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BP Cleanup Workers in Grand Isle, Louisiana (Michael Whitney/Firedoglake)
Some good news out of Congress about protecting workers involved in the BP oil disaster, as well as offshore oil workers. Rep. George Miller’s House Committee on Education and Labor will hold a hearing on oil worker and cleanup worker safety on Wednesday.
The House Education and Labor Committee will hold a hearing on Wednesday, June 23 to examine how worker health and safety is regulated and enforced by various parties from oil rigs themselves to post-accident cleanup operations.
Questions have been raised about who is ultimately responsible for worker health and safety in light of the Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 workers and exposed cleanup workers to toxic chemicals. Representatives from government health and safety agencies, and industry officials are expected to testify.
WHAT:
Hearing on “Worker Health and Safety from the Oil Rig to the Shoreline”WHO:
David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health, U.S. Department of Labor
Other Witnesses TBAWHEN:
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
10:00 a.m. EDT
Please check the Committee schedule for potential updates »WHERE:
House Education and Labor Committee Hearing Room
2175 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C.
This should be very interesting. David Michaels will be put on the spot for first slamming BP for lack of safety measures, and then protecting BP after two members of Congress cited Michaels’ in their request for respirators for cleanup workers. Other witnesses will be key, obviously; I’m hoping for experts in both safety training, as well as people with experience in the Exxon Valdez cleanup and the lifelong problems resulting from that disaster.
Check back here; I’ll be covering the hearing word for word.
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About Work in Progress
Excellent! Finally!
I read on the oil drum a comment by a lawyer who works on cases against the petroleum industry that he thinks that BP is doing minimal in the clean-up department because they are saving their money for litigation.
thanks for the heads up on the hearing Michael.
Bless you and Spocko for all you have done to advance this issue
Another week comes to an end and another minimum of 17 MILLION gallons of oil in the Gulf of Mexico. This would bother me a whole lot more if I knew how I was going to pay rent this month though.
And the headline reads “Oil spill full of methane, adding new concerns”. New concerns”? I pointed this out on this very blog at the beginning of this disaster and there have been environmental scientists that have also been warning of the dangers of such a lot of dissolved methane being released. Maybe the more accurate headline would read something like “News media finally notices dangers of methane several weeks after being pointed out”
I really hope the issue of cleanup workers not being allowed to wear, never mind being supplied with, protective breathing equipment is brought out into the open.
Good news indeed. Does anything productive come out of these shows?
Will the committee be looking into the administraion’s sanctioning of the use of corexit and the fact that several prominent Obama backers will gain financially from the use of the chemical manufactured in Obama’s own IL?
It is highly unlikely that airborne exposures to any of the chemicals in the oil or dispersant exceed OSHA’s ‘Permissible Exposure Limits’ (PELs). Illness to workers is probably caused by a toxic soup of oil and dispersants (mixture of relatively small to moderate concentrations of a bunch of chemicals).
OSHA regulations are very poor at addressing exposures to chemical mixtures, so BP will simply have the air tested and claim that they have no over-exposures – which will be technically true from a regulatory standpoint. The only way Federal OSHA could assert itself is to claim BP is in violation of ‘The General Duty Clause’ of the regulation, which states ‘Each employer shall furnish … a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees.’
OSHA rarely issues a citation for violating the General Duty Clause – so good luck with that.