House OKs bill to reduce combustible dust risk
The U.S. House voted 247-165 Wednesday night to approve a bill that supporters said would lessen the risk of combustible dust explosions such as the one near Savannah that killed 13 Imperial Sugar workers.
"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," said U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee.
"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," Miller said during floor debate on the bill.
U.S. Reps. Henry Brown and Joe Wilson, both South Carolina Republicans, opposed the bill because they said it sidesteps the current Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulatory process and mandates safety standards that might not be in the best interest of workers.
"The bill mandates a one-size-fits-all safety standard, despite the fact that safety demands for coal dust are different from those for sugar or flour dust," Brown said.
Wilson proposed an amendment that called on OSHA to study the problem, particularly the incident at Imperial Sugar Co. refinery, and report back to Congress on whether a new OSHA standard to prevent combustible dust explosions is needed.
Miller introduced "The Worker Protection Against Combustible Dust Explosions and Fires Act." It has 30 additional congressional sponsors.
"No OSHA standard comprehensively addresses combustible dust explosion hazards in general industry," the bill says.
Brown called the Feb. 7 sugar plant explosion at Port Wentworth, Ga., "a terrible tragedy," and said Congress must do all it can to ensure worker safety. Three plant workers remained hospitalized in critical condition Wednesday at the Joseph M. Still Burn Center in Augusta.
Supporters of the bill, H.R. 5522, say there are a variety of existing OSHA standards that inspectors and OSHA attorneys can interpret to apply to combustible dust hazards, but most of the existing standards do not mention the word "dust" and do nothing to educate or inform employers about how to prevent combustible dust explosions.
The existing standards say nothing about what levels of dust are safe, how to clean dust without creating additional hazards or how to prevent dust from accumulating to unsafe levels, the bill supporters say.
Requiring businesses to interpret and apply more than a dozen OSHA standards and then cross-reference them with separate combustible-dust guidance documents issued by OSHA and the National Fire Protection Association is much more burdensome than to read and understand comparatively simple requirements in a single combustible-dust standard, they say.
OSHA has 17 different standards for combustible dust depending on which industry is being regulated. There were 281 combustible dust explosions between 1980 and 2005 that killed 119 workers. Seventy combustible dust explosions have occurred since then, according to the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, which has urged OSHA to adopt a comprehensive explosive dust standard.
"The bottom line is that workers need protection, and the agency established by Congress 37 years ago (OSHA) to protect workers has, once again, failed in that duty," Miller said.
Reach Prentiss Findlay at pfindlay@postandcourier.com or 937-5711.
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