Progressive Group Issues Preemptive Strike on Silica Rule's Cost
The Center for Progressive Reform fired an opening salvo
Thursday in the upcoming debate over the cost of long sought worker safety
regulations now under construction at the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration.
OSHA released the proposed rule on harmful silica dust in
August, after it had sat under review for more than two years at the White
House. The regulations would set new worker exposure limits for silica, which
has been linked to health problems and is present at shipyards and construction
sites.
The agency estimates the regulations would save nearly 700
lives per year and prevent many more illnesses. But the regulations carry a
price tag for the construction and maritime industries, and the costs are
likely to figure prominently in debate over the rule’s final contours.
Already OSHA has issued preliminary economic and employment
analyses, some of which are available here and here.
Early estimates of the costs — and, in particular, how they
would impact small businesses — raised red flags over at the Center for
Progressive Reform (CPR). The center is a vocal proponent of the strengthened
protections, and says it expects major business groups to exploit the findings.
“The plight of small business owners somehow always seems to
pull at the heartstrings of the big businesses owners when federal agencies
propose new public health and environmental protections,” said Matt Shudtz, a
CPR analyst.
Preliminary OSHA figures, Shudtz writes in this piece,
indicate that two-thirds of the costs of complying with the silica rule would
fall on small businesses.
The CPR, however, takes exception with the criteria used to
define what constitutes a small business. The OSHA analysis uses Small Business
Administration’s definition, which, for the shipbuilding industry, for example,
counts companies with up 1,000 workers as a small business.
Shudtz pointed to a separate OSHA analysis using 20
employees as the threshold and found that small businesses would bear just 11
percent of the costs associated with the proposed rules maritime and general
industry standard, and roughly a third of the expense of complying with the
construction industry standard.
(From NRCA Smartbrief)
Trenton H. Cotney
Florida Bar Certified Construction Lawyer
Trent Cotney, P.A.
1211 N Franklin St
Tampa, FL 33602
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