J. Snare is the new head of OSHA
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/1/2005/1047-snip-
Snare was formerly with the Texas law firm Loeffler, Jonas & Tuggey. That would be W's close friend and big-time money-raiser Tom Loeffler, who ran for governor of Texas on the grounds that he was "tough as 'bob war.'" To prove it, he proudly claimed to have played football with two broken wrists. (Loeffler also wore shower caps on his feet while showering during a visit to San Francisco back in the '80s lest he get AIDS through his feet. (I tell this story not to make Snare ridiculous by association but just because it's a good story.)
Snare is actually the second fox assigned by Bush to guard this particular henhouse. The assistant secretary is John Henshaw, a former health and safety chief for the chemical company Monsanto. In 40 months on the job, Henshaw axed three dozen proposed regulations from the agency's agenda, according to NPR -- toxic chemical exposure regs, metalworking fluids regs, flammable and combustible liquids reactive chemicals that kill people and so forth.
Snare was generally well-liked and well thought of here in Texas, but that still doesn't make him an expert on health and safety issues. OSHA is now so toothless, with so few inspectors that they can only look at a tiny percentage of plants in this country.
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