Six months into his new job, Charles Jeffress finds his plate full with issues and a couple of controversies. That's the way it is when you're running the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. In early April, Industrial Safety & Hygiene News caught up with Jeffress at his office in the Department of Labor building in Washington for this wide-ranging, hour-long interview.
Your honeymoon ended rather quickly. Are you frustrated by the delay in implementing the Cooperative Compliance Program? The court has said it's reasonable to take a look at the plan before OSHA implements it. That's all that's been said so far. From the court's perspective, OSHA's been operating for 27 years one way; if they want to change the way they're operating, well, another few months delay isn't any big setback. To wait a few months before you start a new program isn't a terrible setback for the program. I don't take it as a terrible setback. Sure, I'm anxious to get going because I believe it's the right thing to do. But do I see it as something that gets me terribly frustrated? No. I don't see this as anything but a temporary delay. I believe we will win on this issue. The court will affirm [the CCP] is the right thing to do.