[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 21 (Saturday, February 6, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1328-S1329]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. ENZI:
  S. 385. A bill to amend the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 
1970 to further improve the safety and health of working environments, 
and for other purposes; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, 
and Pensions.


              SAFETY ADVANCEMENT FOR EMPLOYEES (SAFE) ACT

 Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Safety 
Advancement for Employees (SAFE) Act of 1999.
  Today, as Americans head off to work, 17 of them will die and 18,600 
of them will be injured on the job. The fact is that these accidents 
are occurring not because employers are heartless when it comes to 
worker safety. On the contrary, even the Department of Labor estimates 
that 95 percent of employers are striving to create safe workplaces. 
Nevertheless, America's employers are routinely left to their own 
devices to comply with thousands of pages of regulations without agency 
assistance and face steep fines for noncompliance despite their good-
faith efforts.
  The Clinton Administration has responded to this problem by pledging 
a ``reinvented government'' that partners with employers in the effort 
to improve occupational safety and health. I agree with the strong 
statements made by Vice President Gore that ``OSHA doesn't work well 
enough,'' and that OSHA should ``hire third parties, such as private 
inspection companies'' to perform inspections. In fact, Vice President 
Gore's conclusions are at the heart of the OSHA modernization effort 
that I worked on last Congress. The SAFE Act that I am introducing 
today embodies a true partnership approach by encouraging employers to 
voluntarily hire third party consultants to audit their workplaces for 
compliance with OSHA and safety in general. Those consultants must be 
qualified by OSHA as legitimate safety consultants. They will work with 
employers on an ongoing basis to ensure that the employer is in 
compliance with OSHA regulations. Once the employer is in compliance, 
the consultant will issue him a certificate of compliance.
  Under the SAFE Act, OSHA retains full power to inspect employers who 
have received such a certificate, full power to find violations of 
OSHA's regulations and full power to order such employers to abate the 
violations. The bill also provides that good-faith employers who go to 
the time and expense of hiring a safety consultant and getting in 
compliance with OSHA are exempt from civil fines for one year. In other 
words, the SAFE Act strikes a new and healthier balance for America's 
workers.
  The SAFE Act's third party consultation provision codifies the Vice 
President's approach. It will result in tens of thousands of employers, 
perhaps more, getting expert safety consultations. It will allow OSHA 
to target its enforcement resources where they are most needed, and 
unlike other OSHA reform bills, it preserves OSHA's power to inspect 
any workplace and order abatement as it sees fit.
  During the 105th Congress, the SAFE Act garnered more support than 
any OSHA modernization measure in years and successfully passed the 
Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee within a few months of 
introduction. I hope to build on that success by strengthening the 
consultation aspect of the bill in the 106th Congress. One of the most 
important changes to the SAFE Act in this regard is that the voluntary, 
third party consultation provision now requires employers to work with 
trained safety and health consultants to develop work site-specific 
safety and health programs before they receive a Certificate of 
Compliance. I have borrowed both the idea for this provision and the 
language directly from one of OSHA's successful consultation programs, 
the Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program, or SHARP. SHARP 
is a consultation-based program available to businesses who want to 
work with an OSHA consultant and develop a safety and health program in 
return for one year free from inspections. The key to this program's 
success is that it is voluntary, it helps employers achieve compliance 
by working with a trained safety consultant, and it contains incentives 
to encourage employers to seek solutions to safety and health hazards.
  The outstanding results of the SHARP program will be amplified by its 
inclusion in the SAFE Act. Due to the limited resources that OSHA 
dedicates to consultation, very few employers are able to take 
advantage of the SHARP program. However, under the SAFE Act, the safety 
benefits of the program will be available to every employer on a 
voluntary basis.
  An important and additional benefit of including OSHA's voluntary, 
consultation-based SHARP program in the SAFE Act is that it strikes a 
compromise. For the last several months, OSHA has been moving forward 
in promulgating a mandatory safety and health program rule applicable 
to all employers regardless of size or type. The rule is not only 
mandatory but it is also a ``performance-based'' rule, the elements of 
which are almost completely subjective in nature. For example, the rule 
requires a program ``appropriate'' to conditions in the workplace, an 
employer to evaluate the effectiveness of the program ``as often as 
necessary'' to ensure program effectiveness, and ``where appropriate,'' 
to initiate corrective action.
  Employers are justifiably concerned because the rule offers no 
definition of these terms to help them in their compliance efforts. 
They are also concerned because there is no objectivity to the rule. 
OSHA is answering these concerns by promising that their inspectors 
will be fair in their application of the rule and flexible in their 
interpretations. That does not satisfy employers who have safety and 
health programs in place or are working to develop such programs in a 
way that meets with OSHA's approval without the threat of fines.
  The SAFE Act combines the need to promote a safety and health program 
standard that is sanctioned by OSHA with the need of the employer to 
know specifically how to achieve regulatory compliance. By keeping the 
SAFE Act consultation-based, employers will have full access to 
personalized compliance assistance. Neither will there be a threat of 
subjective enforcement under the SAFE Act because good-faith employers 
cannot be penalized for good-faith compliance efforts. The SAFE Act is 
the workable alternative to encourage and implement safety and health 
programs that work to improve conditions for America's workers.
  Another important change to the SAFE Act is that the bill has been 
streamlined to strengthen the consultation theme by removing provisions 
that do not relate to consultation. The importance of such streamlining 
is two-fold. First, by highlighting consultation, the SAFE Act is able 
to maintain a one-theme message that consultations work and that their 
availability should be expanded to more employers. Second, by removing 
other, non-consultation-based programs from the bill will allow for 
concentrated development of several specific, freestanding OSHA 
modernization bills in the future.
  As I introduce the new SAFE Act today, I am hopeful that we can again 
begin meaningful discussions about what is involved in achieving safer

[[Page S1329]]

workplaces. I am hopeful that we can take even greater steps away from 
the adversarial approach to worker safety that virtually everyone 
agrees is without benefit or substantive result. And I am hopeful that 
we can actually pass the SAFE Act to achieve greater worker safety and 
health. The SAFE Act's proactive approach to achieving safer workplaces 
is revolutionary because it empowers both OSHA and the employer. By 
passing the SAFE Act, OSHA's own consultation programs will be extended 
to all employers who truly seek safety and health solutions. The result 
will mean vastly improved safety for America's work sites.

                          ____________________