Workplace Safety Rules Could Be Reversed via Congressional Review Act

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United-States-Capitol-Building-in-Washington-DC_1In 2001, President George W. Bush, a Republican, overturned an Occupational Safety and Health Administration ergonomics rule designed to prevent repetitive stress injuries that was implemented by President Bill Clinton’s Labor Department, as he was Bush’s Democratic predecessor.

Around 16 years later, history seems poised to repeat itself.

A slew of workplace safety regulations regarding beryllium exposure, reporting of injuries, mine safety, and chemical storage implemented by President Barack Obama’s Department of Labor seemed poised for reversal by President Donald Trump’s administration that is eager to rollback Obama-era regulations through the Congressional Review Act.

The Congressional Review Act provides Congress a way to disapprove any regulation within 60 days of it being deemed final. But as pointed out in an explainer piece from the right-wing Heritage Foundation, Congress has 60 legislative days to disapprove a regulation. Sixty legislative days could be six to seven months in real time because of frequent congressional recesses. The act also restarts the 60-day clock for final rules that are implemented within the last 60 days of the previous legislative session. Heritage estimates that rules finalized back to June 3, 2016, could be subject to review.

Supporters of Obama-era workplace safety rules cannot rely on Senate Democrats to filibuster resolutions under the Congressional Review Act because the legislation does not allow for filibuster and has streamlined procedures for allowing legislation to be pulled out of committee.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, the Congressional Review Act doesn’t allow rules to be bundled together. Congress must consider killing each regulation with a single piece of legislation. This feature of the Congressional Review Act may explain why the Clinton ergonomics rule was the only rule actually killed by Congress under the Congressional Rule Act. Finally, the Congressional Review Act prohibits an agency from proposing a substantially similar rule, which could explain why the Obama administration never tried to revive the Clinton-era ergonomics rule.

Labor reporter Mike Elk, editor of Payday Report, is one of the few reporters or writers drawing attention to the fact that Obama-era workplace-safety rules are seriously vulnerable to reversal in the Trump administration. Elk’s reporting details how the chemical industry weakened rules on chemical storage after the West, Texas, chemical explosion and how the Obama administration allowed final approval of the rule to be pushed back to where it would be vulnerable to reversal under the Congressional Review Act. In some fairness, delay by OSHA could partially be explained by budget cuts to the agency by congressional Republicans.

I would encourage our readers to monitor this firm’s social-media feeds and my personal Twitter account, @JonRehmEsq to keep track of Congressional Review Act legislation regarding workplace safety. I would urge readers to contact their members of Congress and express their opposition to any proposed rollbacks of workplace-safety rules.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

This entry was posted in Government, Legislation, Legislative Changes, Workplace Injury, Workplace Safety and tagged , .

2 thoughts on “Workplace Safety Rules Could Be Reversed via Congressional Review Act

  1. Pingback: Reversing OSHA Rules Will Undercut Workplace Safety - Workers' Compensation Watch

  2. Pingback: Reversing OSHA Rules Will Undercut Workplace Safety - Iowa Workers' Compensation Law

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