[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 141 (Tuesday, October 31, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11436-S11437]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          BUDGET NEGOTIATIONS

  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I need to address a slightly different issue 
at this point, to again explain why we are where we are. I began in 
June with regular speeches about how we were going to wind up in this 
position: The other side of the aisle was objecting to motions to 
proceed to appropriations bills and the extended debate we had to have 
on whether we could debate put the Senate in a situation where we had 
to do all of our negotiations with the White House, instead of, as the 
Constitution says, where the Senate will determine in conjunction with 
the House the expenditures of this Nation.
  That is exactly what has happened. There has been delay after delay 
after delay that has pushed the appropriations process to this point. 
Yesterday, the President vetoed the Treasury-Postal bill. Through a 
quote from Congress Daily, we learn a top administration official 
confirmed Wednesday that the President will sign it; we didn't need to 
make changes to it.
  There is a lot of speculation why this was vetoed. The President said 
yesterday there was nothing really wrong with the Treasury-Postal bill, 
but he just didn't think we ought to have that bill signed until we 
complete the few other remaining bills. He arbitrarily vetoed the bill 
after a top administration official said the President would sign it 
and after the Democratic leadership in Congress had agreed to it.
  The President keeps moving the goalposts in an attempt to provoke a 
confrontation with Congress. As a result, it has made negotiations next 
to impossible. How can you negotiate when the commitments aren't kept, 
when the rules aren't followed?
  One most important to me is the ergonomics amendment. That is an 
amendment passed in the Senate on a bipartisan vote. The exact same 
amendment was passed on the House side by a bipartisan vote. Labor-HHS 
has some monetary items that are different between the two sides but 
not that amendment. A conference committee was formed and they met. The 
White House said, we don't like the amendment on ergonomics. Both sides 
of the conference committee said that is not conferenceable. It was the 
same on both sides.
  Now, because we get in this little bit of a jam and the President 
gets a little more leverage in his negotiations, we are now at a point 
where some of the leadership had said, OK, we won't make it a year's 
delay before more work can be done on OSHA with ergonomics; it will 
only be until March 1st. In the last minutes, that goalpost was moved 
again. The President said, no, I want to be able to put it into effect, 
and they can take it out of effect if there is a new administration 
next year.
  Let me state how difficult a procedure that would be. It would be 
next to impossible to remove an absolutely ridiculous rule that is 
landsliding through this place by an agency out of control, that has 
known what it wanted to do from the very first day that it wrote the 
rule. It has done every single thing it can to make sure that rule 
comes into effect. They don't care who doesn't like it.

  Our ergonomics amendment, which delays it one year, is not about 
whether we should have an ergonomics rule. It is not a prohibition 
against an ergonomics rule. It is most definitely not a dispute about 
the importance of safety for American workers. We need to have safety 
for American workers, but we need to do it the right way.
  This amendment was passed in a bipartisan way. It is imperative that 
Congress insists there be a reasonable amount of time on this rule. The 
rule was only published a year ago. They are anticipating that maybe 
they can even squeak by before there is agreement and get this rule 
finalized and approved. That will be quicker than OSHA has done a rule. 
That would be record time.
  They mention this was brought up about 12 or 13 years ago. There has 
not been agreement on it since that time. It never got published until 
a year ago. There has been no official action until a year ago.
  Let me state why we ought to be concerned about this rule and why the 
delay occurred, in a bipartisan way, for a year. People didn't approve 
of the way OSHA was handling it, the way they were going about it. OSHA 
paid over 70 contractors a total of $1.75 million to help with the 
ergonomics rule. They paid 28 contractors $10,000 each to testify at 
the public rulemaking hearings. They didn't only pay the witnesses to 
testify; they didn't notify the public, and then they assisted the 
witnesses with the preparation of their testimony. Then they brought 
them in for practice runs for the hearing. Then they paid them to tear 
apart the testimony of the opposition. That is not the way we do things 
around here.
  That resulted in people on both sides of the aisle being extremely 
upset with the way it was handled. The way that OSHA has handled this 
gives every indication that the way they wrote it is the way it has to 
be; that they are not going to pay attention to any of the comments or 
the additional testimony. They knew they were right when they

[[Page S11437]]

wrote it and they will be darned if they are going to change it. That 
is not how we do rules, particularly ones that cost billions of 
dollars, without getting the desired effect. That is the purpose of a 
rule, to get a desired effect. This one will not get the desired 
effect.
  It is interesting to note the Bureau of Labor Statistics says, 
without the rule, United States employers reduced ergonomic injuries by 
29 percent. What do the hearing records show? With the ergonomics rule 
they would get zero percent the first year and 7 percent the second 
year. American business is doing better than that without the rule. How 
are they doing it? Somebody is helping them to figure out what they 
need to do.
  Small business in this country has trouble handling the OSHA rules. 
They have over 12,000 pages of regulations they have to digest. If you 
are a small employer, you cannot read 12,000 pages in a year. Any time 
they get help on knowing what they can do to provide safety in the 
business, they do it. It is shown time and time again on every kind of 
injury there is. So we put in the motion to slow down OSHA a little 
bit, to make sure they took the necessary time to look at the rule and 
to get rid of this perception that their first idea was the only idea 
and the right idea and going to be the final idea. Somehow, they have 
to work past that perception.
  The amendment is a reasonable 1-year delay. It will ensure that OSHA 
takes the time to evaluate all 7,000 comments it has received and try 
to resolve the problems with the rule. It also gives Congress the time 
to perform its appropriate oversight function.
  So there is a reason for a delay. Rules in OSHA have been extremely 
permanent. Any one that has ever passed has had court trials and a 
number of them have been reversed. But if they make it through the 
court trial, did you know they have not been revised in the time that 
OSHA has been around? Do you think technology has changed a little bit? 
Do you think there is any reason we ought to look at rules that are 29 
years old? We probably ought to. Instead, we are rushing into an area 
here that not only provides a rule without sufficient oversight, but it 
provides a rule that gets into workers comp. Yes, it gets into workers 
comp. In its preamble, OSHA specifically prohibits any right to impose 
on workers comp, and there is good reason for that. Workers comp has 
been around a long time. There are precedents that have been developed. 
They are important precedents.
  Here is the biggest problem with it. You can get paid twice for the 
same injury. It is kind of a rule of mine: If I can make more by not 
working than I can working, don't expect me to show up. That is going 
to cause some major problems for business in this country. It is 
something that needs to be revised. Again, there is no indication at 
all it would be revised.
  So the House folks and the Senate folks--not just the House folks, as 
has been written up in some of the papers--have been incensed the 
President is insisting this rule be allowed to go into force but not to 
be enforced until next year. That is not the way we do it. That is one 
of the things that is keeping Labor-HHS from being approved now. It 
should not be the major crux of an appropriations bill, but it is a 
very important point that we need ensure that any changes made in rules 
that work on the worker get the proper amount of oversight.

  That is all we are asking for, an opportunity to do the proper 
oversight on it and to get an indication of some sort from OSHA that 
they are going to pay attention to any of the 7,000 comments they 
received.
  We are at a point where we need to wrap up this session. We are at a 
point where we need to get the work done. But that is one item I will 
stay around here for until next year, if I have to, to be sure we do 
the job right and not in a hurry. We do not need to rush things.
  I thank the Senator from Iowa, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.

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