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.$10 Billion in Covid Aid Stalls in Senate The $10 billion in emergency pandemic response money sought by the White House is stalled in the Senate ahead of a two-week recess because of objections by Republicans and a few Democrats to the Biden administration’s impending opening of the U.S.-Mexico border to asylum-seekers. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other Democratic leaders have rejected a Republican demand to vote on an amendment requiring the Biden administration to continue a Covid-related requirement known as Title 42 to expel adult migrants entering the U.S. via the Mexico border, which the administration intends to lift next month. The amendment likely would pass in the Senate with the support of all Republicans and a group of moderate Democrats, who are on record opposing the lifting of the border restriction. But that would have made the bill toxic to progressive House Democrats, who have cheered the re-opening of the border. Members of both parties traded blame for the funding impasse, which is all but certain to put off any action until after Congress returns from a two-week recess that began on Friday, April 8. The delay could have real-world consequences for fighting the pandemic especially if a new variant gains momentum. The White House has warned that the lack of funding will leave the country without adequate vaccines, tests and treatments to fight the virus. SCOTUS to Take Up Case Challenging California's Prop 12 The Supreme Court agreed on Monday, March 28, 2022, to hear a farm-group challenge that says California’s animal welfare rules pose an unconstitutional burden on farmers and consumers throughout the nation. Approved by voters in a landslide in 2018, Proposition 12 requires California farmers to give more room to sows and egg-laying hens, and bars the sale of meat produced on farms outside the state that do not match California’s standards. Justices could hear arguments in the case this fall and rule before the end of the year. The American Farm Bureau Federation, the largest U.S. farm group, and National Pork Producers Council asked for Supreme Court review last fall after losing challenges at the trial and appellate court levels. Prop 12 has been repeatedly challenged in court, usually as a violation of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, but has withstood attack; most recently last June 28 when the Supreme Court refused to hear a meat industry appeal. It requires hog farmers to provide 24 square feet of space for each of their sows to move about in, except for the few days before they give birth and for three weeks afterward, until their piglets are born. So-called sow crates, which greatly restrict movement of sows, are a common practice on hog farms. Two months ago, a California state judge barred enforcement of Prop 12 for months in to the future. By statute, Prop 12 took effect on January 1 but the California Department of Food and Agriculture has not issued regulations that spell out the obligations of farmers, processors, and retailers. Superior Court Judge James Arguelles ruled Prop 12 cannot be enforced until 180 days after its regulations become final. Watchdog Faults OSHA for Lack of Covid Enforcement Cooperation During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, OSHA and other federal agencies failed to share information that could have led to more worker safety inspections in high-hazard industries, the Labor Department’s watchdog agency said Tuesday, April 5, 2022. “By not identifying federal partners in a position to assist during a large-scale safety and health crisis and not having or creating collaborative agreements with those partners, OSHA lost a valuable opportunity to better protect U.S. workers,” a report from the Officer of Inspector General Larry Turner said. Because the agency already had a “historically low number” of inspectors at the outset of the pandemic and a growing number of worksites to inspect, the report said, “enhanced collaboration” between the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and federal agencies with inspectors already at workplaces could have better protected workers. The number of OSHA inspectors decreased from 1,059 in 2011 to 748 in 2020. Specifically, OSHA should have set up programs with other agencies to protect workers in health care, food production, and corrections, the inspector general said in Tuesday’s report. Those industries are regulated, respectively, by the Department of Health and Human Service’s Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; the Department of Agriculture; and the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Prisons. Staff members and inspectors at those departments were generally unfamiliar with which Covid-19 hazards could warrant an OSHA inspection or how to contact OSHA if there was a concern, Turner’s office said. The report recommended that OSHA develop a plan so that during future large-scale safety and health crises, it is ready to contact other federal agencies that can assist OSHA inspection efforts. Assistant U.S. Labor Secretary Doug Parker, who leads the workplace safety agency, defended it in a written response included with the IG report. The agency participated in at least 10 task forces or working groups with agencies outside the Labor Department, Parker said. And, starting in early 2020 during the Trump administration, OSHA began meeting weekly with the USDA, the FDA, and CMS to discuss issues at meatpacking plants, he added. “OSHA judged this effort to be far more fruitful than attempting to reach individual Food Safety and Inspection Service inspectors,” Parker said. He acknowledged that none of OSHA’s 157 Covid-related meatpacking inspections were based on referrals or complaints from USDA inspectors. As for the lack of memorandums of understanding with agencies that could have established an OSHA referral system for referrals to OSHA, Parker said the development of the agreements would have diverted his agency’s staff from developing crucial guidance and enforcement policy. The inspector general report is one of several concerning OSHA’s Covid-19 response that have been released or are underway. Turner’s office in March 2021 said OSHA couldn’t prove the effectiveness of its Covid-related inspections. Inquiries are ongoing into the handling of whistleblower Covid-19 complaints and inspections of warehouses where Covid-19 was among the hazards. OSHA Says It Aims to Boost Injury Reporting Rule Compliance OSHA is hoping to tighten its enforcement of injury and illness reporting requirements, the agency said in a directive issued Monday, April 4, 2022. Rather than depending on individual inspectors to identify employers who failed to electronically a file summary of on-the-job injuries and illness for 2021, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration will be running a computer program to identify employers who may not be complying. The changes were made in response to a 2021 Government Accountability Office report that concluded only 255 employers were cited for not filing out of an estimated 724,000 employers that failed to file from 2017 through 2019. Since 2016, OSHA has required employers with 250 or more workers to provide OSHA a copy of their annual injury and illness summary—OSHA Form 300A. Starting in 2017, the requirement was expanded to include employers with 20 to 249 employers in industries designated as high-hazard by OSHA. The workplace safety agency later posts publicly a spreadsheet with each workplace’s Form 300A data. When it first imposed the requirement, OSHA predicted about 460,000 employers would need to provide the forms, but since 2018, only an average of about 290,000 employers have filed reports yearly. Under the new effort, anytime OSHA opens an inspection of an employer required to file the form, OSHA’s national office will be notified. Then each week, the agency’s Office of Statistical Analysis will check if each employer filed the form with OSHA. 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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