Thursday, November 05, 2009
Barab: Federal OSHA oversight of State Plan states needs improvement
OSHA's oversight of states that operate their own safety and health programs has dwindled over the years, acting OSHA administrator Jordan Barab said in testimony last week before the House Education and Labor Committee.
In the Oct. 29 hearing on federal OSHA's recent critical review of Nevada's OSHA program, Barab said the report "convinced me that significant changes must be made in how federal OSHA conducts oversight over the State Plan programs."
The federal method of monitoring State Plan programs changed from "intensive" oversight measuring the states against federal performance in the 1970s to a current system that measures state performance against the state's own goals, according to Barab.
Additionally, although the federal government is supposed to provide 50 percent of a State Plan's funding, federal OSHA has provided no "significant increase" to State Plans in the past seven years despite a 20 percent increase in the agency's budget, he said.
In response, OSHA plans to conduct a study on all 25 State Plan programs. A 15 percent increase in State Plan funding also was included in the fiscal year 2010 budget request.