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April 19, 2024
Workers Compensation Bill 2024: One percent of employee’s salary to contribute to workers’ compensation fund in Kenya.

April 15, 2024
Colorado Worker Shows Head Injury Happened as a Consequence of a Knock on the Head at Work

April 4, 2024
Callfornia Division of Workers' Compensation Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee Meeting Scheduled for April 17, 2024

April 3, 2024
California Division of Workers' Compensation Posts Adjustments to Official Medical Fee Schedule (DMEPOS)

From clean water to clean air to clean dirt, the new Bush administration is sifting up, sifting out and, well, sifting a whole heck of a lot. Understandably, the big sift is causing a big strain in the neck for the opposition party.

Speaking of strains, one of the first acts of the newly empowered White House was to thumb its nose at outgoing President Clinton’s last-minute promulgation of worksite safety regulations pertaining to ergonomics—e.g., how do you protect against back strain? As expected, Bush signed a law repealing Clinton’s regs after both houses of Congress decided the cost associated with Clinton’s decree would be too high for American business (see Gloves Are Off as GOP Flattens Dems, March 8, 2001).

Here are the latest developments:

"The Bush administration is rescinding new standards for arsenic in drinking water and proposing to lift new requirements on mining interests as its latest challenges to environmental regulations issued during the final days of the Clinton presidency," reported John Heilprin of AP on March 21.

On March 20, Heilprin reported that the Bush administration will propose suspending new environmental regulations on hardrock mining. The regs require miners of gold, silver, uranium, copper, lead, zinc and molybdenum on federal claims to post a bond guaranteeing they will clean up after themselves.

Also, on March 20, the Bushites rescinded a decision effected three days before Clinton left 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to require 3,000 communities to upgrade their water systems to address the question of arsenic poisoning. Heilprin said the Environmental Protection Agency was withdrawing the new standards reducing allowable levels of arsenic in drinking water by 80% until it can effectively review the science and costs attached.

Predictably, outraged environmentalists promptly accused the new administration of kowtowing to industry.

While there would seem to be an emerging problematical pattern here as far as ergonomics/clean water/dirt are concerned—i.e., cost versus benefit—there appears to be a different, softer approach with regard to clean air. On March 1, Heilprin reported, "Cleaner diesel trucks and buses can help states meet federal standards for reducing pollutants such as smog and small particles, EPA Administrator Christie Whitman says.

"The Bush administration will enforce rather than challenge a rule issued in the waning days of the Clinton presidency that goes after diesel trucks and buses as a source of dirty air, she says.

"The rule, demanding that manufacturers and refiners produce cleaner engines and fuels, can help states meet 1997 smog and fine-particle standards at issue in the US Supreme Court ruling that backed the EPA a day earlier, according to Whitman," who told the AP reporter, "The rule provided enough flexibility…and the need for the states to have this gave compelling reason to recommend it."

So there it is. A whole lot of sifting going on out there among the 50 States. Meanwhile, back in California:

Gray Davis, the Democrat governor, has his share of problems stemming from the state’s energy crisis and its potential fallout on the environmental front. Davis faces the ticklish dilemma over whether he should lighten up on air pollution standards. Er, as a matter of fact, that’s exactly what’s happening.

Having announced that his negotiators reached agreements with 20 generators to supply $43 billion worth of electrical power over the next 10 years, Davis has agreed to give relief to some generators from having to pay potentially millions of dollars in fees for emitting air pollutants. Details, however, are not forthcoming, as the governor maintains that revelation of details could compromise negotiating deals with power suppliers.

Time will tell how many Workers’ Compensation claims will have antecedents to all the environmental sifting going on.