WP: Bush* Forces a Shift In Regulatory Thrust

[kskiska]

OSHA Made More Business-Friendly

Sunday, August 15, 2004; Page A01

First of three articles

Tuberculosis had sneaked up again, reappearing with alarming frequency across the United States. The government began writing rules to protect 5 million people whose jobs put them in special danger. Hospitals and homeless shelters, prisons and drug treatment centers -- all would be required to test their employees for TB, hand out breathing masks and quarantine those with the disease. These steps, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration predicted, could prevent 25,000 infections a year and 135 deaths.

By the time President Bush moved into the White House, the tuberculosis rules, first envisioned in 1993, were nearly complete. But the new administration did nothing on the issue for the next three years.

Then, on the last day of 2003, in an action so obscure it was not mentioned in any major newspaper in the country, the administration canceled the rules. Voluntary measures, federal officials said, were effective enough to make regulation unnecessary.

The demise of the decade-old plan of defense against tuberculosis reflects the way OSHA has altered its regulatory mission to embrace a more business-friendly posture. In the past 3 1/2 years, OSHA, the branch of the Labor Department in charge of workers' well-being, has eliminated nearly five times as many pending standards as it has completed. It has not started any major new health or safety rules, setting Bush apart from the previous three presidents, including Ronald Reagan .

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1315-2004Aug14.html

[DeepModem Mom]

1. This article is pg 1, and the first of a 3-part series on Bush/regulation

From the article:

"To examine this process, The Washington Post explored the Bush administration's approach to regulation from three perspectives. This article about OSHA traces the impact on one regulatory agency. Tomorrow's story will look at a lobbyist's 32-line, last-minute addition to a bill that created a tool for attacking the science used to support new regulations. Tuesday's article will document a one-word change in a regulation that allowed coal companies to accelerate efforts to strip away the tops of thousands of Appalachian mountains."

This is excellent! We should give the Post some positive feedback --

[DeepModem Mom]

2. WP reader rep: [e-mail]

[wellst0nev0ter]

3. *kick*

The Bush criminals must be exposed

[struggle4progress]

6. and once more ...

:kick:

[Rose Siding]

4. Zogby's last poll asked me...

if I was worried that the values of my parents were being lost. When he asks that, I don't think he means "worker safety" but that is a value to me and it's being lost. I said yes. I value good stewardship of the earth and the wellfare of people. Bush attacks my values with nearly ever reg change and res that he enacts.

[Star]

5. Outrageous AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH

This is so outrageous. I'm sickened by this a**hole.

Why does he have the authority to set back workers to the 19th century?

I don't know how I will survive if he steals another election.

[JimHarper3]

7. The way to survive is to organize

How did we get rid of the bosses and the terrible working conditions and the environmental slaughter of the 1800's? Unions--Americans organized, and struck, and fought, and sometimes died so that we could have decent wages, benefits, OSHA, and a better environment. If Bush's corporate friends steal this election, too, the way to get him out will be to organize and strike until the bosses see that it is worse with him in power than with him out of power.

[TahitiNut]

8. More profits for the "health care" industry.

:shrug: When you can make obscene profits from human misery, why kill the golden goose?