[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1327 Introduced in House (IH)]







110th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 1327

To direct the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to complete 
 its rulemaking on Employer Payment for Personal Protective Equipment 
                              for workers.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 6, 2007

  Ms. Roybal-Allard (for herself and Mr. George Miller of California) 
 introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on 
                          Education and Labor

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To direct the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to complete 
 its rulemaking on Employer Payment for Personal Protective Equipment 
                              for workers.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Protective Equipment for America's 
Workers Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds the following:
            (1) The use of personal protective equipment (PPE), such as 
        respirators, chemical resistant clothing, metal mesh gloves, 
        lifelines and lanyards, safety glasses, and face shields 
        substantially reduces the fatalities and injuries among the 
        Nation's workers.
            (2) An estimated 20 million workers use PPE on a regular 
        basis to protect them from job hazards.
            (3) In some jobs, including many low-wage jobs dominated by 
        immigrant workers, personal protective equipment is a worker's 
        principal protection from harm.
            (4) Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that in 
        2005 there were over 4 million non-fatal injuries in the 
        private sector and over 5,700 fatalities.
            (5) In 1999, the Occupational Safety and Health 
        Administration (OSHA) proposed a rule to require employers to 
        pay for PPE needed to protect workers exposed to hazards on the 
        job.
            (6) The proposed rule did not impose new obligations on 
        employers to provide PPE, but simply clarified their 
        responsibility to pay for it.
            (7) According to OSHA, the PPE rule would prevent nearly 
        48,000 injuries and as many as 7 fatalities each year.
            (8) OSHA first estimated that the final PPE rule would be 
        issued in 2000, but the agency missed that deadline and has 
        missed the subsequent deadlines announced in its semi-annual 
        regulatory agenda in 2004, 2005, and 2006.
            (9) Since 1999, when OSHA first proposed the PPE rule, 
        workers have suffered almost 400,000 injuries and more than 50 
        deaths that could have been prevented had the rule been issued, 
        according to OSHA estimates.

SEC. 3. OSHA RULEMAKING ON PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT.

    Notwithstanding any other provision of law, not later than 30 days 
after the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Labor shall issue a 
final rule under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (29 
U.S.C. 651 et seq.) on Employer Payment for Personal Protective 
Equipment, which shall provide no less protection to employees and 
shall have no further exceptions from the employer payment requirement 
than the proposed rule published in the Federal Register on March 31, 
1999.
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