• E-mail
• Print
• RSS

House calls for hearing on OSHA disaster response enforcement

Emergency Management Alert, September 23, 2007

Congress plans to take a closer look at OSHA's response to national disasters to examine whether legislation is needed to offer more protection for response workers during disasters, says a source quoted in Inside OSHA's September 17 edition. The magazine said that the House Education and Labor Committee plans to conduct a hearing on OSHA's involvement in response efforts to Hurricane Katrina--much like the hearing addressing worker protection on 9/11.

Enforcement of standards and use of respirators during the World Trade Center disaster was prominent.

Highlights from the report included this bit about the respirators:

OSHA Regional Administrator Patricia Clark...said that workers "on the pile" were required to wear respirators. After the area was cordoned off, workers entering the restricted area had respirators, Clark said. However, this provided no guarantee that workers continued to wear the respirators, Clark told Inside OSHA after the hearing.

Clark said that OSHA officials approached workers that weren't wearing respirators. On more than one occasion, workers threatened OSHA officials when the officials told the workers to use the personal protective equipment, Clark said.

• E-mail to a Colleague
• Print
• RSS
• Archive