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OSHA watcher in Washington lament the loss of one of the very few members of Congress with a serious interest in the agency – Lynn Woolsey, (D-Calif.), the ranking minority member of the House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Workforce Protection.

Most of the sources with longstanding OSHA connections that ISHN has contacted post-election contend that we are in for a revival of the Injury and Illness Prevention Program (i2P2). OSHA officials backed off discussing in public to any detailed degree the controversial rule during the 2012 presidential election race.

The American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) is declaring the two-day Leadership Workshop it hosted last month a resounding success.

Jobs creation and avoiding the fiscal cliff are top of mind issues of national business groups following the election. More narrow issues, such as OSHA policies and standards, are for another day, probably sometime in 2013, especially if OSHA makes noises about new standards.

Peg Seminario, longtime director of health and safety for the AFL-CIO, told ISHN in an exclusive day after the election interview, “We don’t buy at all the claim that regulations kill jobs. Quite the opposite, according to recent research.”

We could see history being made here. Many DC sources tell us the same thing: Dr. Michaels “loves” his job, according to one source, and has made it known in DC he wants to stay on. It would be the first time in OSHA’s 40+ year history that an OSHA chief has stayed in place for a president’s second term.

This would be Richard Fairfax, currently deputy assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health. Fairfax has worked in numerous positions at the agency since joining in 1980. One source who knows Fairfax says he is the longest-serving careerist at OSHA.

With car crashes the leading cause of deaths for U.S. teens, the  U.S. Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) are urging parents to set and enforce safe driving ground rules for their teens.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) have published a new atlas that illustrates the most significant challenges of climate change and its effects on health.

This year’s Institute for Safety and Health Management (ISHM) ASHM of the Year Award was presented last month to Brian Blondin from Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corporation, at the NSC Congress and Expo.