the committee on education and labor meets this morning to examine a a federal occupational safe and healthy administration review of the nevada health and safety program the committee first heard testimony regarding problems with nevada social program at the june two thousand and eight hearing on construction safety during an eighteen month period between two thousand and six and two thousand and eight twelve construction workers died on the las vegas strip at the hearing witnesses said that it was  paper reported that productivity was frequently put ahead of safety as contractors pursued completion bonuses these growing health and safety issues sparked labor disputes workers staged a walkout in june of two thousand and eight demanding safety improvements after concerns grew over eight deaths at two construction sites in las vegas safety trends in the vatican have been pointing in the wrong direction between two thousand and three and two thousand and seven the vast construction illnesses and injury rate went up by more than twenty percent while the national construction engineer illness rate fell by eleven percent a safety became an issue so didn't force me to complaints alleging alleging backroom deals between the vat osha and politically connected firms were lodged by those involved in the two thousand and eight tragedy that killed two workers nearly took the life of another at the orleans hotel and casino the mother of one worker that was killed at the orleans hotel joins us today she will recount the reckless disregard of worker safety by recommended willful violations against orleans took an extraordinary step of filing a complaint with federal osha officials after the deal was made he resigned his position shortly thereafter the committee was advised that he was counseled that assisting in a complaint against the state could result in adverse personal personnel action the inspector pointed to an extensive irregularities in the boy gaming deal and said that the deal could only be a result of osha protecting the contractors from bad publicity and wrongful death lawsuit by the workers families this and many other allegations of misconduct eventually led to a special review by the nevada state of the nevada state planned by the new administration the review shows in a vat of social program failed to cite employers for clear hazards didn't properly train spector's didn't follow up to ensure the dangerous conditions were fixed failed to include worker representatives and inspections and failed to notify families of deceased workers of investigations or give them a chance to speak to investigators it is also troubling how infrequently nevada inspectors found serious violations and took little meaningful enforcement action as this chart shows last year only twenty nine percent of the vat of citations were classified as serious compare that to forty four percent and for other plants and seventy seven percent for federal osha is clear that there is something terribly wrong with nevada social program but now that is problems may also reflect a larger problem with the oversight of the twenty seven states and territories that operate their own plans federal osha must ensure that the state operates its own plan in a matter that in a manner that is at least as effective as the federal program no flags were raised during previous reviews of nevada's plans under the bush administration in fact bush osha officials called that us health and safety program very good overall these thumbs up were occurring at the same time that a taliban injuries were skyrocketing federal officials were clearly asleep at the switch with rosy proclamations from the bush administration there was no push for nevada to better protect its workers this is a this was at least until the new acting assistant secretary for osha under the leadership of a new administration ordered a comprehensive review of the state plan he will join us today to explore the agency's conclusions and recommendations and i'm also pleased to know that associates new director will join us today and i look forward to hearing from him about nevada's plans for turning this program around on the vat of promises to improve the program are important first step they must be strictly monitored by federal officials basic oversight of state plans is not only important in the vat a but it is vital to the fifty seven million american workers who health and safety protections are enforced by the state plan while some of the states are running innovative programs is clear that additional reviews of state plans is warranted excluding california because they have a higher penalties the average serious penalty assessed by state plans is only sixty five percent of the federal osha average this disparity suggests that some states may not be as effective as federal osha indeed one witness today will offer his perspective that nevada may not be the only state with problems meriting closer scrutiny osha's announcement of additional state reviews is important to assure that every worker has sufficient health and safety protections of american workers ensuring that those who have been harmed on the job receive just compensation and we look forward to his testimony as soon as he shows up in the meantime while he's where i understand that he's he's on his way i'd like to now recognize a senior republican member of our committee mr kline for an opening statement thank you mr chairman good morning to everybody worker safety and health are among the most fundamental concerns of every employer in this country no worker wants to risk illness or injury on the job and no employer wants that risk either recognizing the different states have different workplace needs the federal occupational safety and health act allows states to create their own state run safety and health programs subject to federal osha's approval and monitoring currently twenty two states and jurisdictions including my home state of minnesota operate complete state plans that cover both public and private sector workers several other states have plans to cover only public sector workers leaving federal osha to inspect the private sector in those states state workplace safety plans can be extremely effective according to the occupational safety and health state plan association state plans are able to inspect more workplaces more effectively than the federal government are considered more flexible than federal osha and can foster safety innovation that is not always available at the federal level unfortunately not every state plan is reaching its for potential to enhance protections for workers and one state plan in particular has been found to fall far short putting the lives of workers at risk here this morning from osha about its reserve view of the novato state plan i know concerns about workplace safety are being taken very seriously by that state's leaders and i welcome osha's efforts today in a file weaknesses in nevada safety program so the necessary steps can be taken to protect workers i'd like to read briefly from a statement submitted by nevada's governor jim gibbons quote i affirm my strong commitment to worker safety in nevada and believe that our workers safety can best be insured by a plan that is developed and managed at the state level at hearing to an exceeding federal standards rather than one designed and operated from washington close quote governor givens has put his finger squarely on our challenge in evaluating state osha systems our goal must be to preserve the fact flexibility and responsiveness of state plans which in many instances actually exceed federal safety requirements while ensuring adequate oversight for these plants that are not effectively protecting workers m mind our efforts to promote workplace safety should focus on enhanced what works rostering collaboration and emphasizing prevention to avoid the types of tragic accidents we'll hear about today i want to thank our witnesses and especially the family members of those whose lives were lost on the job i thank you for sharing your story so that we can take steps to prevent other families from suffering the way you have without members are going to wish to be heard back thank you i would like to yield two minutes  my home state of nevada is want to twenty two us that operate their own administration programs the state programs are required by law to be at least as effective as comparable federal standards but apparently according to the recent standards as well as should be the case under political influence has been part of the problem and that must be addressed as well as staffing and training between two thousand and three in two thousand and seven the construction illness and injury r nationally declined about eleven point four percent but it increased by twenty one point four percent during an eighteen month period between two thousand and six and two thousand and eight twelve workers were killed on the las vegas strip in construction accidents yet as the chairman pointed out nevada is well behind the curve in vigorous targeting and enforcement of the most serious safety violations for example in two thousand and eight only twenty nine percent that is violations were cited as serious this compares the seventy seven percent of the federal osha violations that were cited this serious the same time period and from january two thousand and eight through june of this year now that i was just cited only one violation is  nevada workers need to know that the state and federal osha programs will enforce the laws and keep our workers so i thank the chairman for holding this committee and i thank the majority leader senator reid for his leadership in this area within the state colleagues in thanking the witnesses for being here today to share their personal stories and professional expertise about the nevada state osha plan i also want to extend my sincere condolences to those who lost family members in workplace accidents in nevada and across the nation we appreciate your efforts to prevent others from suffering as you have workplace safety is a shared responsibility and one that must be taken very seriously employers work every day to prevent illness and injury among their workers to do that they rely on and are held accountable to occupational safety and health guidelines implemented at the state level the federal level or both as we will hear today federal osha has a dental fight a number of deficiencies in nevada state plan must be corrected immediately and i'm pleased that state officials are dedicating resources to improving their program i believe affective state plans have the potential to significantly enhance workplace safety state plans must meet federal standards at a minimum but they can also exceed federal standards as well as allow more flexibility to address individual workplace needs my home state of washington is a state plan state the state plan has had many successes through various partnerships between business and labor for example the washington industrial safety and health act requires the creation of an advisory board consisting of both employers and employees this advisory board is responsible for commenting on all policies regulations and guidelines that affect workplace health and safety the state plan recognizes a safety and health assessment and research for prevention program that encourages a collaborative approach to developing and testing innovative policies moreover a safety and health grant program administered by wisha provides funding for safety projects supported by both employers and employees while i recognize this is just one state it illustrates  efforts to respond to weaknesses in the nevada system should not disregard a model that has worked well in other states in fact more than two dozen states are fully or partially responsible for their workers safety through state  these plans have benefits that include increased inspections enhanced flexibility and greater access to innovative strategies for making job sites safer i look forward to hearing from our witnesses about what steps can be taken to immediately correct weaknesses in the in the dinette of nevada plan and to engage in a broader dialogue about the role state plans can play in making our workplaces safer thank you very much mr chairman and i yield back thank you it's my honor to recognize the majority leader of the united states senate harry reid thank you for coming over to testify mr reid before he was in the senate was my colleague in our colleague in the in the house of representatives and is no stranger to this issue of workplace health and safety both from a personal point of view but also from a public policy point of view where he has been unrelenting in his efforts to create a safer and healthier workplace for  for for workers and we look forward to your testimony thank you for joining the committee and senator reid proceed in the manner in which you most comfortable john miller thank you very much it's good to be back  pleasurable several terms knowledge all that kind things you did for me while i was adjusting here you are one of the senior members and you have been here for a couple more years and you're always very kind and thoughtful i appreciate that very much thank you member kline thank you very much for being here and members the committee especially my friend dina titus knight shelley berkley who are here do you have any states of felt the full force of this recession as been devoted to job security but that's only half the story and we must also pay attention to safety and security on the job that's why i am very happy that that you know i state department of labor occupational safety and health reviewed and will continue to review troublesome violations and other concerns in nevada as workplaces and it's why i'm happy to be here today to do what i can to give information will make this committee determine what the future should be the famous las vegas strip has recently seen thirty two billion dollars in building boom boom up and down the strip  coming back here at one job site city center i counted one day twenty eight cranes and just the one job site but something else was going up along with the hotels and casinos and that's the unnecessary deaths of construction workers twelve working men and women died in that in just eighteen months those tragedies represent just under half of all the workplace deaths in las vegas during that period elsewhere in the city thirteen other workers died equally tragic and equally preventable deaths the men and women who have made lost vegas you know the fast growing city it is today may the las vegas strip the entertainment capital of the world our professionals are both capable in their respective trades and cognizant of the dangers they face they deserve better than about osha's indifference to their health and safety when a construction worker's day includes climbing on iron structures hundreds of feet into the air under intense heat and high winds for a maintenance worker having to climb down into a manhole his or her job is hard enough that worker should not also have to worry about whether the state agencies were sole purpose is ensuring his or her safety is doing their job also that is exactly what i'm worried about because you know nevada is one of twenty seven states and territories operate its own health and safety enforcement program unfortunately though nevada osha failed too many times to enforce workplace safety in some cases it simply failed to act and others it acted improperly or poorly its carelessness created an environment that allowed dangerous conditions to persist and put nevadans life's a risk danger employees regret it regrettably may happen willful violations but nevada's workplace safety program discourage the citations issue only one wills a violation month period that was reviewed program also failed to cite going repeat violations which would have flagged persistent problems and lead to proper remedies that could have saved lives for example two men were killed at the orleans hotel and casino and a third was severely injured after they and travis kohler and richard gere died i met earlier today with travis mother debbie she'll testify before a later day she has with her a picture of her boy over six year period  osha also consistently fail to report serious violations federal osha classified more than three out of every four violations a serious ones and state plans did so for nearly half of theirs but know that osha reported less than one third of their breaches a serious finally stated failed to notify a victim's family that was investigating their loved one's death and almost half of dallies in nevada workplace during the time that osha had to review his record is simply mr president an acceptable and not defensible each one of these deaths is tragic and while accidents happen each one could have been prevented and it's not unreasonable to demand that the agency dedicated to worker safety doesn't look the other way federal ocean and this committee are correct to hold the state agency accountable for its violations the law and the public trust continue to support your efforts on the federal level by directing my staff to remain in contact senate and those here in the house to ensure federal she gets the funding it's needs to ensure americans work in safe places and not hesitate to call for further action if that osha fails to act on this report's recommendations as our economy recovers not enough merely to ensure nevadans all americans can have a good job to go to every morning so not everyone has today but we must also make sure that they can safely come home from that job every night thank you very much m be fixed it has to have additional resources but as we will hear later today there are other state agencies that raise raise serious questions and i think we also look favorably on the offer  rodgers that we look to other state agency that are succeeding to see what those what those models that might be adopted to help those states secure that safe workplace i know you have a very busy schedule and we had an arrangement i would  a labor policy advisor on this committee worked as a health and safety specialist the u s chemical safety board and service special assistant to the ocean ministry or prior to his government service he was director of health and safety at the american federation of state county municipal employees ministry of the division of industrial relations department business and industry for the state of nevada his division handles health and safety regulation workers compensation and train service general manager of the state industrial insurance system in cars missed every caller ferguson is a resident of las vegas she is the mother of travis caller who died in a preventable confined space accident at the orleans hotel in february two thousand and eight she filed a complaint with the federal osha about an about as osha decision to downgrade the citation against boyd gaming as the mother of a worker killed on the job she has made it her mission to raise awareness of the need for better workplace safety we think or for traveling across the country to be with us here today dr frank meyer  is a is a professor of environmental occupational health and urban public health program at hunter college in the city to the university of new york previously served as director of the u a w health and safety department he served this year the michigan health and safety advisory committee to expertise and your experience some of you know but some of you are new to testifying in front of your little consuls there when you begin to speak a green light will go on you will have five minutes  four minutes and orange light will come on it suggests you might want to consider wrapping up your remarks but we want you to finish your remarks in a coherent and manner in which your which you're comfortable and then a red light will go on which which suggest that you should you should you should wrap up and we will go through the entire panel and then we will open it up for questions from the chair of the members of the of the committee so with that jordan will begin with you welcome to the committee we need to put on a microphone thank you mr chairman ranking member kline and members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to testify about the occupational safety and health administration state plan program and recent investigation of the nevada state plan section eighteen of the occupational safety and health act allows states to operate and enforce their own safety and health programs currently twenty five states and two territories have state plans to deliver the osha program to forty percent of the nation's workplaces state plan standards and enforcement speak quote at least as effective unquote as federal osha in addition the state plans operate under authority of state law not delegated federal authority states must also provide at least fifty percent of the funding for state osha plans there are a number of advantages to state plans they had resources to the federal program would not otherwise be available they cover state and local government employees who are not covered by federal osha and they have the flexibility to deal with workplace hazards that are sometimes not addressed by federal o for example california recently issued standards for heat stress airborne diseases and popcorn along a disease associated with exposure to the flavoring chemical diaster t l as valuables of state efforts are however federal osha is required to maintain effective oversight of state plans to ensure that all workers in america are protected nevada's operated a state plan says one hundred seventy for a high number of well publicized construction related fatalities on the las vegas strip in two thousand and seven and two thousand and eight race the number of serious questions about three of nevada osha's fatalities that occurred between january two thousand and eight in june two thousand and nine nevada osha fully cooperated with our investigation providing all the records that we needed for the study federal osha identified a number of serious concerns nevada plan even though the files examined were primarily cases involving the death of workers only one willful citation was issued and later reduced willful violations are those the employer intentionally and knowingly commits and they carry the highest penalties hazards identified during inspections were not addressed and citations in almost one half of the fatality cases reviewed the state failed to notify families of deceased workers that it was investigating the death of a loved one the votto she did not have procedures to assure that hazards founder inspections were abated by the employer inspectors were not properly trained about the hazards of construction work despite the high level of construction activity and construction related fatalities in the state in ninety one percent of the fatality cases reviewed information from employer illness logs was not obtained by inspectors this by no means an exhaustive list of the deficiencies we discovered i provided the committee with a copy of the report so you can read the complete findings i also want to take a moment to clarify that the problems we identif show were systemic problems in the management of the agency we're not casting blame on the efforts of the dedicated staff were devoting their lives to ensuring safe workplaces for nevada workers the report also includes a number of recommendations for improvement for example nevada o should work with council to train inspectors to develop legally sufficient cases review case files more thoroughly defined hazards not initially identified contacts families of victims soon after the initiation of an inspection ensure adequate abatement of all hazards found during complaint inspections and provide staff with additional training on construction hazards as a result of the deficiencies identified in the votto says program and as a result of the administration's goal to move from reaction to prevention i have notif the state plans that we will be implementing a number of changes to strengthen the oversight monitoring and evaluation of state programs ice and interim guidance to osha as town regional administrator in august encouraging more extensive investigation of potential problems i also told the regional evaluators to maintain more frequent direct contact with the states they oversee and to keep a breast of state legislative elements major incidents and local initiatives in addition to ensure that similar deficiencies do not exist in any of the other state plans federal osha will conduct evaluations similar to what we conducted in the vada for every state that administers its own program these evaluations will assist federal ocean improving its monitoring system and lead to better program performance and consistency throughout all sta plans we will involve states in the development of the revised monitoring procedures osha is emphasizing to our state partners that we are not trying to change the nature of the relationship between federal and state osha but we do need to speak with one voice and assure american workers that they will receive adequate protection regardless of the state in which they work however if nevada or any other state problems are identified fails to make the necessary improvements in a timely manner osha could reassert concurrent federal jurisdiction but beyond that withdrawal of a state plan would be the appropriate sanction when major and pervasive deficiencies are present and the state does not correct them mr chairman i appreciate your work today and shining a spotlight on what has been an obvious gap in the protection of our workforce thank you again for this opportunity to discuss the osha state plan program and our study of the nevada state plan i look forward to your questions thank you welcome thank you good morning chairman miller ranking member kline congresswoman titus co ngresswoman berkley and distinguished committee members i appreciate the opportunity speak with you today about nevada's occupational selfie safety and health program my name is donald jang i'm the administrator for net and that is the vision of insurance i was a point of that post in march of two thousand and nine i have with me today the newly appointed chief administrative officer from nevada osha mr stephen cofield to my left we're pleased to be here today to answer your questions about the federal osha's review  occupational safety and health program this report is a product was special study by federal osha and is the first as i understand it a series of special reports as outlined by george when i was asked if i would agree to have nevada be the first of the be junked it needs to be repaired and it need to be properly maintained and moving forward we should not forget the people who work for nevada osha like employees like employees of federal ocean of the state plans are employees are committed to enforcing occupational safety and health standards in many ways osha is familiar to similar the highway patrol where the cops where the foresman officers we enforce the laws we investigate tragic accidents we don't blame cops for tragic accidents and we should not blame ocean for officers either we should keep in mind the primary responsibility for occupational safety and health rests with employers if an employer fails in its responsibility we like the highway patrol should issue a citation that carries an appropriate fine but i'm not here today to talk about i'm here today to talk about the vat osha's response to the federal osha study after reviewing the reporting considering the testimony that preceded me may wonder how i can be so sure that nevada osha can be salvaged my answer is simple i have confidence in mr coalfield and the enforcement professionals we have of attitude to do their job with the proper leadership that we've talked about we've got dedicated employees who are dedicated to reducing work related accidents illness and fatalities therefore as part of nevada's a new leadership and i know that osha will improve that's my opening comments and my answers your questions may be more positive than you expect i believe that the issuance of the federal osha report marks the beginning of a new relationship based on shared goals reducing injuries illnesses and fatalities in the workplace i'm here today to tell you the federal osha and the state plans can work together to achieve this goal we must work together because even one work related death is too many the impact on family loved ones friends and fellow employees is too great in the vat of we have shared the pain of work related fatalities all too often therefore at this time i want to offer my public condolences to all those who have lost someone in a work related accident as i said even one work related death is too about osha was authorized to adopt standards and procedures for safe operation more recently nevada responded to work state of fatalities by requiring mandatory osha ten and osha thirty training for employees and supervisors engaged in the construction industry the vat also passed s b two eighty eight requiring consultation was with members of this deceased family today i am here to state on the record that about osha is going to address the issues raised in the federal to report however budgetary constraints may have adverse impact on our ability to address the issues quickly that's why we are committed to change we must be mindful of our financial limitations historically nevada has stepped up to the plate financially at present the state of nevada contributes three quarters of the operational costs but now that is not alone over the years the ratio of federal contributions a slip with the state plans picking up an increasing share of the cost therefore as federal osha increases its oversight of state plans were compelled to ask you for an equitable and consistent formula funds they programs a plan to succeed we must address the funding formula in my remaining time i'd like to take this opportunity dress a couple of the issues from the federal osha report at the onset i want to touch the willful and repeat violations here i can tell you that we're already addressing the perception of willful violations that are discouraged they are not in conjunction with this effort we are forging a new and effective working relationship with our enforcement personnel and attorneys these actions along with others will ensure that the employers who willfully or repeatedly violate osha standards are issued appropriate citations overall it's my intention to enhance and strengthen the enforcement policies and practices according to vat it will develop an action plan addressing the findings of recommendations in the federal osha report next i'd like to say just a few words about training we do not take this issue lightly like other plans we rely on the osha training institute and we that will not change will continue to center in force when officers even though it's an extremely cost efficient approach in the effort of time will move to a summary and simply assure the committee that we're here today to accept the recommendations to work towards correcting the recommendations and to be visible and answer the questions this committee may have condolences to your family but i also want to recognize you taking up this battle to change the circumstances after your son became a victim of a very badly managed program  if not more so thank you for being here and we look forward to your testimony chairman miller and distinguished members of the committee my name is debbie kohler ferkin and i would like to thank you for inviting me to testify here today i do so in the memory of my son kohler i give god the glory for answering my prayers to be heard traveston richard lose your lost their lives and david snow was severely injured at the orleans hotel has been stated on february second two thousand and seven the federal review of the nevada state agency accurately reflects reflects the foot fact that nevada osha utterly failed not only my son but also richard and the other workers killed or injured federal report on about osha's investigative practices a vindication of my allegations in the cast by file that showed clearly supportable evidence for willful or repeat violations that were not cited by nevada osha even though the owner operator of this hotel had previously cited for substantially similar conditions and hazards that other properties it was clear to lead investigator jonna which boyd management and the supervisors knew of the dangerous condition that  existed concerning confined spaces yet never had osha management would not support those citations and essentially let the gaming company get away with in my opinion murder my son trusted his employer he never would have dreamt that he would be called upon to intentionally be put in a deadly situation he is a carnegie hero award recipient for his actions that day and while proud of him it is of little consolation for our family he is desperately missed by me his dad pop his brothers bobby and brandon other family and friends i found especially troubling to read and the federal report that nevada investigated personnel are completely lacking in many areas of training for the jobs that they are entrusted with the federal report states that two employees have conducted say tala the investigations in two thousand and nine without the benefit of accident investigation training how can an agency  nevada's workforce lack in so many areas of training themselves there is also a desperate need for family member victims to be heard and included in the investigation process and to be treated with dignity but sadly that is not what happened to me personally i feel misled by steve cofield been acting c e o of nevada osha in las vegas who said i would be happy with the outcome of the case i'm not sure how to do cite citations would make me happy i am also dismayed to find out from the federal report that the case was delayed because nevada felt the need for further investigation yet i was told it was due to a scheduling issue between all parties as a mother whose son had suddenly been ripped from her arm come due to a completely preventable incident it is also it was also very distressing for me to stand in the back lobby of the ocean offices when mr caulfield gave us the investigative report and endure sideways glances of other employees coming to work watching me cry when told of the reduced finding no invitation to his office or other private area to ask questions not even an offer to sit or drink of water it was a humiliating and disrespectful experience and still i have no answers why those willful citations were not given unless someone can prove to me otherwise and i welcome the effort i will always believe there was corruption in the orleans case powerful companies such as the gaming industry use their political connections to influence such things as the outcome of an investigation as i believe boyd gaming did nevada osha cannot continue to buckle under these political pressures and needs to stand up and send the clear message that the game is over and give the citations and fines that prove it and federal osha needs to hold them responsible for making the changes set out in the review report i am very pleased with the outcome of this federal review of  practices they did a thorough job of looking for the truth and finding areas that need improvement i applaud everyone involved for their dedication to make not only the nevada state office a more efficient agency but for trying to ensure that hardworking people can go home to their families at the end of the day in closing due to the enormity of the task ahead for nevada osha i am skeptical that they will be able to implement the changes in a timely manner and with the urgency it must in resolving these deficiencies while i want very much to believe they are willing to address all of the issues and make a more effective agency i personally have a wait and see attitude i would like to for the record give a copy of the workplace tragedy family bill of rights to mr jane if i can i urged federal osha and department of labor not to let nevada osha slide back into complacency thank you very much thank you dr my i'm frank morrow i'm a professor now but i spent thirty years with the united auto workers union my academic project is trying to generalize that experience and i have to say the most intense experience of state plans was a night we worked in i think it was two thousand way into the night to settle the ford rouge power plant investigation a million dollar penalty and management agreed to take on initiatives through the whole company which reinvigorated health and safety in the company and there i benefit far beyond the the borders of michigan and there's a lesson there as to what happens after the tragedy we're here looking at inspections citation employer contests the basement where the rubber meets the  slow investigation modest penalty employer contest or threatened contests reduced penalty family and employees not involved investigations settlement and uncertain abatement unfortunately those are characteristics of a lot of things that happened in the safety and health world now not just in the bottom not just in state plants but elsewhere and that's what we have to talk about correcting there a lot of statistics in my testimony about statistics don't put guards on machines or conduct confined space entry programs we have to talk about what you know what's really going to level the playing field between state and local state and federal to agencies that we were replacing federal state with federal to level the playing field between the states but the essence of the essence of the interaction is is equalizing upward since that argument the two things of a merged i think that change the terrain one is the notion of multi plant multi state agreements to abate hazards which are disadvantaged in in the state program system absent the example i've given and the other is the coverage of public employees which exists in state planned states and  not and not elsewhere and this is a large segment of our population and so those have to do those two issues have to be addressed in trying to abate these problems now there are a lot of statistics about the differences between state and federal enforcement and what they boil down to is two questions why does states appear to classify violations as lower gravity lower penalty than federal osha and on the other hand why does federal osha appear to be less productive in terms of investigations and total citations and we have to understand the reason why that's happening there should not be a trade between productivity and quality and we should be equalizing everything upward and taking advantage of the taking advantage of both experiences to improve protections across across the country in my testimony there's some more detailed analysis of the differences in the statistical measures between nevada and state plans and ocean in general we need to have a sister that recognizes the testicle abnormalities things that are operating outside the system and responding to them story that people can use whereas numbers are numbers or numbers and can be interpreted in a lot of different ways the end of my testimony i cite an example which may be a way forward the explosion and corb kentucky taken up by the chemical safety board there's an example of both a lost opportunity protections not extended across the country from a tragic accident and also the picts  complete case review looking for failures and regulation failures in four cement failures in in in state program in this case activity but i submit that it has to be applied to applied in the federal system equally as well to move forward and thanks very much thank you thank you all very much for your for your testimony let me just say at the again i think one of the things that is upset this committee time and again both sides of the aisle is when families are cut out of the process whether it's in mining accidents or construction accidents or other issues where there's been a loss of life or very serious injury and and part of our ongoing effort here is to make sure that in fact families are part of that process the idea that they have to be bystanders that they have nothing to contribute in fact we know and many and the number of access families contribute very important evidence because they talk to their spouse or to their father their brother going to work and they talk about what's wrong with the work site mining very often that takes place and yet nobody solicits their opinions or their knowledge their understanding as if they're completely irrelevant to these to these investigations and that simply has to change has to change at the federal level has to change at the at the state level and we're continuing to pursue that it should sound easy but for some reason it's not quite as easy to do as it should sound but it's very important to members on both sides of this aisle we've we've been through this too many times and we've had too many witnesses such as yourself that have suffered a loss and have basically been told just to stand over there and behave in that you'll learn to be salts when everybody else does and i know there's variations on that theme but it all sort of ends up in that place know monitoring how the review is dealt with what see surance we have that there's going to be this this involvement speaking specifically now about nevada we have asked the state well we've told the state that we want a detailed corrective action plan from them to describe how they are going to address all the recommendations we made given them thirty days from the time we submitted the report to november twentieth to give us that detailed action one up there but in the meantime we will have people there temporarily and what's that what's the timeframe for i'm not sure yet where where kind of negotiating now with we're trying to find a location we're talking to the g s a it's you know it's it's the federal government so it'll take a lot we're not quite sure what the timeline is but we have made it a priority and we are moving forward on it well i think i think that's important senator reid testified to you know what has taken place and about and the nation the world is resources be there we shan't want to things that concerns me and this is if i read it right i certainly stand to be corrected but senator reed talked about the thirty two billion dollars of activity on the strip and it's really quite amazing that people have been there to see it the combination of not only entertainment facilities and gaming facilities and residential but it's really quite massive this taking place but you don't see much increase in the in the personal resources the staff dedicated to this process when you when you really have thousands of workers at the same time i mean we've people have marveled in the news national magazines of comment on the number of cranes in the sky and what's taking place and yet it looks to me like this was fairly flat during that period of time for the record done jane i sure your same observations one of the things that i looked at when i came on board was the take a look back at past budget cycles and for many years the total allocation has been relatively flat you know we've had some growth over the years nevada is experienced and we funded it up but the last few budget cycles we've been relatively flat as far as the number of individuals now the unfortunate reality of the current economy is that's that's you know back things back down as far as the number of jobs and quite a significant number of jobs in the construction industry  nevada but but i do believe that there will be a rebound to that cycle and the day will come again where nevada will begin to boom with the building move one of the things that caught us in the last cycle was during that boom time virtually fifty percent of our experience staff was was taken away by the private sector and other governmental entities and that compounds one of the problems we're still working through today that virtually fifty percent of our staff is approaching one year of seniority and i'm sorry twenty five percent of our staff and another twenty five percent of our staff is less than three years of experience as we aggressively train through so we're going to have to dedicate resources in the vatican towards improving the patient doctor there's been a subcommittee created a ready by the nevada legislature th start working with immediately have made contact with the chairman of that committee and whether we're talking to schedule our first meeting in the early part of the year to continue to monitor this process on a state level as well as working with our federal partners well i would just think  this is sort of the cows out of the barn here but but you know i know i think all of us experience when when cities and counties engage large developments fees are assessed for for roads for highways for all of these all of these things that are going to have to support that development and we're going to add thousands on a really very rapid scale you know our add thousands of jobs it would seem to me somebody serious said you know what do we do about it i recognize the federal deficiencies in funding but we haven't been a great partner there but in terms of that effort it has to look different than just the run of the mill development this taking place because it's so outstanding in the magnitude of the development that was collapsed in this in this in this period of time and i think the state has got to think about these are extraordinary circumstances especially if this race is competition for your employees you have to think about how you put the resources so that in fact train inspectors will be in place and can properly monitor these jobs because the what this report tells us that simply wasn't happening on the level that was necessary given the work sites and the number of them employers and employees involved here so i would hope that some consideration would be given t and i think we understand we can't fully appreciate because we're not in your shoes but the frustration that you and families felt as chairman miller said and and being cut out too often in these discussions and in when these terrible tragedies occur mr barrow how long does this process going to take not in nevada but your sort of review this wall to wall review of the state plans can you give us some sense of what you're looking at here we have told our regional administrator is to basically start immediately on these reviews the normal time frame for these reviews the time frame we've given them we're targeting is the is the end of april next year given the number of the reviews that are going on or hoping to get it done by then the very least however the first part of next year we'll have these finished and they will be published they will be public you're going to do authority some of them have more than others we will be sharing staff between regions that that's necessary in order to get all of these done ok and what happens if they come up short what are your what are your courses of action here will basically follow the same pattern that we followed with nevada we will we will deliver to them our findings and recommendations we will ask them for a and action plan and we'll give them a deadline for addressing all the recommendations we've given them and if they come up short do you establish  focus on getting an assurance from them that they will address these problems there are further steps we can take if any state basically refuses to or isn't it unable to address the recommendations and the further steps being federal osha takes over how's that work yeah it depends on the status of the state most of the states have what we call final status we given them basically full control of their state programs although obviously we're still required to oversee those programs  it's kind of a complicated process but ultimately the main weapon we have is to reassert federal concurrent federal jurisdiction over the state and for us and other words we would go in there and centrally for a while until they managed to correct the situation to serve federal jurisdiction otherwise we'd be running the state program now that's easier said than done if the state the state with final status can actually refuse to allow us in in which case we'd have to begin the process of essentially removing that state program taking away their ability to run the state program that's fair we've never had to do that it's a fairly long and arduous process we're hoping not to do that not to have to do that while this is going on while you're reviewing the state programs and potentially increase for osha which will include about more over one hundred new compliance officers and some of these will also be some of those resources will certainly be dedicated to state plan oversight ok thank you i'm just about to run out of time you're go conduct these reviews and i by the way i think is a very fine idea clearly we need to know what's going on and we don't want to see a repeat of what happened in the vada in this plan is there a process to continue to review to continue the oversight how do you see that playing out yeah absolutely we are once we have completed all the reviews we are going to be looking at the findings that we've had we are then going to look at our current state plan monitoring procedures and make any changes in those monitoring procedures that need to be made and we're fairly sure we're going to need to make some fairly major changes in those current monitoring procedures they obviously have not succeeded in identifying a lot of the problems that for example we just identified  oversight and enforcement and that mr janeway has brought a new administration and is committed to making those improvements and as i've heard some of the problems i realize that a lack of training we can fix that a lack of resources that can be addressed by the legislature and the different budgets but none of these improvements will matter if outside pressure continues to be in appropriately applied so we need to explore not only what are the needed internal program changes but how we minimize the perception or reality of un do political influence and establish a more standard a transparent process moving forward now the perception of nevada osha is that the process has been capricious that not been inclusive it's not been fair and it's not been aggressive enough and suring worker safety furthermore the perception is this process has been driven by undue political influence so i would ask you mr james what you're planning to do to remove the perception that nevada osha is making a decision based on bad politics not good policy as given that many of the faces in the program are the same and then i would ask you mr bryan i appreciate the trying to that you're making internally and the oversight that you're doing especially appreciate having an office in the district in southern nevada but is there not anything we can do legislatively to give you some work to your recommendations short of having to take over the whole program where there might be science sions or whatever so those would be mad to question for the record thank you congresswoman titus i'm aware too of some of the allegations and the concerns that there may or may not have been political influence i have not been able to find anything that would lead me to any definitive conclusions there other than the observations that that were made certainly the the advice of the technical staff the safety staff the professionals is what i need to abide by when they make recommendations to me  administrator of our division industrial insurance should have the authority to make those decisions within the agency i do believe that authority rests there in the decisions are ultimately made there i guess the observation i could make would be that at least the leadership from business and industry in nevada through the administrator through the chief administrative officer has all been changed i can and again on the record and that really is something that i can merely say is that i would not buy out on due political influences but i understand what you're saying as far as the perception i when i work with the subcommittee in nevada to review the procedures i'll make sure we address that to see if there's any appropriate way to try to insulate some of that certainly we're in a chain with a reporting it's right now our only major option if we do not have a cooperative state program is essentially to revoke that state program which is again an extremely burdensome process requiring notice and comment rule making hearings possibly and possibly also going on to the courts for final decisions now we the administration does not have a position on online legislative improvements or legislative changes we haven't discussed this thoroughly yet we certainly have heard a number of suggestions that would basically lead toward making it a lot easier for osha to assert concurrent jurisdiction even if the state run willing to allow so i think those to kind of come part of the way toward engaging with the state without having to go again through the hearings not as uncommon and that type of thing are some of the things that have been suggested chairman also associate myself with the chairman and ranking members comments ms ferguson for you and your family and i see the picture of your son i have two sons and and your right to advocate for he  other young people who work in the construction industry so my condolences to you and your family my father worked in a factory and i think probably had better died at sixty one years of age and i think if there had been better regulations about examinations i should say that their time would have been better spent somewhere else as to the color of a bag that something was and are just ridiculous things that make business harder to do and i consider an untold to you for an hour about that that is not what this is this is a very serious issue and should be at dressed and i think except quite frankly how many mr secretary i missed the number how many people had died within a year's time in construction it depends on the time here you're talking about there were within that within the articles have been written in the in the las vegas there were i think about nine within a very short time period fatalities on the strip itself are the time period covered by our report covered twenty five fatalities within about a sixteen or eighteen month period re the red flag of somebody i mean that seems to be an enormous number of people well luckily it originally i think raised the red flag with a reporter alexandra berzon with the las vegas sun she she managed to raise it to the public's consciousness the problem you find with workplace fatalities is that most of them happen when the time so there may be an article a small article in the paper one month another one the next month nobody really needs to not to interrupt but that we agree and that was one of the findings and why was it a problem with leadership resources or what i mean how did that go on well i think we identified a number of problems with the nevada state plan but i have to say the problem was also with the federal osha we were not performing the oversight that we were required to do and that's one of the things we are looking at very carefully is the kind of oversight we need to provide to the states certainly don't want to make it impossible to carry on business but no young i mean and believe me a lot of the ocean valley is making or rules make it harder to carry on business but it should be reasonable rules i think and that was certainly reasonable to have protection where your son  i mean that was anybody with common sense would have known that i also think that dr mind your comments on productivity and quality were right on i think you want to make it where you can work in a safe environment radek quality work environment and  remain productivity so your business can be competitive i think you are right on the money there a question for the secretary of state plans are required to be at least as effective as federal osha correct and that can you tell us what benchmarks the federal osha uses to level of fines are what the seriousness of the citation is obviously injury and illness fatality rates in the state there are a number of different factors we can use to measure that we have not been using enough of those really to oversee the states and to ensure that they are at least as effective and that's one of the things that we're going to be doing as we go through and review all the state state plan performance we're going to be looking at those measures again and trying to decide what's best wanted to use to ensure that the states are at least as effective as a federal plan i think it's i think somebody dropped the ball because it took a citizen to step up really a newspaper to step up and then to file a problem when the agency in charge of the problem apparently didn't and then found the problem am i procedure and performance problems that we identified they had enough money to do actually provides quite a bit more money they overmatch they're one of the states that actually provide fifty percent so again it was really more the procedures that they followed  battle workers safety has been put in danger because of lax enforcement or reduced or withdrawn citations for fatality cases after contractors object it these cases were highlighted in las vegas and now california's problems are showing up in the los angeles times in california the workers safety appeals court has repeatedly we do store dismissed penalties again companies that cal osha has fined there was one company a bimbo bakery in san francisco have reached into a bread making machine and her arm was sucked in and had to be amputated the incident you're at twenty one thousand seven hundred fifty dollars fine but the bakery paid nothing after they appealed to the workers safety appeals board and now it turns out that over the last few years the vast majority of cases have been dismissed or settled for a few cents on the dollar or penalty penalties have been drastically reduced just because companies protest it also the hearing process is  very very flawed with the board scheduling multiple cases to be heard simultaneously by the same judges often far from where the witnesses lived so when i want to  what has broken down in terms of federal oversight over the state plan system that's a good question and that's one of the things we will be looking at as we go and look at california and the other states review boards are certainly within oceans purview of oversight it's a little bit more complicated because we require each state to have a independent review board but that means independent of the state osha so you're actually you can't go to the state osha and ask them to correct problems with the review you have to go up to the governor's office to ask them to do that because they are an independent agency as we go in and look at it for example the problems that you identified in california we're going to need to find out whether the problems are actually with for example poor documentation of cases by ocean specters some of which we found in the vada or whether they were arbitrary decisions made by the review board or perhaps decisions made by the review board that are based on regulations or laws that we would consider to be not as effective as similar regulations or laws in the federal government in which case we could go in and require them to modify those regulations or laws would also look at the procedures that article identified for  example as you mentioned where the board would schedule a number of different hearings at the same time that sounds like a problem with their procedures and certainly something that we want to address so you think it can be done through regulation or does congress need to change some laws i don't think this is a matter of congress changing the laws i think again this comes back to oversight over the state programs which includes oversight over the review boards to make sure that they're functioning properly as they're intended to function mr the l times article also mentions that it's nearly impossible to track the appeals court cases because the dockets are not readily accessible i know that the obama administration takes transparency and accountability very seriously can you tell me if there can be new regulations or guidelines to make sure that the to state administer plans are more open and transparent i think that's one of the things we're going to be addressing obviously it's hard to monitor any kind of agency or any kind of a program if you don't have the basic data to monitor  d where as we could probably get that data i think it's also important that citizens also have that data as well to access so we will be that will be one of the areas we will be addressing california has of course a state osha plan just like nevada and nationwide there are three hundred forty complaints about state plans in general and about it there were eighteen complaints in california had forty one complaints how do you monitor these complaints when we get a complaint when the when the when someone files a complaint against a state program it goes to the regional administrators we have ten regions around the country california's part of region nine and that region is responsible for responding to that complaint we found as part of the process we know we have just been looking at osha we've also been looking at ourselves and we quite frankly are not satisfied either with the way we've been responding to some of these in some cases to the complaints against a programs we've asked our regional administrators to look at their procedures to make sure that these complaints are handled on a much more timely basis than they have been in some cases and we will be collecting data on where these have been filed and when i read about your son's accident in the destruction of what could have been prevented preventable accident i guess which is it became very clear to me as the chair of the workforce protection subcommittee here on this committee wonderful committee were sitting on there was a pattern this has been happening i've been reading about it all over the country but particularly  began meeting with the contractors and the labor organizations back in the two thousand and four two thousand and five timeframe when we saw the complexity the size and the end of the number of structures that were going to be coming out of the ground on a mere sixty five acres of land and everybody was very concerned about it and as construction starts a rrived or started getting closer the contractor started hiring our staff and so we very rapidly our experience level dropped and our staffing level had not been increased well excuse me if they hired your staff they should have known what they're supposed to be doing on the ground i mean they should have that expertise there i'd like to just go over and ask assistant secretary or rob a question or do something about all of this and we also know that congress has to support osha and that we have to go with the president and pass the president's increase in the budget we know that we must make it happen and certainly this committee will work very hard for that i also have legislation h r two thousand and sixty seven called the protecting america's workers act which will put some real aaron miller has signed with me that will put some real increases in penalties and will strengthen enforcement and bring osha into the twenty first century so we're working on that believe me would you tell me with  now that your in your position in this new secretary how would nevada osha situation have been handled differently in two thousand and four or with with their new  structure could it have been handled different well we would have hoped i guess that each of the individual cases as they began to occur certainly as a as a den of fatalities would have been handled i guess on a more serious basis that we would have had penalties commensurate with the severity of the of the incidents in other words that we would have willful citations when they were deserve that we would have repeat citations when they were reserved and high enough to deter that kind of behavior from other companies i think that's one of the benefits of the osha penalty system in the benefits of being able to to issue willful citations for example is not just does it does it send a message specifically to the company but it sends a message to the entire community that osha is taking this this kind of cutting corners on safety extremely seriously and will not tolerate it and i think that's a message that did not go out there thank you mr chairman thank you thank you i look forward to working with the subcommittee chair on this on this matter mr jane you say you are going to address the perception that willful violations were discouraged they are not like in the present looking back where they discouraged the record again done jane i'm going to make some comments and ask mr cofield to fill in as well because he lived through that era during that time certainly in my interaction with staff and working with the folks who conducted this special study there  was a perception among staff that the aggressive pursuit of willful violations was something that that was difficult to attain that the the evidentiary level was high and that the general counsel and staff and leadership staff you know wanted to challenge the willful is and make sure if you will the perfect case existed in my world there's probably never going to be a perfect case so that's more than a perception that's a fact the perception among staff as far as whether or not that's what i was a drug well if you get seven out of eight people die and you don't and you don't end up with with that with a serious violation willful violation that's a fact well what what what i wanted to say was that you know we have addressed staff since we've since i've been there of management legal counsel support so i mean this is almost a set up you have you have said bad recordkeeping you have such bad training you have such bad you have such a lack resources are skilled people apparently here that can do there's something very wrong with that it just doesn't pass the smell test i mean agencies in shambles and the fact that the agencies in shambles as used to suggest that we can't proceed  prosecute a willful repeat violations or serious or serious alie violations against against the responsible party that's not perception if you think that's a perception we're going have problems with the review of what's going on else it was so this is just this was just legal people challenging it saying well we just can't bring that case we don't have the evidence we don't have the experience we don't have the talent we don't have the record keeping basically the technical staff and myself at the time would recommend willful and when they went up the chain they would not get supported so people who were further and further away from the process overturned it people that didn't know a thing about the probably didn't know a thing about the process and then this is checked off is that this is a bureaucratic problem this is some kind of mix of of bad training bad record keeping and  so the so the inspectors are on the front line as this works its way up as i read it as i read the review do these things get rolled over and c j you say you like that you know like the highway patrol i don't know about the nevada highway patrol but no one seven out of eight in front of that going to get their tickets written down and if they're going to hundred fifty miles an hour they're not going to get them written down maybe if they're going you know fifty sixty five sixty seven over sixty five miles an hour but there's something very wrong here something very wrong here it simply doesn't add up to the families of these victims two people observing that two to the oversight that something very wrong and we cannot start out this somehow this was just a perception within when the inspectors as i see it these inspectors out there busting their ass trying to provide for the real enforcement because the enforcement is supposed to have some deterrent effect on continuing an unsafe what is the message to the employer what is the message to the contracting company what is the message to the investors what is the message to the banks what is the message to the owner of that facility that the only thing that matters is that we i get my completion bonus we get it done on time in the bank gets the money and this is just collateral damage you know these are lives of workers so i appreciate you say you're going to be more optimistic or you're going to be more positive or whatever it is your testimony i'm worried that you may not have a grasp of the situation go back look at the numbers of people who lost their life who lost their life in similar circumstances i'm not even getting to the boeing case yet where it's fight only similar circumstances and repeat behavior and they become exempt from some kind of inspections for the next eighteen months or two years whatever it is in the report as if they're the exemplary employer and they care more about the safety of employees and others so we're going to not true we're not going to expect them we're going to put them a program designed for small business that's great p r for their gain for their enterprise it's just really bad worker safety process and protections so i you know i appreciate you all being here we're not done with this in this committee that something's very very wrong here very wrong and it costs good solid people their lives and cost a lot of misery and sorrow in their families and we cannot just say well seven out of a case is just that's just the way it was and we just check off the bureaucratic boxes we give the report the families say well you know if we're better trained we had better recordkeeping maybe your husband your brother your spouse whatever would be alive that just won't work here it just won't work i appreciate you being here i can just i just got to tell you that this this just something this cannot be where we leave this i know we're very short on time you but i don't want to respond without giving you an opportunity even if you want to reserve the right to put something in writing whatever you want to do so thank you very much we're in the middle of a vote and we have several votes behind this a number of our members wanted to be here we were interrupted because of other activities in the house so i don't want to hold you until after the votes but we will be following up with each and every one of you thank you so very much for taking the time i my own bureaucracy without objection members will have fourteen days to submit additional materials and questions for the hearing record and with that the committee will stand adjourned again my thanks to the witnesses