No images? Click here Welcome back to this week's edition of the Washington Weekly newsletter - bringing you the latest and greatest policy updates from Washington, D.C.FDA Claims it Needs More Authority To Monitor Food Supply Chain FDA food center Director Susan Mayne recently stressed that FDA needs more authority from Congress to monitor the food supply chain and mitigate safety issues. She pointed to the agency’s fiscal 2023 budget request in which FDA asks Congress for authority to collect information about food supply shortages, so it can take a proactive, rather than reactive approach, to food supply chain disruptions. FDA also wants a total of $1.6 billion for food safety. Of that amount, $59 million would go toward activities in FDA’s New Era of Smarter Food Safety program, which includes efforts to advance and obtain better tools to analyze real-time information on the U.S. food supply chain. The agency would use $20 million of the $1.6 billion to address emerging food issues, like toxic elements in baby food, and boost the agency’s review capacity for premarket review of infant formula submissions. OSHA Aims to Double Heat Stress Inspections as Summer Nears OSHA intends to double the number of heat-related inspections it conducts, the agency announced in a new national emphasis program released late Tuesday, April 12, 2022, a still-incremental change for a workplace hazard subject to scant oversight. Heat-related inspections have accounted for just 0.5% of inspections in recent years, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration said. Under the new program, the agency aims for about 1% of inspections. For recent years that would be roughly 240 to 340 inspections annually. Inspectors will be authorized to check for heat-related hazards while conducting inspections prompted by other hazards, or if they find evidence of heat-related injuries or illnesses in an employer’s OSHA records, the agency said. Even with the new program, OSHA doesn’t have a heat standard it can enforce. The agency instead largely depends on the general duty clause that requires employers to provide workplaces free of known, potentially fatal hazards that can be mitigated. Judges have overturned some recent general duty clause citations on the grounds that OSHA failed to prove there was a dangerous heat hazard that employers should have been aware of. OSHA is in the preliminary stages of drafting a heat rule and has scheduled an online public meeting for May 3. The initiative got underway last year, following a spate of record-setting high temperatures across a swath of the U.S. While the general duty clause could be the primary violation OSHA cites, the program encourages inspectors to also apply agency standards for providing cool water, recording injuries, and training programs for construction workers. Labor Board Lawyer Seeks Return of ‘Card Check’ NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo took a step toward making it easier for unions to organize workplaces, asking the board to revive a decades-old standard that would allow labor to win representation without a formal election. In a brief filed Monday, April 11, 2022, Abruzzo’s office called on the board to reinstate the 1949 Joy Silk Mills standard, which states the board can recognize a union if it demonstrates majority support through card check, an informal process where workers sign cards of support. Employers may currently recognize a union voluntarily under card check, but Joy Silk would empower the NLRB to order an employer to bargain before an election if card check shows a majority. Under Joy Silk, employers wouldn’t be able to refuse to bargain unless they can show clear evidence against a union’s majority. Abruzzo’s office said the approach would rebalance the scales and deter employers from interfering with elections, such as the allegations that led to a second Amazon election in Bessemer, Ala., last month. Business advocates, however, say returning to the standard would be an overreach and imperil companies’ right to conduct business. Biden, Democrats Race Clock Amid Rising Costs; Inflation at 8.5% Republicans got fresh ammunition to pummel Democrats on inflation Tuesday, April 12, 2022, with President Joe Biden’s party having little time and few tools to turn around voters’ sour view of the economy before the midterm election. The election—which will decide control of Congress and likely the fate of Biden’s agenda—isn’t until November, but the public’s judgment typically hardens during the spring and early summer. Democrats are entering the period with inflation running at a 40-year high and topping the list of voter priorities. Tuesday’s report showing the consumer price index in March surged 8.5%, the fastest annual gain since 1981, is the latest gloomy marker before campaigns begin in earnest. Inflation is overshadowing bright spots for the economy, including an historically low 3.6% unemployment rate, solid growth and equity gains that have pushed up the benchmark S&P 500 more than 15% since Biden took office. The Biden administration has struggled to address inflation since the president took office, initially calling it “transitory” and then promising to tackle a supply-chain squeeze that has proved persistent. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has further complicated those efforts, leaving Biden’s advisers to brand rising costs for gasoline and other goods as “Putin’s price hike.” If you have not yet participated in our grassroots campaigns, but would like to take action to oppose the PRO Act or oppose the harmful tax hikes in the American Job’s Plan, click the Take Action tab above now.
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