The house passed its fiscal 1997 budget resolution in mid-May recommending the elimination of NIOSH and a $90-million cut to the OSHA and MSHA budgets, combined. The resolution also recommends merging the two agencies. The action comes a month after President Clinton proposed a budget increase for the agency in 1997. The amount proposed by Clinton would be $35 million more than OSHA’s final FY96 budget ($305 million), decided in late April.
John Moran, OSHA’s policy director, left the agency in early May after six months on the job. "Pressing personal matters" forced the move, he told Industrial Safety & Hygiene News. An outspoken job safety advocate, Moran discounted reports that he was fed up with the cautious leadership of agency chief Joe Dear. "Anybody working for a regulatory agency that has been under attack for one-and-a-half years and operated on 13 continuing funding resolutions would be frustrated, but senior people at OSHA are trying to do the best they can," he says. Moran’s next task: Making sure safety and health issues are considered as new environmental remediation technology is developed under a Department of Energy five-year cooperative agreement with the Operating Engineers union.
To reduce worker exposures to crystalline silica dust, which can cause disabling and sometimes fatal silicosis, OSHA issued a compliance memorandum May 2. OSHA will encourage employers to take voluntary protection measures during a 60-day outreach program before proceeding with enforcement under existing standards, including respiratory protection, PELs, accident prevention, recordkeeping, hazard communication and others. The agency’s national special emphasis program will include inspections, outreach, and designation of a silicosis coordinator in each OSHA region. Some two million workers are exposed annually to silica dust while performing sandblasting, drilling or tunneling, according to NIOSH.