Bush politics seen the rule at OSHA (Administration protected industry, many officials say)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/friday/business/ny-bzosha025984812jan02,0,3643330.story

THE WASHINGTON POST
January 2, 2009

In 2001, an epidemiologist at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration sought to publish a special bulletin warning dental technicians that they could be exposed to dangerous beryllium alloys while grinding fillings. Health studies showed that even a single day's exposure at the agency's permitted level could lead to incurable lung disease.

After the bulletin was drafted, political appointees at the agency gave a copy to a lobbying firm hired by the country's principal beryllium maker, according to OSHA documents. The epidemiologist, Peter Infante, incorporated what he considered reasonable changes requested by the company and won approval from directorates, but he bristled when the private firm complained again.

"In my 24 years at the agency, I have never experienced such indecision and delay," Infante wrote to the agency's director of standards in March 2002. Eventually, top OSHA officials decided, over what Infante described in an e-mail to his boss as opposition from "the entire OSHA staff working on beryllium issues," to publish the bulletin with a footnote challenging a key recommendation the firm opposed.

Current and former career officials at OSHA say such sagas were a recurrent feature during the Bush administration, as political appointees ordered the withdrawal of dozens of workplace health rules, slow-rolled others, and altered the reach of its warnings and rules in response to industry pressure.

The result: From 2001 to the end of 2007, OSHA officials issued 86 percent fewer rules or regulations termed economically significant by the Office of Management and Budget than their counterparts did during a similar period in President Bill Clinton's tenure, according to White House lists.

White House officials have dismissed such tallies, emphasizing that their "objective is quality, not quantity," and that heavy restrictions on corporations harm economic performance. During Bush's presidency, they said in a September report, average annual regulatory costs were kept 24 percent lower than during the previous two decades. OSHA says it has issued many rules of lesser consequence that nonetheless clarified industry responsibilities.

FULL story at link.