▶ 0:07:18This subcommittee on workforce protections will come to order. I note that a quorum is present. Without objection, the chair is authorized to call a recess at any time. Today's hearing will review the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's activity under the previous administration and will also explore common sense solutions that can return OSHA to fulfilling its purpose of advancing workplace safety.
▶ 0:07:43OSHA's mission is to ensure the hardworking men and women of this nation are given safe and healthy working conditions. The agency fulfills this mission by setting and enforcing safety standards and by providing education, outreach, and compliance assistance to both employers and employees when necessary. OSHA's enforcement efforts include monetary and even criminal penalties, all with the goal of workers. That mission is critically important.
▶ 0:08:13However, in recent years, we've seen a regulatory approach that in many cases may have gone beyond OSHA's statutory authority under the Occupational Safety and Health Act. While these actions may have been well-intentioned, they often created confusion or imposed overly broad mandates that didn't meet the realities of the industries affected, especially for small businesses.
▶ 0:08:36For example, OSHA's attempt to implement a nationwide COVID vaccine mandate, later struck down by the US Supreme Court, raised serious concerns about federal overreach. In 2024, the agency issued a worker walkaround rule, which opened the door to third party individuals, even those without workplace safety backgrounds entering job sites to do safety inspections.
▶ 0:09:00And the proposed heat standard, while addressing a real concern, takes a one-sizefits-all approach that fails to account for a wide range of conditions and different industries and regions. We've also seen an expansion of enforcement tools such as the severe violator enforcement program and the instance bystance citation policy that may reflect a view of employers as adversaries rather than partners in workplace safety. That's a misguided perspective.
▶ 0:09:29Obviously, small businesses succeed when their employeries succeed and most of their employers take workplace safety very seriously. OSHA's mission is too important to be undermined by overreach. As the nature of work continues to change, broad-based regulatory efforts can unintentionally create more problems than they solve. That's why today's conversation is so critically important.
▶ 0:09:55For instance, the tree care industry has petitioned for the creation of a federal tree care standard for nearly two decades. This is one of the most dangerous industries in the nation, but workers currently rely on a patchwork of standards that do not adequately address the unique challenges of the work being Similarly, be be because of technological advances with equipment and machinery, OSHA should update its 35-year-old standard on the control of hazardous energy,
▶ 0:10:25otherwise known as the lockout tagout standard. While we saw progress on both fronts under the first Trump administration, now is the time to push for these solutions to be resolved. uh Republicans, under this American uh economy and this administration, we know that America flourishes when workers flourish.
▶ 0:10:46I look forward to the hearing for today's witnesses so that they can bring about their uh knowledge and share with us what can be improved from the past four years, the lessons that we've learned, and how we can keep OSHA focused on its core mission of keeping America's workers safe. With that, I yield to my ranking member for an opening statement. Thank you, chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for your testimony today.
▶ 0:11:13Over the past 100 days, President Trump and his his administration have decimated the very agencies and resources that have kept workers safe and healthy. Now, committee Republicans are following suit by holding this hearing to attack the work of the Occupational Safety and Health We should all be able to recognize a basic truth. No job should ever be a death sentence.
▶ 0:11:38Workers deserve to to come home to their families at the end of the day, not in pain, not in fear, but alive and well. To protect that fundamental right, Congress passed landmark safety laws and established important agencies like OSHA, the Mind Safety and Health Administration, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. But all of these three agencies have been chronically underfunded since their inception.
▶ 0:12:07And largely because of that, they have long struggled to robustly defend workers from preventable injuries, illnesses, and death at work. In the 54 years since it was established, OSHA has made great strides, but it remains hamstrung by an overly complicated regulatory process, persistent underfunding, and the long uphill battle of updating standards to reflect scientific advances.
▶ 0:12:36Despite these constraints, OSHA took action during the Biden administration and proposed common sense safeguards like the heat stress rule to prevent tragedies in the workplace. Rather than build on that progress, the Trump administration is now threatening to dismantle any government program or agency that prioritizes workers health and protects workers on the job.
▶ 0:13:01At one point, doge targeted at least 11 OSHA field offices to be permanently shut down, including the only office in Louisiana, located in what is known as cancer alley due to the presence of over 200 chemical plants and the high rates of cancer in the area.
▶ 0:13:23MSHA has at least 30 field offices slated for closure on Doge's hit list, including an office created in response to the upper big branch mine disaster. And while we face a search in child labor violations, Doge is still cutting staff and planning to close 20 wage and hour division offices.
▶ 0:13:45Shutting down field offices will endanger workers lives by cutting off the public from DO's most vital services. This also means severely limiting the geographic coverage of inspectors and investigators, enforcement activities against lawbreaking companies, and further restraining an already resourced do. And it doesn't stop here.
▶ 0:14:10On April 1st, nearly the entire NE neos uh workforce was placed on leave with the promise of being fired later this summer by HHS Secretary Kennedy. In one sweeping move, Secretary Kennedy put 50 years of scientific expertise and public health research at risk.
▶ 0:14:30Doge kicked out Neosh staffers, paid them to not work, and then after realizing that effectively eliminating NEO was a mistake, the Trump administration started to reverse course and rehired only some of those staff. This entire circus is wasteful, expensive, and harmful for workers. A description that could only apply to most of Doge's actions. Workers are not expendable. They are not a statistic.
▶ 0:15:01OSHA and NAOSH do the essential work of keeping workers safe. We must fund them properly and strengthen the laws that support their mission. In my own district, we are already feeling the consequences of these cuts. The University of Minnesota Minnesota's Midwest Center for Occupational Health and Safety is one of just 18 funded education and research centers in the nation.
▶ 0:15:27It trains the next generation of worker workplace safety experts in the region and helps protect our workers in high-risk industries. Without NEOS, the invaluable research and workforce development provided by that center and others like it across the country will be lost. That means fewer trained medical and safety professionals, less research capacity to prevent fatal accidents, and ultimately more injuries.
▶ 0:15:56more deaths and more grieving families. Democrats are committed to honoring those workers who have been harmed or killed on the job, not just with words, but with action to change the system. Recently, ranking members Scott, Representative Courtney, and I reintroduced the Protecting Americans Workers Act, a bill that would make long overdue improvements to the enforcement of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.
▶ 0:16:25This bill would expand coverage to millions of workers currently excluded from the laws protections and strengthen whistleblower protections. These reforms are critical to preventing the most serious violations that endanger worker safety. Democrats are also championing legislation to protect health care and social workers from violence, to make mining safer, and to prevent illness injury from extreme heat. This is what it means to have an agenda to ensure safety.
▶ 0:16:56And with that in mind, I hope that we can have a productive discussion today. Thank you, and I yield back. Pursuant to committee rule 8C, all members who wish to insert written statements into the record may do so by submitting them to the committee clerk electronically in Microsoft Word format by 5:00 p.m. 14 days after this hearing. And without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 14 days to allow such statements and other extraneous material noted during the hearing to be submitted for the official hearing record.
▶ 0:17:24I note that the subcommittee uh there may be some of my colleagues who are joining who are uh not permanent members of this subcommittee. They may be waving on for the purpose of today's hearing. Now for the introduction of witnesses, I'll uh start. Our first witness is m Mr. Jake Parson, the president of the Northeast Division of CR America's Materials in West Hartford, Connecticut, testifying on behalf of the National Association of Manufacturers. Our second witness is Mr.
▶ 0:17:54Bren Trestult, the president and owner of Arborist Enterprises in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, testifying on behalf of the Tree Care Industry Association. Our third whist witness is Mr. Jordan Barab, the former deputy assistant secretary of OSHA from Tacoma Park, Maryland. And our final witness is Miss Felicia Watson, a senior counsel for Litler Mendelson in DC.
▶ 0:18:21We want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today and we look forward to each of your testimony. Pursuant to committee rules, I will ask that each of you limit your oral testimony to a threeminut summary of the witt written testimony that you provided. The clock will countdown from three minutes as committee members have many questions for you and we will uh we would like to spend our time doing as many questions as possible.
▶ 0:18:44Pursuant to committee rule 8D, the committee practice, however, is is that we will not cut off testimony until we reach the 5m minute mark. I'd like to also remind the witnesses to be aware of their responsibility to provide accurate information to the subcommittee. And with that, I will recognize our first testifier today. Mr. Parson. Uh, you can please begin. Good morning, Chairman McKenzie, Ranking Member Omar, and members of the subcommittee.
▶ 0:19:10As you said, my name is Jake Parson, and I'm proud to serve as the division president for the Northeast Division of CR Materials. In 1952, my great-grandfather founded Jack B. Parson Companies in Brigham City, Utah with a simple but powerful ambition to build and to make a difference. That spirit has guided four generations of our family in the construction materials industry and I carry it with me in my role at CR today. CR is the largest building materials company in the world.
▶ 0:19:40Our 50,000 employees across 48 states help build the infrastructure you depend on and craft the backyards you enjoy. You may not know us as CR, but you might know us as Pensy Supply in Pennsylvania, Michigan Paving in Michigan, Moser in Indiana, and Hinkle in Kentucky. CR takes great pride in our local communities and takes our responsibility very seriously to ensure the safety of our employees and our subcontractors.
▶ 0:20:08Common sense labor policies support manufacturing operations and empower the American worker. But recent actions by the Department of Labor threaten to impo impose unworkable rules that do very little to improve safety. If we want to grow manufacturing in the US, we need to rebalance regulations that cost manufacturers 350 billion every year. This is real money that could be spent on hiring people, building new facilities, and creating new products.
▶ 0:20:36OSHA has put forward costly rules that ignore the complexity of US One problematic regulation is the proposed heat rule. A one-sizefits-all heat standard ignores the work manufacturers already do to protect our employees, and it ignores the unique ways in which it is done. When it comes to heat, what makes sense for Maine does not make sense in Texas.
▶ 0:20:59During my time leading an asphalt production and paving business in Texas, I saw firsthand how extreme heat impacts our teams and how local expertise and adaptive safety measures are critical. Now overseeing similar operations in the Northeast, I face a completely different climate and set of challenges. Any standard must reflect the realities of our industry and the diverse environments in which we operate.
▶ 0:21:24The proposed rule imposes significant mandates on manufacturers without fully grappling with or understanding whether they are feasible or cost-effective. The result would be reduced production and ultimately fewer jobs. We can do better. Working together, manufacturers will continue to communicate best practices already in place to protect our employees. Collaboration is going to become increasingly important. This is the best path forward to keep workers safe and grow our economy.
▶ 0:21:53I am proud to continue my family's tradition leading thousands of Americans workers at CR. Manufacturers in America provide safe, well-paying jobs that strengthen our communities. We will continue to support OSHA in its mission of safety and provide this committee with the input you need to make sound policy. Working together, we can enhance our nation's economic competitiveness and empower the American worker. Thank you for inviting me to testify today, and I look forward to your questions. Thank you.
▶ 0:22:23I now recognize Mr. Trestled for your testimony. Chairman McKenzie, Ranking Member Omar, and distinguished members of the Subkitty. Thank you so much for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Ben Trestle, and I'm the president of Arburst Enterprises, a total treeare company located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I am also the former chairman of the Treeare Industry I'm here today to urge OSHA to finalize a long overdue safety standard for tree care.
▶ 0:22:52One that reflects OSHA's core mission of protecting workers through clear practical rules. Tree care is an extremely technical and very hazardous occupation. Crews work a loft using chainsaws, aerial lifts, and cranes often near homes, roads, and power lines. Treeare workers suffer serious injuries and fatalities well above the national averages, making our industry one of the most hazardous. That is why at our company, we've worked hard to build a safety first culture.
▶ 0:23:20We perform safety job assessments before every project, provide and maintain highquality climbing and protective gear for our employees, and follow the ANIZ133, our industry's consensus safety standard. Safety is at the core of how we hire, train, and operate. Despite these efforts, OSHA continues to regulate our industry through a patchwork of standards that don't reflect the unique hazards or work conditions of tree care.
▶ 0:23:46This creates confusion and places unnecessary compliance burdens on employers trying to do the right thing. Crane access into the tree is one clear example. In many cases, lifting a climber into a tree using a crane is the safest option, especially when the tree is structurally compromised, in a tight space, or located above a hazard. The ANZ133 supports this safe method.
▶ 0:24:09Several state OSHA plans also support it, but the federal OE still applies a general rule of cranes prohibiting lift lifting climbers into the tree, leaving the employer vulnerable to citation. At the same time, OSHA maintains five regional emphasis programs that explicitly direct inspectors to identify tree care operations, but once they do, there's no tree care specific standard to apply. It's a nationwide enforcement effort without the right tools to carry it out effectively.
▶ 0:24:39In 2020, I served on OSHA's Sabria panel concerning treecare safety standard. The recommended outcome was clear. Move forward with an OSHA standard grounded in the ANIE Z133. Yet, OSHA has delayed the rule at least eight times while more complex rules have advanced. A dedicated tree care safety standard won't expand the rulebook, but it would clarify it by replacing outdated, misapplied rules with ones tailored to our type of work.
▶ 0:25:09In short, this kind of smart focused standard is exactly what OSHA was designed to deliver. A standard that protects workers, supports responsible businesses, and makes regulation more effective. I respectfully urge the subcommittee to ensure OSHA finalizes a safety standard for treeare. Thank you for the opportunity to testify and I will welcome your questions. Thank you. And next I will recognize Mr. Bar for your testimony. Thank you for inviting me here to testify.
▶ 0:25:38But I will take issue with the title of this hearing. Uh OSHA's problem is not overreach but rather underreach. Last year I told this committee about Gabrielle Infonte, a Texas construction worker who died of heat stroke, a death that would have been prevented had OSHA's heat standard been in place. These preventable tragedies continue. Last August, Baltimore Public Works employee Ron Silver II tragically died of heat stroke. The state of Maryland has since issued a tough heat standard, a standard that would have saved Ron Silver's life.
▶ 0:26:06More than 712,000 workers now can say their lives have been saved since the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Far fewer workers are dying today from asbestous related disease or diseases caused by exposure to lead formaldahhide because of OSHA standards. OSHA standards have significantly reduced deaths in confined spaces and deep trenches. Fewer workers fall to their deaths or have their limbs crushed in machinery. Work-related hepatitis B deaths have virtually been eliminated since OSHA issued its Bloodborne pathogen standard. And I could go on and on.
▶ 0:26:36Unfortunately, despite the lives saved by OSHA, the original mission of the agency to assure the safety and health of American workers through enforcement of OSHA standards has not been realized. It's difficult to comprehend today, but only three senators and 58 representatives voted against passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1970.
▶ 0:26:56OSHA is a tiny agency with a minuscule budget and an enormous mission to ensure the work safety of an 11.8 million workplaces covering 161 million workers. In fiscal year 2024, OSHA had only 1,800 inspectors, one inspector for 84,937 workers. If OSHA was to inspect every workplace in the country just once, it would take 185 years, almost two centuries. And it only promises to get worse.
▶ 0:27:26OSHA has lost 10% of its staff due to early retirements and very little likelihood that any of these positions will be refilled. This is hardly a recipe for reclaiming OSHA's mission. OSHA's st standard setting process is in shambles. It can take seven to 10 to 20 years to issue a single OSHA standard. The founders of this act would be undoubtedly be shocked and disappointed if they knew what had become of OSHA today. They never would have envisioned an agency that would take decades to issue a standard and centuries to workplaces.
▶ 0:27:56This is clear example of underreach and the main solution is not difficult. Significantly increase funding for OSHA's enforcement and standards program and modernize the law. While this hearing focuses on OSHA's mission, I cannot ignore the chaos at NYOSH because the fun the functioning of NAOSH is critical to the mission of OSHA. Almost the entire NYOSH staff was rifted last month. Then a few were brought back and restored a couple of days ago because of a a court order.
▶ 0:28:25NAOSH provides life-saving support to minors suffering from black lung disease. Workers in the agriculture and fishing industry. Uh firefighters who are suffer disproportionately from cancer and heart disease. Provides compensation to 911 workers as well as to uh America's nuclear veterans who built America's nuclear arsenal. Most of these workers have not been brought back and their programs are not operating uh despite Senator uh Secretary Kennedy's claims that they are just being reorganized.
▶ 0:28:54And I'm sorry to say, but Secretary Kennedy was lying at yesterday's Senate hearing when he claimed that no working scientists at HHS were fired. Hundreds of working scientists and engineers at NYOSH have been rifted. Before closing, I want to emphasize the importance of some of the standards that OSHA should prioritize. First, the heat standard. More workers died from heat working in construction than any other industry last year.
▶ 0:29:23Just in the in at least 55 workers died from heat on the job in 2023, which was a 28% increase from 2022 and 121 workers died from the effects of heat from 2017 to 2022. The solutions laid out in OSHA's proposal are simple, flexible, inexpensive, desperately needed, and long overdue.
▶ 0:29:44COVID 19, Ebola, aven flu, tuberculosis, MRSA are just a few of the infectious diseases that healthcare workers are not protected from because aside from bloodborne pathogens, there is no infectious disease standard. The danger is obvious. Thousands of healthare workers died from COVID during the COVID pandemic. Assaults against healthare workers and social service workers are a serious problem and a standard is clearly needed.
▶ 0:30:08In fact, this house has twice passed bipartisan legislation requiring OSHA to issue a standard to restore OSHA's mission and prevent underreach. Congress should first significantly increase OSHA's enforcement and standard setting budget. Second, pass legislation enabling OSHA to quickly update antiquated standards for toxic substances and other hazards. Third, urge OSHA to issue heat, infectious disease, tree care, violence, and emergency response standards.
▶ 0:30:36And finally, permanently restore NYOSH. Thank you. Thank you. Lastly, I'll recognize Ms. Watson for your testimony. Good morning, Chairman McKenzie, Ranking Member Omar, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today about the important topic of ensuring OSHA's mission without overreach. I'm here today to emphasize the shared goal of increasing compliance with the OSH Act while safeguarding the ability of employers and employees to thrive in their chosen professions.
▶ 0:31:06With more than two decades in the residential construction industry, I've observed some consistent themes within OSHA's regulatory and enforcement efforts and would like the subcommittee to consider these points. First, OSHA has already already has the ability to address worker walkaround employee representation instance by instance and the severe violator enforcement program.
▶ 0:31:28OSHA has shifted away from its original mission of focusing on workplace safety into the role of a disciplinarian evidenced by the update to the instance by instance policy and expansion from applying only to willful citations to all others including other than serious violations specific to recordkeeping. Multiple recordkeeping violations do not improve workplace safety. Likewise, the worker walkound amendments were unnecessary because it addressed a non-existent issue.
▶ 0:31:58There was no actual concern to be remedied. processes already existed to ensure employees were fully able to participate in any inspection, but the agency broadened who could participate as an employee representative to non-party third-party represent, excuse me, non employee thirdparty representatives, but with no requirements that these individuals have any particular expertise, which seems contrary to the regulation's requirement of good cause and reasonably necessary.
▶ 0:32:27Even more problematic is that the OSHA inspector has ultimate authority to decide whether good cause and reasonably necessary requirements have been met. This expansion also leaves employers with no recourse if the OSHA inspector decides to allow a non-employee third party to participate in that inspection. As the work as with the worker walkaround, OSHA's updates to the instance by instance and severe violator enforcement program can already be addressed by rules that are currently in effect.
▶ 0:32:57Neither of these add anything to improving safety. OSHA's stated purpose for changing instance by instance is to make OSHA penalties more effective. How does that comport with OSHA's own statement that a general contractor for example can end up on the s the severe violator enforcement program even if none of its own employees are exposed to hazard.
▶ 0:33:20So uh these changes ignore the underlying causes and the focus instead should be um away from penalizing employers and finding solutions to these issues. The burden on employers involving paperwork requirements has increased exponentially. taking the pending heat regulation. The focus is so much on having written plans, updating these plans, keeping records of indoor temperatures that it leaves employers with little time to focus on safety. Thank you for your time and I look forward to your questions. Thank you.
▶ 0:33:49Under committee rule nine, we will now ask questions of the witnesses uh for five minutes and I'll recognize myself first. Uh first uh Mr. Parson, if the Department of Labor were to move forward with establishing a heat standard, your written testimony calls for a performanceoriented approach to mitigate heat related hazards. What are the benefits of that kind of approach versus the approach that the Biden administration proposed uh under their heat standard?
▶ 0:34:18Yeah, thank you for the question. It it really provides flexibility. a performance-oriented approach would tie specific standards to specific areas and and help help industry craft a solution that makes sense for where they are. And so an overall standard set sets it up really to fail and the the recordeping associated with it and the time taken to administer it would almost be impossible.
▶ 0:34:46So it's it's not a novel idea necessarily for for most employers take great care and looking after heat of heat exhaustion of their employees as it is and so a real local performance-based approach makes a lot more sense. Well, I appreciate that.
▶ 0:35:02Again, I I think we share the desire for worker safety and having standards in place to protect against uh heat related hazards, but again, I think you correctly identified the lack of flexibility, the overzealous paperwork requirements uh that kind of bog down this proposal and ultimately make it unworkable across the country. Uh Mr. Trestle, uh in your written testimony, you highlight the benefits of putting a federal tree care standard in place.
▶ 0:35:29Those benefits would likely extend to employers, employees, and even in OSHA compliance and safety officers conducting inspections or helping with compliance assistance efforts. Can you further explain how creating a standard would be a win-win for everybody Thank you, Congressman, for the question. The standard, as you know, in our industry, it's very hazardous. We have a a lot of things going on. We have many workplace problems.
▶ 0:35:53a standard would help a unify that so that we can work in conjunction with our employees, our employers and OSHA. So by unifying this standard, we would get rid of the patchwork that occurs right now. We don't really have a standard that addresses all of our concerns as far as what we we see on a daily basis in safety.
▶ 0:36:15Uh, I know in my business we have a lot of concerns because if we had an OSHA inspection, we might be called out on things that might not pertain to exactly what we're doing and we might be doing something that's completely safe under the Z133, but may not be a standard that's already in the OSHA rule. So, unifying this would help us protect our workers.
▶ 0:36:36It would help employers have a guideline on how to help their workers and it would give all the citation or the excuse me the OSHA people a clear picture of what we're doing and judge us on that not on a standard that wouldn't reflect what we actually do out in the workplace. Well, thank you for that and uh it's a prime example of where I think we can improve worker safety uh and do it in partnership in conjunction with the feedback that we're getting from the industry.
▶ 0:37:02Uh it's been a missed opportunity I think for a long time uh that administrations in the past have talked about it ultimately been unsuccessful in doing that. Uh and in the last administration my opinion is they were again because of their overreach and focus on things that OSHA should not have been doing they were missing the actual opportunity to protect and improve worker safety in an industry like yours. So thank you for that. Uh final question goes to Ms. Watson. Your background includes decades of experience with homebuilders.
▶ 0:37:29Uh, can you speak to the elements of the Biden proposed heat rule that would have had a significant impact on the construction industry? Uh, thank you for the question. Yes, the um elements of that rule that would affect um home building industry, residential construction, actually all construction when you think about it, um you've got to have um a written heat plan if you have uh 10 or more employees on the job site. Most uh residential home builders do not have that many employees.
▶ 0:37:57Um, oftentimes, um, that is an industry that is filled with specialty trades, some contractors, and so they would not be their employees. So, a small home builder might only have two or three or four people.
▶ 0:38:11So, in theory, they would only need to have a um a verbal plan, but to show compliance and demonstrate compliance with all of the requirements in the proposed heat rule, they effectively have to have a written plan because otherwise, how can they demonstrate to OSHA that they've analyzed all the job site hazards for those workers, that they've um trained them on heat and all the 16 elements in the training requirements, that they've done the emergency response, that everybody knows what the phone numbers are to summon emergency
▶ 0:38:41medical services. All of those things can be extremely burdensome. And then the fact that they would have to per the regulation post it at the job site. And if they don't have to have a written plan per the proposed regulation, how are they going to post something that isn't required to be and uh appreciate your feedback there. Housing affordability is a a critically important issue for so many people all across the country.
▶ 0:39:09And uh we hear time and time again that one of the things impeding uh home building is the amount of regulations just the pile of regulations that uh make it difficult for them to operate. Uh next I will go to our ranking member uh for her five-minute question. Um Mr. Uh Barab in in your testimony you stressed the critical partnership of uh Nyash with OSHA and EMSA.
▶ 0:39:36What happens to the work of OSHA and MSA to protect workers including firefighters and miners if the Trump administration continues down the path to fire large numbers of NAOSH employees. Yeah. So NAOSH plays an extremely critical role in protecting both miners as you mentioned and firefighters. Um let me start with fire. Fire fire fire firefighters are known to suffer a very high incident and disproportionately from uh cancers as well as respiratory disease.
▶ 0:40:05Um and NAOSH basically uh assembles a register of firefighters that protects um them and and identifies uh the the risk that firefighters face. They're the only agency that does this and uh although some uh positions at NYOSH have been restored, the firefighter registry has not been restored yet, which leaves firefighters across the country. These are the guys that rush in to homes to protect us um you know without the kind of knowledge and protections they need to pre to prevent them from getting cancer and heart disease.
▶ 0:40:33Um the mines the mine uh issue is is much more critical. Um miners are suffering a much higher rate of black lung disease because of their exposure to silica in the in the mines these days. Uh a disease called um um progressive massive fibrosis which hits minors at a much younger age. Um you know miners in their 30s and 40s are unable to climb the stairs. um they end up dying uh many decades earlier than they would have.
▶ 0:40:57It's it's a tragedy and a preventable tragedy and NAOSH provides the kind of uh they provide um surveillance uh health care to minors. They they require miners to be transferred to less dusty positions. Um they are critical for the safety of miners.
▶ 0:41:11Now some of those positions have been restored as well but none of the mine functions that deal with safety in mines with the machinery in mines uh other other things like developing uh technology that will measure uh silica exposure on a daily basis instead having to send the uh samples out and waiting weeks till you find out if you were overexposed two weeks ago. All of those functions are gone. Yeah.
▶ 0:41:32And I know that yesterday um the Secretary Kennedy announced the reinstatement of around one-third um of the NYOSH staff uh who were targeted for reduction in force. Um what are some of the NYOSH workers that will be left unstaffed if the NASH employees are now reinstated immediately? Yeah. Well, I mentioned the firefighter staff and some of the lot of the mine safety staff, but also NAOSH does health hazard evaluations, for example. they they go in and they investigate.
▶ 0:42:00When you find a lot of workers being getting sick in a workplace for no discernable reason, uh NAOSH will go in there and try to figure out what's happening. NAOSH plays a role in preventing uh uh the transmission of of aven influenza uh in workplaces. Um fishermen and uh and agricultural workers have some of the highest death rates uh and injury rates in the American economy. uh Nyash uh works on on technical issues and and and researching um ways to make jobs safer uh for those workers.
▶ 0:42:30Um there's just an enormous amount number of things that NAOSH does that nobody really knows about uh except for the workers whose uh lives are extended and injuries are prevented from the work of NAOSH. Uh thank you. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a letter from the National Safety Council on the importance for business leaders of the work of OSHA and NAOSH.
▶ 0:42:53Without objection, as I mentioned in my opening statement that there is a NYOS funded education um and research center in my district uh that will be impacted by these cuts. This center and others like it are in universities around the country fulfill NYOSH's responsibility under under the occupational safety and healthy act health act not only to facilitate important research but also to ensure a steady supply of experts Mr.
▶ 0:43:22Barab how important it is that to have field of experts trained specifically in occupational safety and health um it's crucial I mean it's these are the people that run our health and safety system and not just at OSHA or not just at NYOSH um throughout industry as well um these you know these are people that receive their education largely through NYOSH education and research centers resource centers um you can look at do doctors occupational physicians um NYOSH runs these ERC's uh run the residence programs for
▶ 0:43:53the ERC's to get to train to train occupational physicians. Um I went to a conference actually an ERC conference a couple of weeks ago in New York. Uh and I asked this was probably a couple hundred people there. I asked how many of their and these were people from I mean they were from businesses from unions from universities from from health groups. I asked how many of them either in whole or in part um whose careers depended on the work that the ERC's did. Every single person in the room raised their hand.
▶ 0:44:20uh if we lose this pipeline, if we lose this people, we will have a major shortage of uh health and safety professionals in this company in this country and that can do nothing but not only endanger workers but also raise the price, you know, for companies who are trying to hire health and safety professionals who have to deal with these shortages. Thank you. I yield back. Next, we'll go to Mr. Mesmer from Indiana. Uh thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for all the witnesses for being here today.
▶ 0:44:46As currently proposed, OSHA's heat illness and injury prevention rule is unworkable, overly prescriptive, and out of step with the practical realities and operational needs. It's a one-sizefits-all framework that fails to account for a wide variation in work environments across industries, including differences in job functions and geographic climates.
▶ 0:45:07Miss Watson, while we all agree on the importance of protecting workers health and safety, how could this rule be revised to allow employers to tailor compliance strategies to their specific circumstances? Thank you for the question, sir.
▶ 0:45:20Um I think one of the main reasons or one of the main ways that it can be revised to actually be workable is to really focus on um even something that formed the basis of um OSHA's national emphasis program on heat and that is water rest shade but also having training which is also part of OSHA's existing national emphasis program um and really focusing on what it means what it looks like how to recognize the signs and symptoms of heat illness and heat stroke what to do in that emergency and focus
▶ 0:45:50on those elements, providing water, providing shade. Um, many of the homebuilders I've spoken with across the country when this first when this rule first hit OSHA's radar of doing a rule making prior to even the advanced notice of proposed rulemaking was how do we keep this simple? How do we get this so everybody understands what they're supposed to do? Um, and that they can they can comply with it and it needs to be flexible. I've talked to builders in New Mexico who say 80 degrees is a great day to build.
▶ 0:46:19It's perfect weather and you might have something completely different in Florida. So, the heat triggers are a little bit difficult. Um, but really the focus of a of a program or a regulation should be water, rest, shade, um, rest breaks when they need them, not necessarily mandated every two hours. um if the under the high heat trigger is proposed.
▶ 0:46:41Um having something that is clear and straightforward and provides that flexibility for the type of job site it is or workplace it is but also that the employees can understand and it needs to use terms that are simple and clear-cut. A lot of employees struggle with that word acclimatization. How do you say it? What does it mean? What does it really look like in practice? And so that that reality needs to be that it has to be something that is workable, that everybody understands, that is simple and straightforward.
▶ 0:47:09The more complex, the more burdensome the regulation is for rulemaking and recordkeeping, that just makes it harder for small businesses especially to handle. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Parson. The Biden OSHA ignored calls from employers to consider the climate that the climate varies from region to region. What may be what may be considered an extreme temperature in one part of the country could be normal in another. How does the geographic location of of employees determine the best way to protect them from heat related injuries and illnesses?
▶ 0:47:39And similar to what Miss Watson said, the the challenges in Texas are different than the challenges in Maine and the geographies are different, the employees are different, and they're used to working in different climates. And so having a standard that says this fits everybody and is going to work for everybody makes no sense. Um, in my career, we were paving roads in Austin, Texas in July, and you can imagine the the heat involved with that.
▶ 0:48:05So, local management, providing local solutions and watch looking after your own employees, they're on the ground makes much more sense than prescription in this case. And so, trying to figure out what that means is is going to be important. Okay. Thank you. Could you go into detail on if a heat rule was enacted uh how you know how the heat rule would negatively impact members of your association and what changes you'd have to make to comply to the rule? It would definitely increase cost and likely decrease productivity.
▶ 0:48:35So, it's going to get in the way of of making progress on the things that we're trying to do. Okay. Thank you. Uh Mr. Watson, is there way under existing law that the federal government uh could supersede could supersede state heat standards through regulatory action? Um, your honor, excuse me, sir.
▶ 0:48:53Um, I think the problem with that potentially is, and not having looked at this issue in detail, um, is that the OSH Act itself allows states to come up with their own plans provided that they're at least as effective as federal OSHA. Now while federal OSHA has never identified or defined what at least as effective as means um the states do have the ability to come up with their plans.
▶ 0:49:17So with respect to any type of um preeemption um that would be difficult uh and that would take thorough analysis which um I don't think the committee needs to hear at this point. Um but it should be something that is um focused and consistent across the states. I mean, I think that's one of the issues with a lot of the um people I've spoken with that fall under the scope of this is that the rules in all these different states are conflicting. So, if um a business has multiple locations, each one is going to be slightly different.
▶ 0:49:47And I think that inconsistency is extremely problematic. Thank you. I yield back my time. Thank you, Mr. Casar from Texas. Thank you, Chairman. Mr. Parson. Um, so to be clear, your organization, y'all are advocating against the heat standard as proposed under the last administration. Is that correct? That's correct. And you were just talking about paving streets in Austin, Texas.
▶ 0:50:13I happen to be an Austin city council member just recently uh helping make sure that we pave those streets. And it sounded like you were saying that we have different conditions in Maine as we do in Texas. But what I'm confused about is when it's 90° in Austin or 90 degrees in Maine, 90 degrees is still about 90 degrees. Correct. Correct.
▶ 0:50:36And do you think that it's appropriate for someone to have to work outdoors, paving streets, or up on a scaffold in 90° heat or 95 degree heat or 100 degree heat for four or five hours without being allowed to come off the scaffold or without being allowed to take a water break? No, sir.
▶ 0:50:55And would your organization be in favor of having a baseline requirement that let's say it's a 90 degree day that you aren't allowed to have somebody out there working on the scaffold without coming down for four or five hours without taking a water break. I think our view would be more flexibility in the mandate. So, so exactly what you're saying. So, when does that make sense? How do you manage it? How do you implement it rather than a hard and fast rule?
▶ 0:51:22But you so you would oppose a rule that said if you're working in 90 degree heat and 90 degrees happens more often in Austin than it does in Maine. Correct. But it does happen in both places. If you're working paving a road in Austin, Texas or in Maine, would you be opposed to a rule that said you can't go have to go work four or five hours and without taking a drink of water and and 90°ree heat paving a road? No, I would not be opposed to a rule that says that. You would not be opposed to that rule. Correct. Thank you for that.
▶ 0:51:52Um, I appreciate I appreciate that answer. Um, Miss Watson, um, could you tell me the the the same? If somebody is working in 90°ree heat for four or five hours paving a road up on a scaffold, would you be opposed to a rule nationwide that says, "No, we can't have somebody working four or five hours in over 90°ree heat without being able to take a break?" No, sir. There would be no opposition to that.
▶ 0:52:17And the idea behind working in um temperatures like that is that they take their rest breaks as needed. Yeah, I I think that people likely need to take rest breaks more often than that. But I think it's helpful to hear um because I I heard your your advocacy. I appreciate that while there may be some differences around the Biden era rule as it relates to a climatization, which I understand is yeah not the easiest word to say.
▶ 0:52:40um or differences or questions on some of the different triggers that at least it sounds like there's some level of agreement between the witnesses here and and and me, a progressive Democrat that was for the Biden era rule, at least on saying we shouldn't have folks out there working four or five hours straight in over 90°ree heat without being allowed to take a drink of water. Having that kind of a rule uh makes sense, it sounds like to me across industries and across the aisle. Uh, and that is uh that is very helpful and I and I appreciate it.
▶ 0:53:12uh, Mr. Barab, I thought that uh, one of the things you said earlier about OSHA was very important when you said that at current staffing levels, it was going to take a really long time for OSHA to investigate every workplace in America. Can you remind us how many years it would take for OSHA to investigate every workplace? Yeah, in uh, 2024, it would take 185 years. That's almost two centuries.
▶ 0:53:35With OSHA getting stretched so thin, I think that major employers uh that do not focus enough on workplace safety can count on their workplace never being investigated. Uh last year at a Tesla factory in my district, a worker was electrocuted to death because Tesla failed to follow OSHA regulations that would have protected him. That was the second death at that factory in my district in southeast Austin.
▶ 0:54:04Tesla was fined just $50,000 for their worker's death. For a company valued at about a trillion dollars, that is a drop in the bucket. In fact, on his federal government contracts alone, Elon Musk makes that $50,000 back in 9 minutes. And in my view, workers lives are worth much more than 9 minutes of that man's time. Uh what kind of penalty is that really?
▶ 0:54:30In my view, this is not we are not facing a situation where we're talking about OSHA overreach. In my view, what we need to have is a sufficiently staffed OSHA that all employers feel like they've got to play by the rules because that employer doesn't feel like they don't they don't know if they're that one employer that gets inspected every 180 years. We've got to be protecting workers lives.
▶ 0:54:54And I actually really do appreciate uh the testimony today where even if there's some disagreement on things like a baseline heat rule that maybe we could at least agree. Gosh, if you're working in Texas where in my district and s the San San Antonio part of my district, we might hit 105 this week, the highest temperature ever recorded in San Antonio history in the month of May. We've got to be able to come together and say workers lives are worth a lot more than they're being priced right now. Thank you so much and I yield back. Thank you, Miss Miller from Illinois.
▶ 0:55:26Thank you, chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for being here today. Uh, just to set the record straight, Republicans support common sense policies that reduce regulations while keeping our workplace environment safe. Our mission is to protect workers not just from hazards, but also from the crushing weight of Washington's failed bureaucratic overreach.
▶ 0:55:51Time and again, we've seen top- down mandates that negatively impact job creation and workers across the country. Employers are job creators and should be seen as active partners in creating safe work environments. Yet, Democrats continue to treat employers as greedy money grabbers who don't care about the well-being of their employees.
▶ 0:56:15For instance, the Biden administration's OSHA issued a rushed proposal on heat injury and illness prevention that had the potential to wreck havoc on businesses and communities across the country. Republicans, on the other hand, understand that government red tape can hinder a business and its employees rather than create a positive work environment.
▶ 0:56:38The bottom line is that the Biden Harris OSHA drafted regulations based on party politics for cheap votes were not keeping workers safer. Republicans are here to fix the problem. So my question is for Miss Watson. Your written testimony says that Biden's OSHA took the form of a quote strict disciplinarian citing the expansion of the severe violator enforcement program and instance by instance citation policy.
▶ 0:57:09Can you please discuss what those policies were and how they were expanded under President Biden? Yes, good morning. Thank you for the question. Um the instance by instance policy used to focus on willful violations and what that meant is if there was a willful violation that's that's something where um an employer had been acting um badly basically repeatedly. Um so that would lend itself to repeated violations that would end up putting them um on the willful scope.
▶ 0:57:38And so those citations um they could be cited for every instance of a violation of that standard. Um the problem is that with the expansion it's focused on the instance by instance now also includes uh recordkeeping. So let's say for example um an employer doesn't fill in their 300 logs the OSHA logs that they're supposed to complete um and they don't maybe they don't check a box and maybe they miss that box every single time they fill out that form.
▶ 0:58:05Each one of those failures to check that box is a violation. And so that is an instance by instance. It's a paperwork issue. It's not a safety issue. Another example that I used in my testimony is let's take the OSHA's proposed heat rule. You have employees, you have maybe eight, ten employees on a job site um who run out of water, but no one tells their manager. Nobody tells their supervisor. So the employer doesn't know about that.
▶ 0:58:31Um and then let's say that the um an OSHA inspector comes out and finds that they they ran out of water. So the employer would get cited 10 could be cited 10 times for failing to provide uh water for their employees on that job site even though the employer didn't know about it. And let's say that that water wasn't suitably cool. Um and so that could be another element of another instance by instance violation.
▶ 0:58:54Those and while those failure to provide water is a safety issue, if the employer didn't know about it and nobody told the employer that they were out of water, then obviously that's a problem and the employee should have been able to tell the employer. But the fact is that and they can litigate that certainly they have that ru that that ability to go and do that. Um but in that instance in that situation they could be subject to up to 20 if you have 10 employees for each time that they violated um those requirements.
▶ 0:59:23It's per employee and that is problematic. Um I think the recordkeeping is really problematic because it's a paperwork thing. The paperwork violations do nothing to help and improve safety. Well, I guess that's an example of the crushing weight of Washington's bureaucratic overreach. Mr. Parson, the Biden administration released its proposed heat standard in July of 2024, but this rule was just a mandate designed to appease climate change activists.
▶ 0:59:51The proposed rule fails to account for the vastly differing climates in different parts of the country. And so, how did this how would this proposed rule negatively impact your business? Yeah, we talked about that a little bit earlier. I think definitely more administrative need and and more more costly goods to produce more it's going to make everything more expensive. Listen, our site our safety of our teams is our number one priority. And that's true for all businesses that I've been a part of anyway.
▶ 1:00:21And so if you set that as kind of the baseline, we're going to try to do whatever we can to keep our employees safe and productive and willfully employed. And so trying to figure out how to how to craft that is is priority number one for us. Thank you. Thank you. And next we have Miss Stevens from Michigan. Um Mr. Treslet, um Erasel, um last night at about 10:30 I sent my dad a text message.
▶ 1:00:50It was a screenshot uh of a of a guess what it would look like a poster, but it title was advice from a tree. Stand tall and proud. Go out on a limb. Remember your roots. Drink plenty water. Be content with your natural beauty. Enjoy the view. Would you agree with the message that I sent my dad?
▶ 1:01:20Thank you, Kungshom. Absolutely, I would agree with that. I think that's a lovely poem. I I also just messaged my father to see what he was doing because I thought he'd really like to meet you. My dad is a landscaper. He loved trees. He loves arborists. He loves people who are in the business you were in.
▶ 1:01:43He uh was born in 1945 in Detroit on Commtock Street and he's been in this tree space for a long time. He ran a landscape business. He actually still runs a landscape business.
▶ 1:01:58And every day I call my dad and ask him, "Dad, are you drinking enough water?" because he is out there in on these job sites still, you know, he's got his Ford F-150 with Stevens Landscape on the side of it. He's signing up jobs. Again, dad turned 80 in January.
▶ 1:02:23But I think you might understand why somebody like a proud Michigan man like my father loves what he does and loves to design and loves to work with people like yourself. And so I just wanted to take a moment of personal privilege to to share an exchange on that and I'll I'll have to follow up with you potentially after the hearing. But would you say you're a small business sir? Yes, that's correct. Yeah.
▶ 1:02:47So, you know, you you're signing up jobs, you're working, you know, and you're taking care of your crew and your team, I have to imagine. A and look, I appreciate with what Mr. Kurtsar shared about this terrible death in the factory and and that shouldn't have happened and it is outrageous and you you're nowhere near the size of Tesla. Is that right? Uh no ma'am. Yeah.
▶ 1:03:12So you know I'm I'm sure you also care that you know we've got these you know maybe some of this mismanagement and we shouldn't have any loss of life and and to Mr. Parson you know what your enterprise is up to is is really fantastic. You know, we like that you're paving roads in Austin. We want you to pave roads in Michigan, too. And we know you do. We know you do.
▶ 1:03:34And it's it's really quite remarkable because, you know, we have the snow and the ice and we're always having to repave our roads. We got a lot of potholes, okay? And we want people at work and we're really proud of, frankly, the bipartisan work that you've been a part of. Um, and I really see you as a part of it because you helped us pass an infrastructure bill and we needed to do that and we need the people working in infrastructure. Now, Mr.
▶ 1:04:05Bar, okay, you were in charge of OSHA. I was deputy assistant. Okay. And and you're right. You know, it's 185 years to go. We don't want you in like coming down on these small businesses. We want you partnering with people properly. We want people drinking water. We don't want people in the heat. How many people from OSHA that you remember, you know, came out of the, you know, maybe the businesses that uh Mr. Parson and Mr.
▶ 1:04:35Trout were a part of. Did you employ a lot of people like that at all? We we did have a lot of people that had, you know, started off in business. They were often safety safety managers in businesses and then decided they they wanted that as a as a career. Yes. Yeah. And so, how do we get to the place where people aren't being supported in these heat environments? Because not everyone has a daughter like me that cares if their dad's drinking water, right? Well, that's why you need a standard because it it actually tells employers what they have to do.
▶ 1:05:05And the funny thing is, we were, you know, talking about performance standards or or, you know, as opposed to specification standards. Small businesses usually like specification standards better where a standard actually tells you what you have to do because otherwise they have to figure it out for themselves and that's hard to do. Um, small businesses also have something called the uh on-site consultation program. They can get free help to comply with OSHA standards and to make sure their workplaces is safe. So OSHA's very conscious uh about the needs and the the problems of small businesses.
▶ 1:05:33Yeah, I mean it's a absolutely fascinating topic because we are experiencing uh greater heat in in this country and around the world and you know as the next couple of decades are projected and you know it sounds cute but we we do need to take it seriously and I'm you know Mr. Chair I I'm so proud to be on this committee.
▶ 1:05:53I'm also on the science committee and I do a lot with the with the standards there and I standards are important coming out of COVID standards health safety very important the voices on this uh hearing today phenomenal and we salute you and from one tree gal to another you know man who's in the tree business we salute you sir and we thank our friends in the infrastructure with CR as well thank you and I yield back thank you next we go to Mr. Comr from Kentucky. Thank you, Mr.
▶ 1:06:23Chairman, and Mr. Parson. It's great to see you here today. I'm glad we have an affiliate from Hinkle Contracting in Kentucky uh here speaking at our uh subcommittee hearing. As you know, in the mountains and farmland of Kentucky, uh where where Hinkle operates, uh employers have adapted to muggy summer temperatures. Kentucky businesses follow federal OSHA standards and are able to meet the needs of their employees as they see fit.
▶ 1:06:50Uh OSHA is set to conduct a public hearing on June 16th to review a proposed federal heat standard. The proposed changes include the implementation of a mandatory 15minute rest break every two hours when the heat heat index is 90 degrees or higher. Can you provide some context around how this standard would disrupt employers heat protection plans which are working in states like Kentucky? Appreciate the question. That's a good one and something I've been thinking about a lot in preparation for this uh this testimony.
▶ 1:07:21It it sounds easier than it would actually be to implement. And so if you think about how that would actually apply in a business like Hinkle or like ours, you're out paving or you're crushing rock in a quarry to to be able to to manage the schedule that way rather than when when someone needs a break, they're allowed to take a break. Yeah. And so I think it we're not little kids and so we don't necessarily need a rule that says everything we need to do. We do right by our people.
▶ 1:07:51We put safety first and and that's worked great for us. To your point, it's worked well. I wonder if the bureaucrat that wrote that regulation had ever worked 15 minutes in 90 degree weather doing manual labor. I don't know. Yeah, I I wouldn't want to bet on that. During the last administration, we saw one-sizefits-all standards uh overpower the voices of America's businesses, employees. That was a huge complaint that I had and many employers had with the with the Biden administration.
▶ 1:08:19They tried to overregulate with a one-sizefitit all fits all strategy. Mr. Parson, what advice would you give the new administration when considering changes to regulations for America's diverse manufacturers? Yeah, I think that is the key word and that's what I was going to use as well is diverse. So even in our own industry and infrastructure, we do so many different things. And if you think about all of manufacturing across the United States, it varies widely.
▶ 1:08:46It's indoors, it's outdoors, it's freight, it's it's so big that it's impossible to create a standard that applies to all. And so trying to sort through and figure out something that people can that will work or empowering management is what I would say to take care of your people and do the right thing. that's going to be more powerful. And I agree. I would like to say this publicly.
▶ 1:09:10I would strongly encourage the the Trump Department of Labor to consider states which have allowed businesses to maintain flexibility in meeting the needs of their employees when issuing their final heat centered rule and any other planned actions over the next few years. We we you know, some states have had great success. Uh the employees are happy. you know, we're they're productive, getting getting good results for for the taxpayers in your case that that fund these infrastructure projects.
▶ 1:09:40So hopefully the the Trump administration will deviate uh from the Biden overregulatory obsession and one-sizefits-all solution. So, thank you again for being here. Appreciate Hle in Kentucky. You'll back. Thank you. Next, we'll go to ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Scott from Virginia. Thank you. Um Mr. Chairman, Mr. Rob, thank you for joining us again.
▶ 1:10:10Uh you've done good work in this committee. Uh you've heard um about the heat standard. What's wrong with letting the states decide what the heat standards would be? Well, I mean, no nothing's wrong with that.
▶ 1:10:22uh the problem I mean in some states you know there are about half a dozen states now that have very good heat standards that actually protect workers but that still leaves uh you know the rest of the states that don't so um ideally you know what you want is a na is a strong national standard um and if states want to have stronger standards than that then that's fine and that's worked out very well over the last 50 years uh but you really need a strong standard in the meantime the states are doing what they can to fill in the gaps uh left thank you there's a walkaround rule
▶ 1:10:53which has people joining the walkound. You you mentioned that um inspections can happen once every 185 years. So I suspect if an inspection is going on, there's some concern that's been raised. Um what harm or what good is there to for the employees to be able to select a person to join in the inspection?
▶ 1:11:18Yeah, the the ocean inspector when go when the ocean inspector goes to a workplace, um there's there only so much the ocean inspector can figure out, you know, by him or herself. Um workers uh provide an enormous resource to inspectors um informing them about what's going on in the workplace, things they may not see, what kind of processes may be running uh or may not be running that day. Um unfortunately, what the law says um essentially is that only workers in unions can have walkaround representatives. Um otherwise OSHA has to just kind of randomly talk to other workers.
▶ 1:11:48Um what this does and and it was you know it existed even before to a certain extent. It allows OSHA to talk to other experts or allows I should say it allows the workers to bring in other experts to help them u maybe with language difficulties maybe with technical issues um that uh the the ocean inspector may not be familiar with um or or to avoid retaliation because a lot of workers really don't want to talk uh don't feel safe talking to OSHA inspectors on the job. Um, we know this is not problematic because it's been done before.
▶ 1:12:17The Mind Safety and Health Act, for example, uh, allows, um, you know, third-party, uh, worker representatives to walk around with EMA inspectors. There's never been a problem with that. There's never been disruption in the workplace. There have never been undercover organizing, uh, you know, activities. Um, this whole opposition to the walkaround standard is really kind of a red herring. Thank you. Um, have you noticed any rational basis on who gets fire who was being fired at at um, NY?
▶ 1:12:46No, they they fired the entire agency. Um, they brought back parts of it uh, that had, you know, a strong interest in West Virginia where we have some uh, powerful Republican uh, senators. Um, and there was a lot of news, a lot of media about some of the coal related stuff and those are the things they happen to bring back.
▶ 1:13:03Um but unfortunately Nas what what what's wrong with um letting politics decide who gets called back news article this morning has a Republican legislator bragging about the fact that he got nash programs back in his district. What's wrong with letting that happen could go wrong? Yeah, unfortunately you have districts uh where you don't have you know may not have powerful uh senators or politicians.
▶ 1:13:30Um, a lot of what NAOSH does is crucially important, but doesn't make as many headlines as, you know, coal miners suffering from black lung. Uh, you know, the firefighters, um, the, uh, uh, fisher people, um, agriculture, you know, those don't make as many headlines as as minors. Um, and yet they their lives are just as valuable and unfortunately they are just as risk in many at risk in many places as minors are. Um, all workers in the United States need equal protection, not just those that get the most publicity. Thank you.
▶ 1:13:59you've served in the inside of at OSHA. Um we have asked what access what access Doge has at the Department of Labor. Um we haven't gotten an answer. What do you think Doge has access to and why should we be concerned? Well, yeah, you're right.
▶ 1:14:20We don't know exactly what kind of access Doge has but it's extremely important uh that the crucial information in the entire department of labor but particularly in OSHA be kept confidential. I mean you don't want business owners um to know what kind of invest the inside you know of what's going on with an investigation of their own their own companies. Um there are you know there are a lot of retaliation concerns among uh workers. Um OSHA OSHA uh enforces retaliation laws of you know 25 different retaliation laws.
▶ 1:14:50Um and it's you know confidentiality of workers in those cases is also extremely important. Um you expand out you know from OSHA to the BLS. I mean BLS assembles an enormous amount of confidential information that can you know as I say move markets. Um so obviously you don't want business executives um to know that information ahead of time or have access to that information uh where they can you know determine you know what kind of investments they're going to make in the stock market. Um that information needs to remain absolutely confidential to everyone.
▶ 1:15:21Thank you. Mr. Chairman ask unanimous consent that um a transcript of the report from this morning's news outlining the West Virginia situation be entered into the record. Without objection. Thank you. Can I yield back? Thank you. And next we go to Mr. Rothman from Wisconsin. Thank you. Uh we'll go to Miss Watson.
▶ 1:15:42OSHA's proposed rule adopt right now and talked about this before adopts a one-sizefits-all rule for heat illness and injury prevention. Identical requirements across indoor outdoor environments across all sectors including agriculture, construction and manufacturing without differentiation. This broad application fails to consider critical distinctions in work site work site conditions.
▶ 1:16:10How does OSHA justify imposing identical obligations on such a broad and diverse range of workplaces? Thank you sir for the question. Um their justification obviously is to protect workers.
▶ 1:16:26Um I know that during the rule making process uh during the SERIFA panels um those discussions and the advanced notice of propo proposed rulemaking many many people requested industry specific standards that apply to the unique differences among their industries. So I'm familiar with construction residential construction so I'll speak to that. Um, job sites change daily, sometimes hourly depending on what's going on.
▶ 1:16:52And what works in manufacturing where you might have a static uh situation, obviously not all manufacturing, um, but there are circumstances where you have a static work environment. That doesn't change. That's much easier to manage than a construction site where you've got roofers coming and they're installing the roof and then they're going on to the next job site and then you've got people coming in and doing the the housing, the house wrap. Um and so that constant changing um isn't helpful.
▶ 1:17:20And I think that that um concern among uh stakeholders that I've spoken with is that uh if you treat everyone exactly the same with limited flexibility, it makes it difficult to um to get a robust plan that is specific to the industry. It's the type of thing that causes people to hate government. Right. Maybe. Yes. Maybe. Okay. Sometimes. Yes, sir. Okay.
▶ 1:17:46Um, you raised many questions about the the walkaround rule. We'll kind of touch on this again. Can you expand on potential liability uh employer liability in the event a third party representative is injured during a walkound inspection? Uh yes sir, thank you.
▶ 1:18:04So um OSHA actually addressed that because a number of stakeholders uh raised those during their comments uh in this process and OSHA basically um responded in the final rule saying that um there were plenty of um statutes available at the state and local level um tort liability those types of things. And so OSHA wasn't going to comment or make a make a determination on that. So essentially uh OSHA is not involved in that piece of it.
▶ 1:18:32If someone's injured and they end up suing the employer where the job site was, uh, it's up to the the state court systems to sort it. We'll ask Mr. Bar a question here. Um, as I understand it, in my district, we had a just a tragedy uh, in which a young man died in an agriculture accident and it was a small farm. I guess the guy had maybe three or four employees.
▶ 1:18:57uh kind of surprised his mother that OSHA would not apparently do an investigation even if somebody died. Uh could you elaborate on that? Yeah, that you're talking about Stacy Seabold and her 19-year-old son Mitch McDaniel who was killed by an augur in a farm in your district.
▶ 1:19:16Yeah, OSHA um the the the Congress has put a rider on OSHA's agric appropriations bill uh since the 1970s saying that OSHA cannot basically step foot on a farm with 10 or fewer employees. They can't go in for an investigation, even a fatality investigation. Uh they can't even go in and pass out fact fact sheets.
▶ 1:19:36Um yeah, it's it's a terrible injustice and we're seeing, you know, we see a lot of workers, including uh young workers like Mitch McDaniel, uh die on these workplaces, uh that, you know, from hazards that are preventable, um and where the employer and all employers could learn from an ocean investigation, yet OSHA is not allowed to go onto those workplaces. It's So, in other words, if there were 11 guys on the farm, they could have investigated. Exactly. But with 10 10 10 workers could die on a farm and OSHA still wouldn't be able to go onto the farm. Yeah.
▶ 1:20:03and and uh you could have if it was a little bakery with five employees, OSHA could get involved. If somebody got killed in a bakery with five employees, Ocean could definitely would get involved. Yes. But for some reason, uh can you think of any philosophical reason why if somebody dies, we're not even in talk about somebody becoming a paraplegic for the rest of their life. somebody dies under the current law, we just we we apparently don't express it.
▶ 1:20:33I think we're dealing with the power of the agriculture industry and the so-called sanctity of the small farm. Um I don't know. This is kind of a myth again that was created. Um and this again that's been on the books since the 1970s. It makes no sense and workers are dying because of it. So, well, thank you for pointing that out. Thank you. And thank you. And next we'll go to uh chairman of the full committee, Mr. Wahlberg from Michigan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks for having this hearing today.
▶ 1:21:03Um it brings a lot of memories back to me of some of the things we've dealt with since 2006. And so, Mr. Trasalt, I I I do want to start with you. Um, your written testimony states that the tree care industry has a fatality rate estimated to be 10 to 30 times higher than a national average with more than a thousand injuries each year. All significant, all important.
▶ 1:21:30Do you believe there would be a significant reduction in your industry's fatality and injury rate if OSHA had a significant standard in Thank you, Congressman. Having a OSHA standard in place would help it. We're never going to unfortunately get rid of to all of our fatalities, but it definitely would help.
▶ 1:21:50It would take the aie Z133 standard, which we is a consensus standard in our industry and make it the platform in which we could which OSHA could take and attribute distribute to all those companies. The fatalities that we mostly see are what's called struckbys. Uh things falling out of a tree, hitting people.
▶ 1:22:13Um the ANZ133 addresses that very specifically by making sure that those areas are very well defined. So in our company, when we have a job briefing prior to starting a job working a loft, we take the time to note where the things are going to fall from the tree. We mark that area off as a no-go zone. and everybody on the crew knows that.
▶ 1:22:35So that is one of the examples that we would utilize through the ANTZ133 that currently OSHA doesn't have that in their general duty clause that we could help a lot of our problems. Uh taking this standard and making it uniform across the board with all of the Z133 standards would help tremendously. I would like to say that we could reduce it significantly, but there's always those things we work with nature.
▶ 1:23:02Well, you've been you Yeah, you've been you've been asking for the standard since 2006, correct? And um you've been, as it were, left out on a limb uh with multiple conflicting patchwork of standards across the United States. What do you believe is the reason for the delay? Uh I don't really have a direct answer for that.
▶ 1:23:24Um, I think maybe other priorities in OSHA have taken precedent over our small industry compared to what the broad spectrum that OSHA has to regulate. Well, we're talking about lives in this case where it's amazing the industry itself is asking for it. Correct. That doesn't happen all the time and I think that's unique. Thank you. Uh, Miss Watson, your in your written testimony highlights six concerns over the Biden administration's worker walkaround rule.
▶ 1:23:54I want to go back to that. It greatly expands the opportunity for third parties to gain access to job sites. The rule seemingly opens the door for a union official to serve as a third party employee representative when the union is not an exclusive bargaining representative at the workplace. How does this rule overstep the OSH Act and uh potentially conflict with the National Labor Relations Act? Uh thank you for the question. Yes, sir.
▶ 1:24:21Um I think it's a different OSHA has a different mission. OSHA's remitt is different than the National Labor Relations Act. OSHA uses employee representative um which doesn't have the safeguards that are outlined and used in the National Labor Relations Act. Um that act governs workplace representation of unions. uh when you've got a worker walkaround situation where you've got um you actually could have a couple of scenarios.
▶ 1:24:47You could have a non-union you know uh work site and maybe um union wants to get their foot in the door and so they might come and you believe that would happen and anyway I know the answer. Okay. Um and and it's not it's not a a negative on union representation because they do serve an important purpose.
▶ 1:25:06But the point here is that um a non-employee third party is able to, you know, talk to employees and and all it takes if you've got two people on a on a work site, all it takes is one to say yes, they can come on. And so that's potentially the problem. But the other problem is that employee bargaining is governed by the National Labor RE relations act. It doesn't fall within OSHA's remitt. And so that is something that is troubling. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Parson.
▶ 1:25:34Appreciate Michigan's your your your workforce in Michigan. And uh ask you in final few seconds here about the heat standard specifically as it impacts moving of freight with a truck driver. What's the problem? I think freight's really problematic. Um you're moving all kinds of different things.
▶ 1:25:56So we we we move a lot of stone, asphalt, readym mixed concrete, perishable goods, and so to try to figure out how long can a driver be exposed to the heat when he's cleaning out his truck or whatever and the break schedule. Where does he take a break if he doesn't have a place to take a break? So it presents a lot of problems. Okay. Well, thank you. I yield back. Thank you. And our final uh questioner today is Mr. Kylie from California. Uh thank you, Mr.
▶ 1:26:26Chair. Um and uh Mr. Trestled. I also would just like to reiterate um the uh Chairman Wahberg's statements regarding a tree care standard. Uh we did a bipartisan uh letter on this uh last year. Uh it's been a long time coming. Uh and uh I would hope that OSHA would move expeditiously to finally uh make this happen. And you know, one of the things we saw in the Biden administration was that OSHA was f focusing a lot on a lot of things that did not really relate to safety.
▶ 1:26:57Uh they were doing COVID rules well after the pandemic was over. Uh they of course were coming up with uh regulations to help out political allies. Uh they even of course did tried to do an illegal uh vaccine mandate that would have affected tens of millions employees uh across the country. that was struck down by the Supreme Court.
▶ 1:27:18And actually in one of the most stunning moments of the 118th uh Congress, uh the OSHA director Douglas Parker, who by the way had come up from California's uh OSHA and had actually instituted a lot of the uh crazy co rules in California, he came and testified before this very subcommittee and actually tried to deny that any vaccine mandate had ever been issued. It was like uh something out of Orwell. It was down the memory hole.
▶ 1:27:48Never happened, was never initiated, was never promulgated. Uh when the Supreme Court actually took up the case and struck it down, it was truly a remarkable moment. Um but getting back to the street tree care standard, um you uh I think gave a very compelling explanation uh Mr. Trestled of why this is needed and sort of the mystifying uh delay that we've all experienced.
▶ 1:28:11Uh I wanted to just give you a chance to maybe uh cast a little more light on your participation uh in the 2020 panel uh because I understand there was a broad array of stakeholders. You had a lot of input. There was a consensus standard for how we could protect workers in an industry where the chances of a fatal accident or incident uh are 30 times greater than any other industries and where the work of the industry is so important uh towards the safety of communities when it comes to fire mitigation other purposes. So if you wanted to share your experience. Well, the Sabbatha panel was Oh, thank you.
▶ 1:28:42Appreciate question. Uh the Sabba panel was a very broad base of industries and all have a stake in what we were doing. Um but it was very clear at the end when the conclusion was the ANZ133 should be the framework that we need to work with to build a standard for OSHA and having that in place would help us tremendously, you know, protect our workers.
▶ 1:29:07We're here to I know I know I am for myself and my team and my company, my small company. I want people to go home at night. I want them to enjoy their lives and and you know to go home to their kids and their families and their dogs and their cats and you know their friends and have the barbecue on the weekend. And all of this means that we have to work diligently as employers to keep them safe. And the hazards that we face in tree care are tremendous. We work in public spaces. We work a loft. We work with a lot of machinery.
▶ 1:29:36So, all of this being said, the Sabria panel said, "You're right. We should do this. This should be happening." And as the other congressman said, we've been fighting for this for 20 years. And we're not looking to be regulated. We're looking to be helped because we want to keep our people safe. We don't want to have fatalities. We want to reduce the amount of injuries. We want to do the things that are right for our people. And we need OSHA's help. And we're not asking OSHA to reinvent the tree care wheel.
▶ 1:30:05We're asking them to paint it their color, make it something that we can all use to keep people safe. Right now, you're sort of left to your own devices. And I'd imagine that you have inspectors who come in and are sort of trying to apply standards, regulations that are not specific to to your industry. And that kind of leaves you guessing as to what exactly you're supposed to do or maybe trying to uh tailor your uh your practices uh to a standard that doesn't really fit. Is that what you've experienced?
▶ 1:30:35Absolutely. So, we don't have there is no standards directly for tree care. So, that's a patchwork of standards that they pick from and pick and choose and sometimes that's problematic. Take for the example the use of a of a crane when you take down a tree. We have trees that are very compromised. They're very dangerous to climb. We can't climb those or we can't get aerial lifts to them or things like that. So, we use a crane to access a climber who will actually go into the tree and then safely dismantle one and remove it.
▶ 1:31:04But the general duty clause says no, you can't do that. You're not allowed to do that. That you can't use the train crane, excuse me, to put a man or a person into the tree to do that. Which then makes it almost impossible to remove the trees safely because now we're at a now we're at a crossroads where we can't do it safely or we have to jeopardize worker safety. And when it comes to my business, we don't jeopardize worker safety. we would either refuse to do the tree or find something else. There really is a lot.
▶ 1:31:31There's we we have our hands tied at times and we want to make sure that we're doing the right thing. Z133 supports it. It's been approved. It's an industry consensus standard. We can do it safely. We've done it safely. Crane use has been used in our industry for over 50 years. Thanks very much. We will keep advocating for it and uh yield Thank you. And with that, uh, we will go go to closing remarks. And I'd like to recognize the ranking member for her closing statement.
▶ 1:32:01Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you uh once again to our witnesses for speaking with us today. Yesterday, Secretary Kennedy sat before our Senate counterparts and tried to defend his reckless decisions to fire thousands of civil servants at U. Nay. A decision that was partially reversed once Doge realized that firing the people who prevent workplace injury, illness, and death might might have been a mistake.
▶ 1:32:32We have learned today that his testimony was not even accurate. More than 60% of Nyosh's staff have now been returned to service and that in have not been returned to service and that includes many working scientists. Secretary Kennedy says that he cares about the harms of toxic chemical exposure, but he has fired the very scientists who access who assess those harms in the workplace.
▶ 1:33:01This fiasco with NAOSH is a prime example of the Trump administration's disregard for workers lives and livelihoods. Today's hearing is just the latest attempt to weaken the institutions and rules that simply keep workers safe and healthy at their jobs. Since January, Doge has fired thousands of federal workers, targeted dozens of OA and mine safety offices, and hollowed out critical resources and protections for working people.
▶ 1:33:30But instead of investigating the real harms these cuts will cause, Republicans are once again using this hearing to demonize OSHA rather than fund it. Investigations into workplace safety like training, protective gear, and common sense protections such as the proposed heat stress rule are both morally right and fiscally savvy.
▶ 1:33:54Preventing injuries could save billions of dollars in health care costs, workers compensation, and loss predict productivity. Our worker protection agencies don't just save lives, but they also deliver real financial returns for working families and for our economy. Undermining federal health and safety agencies will not improve efficiency.
▶ 1:34:19It just puts American workers at a higher risk of preventable injuries, illnesses, and even death. Workers deserve a better treatment as pawns in a political game. We in we in so instead of talking taking a chainsaw to these vital programs that our institutions rely on, we must fully fund these health and safety organizations to save workers lives and finally give workers the protections they have long been promised.
▶ 1:34:50And I will end where I began my remarks this morning. No job should ever ever cost someone their life. And every worker deserves to come home every day safe, healthy, and whole. If we cannot even agree on that basic pro premise, then we will just continue to talk past each other in these hearing rooms.
▶ 1:35:14But if we can, then maybe we can start the real work of supporting the health, dignity, and well-being of all workers across this country. Thank you, and I yield the Thank you. And first, I'd like to start by recognizing everybody here today. And on behalf of the members of the subcommittee, I want to thank the witnesses for the perspective that they gave on how we can actually help OSHA fulfill their mission of worker safety across this country.
▶ 1:35:42And so uh the hearing today uh was very different, at least my experience, than what the ranking member just uh spoke about. I think it was a a very uh clear mischaracterization of this testimony and this hearing uh that we all experienced.
▶ 1:35:58What I heard was I heard employers that are actually seeking clarity and flexibility in OSHA standards that they can actually go out and implement in real world applications to provide and ensure worker safety all across this country.
▶ 1:36:14I think that's something that I think everybody in a bipartisan fashion, we heard from some of the other testifiers uh or or witnesses um who were talking with some of the members um from the minority party about that bipartisan uh approach that should actually be implemented. So I thought today was actually a very constructive hearing. Uh this was not a partisan affair.
▶ 1:36:36It was something where we as the majority party Republicans are actually recognizing specific instances where we can improve worker safety. We talked about uh the tree care industry and how one of the most dangerous industries out there is operating under a patchwork of applications and that should be improved. We think OSHA actually should be issuing regulations in that space to make sure that those workers are safe. We also talked a lot about the heat standard today.
▶ 1:37:02Again, a very serious uh issue that does need to be addressed so that worker safety on job sites is carried out in a safe fashion. But we heard from testifiers how a one-sizefits-all approach is not going to work in practice. It's not going to match the reality of job sites.
▶ 1:37:19And ultimately, it's going to be something that if it's not done correctly, it's not actually going to help workers because they will never see the results of it in their actual experience on uh construction sites and uh paving projects all across our country. So, with that, I would just like to thank our witnesses again for the incredible testimony that you've provided.
▶ 1:37:40It is so helpful and meaningful as we do our work here as a subcommittee, but also as we communicate with the administration on their reg regulations that they've proposed and that we're going to hopefully see coming in the near future. What we'd like to see is again uh making sure that workplace safety is a key priority for all workplaces across this entire country and that those that violate those uh in willful repeat violations do face penalties.
▶ 1:38:08Uh and so again, that is a balance that I think can be struck, but the way that we're going to actually come up with regulations that that do that uh and actually can be implemented in practice are by hearing and listening to those that are going to be most directly affected. So, I want to thank all of you again uh and look forward to working with my colleagues in a bipartisan fashion as we move to advance worker safety all across our country. Thank you again. And with that, uh without objection, there's no further business and the subcommittee stands