Doesn’t seem like a week goes by without someone putting out another press release on the ergo rulemaking saga. Here are recent developments:
  • Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) is complaining that OSHA has not done an adequate job of understanding the ergo rule’s impact on the United States Postal Service, state and local governments, states operating their own OSHA plans, and railroad workers. Enzi calls it “yet another indication that OSHA has already made up its mind about the proposed standard and is trying to push it through without sufficient consideration.”
  • The House Appropriations Committee has attached strings to OSHA’s fiscal year 2001 funding bill, saying that none of the money can be used to research and produce ergo standard requirements, a move that has brought protests from the American Industrial Hygiene Association. “Halting OSHA’s progress now would truncate a process that is already far along,” says AIHA. The group has long supported the need for an ergo rule.
  • Transcripts from OSHA’s nine weeks of ergo hearings are available on the agency’s web site (www.osha.gov). Click on the ergonomics section and search testimony by name, organization, topic, or date.