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Senate Debates Overturning Midnight Clinton Regulations
Monday, March 5, 2001
By Sharon Kehnemui
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WASHINGTON â The Senate is scheduled to employ a rarely used legislative
device to try to repeal a last-minute rule signed by President Clinton in the
waning days of his administration.
The resolution, being debated Tuesday, would do away with the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration's rule requiring businesses to respond to
ergonomics complaints by workers.
The Joint Resolution of Disapproval, a measure designed under the 1996
Congressional Review Act (CRA), would require both chambers of Congress to
overturn the regulation before it would be sent to the new president to sign.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer indicated Monday that the president would
sign the resolution if it came to his desk.
Two weeks ago, the president undid other Clinton rules when he signed four
executive orders that reduced union influence in federally contracted jobs.
"I think what you're seeing is a president who is very concerned, as you saw
in the executive orders that he issued a couple of weeks ago, to make sure
that there is fairness and balance in the system," he said. Fleischer added
that the Department of Labor is taking a look at other types of ergonomics
rules to protect workers.
The 600-page rule requires businesses to place restrictions on certain types
of repetitive activities if an employee complains about pain, even if the
pain is attributable to activities outside the job, said Gayle Osterberg, a
spokeswoman for Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla. Nickles sponsored the CRA in 1996
and is co-sponsoring the resolution to repeal the rule.
The rule "is making work illegal in the workplace," Osterberg said. For
instance, she explained, the rule prohibits workers from lifting 25 pounds
more than 25 times a day. Soft drink deliverers would be able to make only
one delivery per day before meeting the rule's maximum, she said.
"The impact is ludicrous," she said.
However, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. â who also sponsored the CRA in 1996 â is
not happy that the authority granted to Congress is being used to try to
repeal the ergonomics rule.
"The senator is disappointed that the CRA, which he is very proud to have
something to do with â to sponsor it, is being used against America's
workers," spokesman Nathan Naylor said.
Naylor said the rule protects supermarket and clerical workers â "those folks
that are least able to pay" medical bills incurred from repetitive stress
injuries sustained in the workplace.
"This rule is founded in good science for the past ten years. Principally,
it's the right thing to do," Naylor said.
Worker advocates also say the rule is the best means to protect workers from
health and safety difficulties.
"They are serious problems â they are ones that affect millions of people and
they are preventable. And that's what the Department of Labor wanted to do â
prevent these very problems," said Karen Nussbaum, director of the Working
Women department at the AFL-CIO.
Members of the business community, however, strongly oppose the rule. Randel
Johnson, vice president for labor and employee benefits at the Chamber of
Commerce, told Fox News that OSHA's rule could cost business owners as much
as $1 trillion. Osterberg added that the cost would equal about $100 billion
every year until businesses were compliant.
Osterberg also argued that the science is flawed. "They reached far beyond
anything that was based in science or medicine," she said.
Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., who co-sponsored the resolution in the
House, said that this is the first test of the CRA's oversight effectiveness.
"If this works, then I think we will look at other areas where we can get
majorities in both houses and say these regulations make no sense and with
the president's signature they can be thrown out," he said. "I think it's a
very healthy remedy for the bureaucrats to know that if they do something
that's completely off-base there's an opportunity for the Congress to move
swiftly and override the regulation and send them back to do the job right."
This is the first time the CRA will be used for Senate floor debate and a
roll-call vote, according to Osterberg. The House of Representatives has not
yet scheduled any action on the resolution.
Not all of former President Clinton's midnight mandates have been challenged.
Environmental Protection Agency director Christine Todd Whitman said last
week that she will keep a last-minute rule by the Clinton administration that
requires diesel fuel producers to reduce sulfur content by 97 percent and
diesel fuel trucks and buses to run 95 percent cleaner in the next six years.
â Fox News' Brian Wilson contributed to this report
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