Committee on Education and Labor : U.S. House of Representatives

Press Releases

Chairman Miller Statement on the Worker Protection against Combustible Dust Explosions and Fires Act

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

 

WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, delivered the following floor statement today on H.R. 5522, the Worker Protection against Combustible Dust Explosions and Fires Act of 2008.

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I rise today in strong support of H.R. 5522, the Worker Protection against Combustible Dust Explosions and Fires Act of 2008.

On February 7, 2008, a huge explosion ripped through the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port Wentworth, Georgia. Eight workers died instantly. Five more have died in the months since the explosion from the horrific burns they suffered. More than 60 workers were injured, some so seriously that they will never fully recover.

This was a terrible disaster, one of our nation’s worst workplace tragedies in the past decade.

The cause of the explosion was combustible sugar dust. It may surprise many of us that sugar dust can explode with such violence. But it can, and so can many other dusts that are commonly found in U.S. industrial sites.

In 2003, three fatal dust explosions occurred in the United States, killing 14 workers. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board investigated these incidents.

The Board examined whether these tragedies were just coincidences, or a major national problem. The CSB also examined whether there were adequate laws to protect workers, or whether new protections were needed.

The Chemical Safety Board found that these explosions were not coincidences. In fact, between 1980 and 2005, 119 workers had been killed and 718 injured in dust explosions that had also extensively damaged industrial facilities.

The CSB also found that there were no enforceable national regulations to prevent combustible dust incidents.

The CSB concluded that controlling combustible dust explosions isn’t a mystery.  In fact, the first National Fire Protection Association standards to prevent combustible dust explosions were issued in 1923.

In November 2006, the CSB – an independent federal government agency whose members were all appointed by President George W. Bush – concluded that the only way to prevent more worker deaths was for OSHA to issue a comprehensive standard covering combustible dust.

But to this day OSHA has taken no action to issue a standard.

In fact, OSHA has refused to act despite the fact that 70 more combustible dust explosions have occurred since 2006. 

Even now – after 13 needless deaths in Georgia – OSHA demonstrates no understanding of the urgency of this problem. That is a shocking failure by the very government agency responsible for keeping workers safe.

Sadly, this isn’t the only time that OSHA has failed to act on a Chemical Safety Board recommendation, and it’s not the only time where the result of that inaction has been the death of workers.

The CSB warned OSHA in 2002 that new rules were needed to prevent reactive chemical explosions, but OSHA refused to act. Then, last December a reactive chemical explosion in Jacksonville, Florida, killed four workers.

Because OSHA has refused to act, Congress must.

Congressman John Barrow and I introduced H.R. 5522 to force OSHA to do the job that it should have done on its own.

The legislation would require OSHA to issue an interim standard on combustible dust within 90 days and a permanent standard within 18 months.

It would require OSHA to base the new standard on National Fire Protection Association standards.

OSHA says that combustible dust hazards are already covered by numerous existing regulations. But that isn’t true. Most of the existing standards do not even mention the word “dust” and do nothing to educate or inform employers about how to prevent combustible dust explosions.

Existing OSHA standards also do not address what levels of dust are safe, how to clean dust safely or how to prevent dust from accumulating to unsafe levels.

And it is not true, as opponents of this bill say, that we don’t allow for public input. In fact, OSHA would have to conduct full public hearings and a small business review, but to do so on an expedited basis that reflects the life-or-death urgency of this issue.

Because of the serious hazard posed by combustible dust;

Because OSHA has issued no major standard during this administration except under pressure from the courts or Congress;

And because OSHA is unable even to meet the regulatory deadlines it sets for itself, it is necessary to set some tight deadlines for action.

It’s also not true that this bill requires OSHA to adopt the National Fire Protection Association standards.  The bill requires OSHA to include only relevant and appropriate provisions of NFPA combustible dust standards.

While NFPA standards have proven to be effective, OSHA should use its discretion, after full public hearings and comments, to determine how NFPA guidelines should be used in a final standard.

You’ll hear opponents of this measure say we should wait until after the OSHA investigation is completed and the results of OSHA’s current National Emphasis Program are in. But we’ve waited long enough.

Again, if OSHA doesn’t act, then we must.

We know that most businesses are doing the best they can to make their workplaces safe. But it’s also clear that other businesses may not be doing enough to ensure the safety of their employees. 

The bottom line is that workers need protection, and the agency established by Congress 37 years ago to protect workers has, once again, failed in that duty.

Our goal today is to protect workers from these preventable explosions, and we believe that this legislation accomplishes that goal without imposing unreasonable burdens on employers.

I want to leave the House with the closing words of a witness who appeared before the Education and Labor Committee. Tammy Miser’s brother, Shawn Boone, was killed in a combustible dust explosion in 2003. 

Tammy recounted the terrible suffering her brother went through before he died, her hopes that something would happen after the CSB recommendations were issued, and her disappointment that OSHA hasn’t acted – even after the Imperial explosion.

Tammy left us with one request: “that you not let our loved ones die in vain and help us keep other families safe from the dangers of combustible dust.”

It’s the least we can do for Shawn Boone, the workers in Port Wentworth, and the many others who have needlessly lost their lives.

Madam Speaker, I strongly urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 5522.

Thank you.

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