One year after the rig blast that spewed nearly 5 million barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico, offshore drilling regulators are moving forward with risk-management standards that had languished for more than 15 years before the disaster, and the oil industry is launching a deepwater safety center. But even as the Obama administration prepares to release a second worker safety rule this summer, some experts warn that without regulatory vigilance, the new strategies could hand oil companies too much power to police their own day-to-day operations.
State worker safety officials are seeking tougher rules to make certain that emergency workers can be reached whenever there’s an accident at a drilling rig in Wyoming. Right now, state rules only require drillers to have phone numbers listed for local hospitals or emergency services. But J.D. Danni, a program manager for worker safety in Wyoming, says drillers sometimes don’t have cell phone coverage.
Gov. Mary Fallin has signed into law legislation designed to improve the on-the-job safety of Oklahoma highway workers. The measure by Rep. Mike Sanders of Kingfisher reinstates the authority of state Department of Transportation employees and other road workers to use red-and-blue emergency lights on their vehicles when they are working on state highways. Lawmakers limited that right last year while trying to restrict towing services from using the lights.
Joined by other police officers, firefighters and paramedics, Fournier testified against a Maine bill that would diminish the role of psychiatric and emotional damage in determining a worker’s right to compensation after an injury. The hotly debated measure, sponsored by state Rep. Kerri Prescott (R), has drawn support from the Maine Chamber of Commerce and insurance interests and opposition from labor groups.
Earlier this month, in my post “CDC’s NIOSH says WHAT about asbestos???” I reported on the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s (NIOSH) new treatise on asbestos, and my dismay with the agency’s characterization of the mineral as a “potential occupational carcinogen.” NIOSH’s information has been updated to read “NIOSH has determined that exposure to asbestos fibers causes cancer and asbestosis in humans and recommends that exposures be reduced to the lowest feasible concentration.”
While teen workplace injuries in Massachusetts have declined somewhat over the past decade, they still remain a major problem, contends a new report released Thursday by the Mass. Department of Public Health.
Peoples Gas System filed a federal lawsuit today against Posen Construction, alleging it was negligent and violated a Florida safety law by excavating in an unmarked area and causing an explosion.
An assistant winemaker died Wednesday at a winery in east Napa when he somehow fell inside a wine tank, authorities said Thursday. Gustavo Javier Muro, 43, of Napa, was found on an adjustable lid six feet inside the tank at Ancien Wines.
Outland Renewable Services says that it “respectfully disagrees” with the Department of Labor’s findings, which indicate that the company ignored safety rules that led to a worker being severely burned. Canby-based Outland Renewable Services has received six citations for safety violations after a technician at a wind farm was severely burned in October, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) said on Tuesday.
Sixteen days after she was detained by the Libyan government, journalist Clare Morgana Gillis made her first direct contact with outsiders in two weeks today, telling her parents in a 15-minute phone call that she is in good health and being held in a women’s civilian jail in Tripoli.
