Opinion ID: 390182
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Bias of the Decision maker

Text: 34 LIA urges us to vacate the entire lead standard because, in its view, the official who ultimately set the standard, Assistant Secretary of Labor Eula Bingham, had prejudged the essential issues in the rulemaking proceeding. For proof of this allegedly fatal bias, LIA points to a speech Bingham delivered on November 3, 1978 to a United Steelworkers of America conference on occupational exposure to lead. 35 Bingham's speech began innocuously, if dramatically (Brothers and Sisters), by noting her concern for workers and by recognizing how much OSHA depended on their unique perspective when it gathered information in setting safety standards. But after asserting that she and Secretary of Labor Marshall were determined to have a lead standard, Bingham proceeded to suggest her predisposition on important issues. As to the medical removal protection provision (MRP): 36 I think that there may be some apprehension because Assistant Secretaries in the past have not always understood, or have not known how to spell the words medical removal protection, or rate retention   . Well, I learned to spell those words a long time ago on the Coke Oven Advisory Committee, and if you want to know how I feel about it, you need only to look up my comments during those Committee hearings. As far as I'm concerned, it is impossible to have a Lead Standard without it.    37