The Senate appropriations committee approved an OSHA budget last month that would leave the agency $32.6 million better off than the House version. While the House bill cut OSHA's enforcement budget by nearly 33 percent and the overall budget by 15.5 percent, the Senate version cuts both enforcement and the overall budget just 5 percent.
The Senate bill also deletes from the budget House language prohibiting OSHA from issuing an ergonomics standard and from implementing the six-foot fall protection standard. The Senate bill awaits approval by the full Senate before a House-Senate conference committee hashes out the differences between the two versions.