[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 29 (Tuesday, March 17, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H1177-H1179]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          AMENDING OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ACT OF 1970

  Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the 
bill (H.R. 2877) to amend the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 
1970, as amended.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                               H.R. 2877

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

[[Page H1178]]

     SECTION 1. INSPECTIONS.

       Section 8 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 
     (29 U.S.C. 657) is amended by adding at the end the 
     following:
       ``(h) The Secretary shall not use the results of 
     enforcement activities, such as the number of citations 
     issued or penalties assessed, to evaluate employees directly 
     involved in enforcement activities under this Act or to 
     impose quotas or goals with regard to the results of such 
     activities.''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. 
Owens) each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. 
Ballenger).
  Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2877 amends the Occupational Safety and Health Act 
to prohibit the use of enforcement measures, such as numbers of 
citations and penalties, for evaluating OSHA compliance officers.
  Mr. Speaker, few other Federal agencies have had the negative 
reputation among employers, hardly ever anybody with the reputation of 
OSHA. There are certainly those who would say that this attitude simply 
reflects the employer's lack of concern for the health and safety of 
their employees. As a businessman, I do not believe that myself. 
Instead, I think the problem has been with OSHA. I would note my 
agreement with the statement made by Vice President Gore that he made 
to hundreds of small business owners and representatives in 1995 at the 
White House Conference on Small Business, where he said,

       I know that OSHA has been the subject of more small 
     business complaints than any other agency. And I know that it 
     is not because you don't care about keeping your workers 
     safe. It is because the rules are too rigid and the 
     inspections are often adversarial.

  I would add one more reason to those stated by the Vice President: 
OSHA's longtime practice of evaluating its overall performance and the 
performance of its compliance personnel, the only people from OSHA that 
most employers and employees ever actually deal with, primarily on the 
basis of their enforcement numbers. Employers are justifiably outraged 
and resentful of an agency when its inspectors are primarily interested 
in finding violations so that they look good to their superiors.
  A couple of years ago the deputy administrator of OSHA who had spent 
his career with the agency made the observation that

       OSHA for the past 25 years has basically done business the 
     same way. Congress gave us the money and we gave them the 
     inspections. We finally realized that the number of 
     inspections doesn't change the behavior of anyone and 
     listened to employers who complained that the violations OSHA 
     cited didn't relate to illness and injuries.

  I might add that that realization by OSHA came about the same time 
that we in Congress began trying to refocus OSHA away from enforcement 
as its primary purpose and goal. Today we take a small step toward 
correcting history and the practice of OSHA. H.R. 2877 amends the 
Occupational Safety and Health Act to prohibit the use of enforcement 
measures, such as number of citations or amount of penalties, to 
evaluate OSHA personnel. It also prohibits the use of such enforcement 
measures as goals or quotas. More broadly, this bill is intended to 
direct OSHA's focus towards promoting safety rather than viewing its 
goal and purpose as penalizing employers.
  I want to express again my appreciation to the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Owens), the ranking member of the subcommittee, and the 
gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Clay), the ranking member of the full 
committee, as well as the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), 
the chairman, for their support of this bill, and also to the Secretary 
of Labor and the Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and 
Health, who have also expressed support for this bill.
  As I noted earlier, the problem of evaluating OSHA personnel by the 
number of citations issued has not been confined to either Republican 
or Democrat administrations. It did, however, become particularly 
obvious when the Clinton administration in its first 2 years set 
agencywide goals of increased citations and penalties. Inspectors 
openly spoke to employees about having to issue citations in order to 
meet their quotas. I think few actions have undercut the agency's 
credibility as a safety and health agency more than that. To its credit 
the Clinton administration has taken steps to reverse this course. The 
previous and current administrators of OSHA have taken steps to remove 
the most blatant uses of citations and penalties to evaluate employees. 
Officially citations and penalties are no longer used as a performance 
measure. This was one of the steps taken as part of OSHA's reinvention 
by the Clinton administration. I certainly think it is a step in the 
right direction and one that I strongly supported. Nonetheless, we 
continue to hear complaints both from employers and from compliance 
personnel.
  Just recently, for example, compliance officers in one region were 
given benchmarks by which their performance was judged. Those 
benchmarks included such things as numbers of citations per inspection 
and percentage of serious versus nonserious violations. This 
legislation is needed for several reasons: first, to make sure that the 
current official policy of the agency is continued; second, to make 
clear to everyone throughout OSHA that the use of enforcement measures 
to evaluate compliance personnel is not permitted; third, to assure not 
only OSHA personnel but also employers and employees that OSHA's 
primary purpose is not citing and fining employers but in promoting 
safer jobs.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, again I want to thank the gentleman from North Carolina 
(Mr. Ballenger), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Workforce 
Protections, for his willingness to work with me on this legislation. I 
fully concur in the gentleman's view that OSHA should not adopt work 
performance measures that can serve to bias the inspection process. The 
Clinton administration also strongly shares this view.
  I do want to take this time to congratulate the administration and 
the workers at OSHA. There are few agencies that have such life and 
death responsibilities as OSHA. We must remember that last year more 
than 6,000 workers died on the job and nearly 60,000 were injured on 
the job. The work at OSHA remains very important and will go on. I 
think we should understand the difficulties that the OSHA inspectors 
face in respect to the inconvenience of employers versus the protection 
of the health and safety of employees. I therefore support H.R. 2877 
and urge its adoption.
  Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to voice my support today for 
H.R. 2877 and H.R. 2864. Both of these are encouraging examples of 
meaningful bipartisan reform that are enabling the agency to move from 
an adversarial relationship with employers to a cooperative one.
  The common sense changes in H.R. 2877 assure that inspectors do not 
have to ever exaggerate the number or severity of violations they might 
find in work site inspections. It does so without compromising the 
safety of workers and without losing managerial control of the agency.
  H.R. 2864 works to partner state consultation programs with 
businesses who seek advice on OSHA compliance. It is a great example of 
how OSHA can proactively cooperate with employers to correct problems 
without unnecessary fines before they cause injury or cost a life. It 
also focuses on small businesses in hazardous industries that may not 
be able to afford full-time safety managers or expensive consultants.
  In the spirit of these effective and bipartisan measures, I plan on 
introducing a bill that helps solve a problem that some employers are 
having maintaining their Material Safety Data Sheets as mandated by 
OSHA. By allowing electronic access to these records, standardizing the 
format, and setting a comprehensible reading level, I hope to increase 
worker safety while lowering costs and headaches for small businessmen.
  Again, these are excellent bills, and I wish to offer my utmost 
support. I encourage my colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. UNDERWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2877. ``Safety 
First,'' is a catchphrase known to many of us. Although, often 
disregarded, the virtue and benefits of this policy are universally 
recognized, accepted and appreciated. The concept of safety has 
attracted so huge a following that eventually it was decided that 
everyone should follow and live by its precepts. Later, we even came up 
with legal definitions. However, as most well-meaning folks have done 
before, we may have gone overboard by selectively imposing

[[Page H1179]]

this concept and designating some a few unfortunate entities to suffer 
the consequences for everyone. A scheme was even devised so that we can 
collect money from those who deviated from our mandates. This bring us 
to question whether safety is really the first priority.
  H.R. 2877 prohibits the Labor Department and the Occupational Safety 
and Health Administration (OSHA) from using results of enforcement 
activity, such as numbers of citations issued and penalties assessed, 
to evaluate employees directly involved in OSHA enforcement activities. 
In addition, this bill would prohibit OSHA from imposing quotas or 
goals for citations or penalties on its inspectors.
  Coming from the island of Guam, I am no stranger to complaints of 
unfair treatment by Federal officials. OSHA issues have generated their 
fair share of attention on the island. Contractors of Guam feel that 
they are being singled out by OSHA inspectors. Figures show that 85% to 
90% of the Administration's inspection resources for our region was 
spent on Guam although we had the lowest fatality rates and some of the 
lowest injury rates of Region IX.
  Consistency in OSHA's definitions also come to question. OSHA has 
stated that increased inspection activity in our area is due to the 
presence of high hazard industries. However, nowhere else are labor 
camps listed as high hazard industries. Innovative programs and 
approaches such as Voluntary Programs and ``Quick Fix'' Programs have 
not been made available to Guam. It has also been brought to my 
attention that as of May 1997, OSHA Enforcement officers have been 
stripped of all authority except to conduct selected inspections.
  H.R. 2877's provisions would not solve all of the world's problems. 
However, if OSHA's inspectors do not have to worry about quotas, we can 
greatly reduce unfair citations and fines. Safety first; fines only if 
necessary; and quotas . . . quotas are not at all necessary. I urge my 
colleagues to support H.R. 2877.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger) that the House suspend 
the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 2877, as amended.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor 
thereof) the rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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