A few minutes ago, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 1229 by a vote of 263-163, with every Republican and 28 Democrats voting to make drilling even less safe and environmentally-responsible than before the BP Gulf Oil Disaster. Strike two for safer offshore drilling. The third pitch from Republican leadership will come tomorrow with a vote on H.R. 1231, the most sweeping of a trio of bills that seeks to weaken oversight of offshore drilling and dramatically expand offshore drilling in pristine ocean areas across every U.S. coast.
There’s a new update out this week from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board that shows again the dangers of combustible dust in the workplace: The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) today released test results confirming preliminary conclusions that two flash fires which occurred at the Hoeganaes Corporation plant in Gallatin, Tennessee—one fatal—involved the combustion of iron powder which had accumulated throughout the facility and became airborne in combustible concentrations. A flash fire on January 31st killed one worker and seriously burned another. A similar fire occurred on March 29th and caused one injury.
Following the recent debate surrounding keratin hair-straightening products, 10 members of Congress have sent a letter to the Food and Drug Administration expressing their concern and asking the agency to take immediate action to protect workers and consumers.
There’s a new law on the Vermont books to protect the state’s health care workers from assault. Medical center employees had pressed lawmakers for the new law, saying in recent years there had been a sharp increase in assaults, particularly in the emergency room.
The Council of Prison Locals (CPL) of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) secured a significant victory in its fight to have all Bureau of Prisons (BOP) correctional officers outfitted with stab-resistant vests. BOP recently dismissed its opposition in the U.S. Court of Appeals, allowing the union’s proposal for stab-resistant vests to be negotiated through collective bargaining.
OSHA’s subpoena requesting inspection and report documents from Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance Co. associated with a fatal grain engulfment has been upheld in a U.S. district court. OSHA’s subpoena requesting inspection and report documents from Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance Co. associated with a fatal grain engulfment has been upheld in a U.S. district court.
US FAA on Wednesday proposed new regulations to overhaul airline training programs for aircraft crewmembers and flight dispatchers, revising a proposal first issued in 2009. The supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking would in particular revamp pilot training, mandating more recurrent training and calling for pilots to be put through challenging emergency situations in advanced flight simulators.
Amid the crisis at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi reactor, the threat that earthquakes and tsunamis pose to nuclear safety is drawing lots of attention. But many experts say that a much more pressing concern, and a much more likely source of a domestic disaster, is fire.
Fitted or flat? That’s the weighty question facing the California Legislature, which is considering a bill that would regulate what type of sheets can be used on hotel bed mattresses across the state.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited Cargill Meat Solutions of Dodge City with two repeat and 23 serious violations for exposing workers to numerous occupational hazards. Proposed fines total $176,400 following a combined safety and health inspection at the facility.
