.

In a Thursday letter to the Exxon Mobil Corp., the lawmakers requested "all documents related to health effects experienced by workers involved in the response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill."

The lawmakers want the information by July 14.

With tens of thousands of barrels of oil still spewing from the Gulf gusher each day — and with BP dumping more than a million gallons of dispersants to combat the spill — a growing number of lawmakers have expressed concerns that the workers and residents being exposed to the chemical might suffer long-term illnesses.

The Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee had scheduled a Thursday markup on legislation requiring the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) to monitor and record the health conditions of those exposed to the spill, according to a draft version of the unreleased bill. But the panel canceled that meeting abruptly Wednesday night. 

A spokeswoman for the committee said that, after discussions with HHS officials, "it wasn't clear that they needed the additional authority, so it was decided not to proceed with the markup." 

Legislation to monitor the health of those exposed to chemicals along the Gulf Coast might be scrapped altogether, a House aide said Thursday. 

The House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee had scheduled a Thursday afternoon markup on the yet-to-be-unveiled bill. A draft version bouncing around Washington on Wednesday indicated that the Democrats were eying plans to require the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) to track and register the health of Gulf Coast workers and residents in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The draft included at least $37 million for that purpose.

But the committee canceled that markup abruptly Wednesday night. The reason? "It wasn't clear that [HHS] needed the additional authority," an Energy and Commerce spokeswoman said in an e-mail Thursday, citing discussions with HHS officials, "so it was decided not to proceed with the mark up."

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Federal safety inspectors last month took a closer look at troubled mines that had previously avoided special review due to a lack of government funding, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) announced Thursday.

The action came following a damning report from the Labor Department's Office of Inspector General (OIG), which found MSHA officials had instructed inspectors to skip reviews of many unsafe projects because the agency lacked resources. The report immediately raised the eyebrows of some top Democrats, who are calling for stricter mine safety rules — and a review of MSHA's funding.

Last year, MSHA had identified a number of mines suspected of disregarding safety rules in the name of increasing production. Under rules in place at the time, regional inspectors were supposed to examine those operations to see if they fit MSHA's "pattern of violations" (POV) status, which could result in the closure of unsafe mines. Instead, OIG found, a top MSHA official told regional offices to "select no more than one mine on the initial screening list per field office and a maximum of three mines per district."

The OIG warned last week that there was no evidence the dropped mines "had reduced their rate of significant and substantial violations. As a result, miners may be subjected to increased safety risks."

The warning wasn't lost on MSHA, which, in the past week, inspected all of the mines that were dropped as a result of that policy, the agency announced Thursday.

The Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee has canceled its markup of legislation to improve health monitoring in the wake of oil spills, the panel announced Wednesday evening. 

The markup was initially scheduled for Thursday afternoon. Calls and e-mails to the committee were not immediately returned. 

House Democrats on Thursday will mark up legislation to track the health of those exposed to oil and chemicals along the Gulf Coast.

The bill is designed to tackle concerns that exposure to the oil, gas and chemical dispersants surrounding the Deepwater Horizon disaster could lead to long-term illnesses.

A 1980 law — known as the Superfund — empowers the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to monitor and record the health of people exposed to hazardous materials. But the law doesn't consider either oil or natural gas to fit into that category.

The new proposal — being crafted by leading Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee — would require the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to track and register the health of clean-up workers and local residents affected by spill, according to a draft. The leak continues to spew tens of thousands of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico each day.

Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.) on Tuesday said newly proposed mine safety reforms — floated earlier in the day by some key Democrats — aren't focused enough on the problems they're intended to fix. 

Instead, said Kline, the senior Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, the Democrats have overreached, proposing "a much more expansive approach" than that needed to protect the nation's miners.

“Republicans," Kline said in an e-mail, "believe we need targeted steps to improve mine safety and prevent tragedies like the one that occurred at the Upper Big Branch mine in April of this year. That means improving the mine safety laws on the books and demanding stronger enforcement by the federal agency charged with protecting miners." 

The Democrats' proposal, Kline added, "takes a much more expansive approach, reshaping workplace safety policies that have nothing to do with protecting miners working underground."

Hours earlier, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the chairman of the Education and Labor panel, had outlined a series of mine safety reforms in response to the Upper Big Branch disaster, which killed 29 miners in southern West Virginia three months ago. 

The reforms, which are also being pushed by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Senate labor panel, include proposals to hike penalties for safety violations; strengthen whistleblower protections; grant subpoena power to federal investigators; and empower regulators to shutter troubled mines more easily.

House and Senate Democrats on Tuesday outlined reforms designed to bolster the worker safety protections governing the nation's mines.

The changes, floated by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), would hike penalties on safety violators, enhance whistleblower protections for workers who complain about unsafe conditions, and grant subpoena power to federal regulators investigating problem mines.

The draft reforms — written with help from officials at Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), a branch of the Labor Department — would also empower federal regulators to close mines more easily when patterns of safety problems are identified. To address complaints that MSHA inspectors have been reluctant to find themselves at fault for mining accidents, the Democrats are also promoting mandatory independent investigations of mine accidents. 

The sponsors argue that the changes are needed to rein in mine operators with a history of disregarding safety measures in order to increase production.

"Bad actors have put profits ahead of people," Harkin, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said in a statement. "As a consequence, workers have lost vital protections, suffered significant injuries and, in too many cases, lost their lives. 

"We are determined to put sharper teeth in our workplace safety laws and to step up federal enforcement."

Capitol Hill was rocked with loud booms Tuesday but no one was hurt — precisely the "safety first" message the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission wanted to impart as fireworks season kicks into full gear this Fourth of July weekend. The annual demonstration on the National Mall urges consumers to only use legal fireworks and never allow young children to play with them.

The statistics for 2009 are sobering: two deaths and almost 9,000 fireworks-related emergency room visits, the commission said, many affecting children and resulting in lost limbs.

The commission also announced the voluntary recall of Super Lightning Rockets, distributed by Big Fireworks of Lansing, Mich., because they're overloaded with pyrotechnic composition and violate federal regulations.

Legislation designed to bolster the nation's mine-safety protections could be introduced this week, a top House Democrat said Monday. 

The Democrats have been drafting mine-safety reforms in the wake of April's deadly explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in southern West Virginia. That bill, Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) said Monday, will be unveiled "as early as this week." The legislation, he said, "will help prevent a disaster of this magnitude from ever happening again."

Courtney's comments came during a field hearing to examine another deadly workplace accident: the February explosion at the Kleen Energy Power Plant in Middletown, Conn.

Key House Democrats on Friday pressed the Interior Department to not work with just the oil industry as it crafts rules.