[House Hearing, 114 Congress] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] REVIEWING RECENT CHANGES TO OSHA'S SILICA STANDARDS ======================================================================= HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON WORKFORCE PROTECTIONS COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE U.S. House of Representatives ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION __________ HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, APRIL 19, 2016 __________ Serial No. 114-46 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and the Workforce [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Available via the World Wide Web: www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/ committee.action?chamber=house&committee=education or Committee address: http://edworkforce.house.gov ____________ U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 99-775 PDF WASHINGTON : 2016 ________________________________________________________________________________________ For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office, http://bookstore.gpo.gov. For more information, contact the GPO Customer Contact Center, U.S. Government Publishing Office. Phone 202-512-1800, or 866-512-1800 (toll-free). E-mail, [email protected]. COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE JOHN KLINE, Minnesota, Chairman Joe Wilson, South Carolina Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Virginia Duncan Hunter, California Ranking Member David P. Roe, Tennessee Ruben Hinojosa, Texas Glenn Thompson, Pennsylvania Susan A. Davis, California Tim Walberg, Michigan Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona Matt Salmon, Arizona Joe Courtney, Connecticut Brett Guthrie, Kentucky Marcia L. Fudge, Ohio Todd Rokita, Indiana Jared Polis, Colorado Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, Joseph J. Heck, Nevada Northern Mariana Islands Luke Messer, Indiana Frederica S. Wilson, Florida Bradley Byrne, Alabama Suzanne Bonamici, Oregon David Brat, Virginia Mark Pocan, Wisconsin Buddy Carter, Georgia Mark Takano, California Michael D. Bishop, Michigan Hakeem S. Jeffries, New York Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Katherine M. Clark, Massachusetts Steve Russell, Oklahoma Alma S. Adams, North Carolina Carlos Curbelo, Florida Mark DeSaulnier, California Elise Stefanik, New York Rick Allen, Georgia Juliane Sullivan, Staff Director Denise Forte, Minority Staff Director --------- SUBCOMMITTEE ON WORKFORCE PROTECTIONS TIM WALBERG, Michigan, Chairman Duncan Hunter, California Frederica S. Wilson, Florida, Glenn Thompson, Pennsylvania Ranking Member Todd Rokita, Indiana Mark Pocan, Wisconsin Dave Brat, Virginia Katherine M. Clark, Massachusetts Michael D. Bishop, Michigan Alma S. Adams, North Carolina Steve Russell, Oklahoma Mark DeSaulnier, California Elise Stefanik, New York Marcia L. Fudge, Ohio C O N T E N T S ---------- Page Hearing held on April 19, 2016................................... 1 Statement of Members: Walberg, Hon. Tim, Chairman, Subcommittee on Workforce Protections................................................ 1 Prepared statement of.................................... 3 Wilson, Hon. Frederica S., Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Workforce Protections...................................... 4 Prepared statement of.................................... 6 Statement of Witnesses: Brady, Mr. Ed, President, Brady Homes of Illinois, Bloomington, IL............................................ 22 Prepared statement of.................................... 24 Chajet, Mr. Henry, Shareholder, Jackson Lewis P.C., Reston, VA......................................................... 57 Prepared statement of.................................... 59 Herschkowitz, Ms. Janis, President and CEO, PRL Inc., President, Regal Cast, Lebanon, PA......................... 36 Prepared statement of.................................... 38 Melius, Dr. James, Director of Research, Laborers' Health and Safety Fund of North America, Albany, NY................... 45 Prepared statement of.................................... 47 Additional Submissions: Mr. Chajet: Silicosis: Number of deaths, crude and age-adjusted death rates, U.S. residents age 15 and over, 1968-2010, source: NIOSH (CDC), September 11, 2014................ 106 DeSaulnier, Hon. Mark, a Representative in Congress from the State of California: Control of Silica Exposure in Foundries.................. 79 Ms. Herschkowitz: OSHA Fact Sheet.......................................... 70 Mr. Walberg: Regulatory Report from U.S. Chamber of Commerce entitled Regulatory Indifference Hurts Vulnerable Communities... 108 Article from The Hill: Regular dust monitoring can help prevent silicosis - not more regulation................ 136 Prepared statement from The National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association (NSSGA)............................. 137 Letter dated April 19, 2016, from The Associated General Contractors (AGC) of America........................... 141 Letter dated April 28, 2016, from National Industrial Sand Association (NISA)................................ 143 Ms. Wilson: Prepared statement from Brown, Mr. Tim................... 18 Prepared statement from McNabb, Mr. Dale................. 11 Prepared statement from Ward, Mr. Tom.................... 15 Letter dated April 18, 2016, from United Steelworkers USW 84 Letter dated April 19, 2016, from BlueGreen Alliance..... 86 Letter dated April 19, 2016, from Public Citizen......... 88 Letter dated April 18, 2016, from American Association for Justice............................................ 90 Press release dated March 24, 2016, from American Public Health Association (APHA) celebrates OSHA silica rule.. 92 Letter dated April 18, 2016, from Englewood Construction - Management........................................... 94 Letter dated April 19, 2016, from Motley Rice LLC........ 95 Prepared statement from America's Agenda................. 97 Prepared statement from International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers.................... 101 Prepared statement from USW Local Union 593.............. 147 Prepared statement from Union of Concerned Scientists.... 150 Prepared statement from North America's Building Trades Unions................................................. 153 REVIEWING RECENT CHANGES TO OSHA'S SILICA STANDARDS ---------- Tuesday, April 19, 2016 U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Workforce Protections Washington, D.C. ---------- The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:01 a.m., in Room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tim Walberg [Chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. Present: Representatives Walberg, Rokita, Brat, Bishop, Wilson, Pocan, Adams, and DeSaulnier. Also Present: Representatives Kline and Scott. Staff Present: Bethany Aronhalt, Press Secretary; Janelle Belland, Coalitions and Members Services Coordinator; Ed Gilroy, Director of Workforce Policy; Jessica Goodman, Legislative Assistant; Callie Harman, Legislative Assistant; Tyler Hernandez, Deputy Communications Director; Nancy Locke, Chief Clerk; John Martin, Professional Staff Member; Dominique McKay, Deputy Press Secretary; Krisann Pearce, General Counsel; Molly McLaughlin Salmi, Deputy Director of Workforce Policy; Alissa Strawcutter, Deputy Clerk; Loren Sweatt, Senior Policy Advisor; Olivia Voslow, Staff Assistant; Joseph Wheeler, Professional Staff Member; Tylease Alli, Minority Clerk/Intern and Fellow Coordinator; Austin Barbera, Minority Press Assistant; Pierce Blue, Minority Labor Detailee; Denise Forte, Minority Staff Director; Christine Godinez, Minority Staff Assistant; Carolyn Hughes, Minority Senior Labor Policy Advisor; Brian Kennedy, Minority General Counsel; Richard Miller, Minority Senior Labor Policy Advisor; Veronique Pluviose, Minority Civil Rights Counsel; Marni von Wilpert, Minority Labor Detailee; and Elizabeth Watson, Minority Director of Labor Policy. Chairman Walberg. A quorum being present, the subcommittee will come to order. Good morning, everyone. I would like to begin by welcoming our witnesses. Thank you for joining us to discuss an issue important to everyone in this room, protecting the health and safety of American workers. We are here today because we all agree that hard-working men and women should be able to earn a paycheck without risking a serious injury or being exposed to a deadly disease. Every family deserves the peace of mind that their loved ones are safe on the job. We also agree that Federal policies play a role in meeting that shared goal. This hearing is timely because next week marks 45 years that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has helped keep American workers safe. As part of this Committee's oversight efforts, we were pleased to have Assistant Secretary Michaels join us last October to discuss what more can be done to promote safe and healthy working conditions. The question before the Committee then and today is whether the workplace rules and regulations coming out of Washington serve the best interests of employees and their employers. Are they practical? Are they responsible? Are they fair? Are they created with transparency and enforced effectively? These are important questions because the strongest health and safety rules will do little to protect America's workers if the rules are not followed and enforced, or if they are too confusing and complex to even implement in the first place. I hope we have a thoughtful discussion today that addresses these points, particularly as they relate to OSHA's new silica standard. In March, OSHA issued a final rule that significantly reduces the permissible exposure limit to crystalline silica. Silica is the second most common element found in the Earth's crust and a key component of manufactured products and construction materials. Exposure to high concentrations of silica dust can lead to a dangerous debilitating and even life- threatening disease. We have witnessed important progress in recent years, but we know there is more that can be done to keep workers out of harm's way. That is why this Committee has pressed OSHA to use the tools at its disposal to enforce existing standards. Unfortunately, the agency has failed to do so. OSHA itself admits that 30 percent of tested job sites have not complied with the existing exposure limit for silica. The existing exposure limit for silica. Did I mention it was the existing exposure limit for silica? This is an alarmingly high figure. Instead of enforcing the rules already on the books, the department spent significant time and resources crafting an entirely new regulatory regime. The department's first priority should have been enforcing existing standards, and some potentially in the room today may question whether these rules were followed and if indeed, as a result of not being enforced across the board, they experienced the results of silicosis. If OSHA is unable or unwilling to enforce the current limit for silica exposure, why should we expect the results under these new standards to be any different? Related to enforcement, some have raised concerns about whether the new standards can be responsibly enforced. It has been suggested that silica cannot be accurately measured at the reduced limit prescribed in the new law or new rule because many labs do not have the technology necessary to provide reliable results. Will employers acting in good faith and trying to do the right thing be held accountable for an enforcement regime that is not feasible or practical? These are important questions about enforcement, but there are also serious questions concerning implementation. Can these new rules be effectively implemented on the ground and under the time frame prescribed by OSHA? Employers may lack the time and resources necessary to adjust their workplaces to the requirements of the new rule. Others may find new controls simply unworkable. This is especially true for small businesses. According to the National Federation of Independent Business, this rule will cost workplaces more than $7 billion each year. These costs will be borne by consumers and taxpayers, and may I suggest employees with a loss of jobs or loss of security in their jobs. They will be borne by all of these people in the form of higher prices for homes, bridges, roads, et cetera. These costs will be borne by workers in the form of fewer jobs. These are significant consequences for a rule that may do little to enhance worker health and safety, which is our key priority. Hundreds of thousands of workplaces nationwide will be impacted by these new rules. We owe it to our Nation's job creators to provide the clarity and certainty they need to expand, hire, and succeed. Just as importantly, we owe it to workers and their families to promote smart, responsible regulatory policies that are implemented and enforced in a way that serves their best interests. The workers with us today, and those working on countless job sites across the country deserve more than our good intentions and political rhetoric at times. They deserve good policies that lead to good results. I know that we can work together to protect their health and well-being. It has happened here. It has happened here before and it can happen now, the well-being of hard-working men and women of this country. I look forward to today's discussion, and will now yield to Ranking Member Wilson for her opening remarks. [The statement of Chairman Walberg follows:] Prepared Statement of Hon. Tim Walberg, Subcommittee on Workforce Protections We're here today because we all agree that hardworking men and women should be able to earn a paycheck without risking a serious injury or being exposed to a deadly disease. And every family deserves the peace of mind that their loved ones are safe on the job. We also agree that federal policies play a role in meeting that shared goal. This hearing is timely, because next week marks 45 years that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has helped keep America's workers safe. As part of this committee's oversight efforts, we were pleased to have Assistant Secretary Michaels join us last October to discuss what more can be done to promote safe and healthy working conditions. The question before the committee then and today is whether the workplace rules and regulations coming out of Washington serve the best interests of employees and their employers. Are they practical, responsible, and fair? Are they created with transparency and enforced effectively? These are important questions, because the strongest health and safety rules will do little to protect America's workers if the rules are not followed and enforced--or if they're too confusing and complex to even implement in the first place. I hope we can have a thoughtful discussion today that addresses these points, particularly as they relate to OSHA's new silica standard. In March, OSHA issued a final rule that significantly reduces the permissible exposure limit to crystalline silica. Silica is the second most common element found in the Earth's crust, and a key component of manufactured products and construction materials. But exposure to high concentrations of silica dust can lead to a dangerous, debilitating-- and even life-threatening--disease. We have witnessed important progress in recent years, but we know there's more that can be done to keep workers out of harm's way. That is why this committee has pressed OSHA to use the tools at its disposal to enforce existing standards. Unfortunately, the agency has failed to do so. OSHA itself admits that 30 percent of tested jobsites have not complied with the existing exposure limit for silica. This is an alarmingly high figure. But instead of enforcing the rules already on the books, the department spent significant time and resources crafting an entirely new regulatory regime. The department's first priority should have been enforcing existing standards. If OSHA is unable--or unwilling--to enforce the current limit for silica exposure, why should we expect the results under these new standards to be any different? Related to enforcement, some have raised concerns about whether the new standards can be responsibly enforced. It has been suggested that silica cannot be accurately measured at the reduced limit prescribed in the new rule, because many labs don't have the technology necessary to provide reliable results. Will employers--acting in good faith and trying to do the right thing--be held accountable for an enforcement regime that isn't feasible or practical? These are important questions about enforcement, but there are also serious questions concerning implementation. Can these new rules be effectively implemented on the ground and under the timeframe prescribed by OSHA? Employers may lack the time and resources necessary to adjust their workplaces to the requirements of the new rule. Others may find new controls simply unworkable. This is especially true for small businesses. According to the National Federation of Independent Business, this rule will cost workplaces more than $7 billion each year. These costs will be borne by consumers and taxpayers in the form of higher prices for homes, bridges, and roads. And these costs will be borne by workers in the form of fewer jobs. These are significant consequences for a rule that may do little to enhance worker health and safety. We are fortunate to have a second-generation home builder and owner of a small family business with us who can speak more to this today. They will also speak to the fear of unintended safety consequences stemming from these new rules. In trying to address significant health and safety concerns, we must ensure federal policies do not in any way create new hazards in America's workplaces. Hundreds of thousands of workplaces nationwide will be impacted by these new rules. We owe it to our nation's job creators to provide the clarity and certainty they need to expand, hire, and succeed. And, just as importantly, we owe it to workers and their families to promote smart, responsible regulatory policies that are implemented and enforced in a way that serves their best interests. The workers with us today--and those working on countless jobsites across the country-- deserve more than our good intentions, they deserve good policies that lead to good results. I know that we can work together to protect the health and well- being of the hardworking men and women of this country. I look forward to today's discussion, and will now yield to Ranking Member Wilson for her opening remarks. ______ Ms. Wilson. Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing today to review OSHA's long-awaited rule updating the silica standard. The science is clear. Since 1974, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has called for OSHA to cut the permissible exposure limit for general industry from 100 micrograms per cubic meter to 50. It took 42 years for OSHA's rule to catch up with the science. In 1997, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer determined crystalline silica dust is causing damage to humans. The Department of Health and Human Services declared the same in 2000. Silica dust causes silicosis, lung cancer, respiratory illnesses, such as COPD, and kidney disease. Yet, scientific research demonstrates OSHA's previous 40-year-old silica standard fails to adequately protect workers from these preventable diseases. Let me repeat, preventable. These diseases are preventable. Extensive scientific evidence shows lung cancer and silicosis occur at exposure levels below OSHA's previous permissible exposure limit of 100 micrograms per cubic meter in general industry. Surprisingly, the alarmingly out-of-date construction industry standard of 250 micrograms per cubic meter stems from a 1929 Public Health Service recommendation that the government acknowledged was not set at a level to protect workers from silicosis, but rather based solely on feasibility considerations of 1920s' technology and management methods. OSHA's new silica dust standard reflects current science and technology. It will save lives. Over 800,000 construction workers and another 295,000 workers in general industry and maritime are exposed to crystalline silica in excess of the new more protective standard of 50 micrograms per cubic meter. OSHA estimates this new standard, which includes engineering controls, training, prohibitions on dry sweeping, and medical surveillance, will save more than 600 lives each year, and prevent more than 900 cases of silicosis each year. I just want to show here on the screen pictures of airborne silica. This is dust generated by a power saw cutting through concrete block with and without engineering controls. All it takes is water or air to control silica dust. These pictures make it abundantly clear how using simple controls reduces workers' exposure to silica dust, but useful statistics and the pictures fail to communicate the true toll on affected workers and their families. This includes workers like Dale McNabb, Tom Ward, and Tim Brown, who have submitted statements for the record. I ask unanimous consent to include the statements of Mr. McNabb, Mr. Ward, and Mr. Brown into the record. [The information follows:] [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairman Walberg. Hearing no objection, they will be included. Ms. Wilson. Dale McNabb, who has joined us here today, is a tile setter from Warren, Michigan, and a member of Bricklayers Local Number 2 in Michigan. In his statement, Dale recounts his exposure to silica dust while working as a tile helper mixing cement and making cuts. After Dale started wheezing, he went to doctors who confirmed his respiratory problems were caused by silica exposure. Dale writes, ``I loved my job, and I took a lot of pride in my work. I would still be doing it today if my doctors had not told me I could not, and that I might never work again because I breathed in silica dust. When I get exposed to dust now, and not just silica dust, it feels like I have a plastic bag over my head, and someone is pulling it shut.'' Also, with us today is Tom Ward. Raise your hand, Tom. Tom is a bricklayer from Detroit, Michigan. At 13, Tom lost his father to silicosis. In his statement, Tom shares this painful story. Tom writes, ``We got the official diagnosis, silicosis, when my dad was 34 years old. The hardest memory to live with is the last day he worked. He came in the door, fell to the floor, and started crying. He said I cannot do it anymore. It took just five years for silicosis to kill him. It was a slow and very painful process for my dad to experience at far too young an age, 34 years old. It was hard for me, my sisters, and my mother to witness. In the end, his disease actually suffocated him.'' Tom, who is himself a construction worker exposed to silica dust, remains stunned at the lack of training on and awareness of the dangers of silica dust, and the inconsistent use of engineering controls and personal protective equipment. We are also joined by Tim Brown. Raise your hand, Tim. Tim is a bricklayer from Milwaukee, and a member of Bricklayers Local 8, who has worked in dust-producing trades his entire life. In his statement, Tim recounts the lack of proper engineering controls on worksites and his eventual diagnosis of silicosis. Tim writes, ``I have a six-year-old daughter. She knows I am sick, and she worries about me. She does not want me to return to construction, but I am not sure how to provide for her if I cannot.'' Dale, Tom, and Tim have testified in support of the new OSHA standards so that others would not go through what they have endured. As we deliberate today, Mr. Chairman, I hope that we can keep in mind what these and so many other hard-working Americans faced because OSHA's silica standards were not protective enough. The 2.3 million workers, mostly in construction, who will gain protection under OSHA's updated rule deserve our support. I want to thank our witnesses for being here today, and look forward to their testimony. I want to thank the 50 members of the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers who have also joined us here today. Raise your hands. Welcome. You are our constituents. This is your committee, Workforce Protections, and that is our job. Thank you, Mr. Chair. [The information follows:] [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairman Walberg. I thank the gentlelady. Pursuant to Committee Rule 7(c), all subcommittee members will be permitted to submit written statements to be included in the permanent hearing record. Without objection, the hearing will remain open for 14 days to allow statements, questions for the record, and other extraneous material referenced during the hearing to be submitted in the official hearing record. It is now my pleasure to introduce today's witnesses. Mr. Ed Brady is president of Brady Homes of Illinois in Bloomington, Illinois. Mr. Brady serves as NAHB's 2016 chairman of the board. Brady Homes is a family-owned, second-generation building and development company founded by his father, William Brady. Mr. Brady will also testify on behalf of the National Association of Home Builders. Welcome. Janis Herschkowitz is president and CEO of PRL Inc., a family-owned, second-generation company located in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. She is also president of Regal Cast, an operating company under PRL Inc., that manufactures high-quality specification metal castings, fabrications, and metal casting machine components to the defense, nuclear, and energy industries. Ms. Herschkowitz will also testify on behalf of the American Foundry Society. Welcome. Dr. Jim Melius is the director of research for the Laborers' Health and Safety Fund of North America. Dr. Melius is an occupational physician and epidemiologist. He spent several years directing occupational and environmental health programs for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and for the New York State Department of Health. Welcome. Finally, Henry Chajet, a shareholder in the Washington, D.C., regional office of Jackson Lewis, P.C., will testify on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Chajet is well- versed in environmental safety and health law involving Federal entities such as OSHA, MSHA, and EPA. Welcome. I will now ask our witnesses to stand and raise your right hands. [Witnesses sworn.] Chairman Walberg. You may be seated. Let the record reflect the witnesses answered in the affirmative, and we appreciate that. Before I recognize you for your testimony, let me briefly explain our lighting system, very simple, like the traffic lights on the roadway. You have five minutes to testify. Keep it as close that as humanly possible. If it comes to the end of the time and you have a finishing sentence or paragraph, go ahead and do that. You will each have five minutes to present. When you see the yellow light go on, that means you have a minute left in your testimony time. The red light, you know what that means. After you testify, the members will have five minutes each to ask questions as well. We will attempt to keep that as well to five-minute questioning so we can get through as much as possible this morning in the hearing time. So, now it is time to recognize the witnesses for their five minutes of testimony. Mr. Brady, I recognize you now for five minutes. TESTIMONY OF ED BRADY, PRESIDENT, BRADY HOMES ILLINOIS, BLOOMINGTON, IL, TESTIFYING ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF HOME BUILDERS Mr. Brady. Thank you, Chairman Walberg, Ranking Member Wilson, members of the Committee. On behalf of the 140,000 members of the National Association of Home Builders, I appreciate the opportunity to testify here today. OSHA's new silica rule is the most significant health and safety standard ever issued for the construction industry. Throughout the rulemaking process, NAHB sought to engage with OSHA to create a workable rule which protects our workers. Unfortunately, OSHA failed to address many of the industry concerns, and the final rule reflects a fundamental lack of understanding of construction and is technologically and economically infeasible. We strongly urge OSHA to revisit the rule and work with us to create a new rule that protects workers while also balancing the technological and economic challenges in the residential construction sector. Absent that, Congress must move swiftly to stop this flawed rule. OSHA's new silica standard requires a staggering 80 percent reduction in the permissible exposure limit, or PEL, for the construction industry. To achieve this dramatically lower PEL, OSHA has concocted an aggressive compliance regime of engineering and work practice controls that in many cases cannot be applied in residential construction. If this rule goes into effect, we will have two options to comply. The first option is to measure the amount of silica a worker is exposed to. This is incredibly challenging to do in the field where multiple workers may be performing multiple tasks and where many environmental factors play a significant role. Employers would need to track individual employees and would be required to pay for the worker to receive a thorough medical checkup, even though the medical checkup and the results will not tell what tasks or even on which jobsite might, and I emphasize ``might'' be contributing to the potential health problems. The second option is for employers to follow the engineering and work practice control requirements in Table 1. Unfortunately, these requirements are often impractical and at times impossible to implement in the field. For example, Table 1 relies heavily on wet cutting methods. That seems simple, but, frankly, we might not even have water service to the jobsite for weeks or possibly months after the job starts. Wet cutting is also impractical indoors, adding water to an indoor environment, and during the winter months, can unrealistically or could potentially create even greater hazards outdoors. It is also important to consider the economic impact of this rule on the construction industry. OSHA estimates that the total costs of the final rule are just over $1 billion annually. This estimate drastically underestimates the impact this rule will have on our industry. An independent analysis of the rule, which NAHB helped fund, estimated the true cost at nearly $5 billion. Residential construction's share of this cost means nearly 25 percent of the profits for the industry would be consumed by this single rule. You might have a notion that homebuilders have high profit margins. The reality is the typical margin is around 6.4 percent. I raise this point because OSHA's guidelines for justifying a new rule is the cost should be no more than 10 percent of the industry's profits. They missed the mark here. To see how far they are off, let's look quickly at the health screening I mentioned earlier. OSHA estimates the screening will run at least $377 per test, each. There are 3.2 million construction workers. If each construction employee required one screening per year, that cost alone would be roughly $1.2 billion a year. OSHA also severely underestimated other compliance costs. Most of our members at NAHB are small firms, family businesses, and do not have the expertise to comply with some of the requirements of the rule. Many will need to contract for the services of recordkeeping. OSHA's economic analysis identifies just over 477,000 affected businesses in the construction industry. If you assume a minimal cost of routine bookkeeping services at $200 a month, it would work out to $1.1 billion per year just for the recordkeeping compliance. We feel that OSHA simply failed to account for the true costs of these expenses in their economic analysis. Let me be clear. NAHB joins OSHA in its stated goal of reducing workplace illnesses and injuries. The debate is not over whether to protect our workers, but how best to protect our workers. I urge Congress to consider ways to forestall the implementation of this deeply flawed rule until OSHA has revisited the potential burden this rule will put on small businesses. I thank you for the opportunity to share my views, Mr. Chairman. [The statement of Mr. Brady follows:] [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairman Walberg. Thank you, Mr. Brady. I recognize Ms. Herschkowitz for your five minutes of testimony. TESTIMONY OF JANIS HERSCHKOWITZ, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF PRL INC., PRESIDENT, REGAL CAST, LEBANON, PA, TESTIFYING ON BEHALF OF THE AMERICAN FOUNDRY SOCIETY Ms. Herschkowitz. Thank you, Chairman Walberg, Ranking Member Wilson, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss OSHA's recently published silica rule and its detrimental impact on the U.S. metal casting industry. My name is Jan Herschkowitz, president of PRL, Inc. My family moved to the States from Bolivia in 1971 to pursue the American dream. My father purchased a small company with 13 employees, which he eventually grew to three companies. In 1988, I moved back to Pennsylvania from Chicago to run the family business after he was diagnosed with cancer. Following his death in 1989, I opened a foundry which is one of the cleanest and most advanced foundries in the U.S. Today, we have four manufacturing facilities, are a key military supplier, and proudly employ 150 highly skilled workers who play a vital role in our success. I am testifying before you today as a member of the American Foundry Society, our industry's trade association, which is comprised of more than 7,500 members. Our industry employs over 200,000 workers who are proud that their metal castings have applications in virtually every capital and consumer good produced. Eighty percent of all foundries employ fewer workers than 100, including ours. As a Nation, we depend on castings in all facets of our lives, including transportation, heating our homes, and, most importantly, providing us with power, and playing a critical role in our Nation's defense, including submarines and carriers. PRL's key customers include Electric Boat, Northrop- Grumman, and Curtiss-Wright. AFS members are highly committed to protecting their employees and implementing sound safety policies. PRL's culture is one of safety first above all else, as the risks of pouring molten metal are taken very seriously by every co-worker, and we continually invest in safety equipment, experts, preventive maintenance, and training. We also have a certified safety committee which consists of co-workers from every level of our organization. Realizing the silica sand we are talking about today is used by foundries to make molten metal, and it is the same sand that is found on our beaches. I will only discuss a few of the ways this regulation will impact the foundry industry as my submitted testimony is much more detailed. Under the rule, the sharply reduced permissible exposure levels of 50 micrograms and an action level of 25 micrograms equates to the contents of a packet of Sweet'N Low sugar over a football field 13 feet high. This is the same air quality requirements of a clean room. Metal casting operations are simply not capable of achieving this level of dust control. The rule also mandates extensive and costly engineering controls. Metal casters will have to exhaust all feasible engineering and work practice controls to meet the expense of requirements before we are allowed to use respirators. This means we could be forced to spend well over $1.4 million with no guarantee they will work. There are certain operations in the foundry, such as grinding, where no matter how much is spent on controls, consistent compliance will not be achieved. Under the rule, regulated areas with control access and mandatory respirator usage will need to be established. This presents a logistical nightmare as it means that a forklift operator or a manager who may be in the area for just a minute will need to put on a respirator and will not be able to talk. Under the regulation, dry vacuuming is not allowed and a wet vac will now be required. This is wrong. As everybody knows, you never, ever want to introduce water in an area where molten metal is poured. An explosion could occur, and workers lives' would be jeopardized. Also, other metal objects which may be wet, might not even be wet, but may be wet, can no longer be recycled and will go into our landfills. OSHA drastically underestimates the cost to comply, and disregards the intent of SBREFA. In reality, the actual costs of the rule are 50 times higher than OSHA estimates, and in the final rule, OSHA estimated costs of compliance for the foundry industry was at $47 million or $32,000 per foundry. Our independent analysis shows the rule actually costs the industry over $2.2 billion, which equates to over $1 million per foundry. Additional costs include capital equipment, plant modifications, lost production time, recordkeeping, training, legal, medical, permits, engineering, monitoring, cleaning, and sand disposal expenses. In closing, although very well intended, our concern is that OSHA's silica regulation will cause significant foundry closures which will shift production offshore to countries like China, who have minimum worker safety rules. I firmly believe that this rule not only poses a threat to our national security, but it will also cause many good, highly skilled people from numerous manufacturing sectors to lose their jobs. Mr. Chairman, I would submit this is simply wrong. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today, and I would be happy to respond to any questions. [The statement of Ms. Herschkowitz follows:] [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairman Walberg. Thank you, Ms. Herschkowitz. Dr. Melius, your 5 minutes are recognized right now. TESTIMONY OF JAMES MELIUS, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH, LABORERS' HEALTH AND SAFETY FUND OF NORTH AMERICA, ALBANY, NY Dr. Melius. Thank you, Honorable Chairman Walberg, Ranking Member Wilson, other members of the subcommittee. I greatly appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today at this hearing. As you said earlier, I was an occupational physician and epidemiologist. I currently work for labor-management organizations within the unionized construction industry, focusing on health and safety issues in construction. I have over 40 years of experience in occupational and environmental health. I have been involved, I have followed the development and public review of the recently released OSHA silica standard, submitted comments, and testified at the hearings, and submitted post-hearing comments on the proposed standard. One of my first patients, while working in an occupational medicine clinic in Chicago in the 1970s, was a young man with severe and rapidly progressive silicosis caused by his work in a foundry. He died while in his early thirties from this disease, leaving a young family. Throughout my career in occupational health, I have continued to encounter cases of silicosis among foundry and construction workers. As Representative Wilson has already introduced, the three bricklayers and family members of bricklayers are behind me, who experienced in their family or themselves silicosis. We recently did a small survey of our tunnel workers in New York and found nearly 40 percent of them--again, young tunnel workers--had developed early stages of silicosis as a result of their work building tunnels in the New York City area. Silicosis is not just a disease of the past. Workers continue to develop this disease and the illness can have a serious impact on their health, their ability to work, and on their families. I believe that OSHA has done an excellent job of developing the new silicosis standard. I would like to outline a few of the major reasons why I believe this regulation is a significant step forward in addressing this major occupational health problem. OSHA's review of the available scientific data and additional scientific studies presented during the rulemaking process provide a sound scientific basis for the new standard. They have identified key diseases, and the more recent scientific studies have provided the basis for the new standard that they put forward of 50 micrograms per cubic meter. The current OSHA standard, as has been mentioned, comes from the 1920s. It was based on a purely practical way of what could be done to deal with some of the extremely high exposures in some of the industries at that time, tunnel, quarry work, and so forth. That standard has not been changed until recently, and if that standard were still in place and left in place, one could have a very high rate of cancer, silicosis, and other silica related diseases among people working at those levels of exposure. Some of the extrapolations in the OSHA rulemaking process estimated up to 100 percent of construction workers exposed to silica would at the then-current standard develop silicosis. It is clearly unacceptable not to control this to a much lower limit. We do not view and I do not view the major problem to be an issue of enforcement. I believe the major problem is that the current standard in place is not adequate to prevent most silica-related illnesses. We need to change the standard, it has gone on for far too long. I think it is also important as some of the other witnesses have stated, that we need to have practical ways of controlling exposure. As I look at it, whether it is a half- full or half empty glass, I think a major step forward in construction is to have these tasks outlined and to make compliance easier in that industry. Up here, I am showing two of the pictures. These are people, bricklayers, and the effect of ventilation from the equipment they use. This is a milling machine that is used to take up old pavement. I do not know if you can turn that so it can be seen by the committee. Again, this is a before and after picture. The asphalt paving industry put a lot of effort into developing proper ventilation controls for their industry in order to be able to meet the silica standards. This work started long before the standard was even proposed. As you can see in the first picture, and if you have ever been behind a milling machine, you know how much dust is generated, and in the second picture, which I actually believe is a picture from Michigan, by the way, the Upper Peninsula, where some of this research was done, showing that with proper ventilation, ventilation being readily available through all manufacturers, you can control silica exposures. They were able to meet the new standard through this, and at a relatively reasonable price for doing so. I think this kind of development--I think one thing that is important in looking at costs and effectiveness is not only the fact that people will meet the standard, but they will develop better technology and better approaches to be able to do that. I think we have to take that into account as we look forward to what is going to happen as a result of this standard going into place. I will end my oral testimony here. I am out of time, I see. I would be glad to answer any questions later. Thank you. [The statement and additional submission of Dr. Melius follows:] [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairman Walberg. Thank you, Doctor, and thank you for bringing my thoughts back to Pure Michigan. Now, for your five minutes of testimony, we recognize Mr. Chajet. TESTIMONY OF HENRY CHAJET, SHAREHOLDER, JACKSON LEWIS P.C., RESTON, VA, TESTIFYING ON BEHALF OF THE U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE Mr. Chajet. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the Committee. Chairman Walberg. Turn your microphone on there, if you would, please. Mr. Chajet. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the Committee. We appreciate the opportunity to present the views of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on this new OSHA rule impacting silica. If I may, I would like to start with the concept that this is about sand. Silica, essentially, is sand. One of the things that we do not see in these pictures is the hundreds of trillions of tons of sand that exists all over the world. This rule impacts millions of people, and perhaps millions of employment sites as well. Sand is an essential, critical element in a variety of consumer products, construction products, national defense products, home builder products. It is extensively used. I think OSHA lists over 30 industry groups, and there are many more that are impacted by this rule. At least two million people work in areas where sand or silica is present, disturbed, or used. This is a massive rule. That is a little bit of perspective. Much of this product or material is used in truckloads. The amount of silica dust that it would take to exceed the exposure limit is an eye drop in this room. One eye drop in a teaspoon dispersed over the size of this room would essentially exceed the exposure limit. It is an infinitesimal small amount of dust. In addition, it is not just the fact that we are concerned about silica, we are concerned about respirable silica, tiny, tiny, small particles of silica. Those are the ones that can get into a lung and can cause a significant hazard, no question about that. One case of silicosis, one fatality, one illness, is one too many, and we have to prevent them. We are preventing them. We have submitted for the record, and I would hope you would allow our statement to be placed in the record, a graph from the Centers for Disease Control. I thought we were going to have a copy of it to show. It demonstrates the success of American industry and OSHA in controlling and reducing silica related disease. These are data taken from the Health and Human Services' Centers for Disease Control Agency that collects mortality. You will notice that just in our lifetimes, we have reduced successfully the number of cases from silica related disease. We are approaching zero. It is a wonderful public health success story. It is a story that I am proud to have been a part of for my 35 years of occupational safety and health experience, helping companies to understand their obligations and to work to continue this trend. This was established with the current standards in place. In fact, the current standards, as you stated in your opening, Mr. Chairman, not only do we see OSHA not enforcing them, they have a compliance problem, 30 percent or so or out of compliance, more exposure than the current problem, but a significant portion, perhaps two-thirds of that, is two to three times over exposure. We have a compliance problem that is not going to be solved by a new set of regulations that took this many pages of the Federal Register to explain, not to mention the thousands of attachments to it. That is going to be an impossibility for any small to medium sized business to comprehend. We have this regulation, and it is based on a series of fantasies. The very concept of respirable dust is written out of this regulation by a new definition that says it is whatever dust is collected by the sampler. So, we are not even regulating the hazard. We are regulating an inaccurate sampling and analysis method that is the best OSHA could do. In light of that fantasy, there are additional ones in the assumptions for how you calculate risk here. According to OSHA, there are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people who should be recorded with disease, and they are not there. We do not have a silica epidemic. There are many problems here with this rule. OSHA needs to refocus on reality. We have not seen a focus on drug and alcohol abuse in the workplace, one of the leading causes of fatalities, and it is impacting our entire workforce and our families. Why not a focus where we need it? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would be glad to answer questions. [The statement and additional submission of Mr. Chajet follows:] [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairman Walberg. Thank you. Thank you to each of the panel for the time and attention you gave to present your perspectives, valuable for us to hear as well as to see evidence of ways we have achieved success, as well as ways that we can achieve further success. Having said that, let me recognize for the opening five minutes of questioning for our panel, Mr. Rokita. You are up on deck right now. Mr. Rokita. Thank you, Chairman. I appreciate having this hearing. Mr. Chajet, you have practiced law, you have experience practicing administrative law, correct? Mr. Chajet. Yes. Mr. Rokita. This was an informal rulemaking? Mr. Chajet. It was an informal rulemaking, although the cross examination was cut off. Mr. Rokita. Why? Mr. Chajet. I have no idea. I personally was standing asking questions, and OSHA short-circuited my ability and stopped me from asking questions. Mr. Rokita. And you have no idea why? Have you ever experienced that in your practice before? Mr. Chajet. I have never experienced my cross to be stopped. Mr. Rokita. In just a couple of seconds, try to explain for the record the difference between an informal rulemaking and a more structured formal rulemaking or negotiated rulemaking, and how this is different, and why in the world given the nature of an informal rulemaking you would be cut off from your testimony. Mr. Chajet. Well, this is a hybrid kind of rulemaking, but there is an administrative law judge present, and the administrative law judge in the OSHA world controls the hearing process and procedure. The administrative law judge, I am sure, with OSHA's approval and consent or discussion, cut off cross examination. It was particularly egregious because the other side, the advocates for the rule, were allowed to question until they were done. The industry side was cut off. That was only one problem. All of these kinds of rulemakings rely on data, transparency, and truth, and that is what you want, a record that is truthful with transparency. Mr. Rokita. That did not occur here? Mr. Chajet. We did not have that here. We did not have that here. Mr. Rokita. We have a rule with some kind of proceeding, sounds like a kangaroo court, based on untruths, half-truths, lack of transparency, facts that were not allowed to come into evidence, and testimony that was literally cut off. Is that accurate? Mr. Chajet. It is accurate. We had the leading laboratory expert perhaps in the world from Bureau Veritas testifying about the inability to measure. He was responded to by an OSHA staff witness who runs their laboratory who said to him would you believe that we have this secret data that we have not published that proves we can measure at this level, and I sat back and could not believe my ears. This was not a legitimate rulemaking. Mr. Rokita. They admitted to secret data? What do you mean? Mr. Chajet. They did. During the hearing-- Mr. Rokita. I used the pronoun, I hate doing that. I used ``they.'' Who is ``they'' again? Mr. Chajet. I am sorry, I did not hear you. Mr. Rokita. Excuse me. I used the pronoun ``they.'' Who is ``they'' again? I said ``they used secret.'' Mr. Chajet. OSHA staff. Mr. Rokita. All right. Thank you very much. Ms. Herschkowitz, I appreciate your personal story, that of you and your family. Can you go into detail on how OSHA has failed to take into account public perspectives like yours, and how this is harmful to a free Republic? Ms. Herschkowitz. Wow, where to begin. The issue with OSHA--we did testify before OIRA. They absolutely totally ignored the 50 pages, I think, of testimony that we submitted. Mr. Rokita. What do you mean ``ignored?'' Ms. Herschkowitz. Well, they did not take into account all the costs, but just to give you an example, here is an OSHA fact sheet. I pulled this off the Internet on April 6. This is after the rule was passed. We spoke very strongly about the costs that this will entail. On this fact sheet, it says, ``The annual cost to a firm with fewer than 20 employees would be less, averaging about $550.'' The average cost for our employees we viewed to be $143,000. This was the exact facts I gave to the OIRA Committee when I went and talked before them. It also says, ``The proposed rule is expected to have no discernable impact on U.S. employment.'' I think this speaks volumes. The other thing is why can we not just go with respirators first because the worker is breathing clean air. OSHA insists right now upon putting and measuring air respirators outside of the air respirator, and we have to put money in for dust collection systems that we feel will not work. They also ignore the fact that you cannot just add one more dust collector, one more dust collector, and one more dust collector. It is not additive. You have to get a dust collector, and I am not even sure if that exists in today's world, that actually can take all that sand out, and it will easily be over $1 million. So, that is how we were disregarded by OSHA. Mr. Rokita. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, without objection, I would ask for inclusion of the document Ms. Herschkowitz was referring to into the record. Chairman Walberg. Hearing no objection, the document will be included. [The information follows:] [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Mr. Rokita. My time has expired. I yield back. Ms. Herschkowitz. Thank you. Chairman Walberg. I thank the gentleman. I recognize the ranking member, Ms. Wilson, for her five minutes of questioning. Ms. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Dr. Melius, your testimony says that the permissible exposure limit for construction that has been in place since 1971 was based on a recommendation from the Public Health Service in the 1920s. Was that recommendation from the 1920s based on preventing silicosis or was it simply based on the feasibility of ventilation controls available in the 1920s? Dr. Melius. Well, it was to some extent to prevent silicosis but the level set was what the Public Health Service staff at the time felt was feasible to be met, that could be met in the industries where they had noted the high silica exposures. So, they recognized that it would not completely prevent all cases of silicosis in those industries. Ms. Wilson. Some people argue that reported cases of silicosis are declining in recent years, and there is not a significant risk. Does this argument exclude other health outcomes other than silicosis that have been well established, lung cancer, renal disease, respiratory diseases, such as COPD? Dr. Melius. Yes, it does exclude those. We do not have the good surveillance mechanisms for following or detecting those diseases and reporting, and certainly not ones that would relate those to silica exposure. The Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers actually have submitted some data to the record for the OSHA hearing showing lung disease--deaths from lung disease among their workforce, their members, actually had stayed steady throughout, up until close to the present time. So, they do not see a decline among their members. That would include both silicosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Ms. Wilson. Is there a significant risk from silica dust exposure today? What is that risk, and what is wrong with the argument made by the U.S. Chamber that OSHA is chasing a nearly insignificant risk? Dr. Melius. Well, I think it is--the risk we know is recurrence of silicosis, lung cancer, kidney disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. These are all serious health problems and can cause people to die related to their past work or current work with silica. So, these are obviously significant to the people who suffer. You have heard the testimony, and the three people sitting behind me can testify, too. They are also significant in the sense that among the populations exposed, one of the problems with the death certificate surveillance that Mr. Chajet showed from the Centers for Disease Control, those are death certificates, and silicosis is not included on many death certificates, even among people that have it. We do fewer autopsies now. I think there is an estimate actually from the State of Michigan, where they have done a statistical analysis and showed over 85 percent of people with silicosis do not have silicosis put on their death certificate. It is just an artifact of how we practice medicine now and how many autopsies and what happens when a person dies in terms of what the doctor writes on the death certificate. Now, we also know that the amount of exposure to silica is decreasing overall in terms of the people exposed because many of the industries that use silica, particularly the foundry industry, has decreased. The number of foundries and number of foundry workers in this country have gone greatly down, and that was a major group at risk of silicosis. So, without foundries themselves, the ones that currently exist, we could still very well have a high rate of silicosis, maybe not in all foundries but many foundries, even if they meet the previous standard. Ms. Wilson. One witness argues that all that is needed is more OSHA enforcement to address the problem. If there was 100 percent enforcement wall to wall for each facility each year, would that eliminate the need for more protective standards? Dr. Melius. No. It certainly would be a change, but it would not, because the current standard is not protective. There will continue to be a number of cases of silicosis that occur. I mean, OSHA has done an estimate of that. I think we know from all the health risk assessments that have been done for this standard, again, peer reviewed by outside scientists, that this is not protective, and even with comprehensive and complete enforcement, we would continue to have not only silicosis cases, but cases of lung cancer, kidney disease, and the other illnesses related to silica exposure. Ms. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Chairman Walberg. I thank the gentlelady. I recognize now the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Bishop, for your five minutes of questioning. Mr. Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for your attention to this matter, bringing this before the Committee, and thank you to the panel for being here today and providing your testimony. Mr. Brady, I was interested in hearing all of this testimony. It is amazing to me what is going on here and how pervasive it is across the government and the economy. We hear the same concern in just about every section of the economy that is regulated by the Federal government. Your testimony highlights some of the safety concerns that engineering controls create, such as water sprays on a tile roof. It seems to me that we might be solving a problem and creating another. Can you explain how the final rule fails to adequately address the safety concerns? Mr. Brady. I think there are a number of different areas during construction that OSHA has not paid attention to, and that is the practical side of--I am in Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Midwestern States, we are building throughout the year. There are freezing temperatures. If they are required to add water to the exterior, whether it is brick cutting, block cutting, tile roof installation, it potentially creates, certainly on a 6-12 pitch roof, a hazard probably more or equal to the possibility of adding water to cutting those tiles, again depending on the pitch of the roof and the installation procedure. So, there are many elements of the rule that actually could create hazards in trying to protect from the silica. Mr. Bishop. Maybe it is just me, but that seems like a pretty obvious problem. Was that ever taken into consideration? Mr. Brady. In our remarks about the rule, and we commented on a number of these issues, we feel that OSHA just did not look at and pay attention to the number of comments that we made, did not incorporate them into the rule on a practical and technologically feasible and economically feasible position. Again, we are willing to work with OSHA on these, and we were willing, and we have put hours and hours and hours in working with OSHA, but they ignored most of what--I will say I will give them a bit. They took adding water to dust or the dirt on a floor before you sweep it, they took that out, and if any of you try to sweep a mud floor, it is not so easily done. So, those are the types of practical things that they ignored in great part. Mr. Bishop. Okay. Thank you very much. So many questions. Ms. Herschkowitz, I noted your discussion about the respirator and some of the protective equipment that is out there. Has the quality of that equipment changed over the years? I know this rule has been kind of lingering since, what, 1990. Has it changed over the past couple of decades? Ms. Herschkowitz. Oh, absolutely. The old respirators used to be very bulky, very uncomfortable, and there has been a lot of research on respirators which has turned into much better products, much more comfortable for the person to use. What we would like under this regulation is to use the respirators first versus going with the expensive dust collectors. Mr. Bishop. I would assume that the current respirators are far better at doing what they are supposed to do than the previous iterations. Ms. Herschkowitz. By far. OSHA does measure the air quality outside of the respirator, which is not indicative of what a worker is breathing. A worker is actually breathing clean air, and we do use respirators in our facilities for certain jobs right now. Mr. Bishop. Okay, great. Mr. Chajet, did I pronounce that right? Mr. Chajet. Chajet. Mr. Bishop. Thank you. We were just talking about personal protective equipment. OSHA seems to dismiss the use of personal protective equipment as an effective way to protect employees from silica exposure. Is that true? Can you share with me your thoughts on that? Mr. Chajet. Congressman, the agency has really lost its focus on protecting people. I am not sure what they are protecting. The state of respirator science--I do not even call them respirators, they are mini-environments. Some of these devices are very comfortable hard hats that put fresh air over a person's face. It is filtered or it is clean. They are comfortable, and they do not provide any pressure. Others are paper, incredibly high-quality, simple, like painter mask-type respirators. Again, I am not so sure what you call ``respirators'' other than mini-environments. When we have such effective technology for protecting people, why should we discount it? Why should we not credit an employer who is protecting their employees with this technology? It is the way of the future, and OSHA is living in the past. Mr. Bishop. Thank you, sir. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Chairman Walberg. I thank the gentleman. I recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, a northern State as well, Mr. Pocan. Mr. Pocan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the witnesses for being here. I think this is my third hearing on silica. I have to admit sometimes I start to lose my patience a little as we go through these hearings when I hear some of the comments. I am not a lawyer. I am not the CEO of a big business. I have a small specialty printing business, a union shop. I have done every job that any employee in my business has done over the years. I only make money when I have customers and when I have employees to do the work because I cannot do everything. I value my employees far more than I value my equipment. We just bought a brand new UV printer that was about $75,000. I can buy a cheaper solvent printer for $25,000, but that puts organic compounds into the air, causes health risks. There are other good things about the printer, but clearly, part of the decision I made was I want to make sure my employees are not exposed to problems. I have heard a lot of bad math and slippery language during this debate. So, if I can maybe just try to address some of this and ask a few questions. Mr. Chajet, I am going to pass on you right now and ask the people who are employers questions. I know you raised a lot of concerns about sand. Honestly, my guess is as a lawyer for the U.S. Chamber, the closest you are going to get to exposure to sand is if you go on vacation to the Caribbean. Let me ask Mr. Brady a question, if I could, specifically. There is another construction company, a medium-sized company in Illinois, Englewood Construction, and the director of operations there, if I could just read his quote real quickly in the time I have. Let me just get to the relevant part maybe. He said, ``Many of the new silica guidelines formulize existing best practices. Elements of the silica rule will require real change and will take time, effort, and yes, money, to implement consistently. It is easy to see the cost of protection for our workers, but how do you put a price on workers' health and long-term well-being?'' He goes on a little longer. I really sympathize with that because I understand. I think you have employees and I am sure you go to their family events, you watch their kids graduate, and everything, and I know that is an important part of it. One of the things you said is you talked about up to 3.2 million construction workers and these physicals they are going to have. The reality is it is only if they have 30 days on a respirator, and that is only a fraction, a very small fraction of the jobs that require it, and it is every three years. I put that in the ``slippery language'' category. It is not quite where it is at. I would ask the question, how do you value what a life is worth? What is a life worth? It is a tough question. Mr. Brady. Yes, it is a pretty tough question. It is not a question of whether or not our industry wants to protect lives. It is a question of whether or not technologically or economically this rule is feasible. I would not get into an argument whether or not any protection is worth a life. It is whether you can provide it. Somebody mentioned earlier, 93 percent, silica related illnesses have been reduced by 93 percent in the last-- Mr. Pocan. I am going to steal my time back. Again, there are fewer people in the industry, so that same graph that the person who is afraid of the beach sand has--also shows the employee numbers in those fields have gone down. Again, it is a little bit of slippery language. Mr. Brady. There is-- Mr. Pocan. Let me reclaim back my time, Mr. Brady. I only have a minute and a half left and I want to ask another question of Ms. Herschkowitz. Of the pictures that you have here, you do a lot of work for submarines, I see. I have a company in my district that does a lot of work for submarines. How much is too much that we would have to spend if we knew we could fix something on a submarine to make it healthier for the people, the service members, what amount would be a fair amount, that you would say is a fair amount to put in to protect the people who are on that submarine? Is there a dollar figure you would say, $50,000, $100,000, $500,000? Ms. Herschkowitz. I think workplaces should be very, very safe. We do a lot to make it safe. Mr. Pocan. Per foundry, what it is going to cost, and OSHA said $32,000. You are saying $1 million. I am asking specifically what would be the dollar figure you would assign that you would be willing to spend to make a submarine safe for the people who work on a submarine? A dollar question. Ms. Herschkowitz. First of all, all the components we put on the submarine are very, very-- Mr. Pocan. Do you have an amount you would recommend? How about how many sugar packs worth of silica in that football field that is 13 high would you say is acceptable? How many sugar packets are a problem? You want to talk about the safety, but you do not actually want to answer the question. I have asked you very direct questions. Let's go back to the submarine question. I want you to answer. How much would you spend to make a submarine safe? It is a dollar question. Ms. Herschkowitz. It is a question in terms of putting-- Mr. Pocan. You do not want to answer the questions. Chairman Walberg. The gentleman's time has expired. Ms. Herschkowitz. I am trying to answer the question. Mr. Pocan. No, you are not. Chairman Walberg. I will now recognize the Ranking Member of the full Committee, Mr. Scott, for his questioning. Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Melius, can you give us a little history about how long we have known about the dangers of silica? Dr. Melius. Well, the history of our knowledge of silicosis resulting from quarry and other kinds of work like that go back to Roman times. Socrates recognized it. It goes back up into the Italian Renaissance, 1600s. A doctor named Ramazzini described it also throughout, up through the centuries; and then in the United States, we recognized it back in the early part of the 1900s, last century, because we had epidemics of silicosis among quarry workers, particularly up in Vermont. We had tunneling workers, West Virginia, other areas, New York, and among foundry workers. So, it was recognized in the early part of the century in the United States as a public health problem, in fact. Again, we talked earlier about that is where the standard came from, originally came from, that is being used. The knowledge goes way back, and certainly we are well aware of it in the United States for many years. Mr. Scott. Did I understand you to say that the chance of coming down with silicosis if you are exposed at the present level is about 100 percent? Dr. Melius. Yes, sir. If you go look at the construction standard and you look at how that might project out in the number of recurrence of silicosis, people exposed to that standard, 100 percent of them could develop silicosis because of that exposure. Mr. Scott. Can you describe the health problems that result? Dr. Melius. Yes. The obvious health problem we mostly talk about is a stiffening fibrosis of the lungs. The lungs just became so stiff that a person can no longer breathe, so a very horrible disease to experience. We also have other illnesses, lung cancer, which has been relatively recently, in the last 30 or 40 years, recognized as a risk from silica exposure, as well as kidney disease and other pulmonary disease from that exposure. So, it is not just silicosis but these other diseases that are a very significant risk for anybody working with silica. Mr. Scott. What kind of health cost savings can be generated if you reduce exposure? Dr. Melius. They would be very significant given that--I cannot give you an exact number, but the cost to treat a case of lung cancer is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, if they survive for any period of time. Silicosis, a person with severe silicosis, medical costs can be extremely high with repeated hospitalizations and the kind of medication and other care they may need, same with the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and kidney disease. These are very high and they are very devastating for families to experience. Mr. Scott. I have been advised that OSHA estimates an annual net benefit over the next 60 years of $3.8- to $7.7 billion, after an annual cost of the rule of about $1 billion, a net benefit of 3.8 to 7.7. What kind of underlying numbers would they be looking at? Dr. Melius. What they would be looking at would be the medical costs, the cost of loss of employment for the people that are affected by those diseases who no longer work, so they are going to be getting Workers' Compensation, Social Security Disability, other forms of income assistance, hopefully. So, the main costs would be a loss of productivity, people would lose their trained workforce, skilled workforce. Mr. Scott. Some businesses have to pay this in terms of higher health care costs, health care premiums, and Workers' Compensation, is that right? Dr. Melius. Absolutely. Mr. Scott. Now, someone talked about the costs. Could you tell me if you are aware if the National Asphalt Paving Association has taken a position on the rule? Dr. Melius. Yes, I am. That is the group I work with closely on both looking at controlling exposures to asphalt as well as controlling silica exposures, the two pictures we have up there. They are supportive of the rule. They submitted comments. OSHA was responsive to those comments regarding the requirement for respirators. When the rule came out, they came out in support of that rule. Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Walberg. I thank the gentleman. Now, I recognize the gentlelady from the beautiful State of North Carolina, Ms. Adams. Ms. Adams. Thank you, Chairman Walberg and Ranking Member Wilson, and I would also like to thank our witnesses for testifying today. Before I get started, I want to just make a very simple point about the Department of Labor. One of their primary reasons for existence is to improve working conditions for working people. It is clear that the purpose of this rule is to improve the working conditions of some of our most vulnerable employees. As we know, exposure to silica is a serious health hazard, and while many have pointed to reductions in silicosis as a reason to oppose this rule, I believe these generalizations are very misguided, especially for low-wage workers who are often workers of color. Silica dust-related illnesses have a greater impact on low- income and ethnic minority groups than on the job populations, and it is especially true for the Latino community. Dr. Melius, with that in mind, can you speak to the positive impact this rule will have on low-wage earners and communities of color who are disproportionately affected by silica-related illnesses? Dr. Melius. Yes, actually there is data that show-- actually, from the State of Michigan--that African-American workers are at a much higher risk of developing silicosis. So, what you are saying is what we can actually see in some of the data that we do collect about the risk of silicosis. This rule should benefit everybody that is exposed to silica. We also know African-American, Hispanic, and Latino workers tend to work in so-called ``dirty jobs,'' where there is more exposure. If this rule is put in place and completely enforced, properly enforced, we should see great benefits to them because they may often work in so-called ``the dirtiest jobs,'' the jobs with the higher exposures. Hopefully, if this rule goes in place, they will be protected as well as everybody else that is exposed to silica. Ms. Adams. Thank you, sir. It is your opinion that this is a step in the right direction in addressing racial health disparities? Dr. Melius. Absolutely. Ms. Adams. In addition to saving many lives and reducing illnesses among workers who are exposed to silica dust, this rule will also create billions in benefits. Dr. Melius, can you explain on what some of those benefits will be and how they will play into the industry's ability to capture savings associated with safer and healthier employees? Dr. Melius. Yes, certainly. There will be reduced medical costs for caring for employees, reduced either through health insurance or Workers' Compensation for those employees. There will be a better ability to retain highly trained and skilled workers in the workplace but not having to replace people because they are becoming ill, your most experienced and trusted workers, they will be able to work for a longer period of time, which will help maintain and improve productivity for the industries involved, whether it is general industry or in the construction industry. Ms. Adams. Thank you very much, sir, I appreciate. Mr. Chairman, I am going to yield my time back. Chairman Walberg. I thank the gentlelady. I recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. DeSaulnier. Mr. Desaulnier. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, a question for Ms. Herschkowitz. I was just handed this document that I am told is part of a trade association that you are a part of, ``Control Silica Exposure in Foundries,'' are you familiar with this? Ms. Herschkowitz. I have seen it, but I have not read it. I just saw it this morning. Mr. Desaulnier. Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter it into the record. [The information follows:] Extensive material was submitted by Mr. Desaulnier. The submission for the record is in the committee archive for this hearing.] Mr. Desaulnier. It seems at a very quick look that the organization has done a lot of work in this regard. Again, just preliminarily looking at it, it seems there are some contradictions. Just having sat here and listened to the contradiction between Dr. Melius and the rest of you about we are all on the same page we want to use cost-effective implementation and feasibility. Dr. Melius, in terms of the feasibility, and you are a public health expert, I appreciate Mr. Brady's comments about everybody wanting to invest effectively on reducing the public health issue and the graph that has been presented by the Chamber. Do you have comments on how feasible, you think, recognizing you are a public health person? Dr. Melius. I believe that the control recommendations that are directly contained in the standard or that will be developed in response to the standard are very feasible to control and achieve the levels that are involved. OSHA and everyone involved spent a lot of time looking at it. I mentioned the silica milling machines. That work started almost 10 years ago in terms of getting ready for the possibility of a new standard. The foundry document that you mentioned goes back, I believe, to 2010, 2008, I cannot remember directly, but again, people recognizing that there may be a standard coming and getting prepared for it, the kind of ventilation that is on this kind of saw (in front of the witness at the table) is also something that people have been working with to demonstrate that there are practical ways of meeting the standard, and they are cost-effective. Mr. Desaulnier. Mr. Brady, I appreciate meeting with you, and you know about my concern, coming from Northern California, about the need for affordable housing. In California, since 2008, the standards went to the higher standards in terms of prevention. Do you have any comments about that or any of your California colleagues? Knowing many people in the home building industry, as when I met with you in my office in Richmond, California, they are able to work in a fairly--I am choosing my words here--aggressive regulatory atmosphere and still make a handsome profit and provide the product that we need. Mr. Brady. Well, I think even in our conversation, again, this is not about providing--the issue is not only health. It is about providing a product for a price. In your district alone, starter homes are $450,000. You know that better than I do. Mr. Desaulnier. I do not think I could find a $450,000 home right now. Mr. Brady. You have to have balance in regulatory reform. You have to have balance whether or not you can provide it economically but even technologically, whether or not--as somebody said, silica is in soil. As we are grading alot, silica is kicked up in soil. How do you economically and feasibly or technologically provide that at an affordable cost and be able to provide a product that consumers can buy? Mr. Desaulnier. I appreciate that having heard that argument in the air quality field for 20 years when it came to sulfur, lead, MTBE, but we were able to pass regulatory investments that the affected community came up to the standards, and we provided off ramps if they were not making it. So, my question was we have had the more aggressive prevention at Cal/OSHA in place since 2008, and the industry has coped with it. Granted, they will have to come up to these higher standards in terms of the micrograms, but have you had any input from your members as to what a disadvantage that is? Honestly, I have not heard it, and it has been in place for 8 years. Mr. Brady. Again, no, dollar for dollar, no. I understand from our members this is a very cumbersome compliance issue. Our industry seems to be targeted specifically to this rule because they will have a huge impact on the cost to provide product. Now, again, over the last 40 years, our industry--drywall mud is a good example where our industry took silica out of drywall mud. It is no longer a hazard. Our industry continued to do that. Yes, maybe there are fewer workers, but they are also building better product, and that is the type of environment, cooperative environment, that we would like to work with OSHA to make practically, economically, and technologically feasible. Mr. Desaulnier. Appreciate that. I would love to have further discussion with you and OSHA in doing that. I just want to note that there are Canadian provinces that are actually at 25 micrograms, so we might look at that and see how cost- effective that has been as well. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Walberg. I thank the gentleman. I now recognize myself for my five minutes of questioning. Ms. Herschkowitz, it is not up to you really how much it will cost for a safe submarine component, is it? Who is it up to decide how much it will cost? Would you not say it is the Federal Government and the contracting process and Electric Boat, and ultimately, you have to find a way to produce that product if they say so, and if you cannot, someone else will have to produce it, correct? Ms. Herschkowitz. Absolutely. Chairman Walberg. I think that is a crucial point we need to make here. Ms. Herschkowitz. I also want to make the point that in our foundry, it is safety first. Anybody can stop a heat if they feel it is unsafe. We have safety leaders at every levels of the organization. We have spent an awful lot of money on safety and are very, very proud of our safety record, and I value our employees very much. Chairman Walberg. And I would expect that. Those people who work for you provide the opportunity to get a contract with Electric Boat. Ms. Herschkowitz. It is not easy. Chairman Walberg. It is not easy to get. Ms. Herschkowitz. It is not easy. Chairman Walberg. They ultimately decide what a cost will be for safe. They expect that component to work. Ms. Herschkowitz. Certainly, and I never ever want to sacrifice cost for safety. Chairman Walberg. OSHA suggests that the company, talking about the brick industry as was pointed out, can pay the necessary engineering alterations out of the first year's profits. Could your company pay for the necessary compliance activity out of the first year's profits as OSHA has suggested in its preamble? Ms. Herschkowitz. No, we have four separate companies. We opened a foundry last just because we could no longer buy castings in this country, and we are probably the most vertically integrated sand foundry in the country. We view our foundry as a cost center, not a profit center. According to the AFS, the cost of putting these regulations in place is 273 percent of the profits of a company, but it is even higher for a foundry, it is even much, much higher for us. Chairman Walberg. In that case, the castings that cannot be purchased now for your components, your products, your production, if this goes through, the castings cannot be produced in this country, again, since you will be there, correct? Ms. Herschkowitz. Right, conceivably. Chairman Walberg. Conceivably. It goes back to that creative tension between jobs, the necessity of jobs, having the successful ability to create, sustain, and carry on versus putting in safety, and we want to go as close as possible meeting that need in both ways, but there definitely are cost issues that will influence whether you can do them. Ms. Herschkowitz. That is correct. The foundry industry standard PEL of 100, 70 percent of the foundries are able to meet, 30 percent are not. I personally, and I am not speaking for the AFS right now, I have personally as a 25-year foundry woman have never heard of a case of silicosis, much less within our own companies. Chairman Walberg. Mr. Brady, construction is fundamentally different than other professions. Your testimony discusses how Table 1 of the regulation does not adjust appropriately for the modern construction workforce. Can you expand on the concerns of the industry as a whole with Table 1? Mr. Brady. Well, Table 1, I think, has 18 points to it. Our industry is so complex. I will have 100 people on a construction site during the three months that I am building, on a home building. Remodeling is entirely different. A remodeling project is a good example of where Table 1 does not really answer some of these questions, so they default to the very stringent--there are no remediation issues potentially on the remodeling side, so they default to the very restrictive compliance issues, because they cannot comply with throwing water into a home when they demolish a wall, they cannot throw water into that wall, so they have to use other means. This rule really sets up our members, from builder, remodeler, to the associates, to the thousands of members throughout the country, for failure, because technologically, we will not be able to comply with this rule. Chairman Walberg. How does the specialty contractors that often work concurrently with you add to this mix, specifically the multiemployer citation policy that OSHA has? How does that add to additional problems in compliance? Mr. Brady. Well, again, we are a fairly transient business. I am a general contractor so I use small business subcontractors. Their employees move seasonally, they move from employer to employer, they move around. It is going to be very cumbersome, number one, if I have to test--say I am a brick mason and I have to test my employee today, I have to do a baseline medical exam, three months later, they are working in Indiana with another contractor. I think the rule suggests they have to be baselined, so to say they are only going to be tested every three years is a miscalculation because our business is transient and people move, so just kind of with the logistics of these specialty contractors and their employees, it is going to be very difficult to comply with. Chairman Walberg. I thank you. My time has expired. Now, I will recognize the Ranking Member, Ms. Wilson, for her closing comments. Ms. Wilson. Thank you, Chairman Walberg, for calling today's hearing, and giving us the opportunity to discuss this very important rule. I want to thank the witnesses for your testimony, and thank you for coming. At every committee hearing, every markup, every press conference, I endeavor to remind my colleagues of our purpose as a subcommittee member. This is the Workforce Protections Subcommittee, and that means our job is to protect our workers. I stand with my colleagues in strong support of DOL's updated silica dust standard. We know that the science is clear. Workers exposed to silica dust at levels allowable under the previous OSHA silica standard are at risk from developing deadly and debilitating diseases, such as silicosis, lung cancer, and renal disease. The Department of Labor took a long-awaited strong step towards helping the 2.3 million workers exposed to silica dust by finalizing its updated rule on March 23, 2016. We know that controlling silica dust is feasible, controlling silica dust is a well understood and time-tested proposition. Wet the dust down or vacuum it up. Water or air. States like California and New Jersey already have in place standards and regulations requiring companies to use water systems or vacuums to control dust. Nationwide, many companies put their workers' health first by controlling silica dust with existing technology. New equipment now comes equipped with dust controls of water spray hookups. We know that this rule will protect worker health. Above all, we must judge this rule by its ability to protect our workers. As we have heard, once fully implemented, this updated rule will save more than 600 lives and prevent more than 900 cases of silicosis each year. OSHA's new standard includes engineering controls, training, prohibitions on dry sweeping, and medical surveillance that will do much to protect workers, especially in the building trades. There is strong support for DOL's updated silica rule to protect workers. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record letters of support from the following organizations: United Steelworkers, the BlueGreen Alliance, Public Citizen's Congress Watch, American Association for Justice, American Public Health Association, Englewood Construction, Motley Rice LLC, America's Agenda, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers. [The information follows:] [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Ms. Wilson. I want to thank the witnesses again for being here today, and I want to thank those in the audience who have traveled to join us and your support for DOL's updated silica rule. I want to read a letter, part of a letter from Chuck Taylor of Englewood Construction, a mid-sized construction contractor based in Lemont, Illinois, with projects underway in eight States. He writes this: ``We realize it will take time and effort to implement the updated silica dust exposure guidelines and, in some cases, there will be an added cost, but we also believe we owe it to the workers who are so vital to the construction industry to do what we can to protect their health and their safety.'' This is a very powerful statement from a company with skin in the game. How can you put a price on a human life or on their suffering, and on the suffering of their families? You just morally cannot put a price on that. I want to close with the words of Tim Brown, a worker with silicosis, who has joined us here today. You met him earlier. Raise your hand, Tim. Tim writes, ``We must prevent this from happening to any other bricklayers. To my fellow union members and to my unorganized colleagues, no worker should suffer what I have. The previous standard did not protect me, but if we enforce the new comprehensive rule, what happened to me will not happen to other bricklayers. We cannot let others suffer and become ill just for doing an honest day's work.'' Thank you, Tim, for your words. Thank you, Tom and Dale, for bravely representing the millions of workers and families affected by silica. I hope our subcommittee can honor the lives of those who have become ill or have died from silica related illnesses and support this updated rule. I yield the remainder of my time, and thank you, Mr. Chair. Chairman Walberg. I thank the gentlelady. We would certainly identify with a number of your sentiments very clearly. There is no price for a life. It is important. Our responsibility is to make sure those lives are able to work in a beneficial way on the jobsite, and carry on and pass that on as well to family members for an opportunity that this country affords, unlike any other country in the world. I like that chart that was displayed earlier, put up on the board, and just for context again, at the very least, we can agree that is the direction we want to go, reducing silicosis. There might be variables in the numbers there, a little bit up, a little bit down, but that is the direction we want to go, and with the present standard, even with weaknesses in the actual enforcement of that standard, that is where we are at. Through all of the hearings that we have had, and it is correct, we have had multiple hearings on this silicosis rule, trying to press upon OSHA, the Department of Labor, that this is a serious consideration and that it impacts all of us in the room, all outside this room, on industry continuing to provide the products and the services that are necessary in this great country. It has been stated by a colleague of mine on the other side of the aisle that China is not doing these things. We do not want to go backwards to what China is doing. We do not want to give our products away to China either, or any other country. We want to continue to compete. This is not only the construction industry. This crosses the board, as we have heard about multiple industries with the impact of silica. There have been literally thousands of comments submitted to OSHA in the rulemaking process. Sadly, it is clear that some of those comments were rejected, not simply rejected because they did not make sense, but just out of hand, apparently for philosophical differences. That does not bode well for a standard that works. My father worked at U.S. Steel. I do not know whether he eventually got lung cancer as a result of that job, but he did. Ultimately, thankfully, due to experimental therapy, he not only lived but he went on to work until he was 73 years old as a machinist/tool and dye maker, because he loved it, and he would have worked longer if he did not wear out. I worked at that same plant, U.S. Steel South Works, on the south side of Chicago, out of high school. My second job after being a laborer there at the plant was as a furnace and ladle repairman's helper. It was an interesting job. I mixed a lot of mortar, I cut a lot of tile and bricks for those ladles that took the molten steel from the furnace, as well as got inside those furnaces when they were shut down to help repair those as well. I do not know, well, I guess I could say, I am sure that the policies that are in place right now probably were not in place back in 1969, at least fully. I am still breathing okay, and I hope that continues. I do not know about the ladle repairman, whether he is or not. We wanted to see things work well. That same plant, those same set of furnaces, ten minutes after I left work one night, left the locker room heading back to my car, half a mile from the Number 2 electric furnace where I worked, exploded. The entire locker room was gone. Everything around it was gone because a burn through from the heat went down into the sewer and blew up. I agree with you, Ms. Herschkowitz, we do not want to mess around with water around molten steel. These are considerations that OSHA ought to take into consideration. We are talking here about flexibility. We are talking about using controls, we are talking about using technology, we are talking about using tools, we ought to be at least to protect the worker, make a clean breathing space for them to carry on the necessary work they do, and not have a simple one-size-fits-all because we think it ought to be that way. That is why we had this hearing again today. It is after a fact. I am still hopeful that somehow, some way, we can make sure we preserve jobs, we preserve trades, we preserve futures for people in this country that they can pass on doing good work that needs to be done here and not someplace else. We can make sure there are foundry jobs available. Every one of you are safer as a result of that, maybe. We will not have those foundry jobs, we will not have those products built. That is what we wrestle with. It is not an issue of whether we discount life, it is an issue of whether we sustain life, and move industry forward to make America what it is. That is what this is about. I want to express my deep appreciation to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I want to express my appreciation to the witnesses, all four at the table, and everyone in this room today, for taking this seriously. I hope as a result, we will see OSHA maybe even step back and say we might want to listen to some of the information more carefully. We might have a better way that ultimately protects the individuals involved with this as well as the workplace. Having got on and off my hobby horse right now, and seeing there is no further business for the subcommittee today, the Committee stands adjourned. [Additional submission by Mr. Chajet follows:] [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] [Whereupon, at 11:40 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] [all]