Today the full Senate Appropriations Committee reported out the FY 2018 Labor-HHS Funding Bill. The bill maintains OSHA, MSHA and NIOSH funding at the FY 2017 levels. That means that there are no cuts from the agencies’ current (FY 2017) budgets.
Good news! The House Appropriations Committee released its FY 2018 Interior and Environment Appropriations budget bill today and it fully funds the Chemical Safety Board. The Trump administration had recommended that the Board be eliminated. The sub-committee will vote on the bill tomorrow.
We will be discussing the President’s proposed FY18 Budget Proposal and its effect on worker safety many times over the next few weeks and months, but I want to focus right now on Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta’s testimony yesterday defending the Administration’s proposal to eliminate the Susan Harwood Worker Training Grant program.
U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta says the fiscal year 2018 budget request for the U.S. Department of Labor he released last week will “help American workers develop the necessary skills to meet the demands of a 21st century economy and get good, safe jobs, provide working families access to paid leave, assist employers in meeting their responsibilities under worker protection laws, and restore fiscal responsibility.”
The budget of the EPA would be slashed by 31 percent and funding for research on climate change would be eliminated under the budget proposal unveiled by President Trump today.
"What is it about these senior citizens Congress doesn’t like?"
December 23, 2015
Retirement security for tens of thousands of retired coal miners and their dependents failed to make it into the $1 trillion+ spending bill recently passed by Congress – an omission that angers the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA).
A rider included the U.S. Senate’s proposed fiscal year 2016 budget would block funding related to silica exposure regulations until additional studies are done.
