I believe these Federal Agencies help maintain a national focus on the importance of occupational safety and health and thus create an environment for safe working conditions and reduced cost through lower workers compensation charges. Industry on its own will not do that. These agencies assist in educating safety professionals through the development of innovative solutions to occupational safety and health problems. These national safety and health initiatives help ensure that the body of knowledge needed to prevent fatalities, injuries, and illnesses is technologically current and therefore enhanced. Innovative public sector safety and health administrators are looking at new ways to reinvent their agencies and create a new spirit of partnership.
More partnership is needed.
OSHA, through its standards and enforcement activities, provides a needed base level of occupational safety and worker protection. It establishes a base from which our members and the companies and employees they serve, can build better systems for safety and health accomplishment. ASSE maintains that OSHA's Safety Standards Directorate is not being adequately funded, and this must change. Adequate funding will further assist in reducing the number of fatalities and injuries. Also, I believe that one of the significant issues in Congress regarding this year's OSHA budget will be whether to shift money away from enforcement and federal compliance assistance to State consultation.