When President Obama nominated Prof. Cass Sunstein to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) many of us in the public health community were worried. He was, afterall, an academic who authored a paper entitled, “Is OSHA unconstitutional?” and another “Is the Clean Air Act unconstitutional?” Our colleagues at the Center for Progressive […]
When one of the nation’s largest mobile cranes–the Versa TC 36000—collapsed on July 18, 2008 at the LyondellBasell refinery in Pasadena, TX, four workers lost their lives: Marion “Scooter” Hubert Odom III, 41; John D. Henry, 33; Daniel “DJ” Lee Johnson; Rocky Dale Strength, 30. I wrote about this terrible crane disaster at the time, […]
by Eileen Senn, MS It seems obvious to many that respirators are needed to protect cleanup workers in the Gulf from inhaling air contaminants that are making some sick now and may make many more chronically ill in the future. I will describe a combination of political and scientific issues conspiring to prevent the needed […]
If there was any doubt in your mind that Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is detached from the reality of workers, worker rights and safety, he made it eminently clear in a letter he sent to his constituent Ms. Tammy Miser of Lexington, Kentucky. She’d written the Senator McConnell asking for his support for the Protecting […]
It’s been good to see OSHA adding more Gulf sampling data to its website, but the presentation of the information there isn’t quite as detailed as we were expecting to see. We asked an industrial hygienist colleague for a reaction to the web pages, and got an in-depth response. Here are one industrial hygienist’s recommendations […]
by Elizabeth Grossman “The biggest thing we’re going to see in the next month or so is heat. The hottest months are ahead. There’s no shade on the water, on the beach or in the marshes. We’re going to see an increased amount of heat exhaustion and heatstroke,” Dr. James Callaghan, emergency room physician and […]
Both OSHA and BP have set up webpages that offer their air monitoring procedures and results related to the Gulf oil disaster. Several worker health and safety experts have examined the data and offered interpretations of the results, including Eileen Senn, a former OSHA inspector. She reviewed BP’s June 9, 2010 Personal Exposure Monitoring Results […]
I noticed today on OSHA’s website a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the US Coast Guard (USCG). Under the heading “Information Sharing: Enforcement,” OSHA says it: “will notify the Federal On Scene Coordinator (FOSC) when it intends to take any enforcement action against BP, BP’s contractors, or any other employer engaged in response activities.” […]
Melanie Trottman reported in the Wall Street Journal last week that US Representatives James Oberstar and Jerrold Nadler have demanded that Gulf response and recovery workers be provided with respirators (among other protective equipment), but OSHA doesn’t think respirators should be required: David Michaels, assistant secretary for the Department of Labor’s OSHA, said in an […]
By Elizabeth Grossman Expressions of concern for oil spill response workers’ health and safety grew this past week as reports arrived by way of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network that BP was denying workers’ requests for respirators. On June 4th, the Wall Street Journal reported that Representatives Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and James Oberstar (D-Minn) had […]