Date: 2005-07-12
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. and I thank him so much for his service to this committee and for his constant support of workers rights. workers health and safety. and the protection of their families if they are injured on the job. The Occupational Safety and Health Act has substantially improved the safety of the American workplace to the benefit of the American worker. Far fewer workers are killed or injured today than was the case before the law was enacted. Despite this progress. too many Americans continue to be sick or injured or killed in workplace accidents that could or should have been avoided. Every day. 15 workers are killed on the job. Another estimated 50.000 to 60.000 die every year due to occupational illnesses. Hundreds of thousands of workers face serious injuries on the job every year. Liberty Mutual. the largest workers compensation insurance company. estimates that the direct cost of occupational injuries and illnesses is $1 billion a week. Two major workplace tragedies. one in Texas this year and the other in Ohio last year. underscore the need to strengthen. not weaken. the health and safety laws of this country. On March 23 of this year. a huge explosion at the BP Amoco Texas City refinery killed 15 workers and injured 170 others. Although BP initially blamed contract workers for the explosion. it now appears that faulty equipment played a major role in this catastrophiQ blast. As it turns out. the BP Amoco refinery in Texas City has been a repeat safety violator. Repeat safety violations also played a key role in the deaths of four iron workers when a massive bridge crane collapsed near Toledo. Ohio. in 2004. The. contractor FruCon failed to address urgent issues with anchoring the crane properly raised by the cranes European manufacturers. OSHA fined FruCon $280.000 and cited the contractor for willful safety violations. Rather than taking decisive action on behalf of hardworking employees. like increasing the minimum wage. stopping runaway pension terminations or expanding access to health care. these bills do nothing more than jeopardize the health and safety protections of employees on the job. H.R. 742 significantly diminishes the protections of Occupational Safety and Health by discouraging OSHA from even enforcing the Occupational Health and Safety Act and punishing taxpayers unless the agency. like Perry Mason. can win every case. That simply is not going to happen. and this bill weakens workers protections. H.R. 740 unnecessarily expands the size of the Occupational Health and Safety Review Commission. and H.R. 741 weakens the fundamental responsibilities of the Secretary of Labor. It contorts the law and confuses enforcement responsibilities of both the Secretary and the review commission. Finally. H.R. 739 creates a legal loophole for employers obligations .to meet the 15day deadline for contesting an OSHA citation or notice of a failure to abate ahazard. The deadline for an employers response was set at the 15day mark to encourage both a timely correction of cited workplace hazards and expediting the handling of cases. The commission already has the authority to review any missed deadlines on a casebycase basis in a manner that protects both employers and workers. We have an obligation to help hardworking Americans and their families to have a safe and healthy workplace. These bills do the opposite. Taken together. these bills will significantly weaken OSHA enforcement laws. and I urge my colleagues to opppse H.R. 742. 741. 740 and 739.