[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 9957-9965]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH SMALL BUSINESS DAY IN COURT ACT OF 2004

  Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 645, I call up 
the bill (H.R. 2728) to amend the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 
1970 to provide for adjudicative flexibility with regard to an employer 
filing of a notice of contest following the issuance of a citation by 
the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and ask for its 
immediate consideration in the House.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Terry). Pursuant to House Resolution 
645, the bill is considered read for amendment.
  The text of H.R. 2728 is as follows:

                               H.R. 2728

       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 ``Occupational Safety and 
     Health Small Business Day in Court Act of 2003''.

     SEC. 2. CONTESTING CITATIONS UNDER THE OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY 
                   AND HEALTH ACT.

       (a) Citation.--The second sentence of section 10(a) of the 
     Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (29 U.S.C. 659(a)) 
     is amended by inserting ``(unless such failure results from 
     mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect)'' 
     after ``assessment of penalty''.
       (b) Failure to Correct.--The second sentence of section 
     10(b) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (29 
     U.S.C. 659(b)) is amended by inserting ``(unless such failure 
     results from mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable 
     neglect)'' after ``assessment of penalty''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 645, the 
amendment printed in the bill is adopted.
  The text of H.R. 2728, as amended, is as follows:

                               H.R. 2728

       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 ``Occupational Safety and 
     Health Small Business Day in Court Act of 2004''.

     SEC. 2. CONTESTING CITATIONS UNDER THE OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY 
                   AND HEALTH ACT.

       (a) Citation.--The second sentence of section 10(a) of the 
     Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (29 U.S.C. 659(a)) 
     is amended by inserting ``(unless such failure results from 
     mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect)'' 
     after ``assessment of penalty''.
       (b) Failure to Correct.--The second sentence of section 
     10(b) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (29 
     U.S.C. 659(b)) is amended by inserting ``(unless such failure 
     results from mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable 
     neglect)'' after ``assessment of penalty''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner) and 
the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner).


                             General Leave

  Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their 
remarks on H.R. 2728.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Ohio?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, today we will debate four important bills that make 
modest reforms to the Occupational Safety and Health Act. These 
measures ensure that small business owners who make good-faith efforts 
to comply with health and safety laws are dealt with fairly and 
equitably by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
  Nearly every employer today recognizes that improving workplace 
safety is good for business and it is good for workers. Employers face 
relentless competition, both at home and from abroad, and they must 
compete in the face of high taxes, rising health care insurance costs 
and burdensome government regulations. These four OSHA reform bills are 
designed to improve worker safety and enhance the competitiveness of 
small businesses that are the real engine of job growth in this country 
today.
  The U.S. economy is improving and more and more employers are hiring 
workers each month. Earlier this month, the Labor Department reported 
that 1.1 million new jobs had been created over the last 8 months, 
including 625,000 in the last 2 months alone. Eight consecutive months 
of positive job growth show that the Republican plan for economic 
prosperity is working. But we want to make sure onerous government 
regulations do not hamstring the ability of small businesses to 
continue to hire new workers and to compete in our economy. That is why 
these bills are important.
  Mr. Speaker, since the Republicans won control of Congress 10 years 
ago, we have undertaken considerable efforts to make bureaucracy more 
responsive and more accountable to workers and taxpayers. Let me just 
give you a few examples.
  We stopped unwarranted and invasive OSHA regulations proposed by the 
Clinton administration that would have held employers liable for the 
safety of their employees who work from home.
  We stopped one of the most overreaching attempts at regulation in our 
Nation's history by repealing an irresponsible and unworkable 
ergonomics regulation that would have cost employers billions of 
dollars and killed millions of jobs.
  We have dealt with the problem of costly unfunded mandates by 
ensuring that Congress does not pass expensive legislation and then 
pass the buck to State and local governments.
  This decade of progress on regulatory reform should give Americans 
confidence that Congress is making positive steps every year to improve 
government accountability. Today, we take one more positive step, to 
improve workplace safety, I think a goal that we all share.
  OSHA under the Bush administration has made significant efforts to 
supplement traditional enforcement programs with cooperative 
partnerships between the agency and employers across the country. I am 
pleased to report these voluntary programs have proven successful in 
reducing workplace injuries and illnesses. In fact, workplace injuries 
and illnesses have declined significantly during the Bush 
administration.
  If we look at these facts on this chart, I think we will see that 
over the last 3 years, injuries in the workplace have, in fact, 
declined significantly to their lowest point in history, to a rate of 
just 5.3 injuries or illnesses per 100 workers. I think that is 
significant progress.
  Moving on to the next chart, we can see that workplace fatalities 
have made similar declines, again to the lowest amount in history. In 
fact, the 6.6 percent reduction in workplace fatalities in 2002 is the 
single largest annual decline ever.
  Why have we made such significant progress? It is because under this 
administration, OSHA and employers have started to work together more 
cooperatively and more proactively to solve workplace safety problems 
before injuries and fatalities occur. A GAO report released on March 30 
said voluntary partnerships between OSHA and employers ``have 
considerably reduced their rates of injury and illness and

[[Page 9958]]

have fostered better working relationships with OSHA, improved 
productivity and decreased worker compensation costs.''
  Now, we strongly support OSHA targeting bad actors that defy the law 
and compromise the safety of their workers, but we also need to 
recognize that most employers are good actors who work hard to address 
job safety concerns. No employer wants to deal with unnecessary OSHA-
related litigation and escalating attorneys' fees that result. Most 
employers want to comply with the law, and the offer of assistance from 
OSHA is enough to provide the incentive they need to make the 
investment. Employers will use these resources because safety pays.
  Employers in America know that their number one asset is their 
employees, and every employer, I know, wants to do everything to 
protect the health and welfare of their employees.
  The reform measures we will consider today are proposals that, while 
fairly modest in substance, are important to small business owners who 
struggle every day to comply with complex OSHA laws and provide a safe 
working environment for their workers while facing increasing 
competitiveness from the worldwide economy. Employers who make good-
faith efforts to comply with OSHA standards deserve to be treated 
fairly and have their day in court, and these common-sense bills will 
help ensure that they receive that opportunity.
  The first reform bill on tap today, the Occupational Safety and 
Health Small Business Day in Court, gives the Occupational Safety and 
Health Review Commission additional flexibility to make exceptions to 
the arbitrary 15-day deadline for employers to file responses to OSHA 
citations when a small business misses the deadline either by a mistake 
or for good reason. This change ensures that appropriate disputes are 
resolved based on merit, rather than legal technicalities. I think it 
is a common-sense proposal and deserves every Member's support.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), the ranking member of 
the Committee on Education and the Workforce, for an opening statement.

                              {time}  1230

  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman 
from New York (Mr. Owens) for yielding me time and for all of his 
involvement over many years on the issues affecting OSHA and the 
workplace safety of American workers.
  The Occupational Safety and Health Act has substantially improved the 
safety of the American workplace to the benefit of the American worker. 
Far fewer workers are killed or injured today than was the case before 
the law was enacted. Despite this progress, too many Americans continue 
to be sick or injured or killed in workplace accidents that could have 
been or should have been avoided. Fifteen Americans were killed and 
more than 12,800 were injured each day in 2002. This does not include 
the 50,000 and 60,000 deaths that occur every year as a result of 
occupational diseases.
  None of the bills before this committee today will do anything to 
improve the occupational safety or health of Americans. H.R. 2728 
unnecessarily and indefinitely delays the abatement of safety and 
health hazards in compliance with the Occupational Safety and Health 
Administration citations.
  H.R. 2729 unnecessarily expands the size of the Occupational Safety 
and Health Review Commission, and H.R. 2730 weakens the fundamental 
responsibilities of the Secretary of Labor. It contorts the law and 
confuses the enforcement responsibilities of both the Secretary and the 
review commission.
  H.R. 2731 significantly diminishes the protections of Occupational 
Safety and Health by discouraging OSHA from even enforcing the 
Occupational Health and Safety Act and punishing tax payers unless the 
agency, like Perry Mason, can win every case. That is not going to 
happen. These bills do no good, and some of them do substantial harm. 
The House should not waste time considering them. If the House truly 
wants to address the economic needs of the American people, why not 
spend time on legislation raising the subpoverty minimum wage or 
extending unemployment benefits to the 90,000 workers a month who are 
losing that benefit because of the inaction of Congress or stopping the 
Labor Department from issuing overtime regulations that will cost 
middle-class workers critical amounts of their income?
  Why do we not spend our time on those bills instead of this 
meaningless and political agenda?
  Rather than hurting workers, we should be raising the minimum wage. 
The minimum wage has not been increased since 1997, and the real value 
of the minimum wage is approaching all-time historic lows. It is worth 
noting that the Republican Congress has increased Members' salaries six 
times since the minimum wage was last increased. It is time for 
Congress to do for others what we have repeatedly done for ourselves. 
Instead, we are considering bad bills to undermine worker safety and 
health. If we cannot do good for workers, we should at least avoid 
doing them harm.
  We should not be encouraging employers to litigate OSHA complaints 
instead of correcting health and safety hazards; but two of the bills, 
H.R. 2728 and H.R. 2731 have exactly that effect. Tax payers should not 
be paying the legal expenses of employers who endanger their workers, 
but, again, that is what H.R. 2731 requires. It is nonsense to contend 
that the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission knows better 
what the Secretary of Labor intended than the Secretary herself, but 
that is not exactly the premise that underlies H.R. 2730.
  Finally, our Republican colleagues argue that we should expand the 
size of the commission with no commensurate expansion in its 
responsibilities. In effect, the taxpayers should go on the hook to put 
two more lawyers to work for no good reason. This is the effect of H.R. 
2729. This is bad legislation. It is unfortunate that we have spent 
time considering these bills when there is so much we could be doing to 
help workers and their families in this country. Let us not compound 
the error by foisting these bills on the other body.
  Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood), the chairman of the Subcommittee 
on Workforce Protections of the Committee on Education and the 
Workforce.
  Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, so we do not get confused, this hour is devoted to H.R. 
2728, not all four bills, The Occupational Safety and Health Small 
Business Day in Court.
  My good friend from California (Mr. George Miller) speaks as a 
gentleman who really truly never has been in small business and it is 
pretty clear to me does not have any small businesses in his district 
because this is very important; and, in fact, nobody must be unemployed 
there because that is what this is all about. Small employers ought to 
be devoting more of their time and attention, in my opinion, to 
creating the new jobs our Nation needs and much less time on dealing 
with government lawyers that are intent on manipulating legal 
technicalities. That is precisely and that is all what H.R. 2728 does. 
That is what we are trying to accomplish here. Nothing more, nothing 
less. It is not complex. It is an 11-word bill.
  The measure adds only 11 words, Mr. Speaker, to the OSHA act, but 
those 11 words will add fairness. And I know this body is interested in 
fairness and in removing potential injustice which has happened before 
because these 11 words are not in the OSHA act. Here is why.
  In almost every other court of this Nation, in almost every other 
court of this Nation a party that acts in good faith but nonetheless 
misses a deadline that results in a legal default can ask the court to 
have the case heard on the legal merits. Why not OSHA? That is a good 
idea. That is a fair idea because we are after justice here.
  The principle of justice is as old as our common law, and it was 
crafted to

[[Page 9959]]

add equity and fairness to the justice system. Why is this not a good 
idea? We are adding equity and fairness to the justice system that 
almost every other court in the land can use. Yet we cannot use it with 
OSHA.
  Simply stated, everyone should have a right to be heard on the merits 
of their case before being penalized by their own government. Legal 
technicalities should not be allowed to get in the way, hear this, as a 
general rule. Legal technicalities should not be allowed to get in the 
way as a general rule. Do we say that an employer should respond in 15 
days? Sure, that is appropriate. And, actually, employers want to 
because they do not like this citation hanging over their heads. They 
want it to move too. But occasionally an honest mistake happens. Can 
you deal with that in all the other courts in this country? Yes. Can 
you deal with it when you are dealing with OSHA? No. Why not? Why is 
this so terrible to put a little fairness and justice into the system?
  Right now, regrettably, there is doubt over whether the Occupational 
Safety and Health Review Commission, or OSHRC, the agency specifically 
created by Congress to hear each legal dispute between an employer and 
OSHA, has the statutory authority to grant this type of just relief. 
And by the way, just for those who do not remember their history, there 
would be no OSHA act passed by Republicans, signed by a Republican 
President, had not a review commission been put in the bill. It was a 
very, very simple reason. Parties who sit in judgment should not be the 
Labor Department as the plaintiff. It ought to be independent people on 
the review commission looking at what OSHA says is a violation and what 
the small businessman says, no, this is not a violation.
  This agency was created by Congress and allowed OSHA to pass in 1970 
to hear each legal dispute between the employer and OSHA. It has the 
statutory authority to grant this just type of relief. Well, it is not 
clear, we do not think, so we were not sure they do. While most every 
other court in the Nation can do what is right, employers facing OSHA 
standards can be victimized by legal technicalities that would deprive 
them of the right to be heard and to hear the merits of their case. 
That is dead wrong. I do not care whose side of this you are on. All 
H.R. 2728 does is conclusively give OSHRC the authority to make sure 
that our laws are fairly administered. Who can be against that? We want 
fair administration of our laws. What is going on now is not 
necessarily fair in some cases. And using 11 words, that is all this 
bill is, we have done this as narrowly, Mr. Speaker, as we possibly 
could have. We have used legal terminology that is time tested and 
proven to ensure just results without possible abuse.
  This is because we use identical terminology to that used in the 
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that is known as rule 60(b), a rule 
that has a very long history of use in nearly every other court of the 
Nation. Why in the world is it wrong to have that rule take effect when 
you are dealing with cases with OSHA?
  I have a feeling about that, but we will not go there. Under this 
measure, results will only change when the totality of the 
circumstances concerning a missed deadline, totality of the 
circumstances concerning a missed deadline indicates that an employer 
acted in good faith but nevertheless missed a deadline because of a 
mistake, an inadvertence or an acceptable excuse. This is reasonable. 
This is to be judged by OSHRC. This is to be judged by independent 
reviewers. This measure therefore removes a legal trap that has led to 
unfair results in the past.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2728 simply provides a day in court to parties who 
believe that they are without legal fault. It is nothing more than 
that. It is not a lot of what we have heard already. It is simply that 
it provides a day in court to parties who believe they are without 
legal fault. Nothing more.
  I urge my colleagues to vote for passage of this bill. I frankly 
cannot imagine why every Member of this Congress would not vote for 
this bill, because every Member of this Congress has a lot of hard-
working small business people in their communities that need this very 
simple, basic protection. About 92 percent of America is made up of the 
florists with three employees and the butcher with two. They have no 
way on Earth to take on the Federal Government. Let us just put a 
little fairness in the OSHA Act with 11 words that do not hurt anybody, 
but helps the people in your district.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Kildee).
  Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 2728 and also refer to the 
other three bills, H.R. 2729, 2730, and 2731.
  Mr. Speaker, OSHA came into being to protect the worker and give that 
protection with the force of the Federal Government because in so many 
instances the employer was not protecting these workers. These bills 
individually and collectively will weaken that protection.
  I can recall the days before OSHA, the lack of protection, the lack 
of sometimes even a concern among many employers about the safety of 
their workers. My father was almost killed in plant because he was 
being pulled into the machine and was unable to control his own 
machine. He could not control the power for their own machine. And he 
had to keep shouting down the line to turn off the power. And that is 
how things were before OSHA.
  In my State about 8 or 9 years ago, a young lady trying to pull 
herself out of poverty took a job in a small plant. She was working on 
a press. She put her hands in to remove the product and the press came 
down. It did not amputate her hands. It obliterated, disintegrated her 
hands. Failure to abate can lead to such tragedies. And there was 
certainly failure to abate in that plant. Most of the workers knew that 
that machine had difficulties; but she was allowed to work on that 
machine which destroyed, obliterated, disintegrated her hands.
  We have so many values in our life but she, in talking to us, held 
out her arms and was telling the great loss she had suffered. This is 
what we have to be concerned about.

                              {time}  1245

  ``Among my losses,'' she said, ``I will never be able to pet my 
kitten again.'' These are real people. This was a woman who sought a 
job at very low wages and had her hands destroyed. Let us think of 
those people. Give them some relief.
  Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I think all of us in the Chamber and all of my colleagues understand 
that OSHA has been a good agency and very good law that helps to 
protect the health and safety of American workers. No employer and, 
certainly, none of us in the Congress want to see workers placed in a 
position where their health or safety is questioned.
  As I said before, I think employers, by and large, across the country 
understand that their greatest asset, their greatest value in their 
business is the value of the good men and women who work for them.
  Certainly, what we are doing today in no way denigrates OSHA. As a 
matter of fact, I would argue that it will enhance OSHA's ability to 
work with employers in a voluntary way to increase the health and 
safety of American workers.
  The underlying bill that we have before us is real simple. It says 
that the arbitrary 15-day response time to an OSHA citation can be 
reviewed by the Review Commission and make a decision about whether the 
company needed more time, whether there was a mistake made and the 
deadline was missed. That is all it does. It does not denigrate the law 
in any way, shape or form. I believe it creates more voluntary 
cooperation between the employer community with OSHA.
  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield as much time as he may consume to 
the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger), one of our senior 
colleagues on the Committee on Education and the Workforce.
  Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman for 
yielding me the time.

[[Page 9960]]

  For the edification of the people that are watching, I may be the 
only Member of this body who has enjoyed the possible penalties of that 
lovely group called ``OSHA.''
  Mr. Speaker, I want to take a moment to refresh everyone's memory. As 
the former chairman of the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, I 
cannot help but remember the testimony that our committee took from 
small business owners several years ago.
  I recall very clearly what we heard, that despite a genuine desire to 
provide workers with a safe work environment, OSHA seemed more 
interested in confrontation than problem solving. For years, OSHA acted 
more like a policeman handing out fines and penalties for every little 
infraction of the law than an agency that would be willing to help 
employers improve worker health and safety.
  Actually, surprisingly, and I do not want to put my friend from 
Georgia down, but the pay increases for OSHA worker inspectors were 
based on the number of fines that they turned in. We used to say that 
is why, going through south Georgia, you have to watch out. Sorry about 
that. Anyhow, that is how they got their pay increases.
  That is why we worked to refocus OSHA, making it more of a partner 
with business. The idea was simple, if an employer in good faith wants 
to bring a workplace into compliance, let us do everything we can 
within the law to assist.
  I am proud to stand here today and say that the simple reforms that 
we enacted a few years ago helped to bring balance to OSHA. Businesses, 
especially small businesses, are now able to receive the expert advice 
they need to comply with OSHA standards, without the fear and 
adversarial temper often associated with OSHA inspections.
  In fact, in a recent GAO study, it seemed to point out that voluntary 
compliance programs have reduced workplace injuries, improved worker 
productivity, lowered worker compensation costs, and provided other 
intangible benefits. When OSHA partners with business and helps them 
comply, everyone benefits.
  The four bills we have before us today are built on our original 
reforms. Compliance is what is really desired, and it is all that 
really counts.
  These are common-sense bills that would help give small businesses 
more equitable treatment in dealing with OSHA, while letting employers 
know that the government is truly interested in helping to achieve a 
safer and healthier workplace. These bills take small, yet significant, 
steps in bringing about change to the way OSHA operates.
  I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) for his hard 
work on these four important bills that will benefit both employers and 
employees alike, and I urge my colleagues to support these bills.
  H.R. 2728, it is the Small Business Day in Court that gives relief on 
time to react to charges. Let me give my colleagues an example. On an 
inspection in my plant, there were seven changes that OSHA said needed 
to be made. Six were made in less than 1 week, and the last one took an 
unknown length of time. We did not know how long it would be, and it 
was to repair a platform that was 20 feet in the air. It took more than 
a month, but luckily, OSHA allowed us the extra time, not limited to 15 
days. All this was done without penalty, and our partnership with OSHA 
made my plant a safer place to work.
  I would ask all of the people to vote in favor of H.R. 2728.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the amount of time left?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Terry). The gentleman from New York (Mr. 
Owens) has 23 minutes remaining.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this particular bill, 
H.R. 2728, and the other three bills to be considered in succession, 
H.R. 2729, H.R. 2730 and H.R. 2731. As I said earlier in the debate on 
the rule, this package I would label as a ``more injuries and more 
deaths package.'' This package I would label as ``a spoon feeding of 
poison'' to OSHA.
  If we compare OSHA to a giant elephant, as has just been boasted by a 
couple of Members, they knock the elephant to its knees immediately by 
repealing the ergonomic standards, and now they want to slowly kill the 
elephant with spoonsful of poison.
  Deliberately, it is made to appear these are trivial bills, common-
sense bills, they have no real value; but why are they on the floor? I 
think they are significant only if we take this within the context of 
what the majority party has been trying to do with OSHA since it took 
control of the House, if we take it in the context of how the 
protection of owners and businessmen is the obsession of the majority 
party. We never get any bills from them which seek to protect workers.
  There are quite a number, 14, of significant bills that have been 
offered since the 104th Congress, starting with the gentleman that just 
spoke before. The gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger) has 
offered more than anyone else, and each one of those bills seeks to, in 
some way, weaken OSHA and to favor law-breaking employers.
  These bills will do nothing to strengthen the occupational safety and 
health standards for American workers. Rather, they will do quite the 
reverse, by undermining, sometimes suddenly and other times blatantly, 
the overall effectiveness of the Occupational Safety and Health 
Administration.
  I would like to remind my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
that Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1970 to 
assure ``every working man and woman in the United States safe and 
healthful work conditions.'' I believe that bears repeating.
  OSHA's founding and fundamental purpose, as spelled out in the 
statute, is to ensure that each and every individual working in the 
United States carries out his or her work in safe and healthy 
circumstances.
  The bill was not written to overburden business. It has never 
overburdened business. Every attempt has been made to bend over 
backwards to limit the burden on business and no attempt is made to 
protect workers.
  This is the yardstick by which we must measure the likely outcomes of 
each of the bills before us today. Let us briefly review such outcomes.
  H.R. 2728: By extending the customary 15-day period for an employer 
to appeal an OSHA citation, this bill would encourage litigation, and 
litigation is on the side of the employer not the employee. It would 
delay the correction or the abatement of whatever hazards have occurred 
in the workplace related to that citation. As such, it can only place 
workers at greater risk of unsafe and unhealthy working conditions, 
which runs expressly counter to the purpose of the OSHA Act originally.
  H.R. 2729, and I want to talk about all these bills in context first 
before I deal specifically with each one: By expanding the size of the 
Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission from three to five 
members, this bill simply creates a bigger bureaucracy in search of a 
mission. Moreover, the bill adds legal training as a qualification for 
appointment to the commission. It makes OSHA less effective, not more 
effective.
  It diminishes the chances that candidates considered for selection 
will have the requisite expertise in occupational safety and health. 
They have got to have legal expertise but they do not have to have 
expertise and experience directly in relation to occupational safety 
and health. That expertise is critical to further the assurance of safe 
conditions for America's working men and women.
  H.R. 2730: By extending deference to the Occupational Safety and 
Health Review Commission over the Secretary of Labor, this bill 
contorts and confuses enforcement responsibilities of both the 
Secretary and the Review Commission. Such confusion will only hinder 
efforts to fulfill the statutory guarantee of safe and healthy 
conditions for all workers in this country.
  It seems like a small matter, but it is another spoonful of poison 
which, in

[[Page 9961]]

the end, can be very effective in killing the elephant.
  H.R. 2731: By requiring OSHA to pay attorney fees for any employer 
with 100 or fewer workers and a net worth of under $7 million, that 
prevails, even partially, upon appeal, this bill would have a chilling 
effect on OSHA enforcement efforts. It would almost freeze those 
efforts. Given that worker death rates are much higher in such firms in 
comparison to those with more than 100 workers, this bill would 
encourage litigation and seriously jeopardize progress towards 
improving the safety and health conditions of American workers.
  Moreover, the bill would freeze safety enforcement efforts in the 
lion's share of private companies in light of the fact that more than 
97 percent of all private employers have fewer than 100 employees on 
the payroll.
  I might add that the practice now is for larger employers who are 
subject to other kinds of regulations and other OSHA standards often to 
subcontract to small employers and avoid being regulated in the proper 
way for health and safety.
  These bills run counter to the real interests of working Americans, 
and I urge my colleagues to oppose it. As the senior Democrat on the 
Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, I have heard firsthand from 
workers around the country about very real and pressing safety and 
health concerns many face on the job on a daily basis. If neglected or 
unaddressed, these risks can have severe, and even fatal, consequences.
  H.R. 2731: Requiring OSHA to pay attorney fees for any employer with 
100 or fewer workers is one of those bills that certainly would create 
a situation where the likelihood is that less regulation would take 
place and more workers would be at risk.
  In a May 12th forum, which we entitled ``A Job to Die For: Inadequate 
Enforcement of U.S. Safety Standards,'' I heard from witnesses on the 
front lines of an epidemic with fatal consequences. Worldwide, this 
epidemic is deadlier than war. From Brazil to Bangladesh, it claims 
6,000 lives a day, which means four lives a minute. In this country, it 
claims 6,000 lives a year, which computes to one life every 90 minutes.
  This epidemic takes a devastating toll on American families and 
communities. I think my colleagues can see from the arithmetic, we lose 
more workers per day from deaths in the workplace than we are losing in 
Iraq. I think that later on we are going to talk about how this 
phenomenon must be brought to the attention of the American people, 
starting with the Members of this body in both parties.
  This is not a trivial discussion today. This is not a discussion to 
be quickly passed over. It is at the core of an effort to make the 
workplace safe and to create better conditions for working, and better 
respect for working families.
  Working families are expected to produce the soldiers that go off to 
fight our wars. Ninety percent of those in Iraq are from working 
families, but yet we have an attempt to oppress working families with 
many measures. We will not even consider a minimum wage increase. We 
are constantly trying to change workplace safety conditions through 
these various measures for those members of our society who also 
shoulder the burden when it is time to go off and fight for the country 
and defend the country.

                              {time}  1300

  I am referring to wrongful deaths in the workplace when I talk about 
the 6,000 lives lost in this country per year. Individual worker deaths 
are not random, isolated events. Rather, they are often tragic 
certainties that are almost always preventable. Unlike a disease that 
is triggered by a mysterious or elusive virus, this outbreak is caused 
by the willful and reckless safety violations of certain employers. Let 
me repeat, the willful and reckless safety violations of certain 
employers.
  Much has been said about the fact that most employers care about 
their employees. And that may be true, but there is a large, large 
percentage that care only about the profits, and they are constantly 
squeezing the workers and jeopardizing the safety and health of workers 
in an attempt to increase their profits. Such business owners pursue 
profits and their own economic interests at the expense of basic safety 
practices, and all too often this comes at the actual expense of 
workers' lives.
  We have learned that for Latino workers the risk of workplace 
fatalities keeps rising. They right now happen to be the most 
vulnerable. Recent immigrants are forced to take the dirtiest and most 
dangerous jobs. As highlighted in the recent investigative series by 
the Associated Press, immigrant workers born in Mexico are now 80 
percent more likely to be killed on the job than their U.S.-born peers. 
This is almost three times greater than the disproportionate risk of 
workplace fatalities for the rest of the population. Even by 
conservative estimates, a Mexican worker is killed on the job every day 
in this country.
  The Federal Government is astonishingly ineffectual at combating this 
epidemic of wrongful deaths, both with respect to immigrant workers 
born in Mexico and all other workers. The current administration is 
replacing standard OSHA inspections with voluntary compliance programs 
that ignore the work sites where deaths are most likely to occur.
  And much is being made by the majority party of volunteering and 
trusting employers. The OSHA was developed by legislation because it 
was clear that employers could not be trusted to safeguard the health 
and safety of workers. The current administration is replacing standard 
OSHA inspections with voluntary compliance that ignores the work sites 
where deaths are most likely to occur. You can find that the majority 
of American employers do care about their employees and safety, but 
that minority is the problem; and they are not being properly 
scrutinized.
  Moreover, OSHA has increased the percentage of its budget dedicated 
to voluntary efforts by 8 percent. These discussions and negotiations 
of voluntary efforts have run off with the slight increases that have 
been made in the OSHA budget while they have reduced the funds devoted 
to safety enforcement by 6 percent.
  At the same time, the U.S. continues to lag behind other Western 
nations in preventing workplace deaths. A construction worker in the 
U.S. is four times more likely to be killed on the job than a worker in 
Belgium. In comparison with their British counterparts, American 
construction workers are twice as likely to be killed on the work site.
  These are critical health and safety issues we should be addressing 
today as opposed to the four bills that would further undermine OSHA's 
effectiveness in protecting American workers. We have the most 
productive workers in the world. We ought to appreciate that and try to 
protect those workers, not squeeze them more, not make them sweat more, 
and not endanger their lives more.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against H.R. 2728, H.R. 2729, H.R. 2730 
and H.R. 2731.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Schrock).
  Mr. SCHROCK. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of all the commonsense 
reforms to the OSHA enforcement process. Mr. Speaker, I serve as 
chairman of the Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform and Oversight of the 
House Committee on Small Business. Believe me, I hear regularly from 
small businesses about the horror stories with OSHA enforcement.
  The Department of Labor and OSHA suggest their first mission is to 
provide compliance assistance and not play ``gotcha'' with businesses 
they oversee. OSHA needs to educate our businessmen and women about 
what they should be doing before they show up and slap them with a 
fine. In a system where our agencies promulgate over 4,000 rules a 
year, we cannot expect small businesses to know how to comply unless we 
help them.
  In 1996, Congress passed the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement 
Fairness Act requiring agencies to develop small business policies to 
reduce

[[Page 9962]]

or waive civil penalties for first-time violators. We want our 
regulators to help businesses come into compliance.
  I have been reviewing enforcement statistics as a result of some of 
the hearings I have held. The Department of Labor had 143,000 
enforcement actions against businesses last year, 45 percent of them 
against small businesses. I have also looked at the numbers in OSHA. It 
had 24,000 enforcement actions, half of which were against small 
businesses. We need to restore fairness to the OSHA adjudication 
system.
  Unfortunately, the present system stacks the deck against businesses, 
particularly small ones, so unfairly that many people settle even 
frivolous OSHA complaints rather than challenge them. OSHA paperwork 
requires over 100 million hours a year to comply with. That is 100 
million hours that our citizens and small business men and women could 
be spending with their families or helping to grow their businesses. 
That does not even include the amount of time a small business has to 
spend if it is fighting what it believes to be an unfair OSHA fine.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time for us to restore fairness and balance to 
this process. It is time for us to give small businesses the tools to 
fully exercise their rights in this process. It is time for us to get 
out of the way of the businesses that are creating jobs in this 
economy, providing health care to their workers, and giving back to 
their communities. Mr. Speaker, it is time for us to pass this 
legislation.
  I urge my colleagues to support this package of commonsense OSHA 
reform bills; and I urge my colleagues to support the bill we are now 
considering, H.R. 2728, which will give the Occupational Safety and 
Health Review Commission the flexibility to make exceptions to 
arbitrary deadlines for employers to file responses to OSHA citations 
when a small business misses the deadline by mistake or, frankly, for a 
darned good reason.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, today is a very sad day in the history of the workers of 
the United States. The Republican Party is bringing out here onto the 
floor of Congress an all-out assault on the protection of the rights of 
people who work in the fields of our country, in the factories of our 
country, in the offices of our country. What they are saying is that 
they are going to try to tie the hands of OSHA to protect the rights of 
workers to be living and working in safe and healthy environments.
  And how do they do it? Well, the way they do it is they make it 
possible for there to be a wholesale delay in the implementation of 
improvements in health and safety protections in the workplace. They 
make it very difficult for the Secretary of Labor to exercise the 
authority of that agency to move in and to protect our workers. And 
they make it almost impossible to even bring a case unless the agency 
is 100 percent sure it is going to win the case. As a result, the hands 
of this agency are going to be tied by the Republican legislation out 
here on the floor.
  GOP. It used to stand for Grand Old Party. Now it stands for ``gut 
OSHA protections'' for ordinary workers in our country. And it is all 
part of a pattern. The same thing happened with overtime pay. With 
overtime pay they want to make it very difficult for workers to be able 
to collect that bonus that helps their families across our country.
  GOP. It used to stand for Grand Old Party. Now it stands for ``gut 
overtime pay, ``or ``gut OSHA protections.''
  And on the minimum wage, you know, Harry Truman used to say about the 
Republican Party, ``Oh, the Republican Party believes in the minimum 
wage. The lower the minimum, the better.'' And here we are, year after 
year trying to improve the lot of working people by giving them that 
increase that they need in the minimum wage; and, like OSHA, and like 
overtime pay, it is all part of a deliberate assault upon the working 
men and women in our country, in their workplace, for their families, 
that makes it difficult to protect them.
  And when it comes to unemployment benefits as well, they also stand 
in the way of helping those families have the protections when they 
need it with unemployment benefits.
  So it is all part of a pattern. And, today, on the House floor, with 
four separate bills all aimed at a different part of OSHA, they 
continue this assault upon the progress that was made to improve the 
lives of working people in the workplace.
  I remember when I was a boy, my father used to walk around without 
one of his fingers that he lost in an accident in the workplace. And I 
think of how far we have come in terms of the protections which we give 
to families, because so many thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions 
of workers were just constantly subjected to the risk of being injured 
in ways that would forever alter their lives, and because of OSHA that 
has changed.
  But when the Republicans control the House, the Senate, the 
Presidency, and the Supreme Court, you can see this lingering 
resentment of the laws which were put on the books to protect these 
ordinary people, these laws which they voted against when they were 
originally proposed. And what we are seeing here today is that 
continuing assault to turn into a relic an agency which has so 
dramatically changed the lives of ordinary people.
  Oppose each and every one of these Republican assaults upon the 
working men and women in our country.
  Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood), the chairman of the Subcommittee 
on Workforce Protections.
  Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I always welcome one of the members from 
our Committee on Energy and Commerce to join us. I know on the 
Committee on Energy and Commerce we have a lot of political dialogue, 
but we try not to posture on the Committee on Education and the 
Workforce and just stay on policy. And that certainly was a lot of 
posturing the gentleman did very well with that, but a lot of it is 
just simply not true.
  Let me remind the body what we are doing this hour. We are dealing 
with one bill, H.R. 2728, that helps working families in this country. 
I know it is confusing for some people, but working families also 
include small business owners and their employees, which make up about 
92 percent of the working families.
  Now, this little piece of legislation helps those working families, 
and I have yet to hear a good explanation why that did not include the 
92 percent. Everybody wants to talk about the 8 percent that happen to 
be unionized. What about those that are not?
  This is not very difficult legislation. We are giving the rights to 
92 percent of the working families in this country that every court, 
almost every court in the Nation gives. Who said 15 days was right? Who 
made that up? It is arbitrary. It could have been 8; it could have been 
16. All we are saying is occasionally a small business owner needs to 
have his case relooked at by the review commission and given his right 
and day in court.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I want to take a moment of 
personal privilege to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) for 
the work that he has done in this area, particularly a very important 
briefing that he held just last week on this very issue, bringing 
together experts trying to educate people on the value of OSHA.
  Now, in this body we are always inclined to give acronyms, and most 
people would not know what we are talking about. But both the gentleman 
from New York (Mr. Owens) and the gentleman from California (Mr. George 
Miller), who has been an enormous leader on issues dealing with working 
Americans, realize it does not matter about what acronym you are 
talking about. The bottom line should be are you going to stand with 
the workers, or are you going to stand with a club beating them to 
death by taking away established protections!

[[Page 9963]]

  Now, I come from Houston, which is a city that is very fond of its 
small businesses, and we are much like a chauvinist, if I can use that 
terminology, in advocating for small businesses. In fact, just this 
last week I joined with a number of my colleagues to support the 
associated health plans that would allow small businesses to get health 
plans at a lower rate.
  But let us clear away the misrepresentations and all of the clouding 
about how we are standing up for one these bills to help people who are 
in need.

                              {time}  1315

  Mr. Speaker, that is not what we are doing. We are frankly 
dismantling the very agency, OSHA, which provides the umbrella of 
protection for workers on the job, whether working in the local 
laundromat or local cleaner with chemicals or working in the local 
refinery. That is what OSHA is all about.
  Unfortunately, we have done a coup d'etat today by managing to throw 
all of these bills, four bills, into 1 hour. What do we have here? We 
have one bill, H.R. 2728, that diminishes the ability for the company 
to mitigate the problem, to fix the problem. So if you are dying 
because you are working at this particular job, they can say OSHA, we 
do not want to comply right now, give us a couple more years, see how 
many more people will die.
  H.R. 2729 expands the OSHA board to put more people on who can vote 
``no'' so that the workers do not have a right when they come before 
the board.
  H.R. 2730 weakens the enforcement capabilities of the Secretary of 
Labor. That sounds very good. We have the Secretary of Labor who is 
responsible for protecting the rights of working Americans; and what do 
we do, we dismantle their authority.
  H.R. 2731 is one that diminishes the protection of Occupational 
Safety and Health by discouraging OSHA from even enforcing the 
Occupational Safety and Health Act and punishing taxpayers under the 
agency.
  Let me give an example why we need to have OSHA as strong as it 
possibly can be. We have a citation in Houston of a particular company, 
and I will not say its name, but here is the quote: ```The employer 
knew about the unsafe working conditions, but continued to place people 
at risk,' said John Lawson, OSHA Houston North area director. `A 
similar incident happened 2 years ago when two employees fell to their 
death from a storage tank.''' This company's continued failure to 
protect the workers from falls is simply unacceptable.
  This is what the collective body of these bills will do, just open 
the door, open the door, the random trap, and allow employees to fall 
through.
  Mr. Speaker, if we had come to this floor in a bipartisan manner and 
addressed this question of dealing with the concerns of small 
businesses, there would be a great deal of support because we do 
believe that small businesses are the backbone of America in terms of 
their job creation; but what we have here is a runaway train allowing 
workers to fall through the cracks. I do not want to see any more 
workers fall to their deaths. I ask my colleagues to vote ``no'' on all 
of these bills because I am standing and we should be standing with the 
working people of America who are already suffering from this horrible 
economy.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill. H.R. 2728, the 
``Occupational Safety and Health Small Business Day in Court Act of 
2004.'' The underlying bill would amend Sections 10(a) and (b) of the 
Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) to provide that an employer 
who has failed to contest a citation and proposed penalty (Section 
10(a)) or has failed to contest a notification of failure to correct a 
violation (Section 10(b)) in a timely manner (within 15 working days of 
receiving the notice) may still contest the citation (or failure to 
correct the notice) if the failure to contest in a timely manner was 
due to a ``mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect.''
  Mr. Speaker, the relief granted in this bill has nothing to do with 
``small businesses'' as its title purports. It addresses a single 
situation by overturning a case out of the Second Circuit, Chao v. 
Russell P. Le Frois Builder, Inc. (Second Circuit, May 10, 2002) to 
allow the employer to contest an OSHA citation with a ridiculous amount 
of latitude.
  Instead of focusing on helping small businesses, this bill 
effectively hurts employees. The backbone of the employer is the 
employee, and this legislation fails to consider that.
  The legislation seeks to enable the Occupational Safety and Health 
Review Commission (OSHRC) to waive a statute of limitations for 
employers to contest a citation in a manner that parallels the Federal 
Rules of Civil Procedure--Rule 60(b). Despite the fact that a citation 
has been properly served by an agency and that the employer cited has 
failed to timely challenge the citation, this legislation will allow 
them to escape the commitment to safety and healthy workplaces by 
allowing relief if the failure to respond was due to ``mistake, 
inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect.''
  Employers should be held to a high standard and should not be given 
this kind of latitude at the expense of the injured or dead employee. 
The regulations are in place to create a safe work environment. This 
bill seeks to permit lackadaisical maintenance of such a safe 
environment. Put simply, this bill is bad policy and does not help the 
people who really need help.
  In Houston, OSHA proposed fines of $258,000 against the Pasadena Tank 
Corporation for an August 23, 2001 accident that killed a worker at a 
construction site. The company had 15 days in which to contest or pay 
the fines. The Houston-based firm received a citation of six willful 
and serious safety violations for failing to protect workers by 
providing an inadequate fall protection system. The employee repairing 
a rooftop of a storage tank fell 56 feet to the ground when the rooftop 
collapsed. An OSHA employee said of the situation, ``The employer knew 
about the unsafe working conditions, but continued to place workers at 
risk . . . A similar incident happened two years ago when two employees 
fell to their deaths from a storage tank. This company's continued 
failure to protect its workers from falls is simply unacceptable.'' 
This failure to act when there is sufficient knowledge to mitigate an 
unsafe condition is what H.R. 2728 will sanction and permit.
  Our innocent employers should not be punished from a piece of 
legislation that attacks from the ``back door'' by weakening a 
procedural standard that has been set in place to protect them. We 
should follow the motto, ``if it isn't broken, don't fix it.''
  Mr. Speaker, I oppose this legislation and I strongly urge my 
colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  Mr. Speaker, I remind Members that we are on H.R. 2728. It is hard to 
tell because we are all over the board here. This is simply about small 
business owners having a fair day in court.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I take issue with the last statement. We are on the 
first quarter of a four-bill marathon. They have been put together by 
the majority. We choose to discuss them as we see fit.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Payne) to close out this first quarter of this four-bill 
marathon.
  Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Speaker, let me say this is a day when we will be 
talking about four quarters, and this is the first quarter of a four-
quarter tragedy.
  H.R. 2728 weakens enforcement of OSHA by allowing employers to drag 
out the imposition of penalties and the date for taking corrective 
action, or to buy safety officials. The principal purpose of the 
Occupational Safety and Health Act is to ensure, so far as possible, 
every working man and woman in the Nation safe and healthy working 
conditions and to encourage the prompt abatement of safety and health 
hazards.
  The time frames in the act are intended to reduce the occurrence of 
occupational injury by ensuring that hazards are redressed in a timely 
fashion. H.R. 2728 creates an exception to these time frames where an 
employer fails to contest an OSHA citation or fails to abate a hazard 
in a timely manner, pursuant to section 10(b) of the Occupational 
Safety and Health Act.
  H.R. 2728 also encourages employers to litigate citations rather than 
to promptly correct health and safety hazards. Allowing an employer to 
belatedly challenge a complaint also allows an employer to delay when 
he or she must correct a health or safety hazard. Under this 
legislation, the responsibility to correct a health hazard

[[Page 9964]]

may be indefinitely delayed by virtue of litigation, and I always 
thought my friends on the other side of the aisle were opposed to 
litigation, even though the employer has failed to challenge a citation 
or a failure to abate notice in a timely manner. If that failure is due 
to mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect, the employer 
can nevertheless challenge the citation, does not have to abate the 
hazard during the challenge period, and is not liable for having failed 
to abate in the interim period.
  The majority appears to equate an Occupational Safety and Health Act 
proceeding with any other typical proceeding. In fact, however, much 
more is at stake. What is at stake is not merely whether an employer 
will pay a monetary fine, but whether workers will have a safe and 
healthy workplace, or to be subject to injury, illness or death. It is 
very clear that this bill does not assist the employee. Therefore, Mr. 
Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on H.R. 2728. It should be 
rejected.
  Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, occupational workplace injuries and 
illnesses have in fact been coming down in a rather dramatic way over 
the last few years, and this is because we continue to see more 
cooperation between employers and with the agency charged with 
enforcing these laws, OSHA.
  Looking at this chart here, over the last 4 years, voluntary programs 
have reduced injuries. If we look at injury and illnesses over the last 
4 years, Members will see that the rates per 100 workers have in fact 
continued to decline, and we believe that is because of the voluntary 
nature of these agreements between OSHA and the employer community.
  Looking at workplace fatalities on the next chart, Members will see 
that they continue to come down rather dramatically. Today, we are 
trying to increase the cooperation between OSHA and employers.
  The bill that we have before us, I think we need to understand that 
almost every other court in the Nation has the authority to excuse 
understandable procedural mistakes when those mistakes would take away 
someone's right to be heard in court. While most courts have this 
authority and use this authority, disputes at OSHA are an exception. 
There seems to be no flexibility in the OSHA Act. The OSHA Act has a 
15-day deadline for filing a legal dispute against OSHA after it issues 
a citation. This is inflexible; 15 days, no changes.
  The bill before us is to provide authority for the agency 
specifically created by Congress to hear OSHA disputes, the 
Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, to make exceptions in 
appropriate cases.
  Now, appropriate cases for excusing a missed deadline are only those 
under which the totality of the circumstances surrounding the conduct 
indicates a good-faith effort to comply, but an inadvertent effort to 
do so. The bill before us accomplishes that using the time-tested legal 
language with clear, long-standing legal precedent, the same language 
used in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
  So the bill before us would have no negative impact on the current 
safety and health protections in place. All it does is permit a case to 
be heard on the merits rather than being decided on a legal 
technicality. It does not change the outcome in any way, shape or form. 
The review commission is there to act as the court in these cases. We 
ought to give them the flexibility that every other court in the land 
has. We believe that this small change, this 11-word change in the law, 
would provide more cooperation between OSHA and employers and assist in 
protecting the health and safety of American workers.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to support H.R. 2728.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition of H.R. 2728 because 
it appears to be another way for this administration to distract from 
real needs facing our nation's workers. What employees deserve is a 
safe working environment that protects them from harm and allows their 
families peace of mind.
  Yet, with this legislation, we put the company's bottom line above 
the safety of American Workers.
  With the narrowing definition of ``Willful Violations,'' we will make 
it easier for employers to avoid responsibility after disregarding a 
safety standard requirement. This bill would allow companies to receive 
filing extensions even if they lost track of a citation due to their 
own negligence.
  Why should any worker be forced to suffer in unhealthy conditions or 
even worse, lose their life, because of inefficiencies within a 
company's system or blatant lies to avoid penalties?
  That's why I support real workplace reform not favors to business 
like H.R. 2728 provides. I support strengthening worker protections and 
forcing employers to face real consequences when their poor safety 
standards cause a wrongful death.
  You cannot put a price tag on life, and injury, and we can all agree 
every workers' life is more precious than a profit. That's why I 
encourage my colleagues to join me in opposing this H.R. 2728.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 2728. The bill 
amends the section 10(a) and (b) of the Occupational Safety and Health 
Act to provide that an employer who has failed to contest a citation 
and proposed penalty (section 10(a)) or has failed to contest a 
notification of failure to correct a violation (section 10(b)) in a 
timely manner (within 15 working days of receiving the notice) may 
still contest the citation (or failure to correct notice) if the 
failure to contest in a timely manner was due to a ``mistake, 
inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect.''
  The bill's authors have used the title ``Occupational Safety and 
Health Small Business Day in Court Act.'' Once again, they have 
provided that you can name a bill anything you want, regardless of what 
it actually does. That is why it is critical to look at what is in the 
bill and not just the title--it covers more than just small businesses. 
In fact, H.R. 2728 applies equally to all employers regardless of size. 
However, because small businesses often get more sympathy, the bill's 
authors used the title to mischaracterize the substance of the 
legislation.
  One of the principal purposes of the OSH Act is ``to assure so far as 
possible every working man and woman in the Nation safe and healthful 
working conditions'' and to encourage the prompt abatement of safety 
and health hazards. The timeframes in the OSH Act are intended to 
ensure that hazards are redressed in a timely manner.
  H.R. 2728 creates an exemption to the act's timeframes on the basis 
of one case. The bill seeks to overturn the 2002 decision of the Second 
Circuit in Chao v. Russell P. Le Frois Builder, Inc. However, to date 
no other circuit has ruled similarly and Le Frois Builders is in direct 
conflict with a Third Circuit decision. Indeed, it is the position of 
the Occupational Safety and Review Commission that it may grant an 
excusable neglect waiver in any circuit except the second.
  The bill amends subsection 10(a) and (b) to afford an excusable 
neglect remedy to an employer who fails to contest an OSHA citation in 
a timely manner or who fails to timely challenge an allegation that he 
or she has failed to correct a hazard within the abatement period. Not 
surprisingly, H.R. 2728 does not amend subsection 10(c), which affords 
workers the right to challenge the abatement period.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to oppose a bill that has been given 
a deceptive title. This legislation will not help small business but 
instead will hurt employees. What we really should be passing is 
legislation that will empower small business by increasing funding for 
education and training programs to help workers gain the job skills 
that small business is looking for and that will help America remain 
competitive.
  Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Terry). All time for debate has expired.
  Pursuant to House Resolution 645, the previous question is ordered on 
the bill, as amended.
  The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the bill.
  The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was 
read the third time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the bill.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this question are postponed.

[[Page 9965]]



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