President-elect Biden: OSHA to develop strategies to address the most dangerous hazards
President-elect Joe Biden issued a 324-word statement on December 29 2020, the 50th anniversary of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. He said he will ask OSHA to determine whether to establish an emergency temporary standard for COVID-19 protection, and stated:
“Fifty years ago today, President Nixon signed the Occupational Safety and Health Act to assure safe and healthy working conditions for workers across the country. For five decades, the hardworking civil servants at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in the Department of Labor have fought to uphold that mission and protect workers’ lives, including workers responding to some of the nation’s devastating crises — from the recovery of the World Trade Center in the aftermath of 9/11 to the cleanup of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. And, OSHA has protected workers from everyday hazards in the workplace — limiting workplace exposure to hazardous chemicals including lead, asbestos, and silica and instituting standards that require hospitals to safely dispose of needles and other sharp objects — dramatically reducing infection rates of health care workers.