Washington Insider
With Health Care Finished,
What’s Next?
BY AARON TRIPPLER, DIRECTOR, AIHA® GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS
Now that Congress has completed work
on health care, can we expect some activity on occupational health and safety?
After returning from spring break in
early April, Congress began looking at
several other priority issues for the
Obama administration. First on the list
was financial regulatory reform, followed by cap and trade, the economy,
jobs and the 2011 budget. That doesn’t
leave a lot of time for other issues.
Further, it is said that leaders in the
House of Representatives want to provide their members with some protection
for the November elections and will not
ask them to vote on any controversial issues for the remainder of this session of
Congress. And since fewer than 80 days
remain in this session, little time is left
to move an issue through the House and
Senate.
For now, then, we have to wait and
see what happens next. In the meantime,
here’s a look at where we are with some
pertinent legislative issues.
Protecting America’s Workers Act
The bill has been introduced in both the
House and Senate, but the only activity is
taking place in the House. A few months
ago, the House held a hearing to discuss
a section of the bill that would raise civil
and criminal penalties for employers who
are found in violation of OSHA rules and
regulations. This hearing was held to dis-
cuss proposed changes to the introduced
version. Some changes sparked consid-
erable debate, but the bigger question is
whether Congress will reintroduce a new
version of the bill or simply propose
amendments to the existing bill. Either
way, the chances of this legislation
being enacted grow slimmer by the
day—too many things in this bill will
draw opposition.
State Plans
Congress has introduced legislation to
provide OSHA with more oversight of
OSHA state plans, some of which do not
seem to operate efficiently. This bill was
introduced as a direct result of the construction deaths that occurred in Las
Vegas, Nevada—twelve workers died in
It is said that leaders
in the House of
Representatives want
to provide their
members with some
protection for the
November elections
and will not ask
them to vote on any
controversial issues
for the remainder of
this session of
Congress.
an 18-month period over 2007 and 2008.
Government review has shown that
Nevada’s OSHA state plan did not provide adequate protection to workers.
However, the existing law is vague on
federal OSHA’s options for addressing a
state plan. The new legislation would
allow federal OSHA to take over a state
plan or require it to address its deficien-
cies within a certain timeframe. Addi-
tional review of state plans would also
be required.
Safe Patient Handling
Legislation requiring OSHA to adopt a
safe patient handling standard is pending. Many states have already enacted
this type of legislation and several others
are considering similar bills. Federal
OSHA has not indicated whether it
would support the bill, but the agency
agrees that the issue is important. By the
time you read this, a hearing on this legislation may have begun.
One deficiency in the legislation is that
it requires OSHA to promulgate a standard in 18 months. The agency will most
likely examine this issue on its own.
Health-care advocates will continue to
push for this standard, while industry will
likely oppose it. Industry opposition will
focus on the cost of the standard, but
more importantly, industry will see this
bill as a first step toward another attempt
to enact a full ergonomics standard.
Aaron Trippler directs government affairs for more
than70localsectionsandservesasAIHA’schiefli-
aisonwithCongressandfederalagencies.Hecan
bereachedat(703) 846-0730oratrippler@aiha.org.
