OSHA Administrator Edwin Foulke Jr. will be in the
hot seat March 12 when he battles tough questions
before the House Education and Labor Committee.
Several committee legislators are bidding to pass a
bill that would force the agency to issue a
combustible dust standard.
Foulke is the leading witness at the hearing, which
will discuss H.R. 5522, The Combustible Dust Explosion
and Fire Prevention Act of 2008. The measure was
proposed by Committee chairman Rep. George Miller, D-Calif.,
and Rep. John Barrow, D-Ga., after a massive explosion
rocked the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port Wentworth,
Ga., killing 12 workers and critically injuring 11
others.
The Miller-Barrow legislation would force OSHA to
issue rules regulating combustible industrial dusts,
like sugar dust, that can build up to hazardous levels
and explode.
Other witnesses include Amy Spencer, senior chemical
engineer for the National Fire Protection Association,
and Bill Wright, interim chair for the Chemical Safety
and Hazard Investigation Board. Also testifying will be
Tammy Miser, who lost her brother, Shawn Boone, 33, in
an explosion at the Hayes Lemmerz plant in Huntington,
Ind., in 2003.
Legislators likely will grill Foulke on why the
agency failed to follow recommendations proposed by CSB
in its October 2006 report to issue standards that would
effectively control the risk of industrial dust
explosions.
