Committee postpones vote on Obama’s OSHA nominee

By Lisa Mascaro

Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009 | 3 p.m.

WASHINGTON -- A Senate panel today postponed voting on President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, needing more time to review paperwork.

David Michaels, a research professor at George Washington University’s School of Public Health, has been praised by workplace safety advocates as someone who could bring needed change to federal OSHA. But critics, particularly those on the political right, complain he holds extreme views and is unfriendly to business.

The Chamber of Commerce had urged the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to conduct a full hearing on Michaels’ nomination.

The committee declined but has asked the nominee to answer various questions in writing. That exchange of information continued this week, postponing today’s hearing.

However, few believe Michaels’ nomination is in jeopardy, and the committee is expected to reschedule a vote.

Michaels, an epidemologist who previously served as an assistant secretary in the Energy Department, was an architect of the program to compensate nuclear weapons workers at the Nevada Test Site and elsewhere who developed occupational illnesses as a result of exposure to radiation and other hazards.

If confirmed, Michaels would take over for Jordan Barab, a fierce advocate of workplace safety, who has been the interim OSHA director and was behind this week’s landmark review of the Nevada OSHA program.

That review was highly critical of Nevada’s ability to oversee workplace safety in the face of 25 workplace deaths, including some during the building boom on the Las Vegas Strip. The findings prompted OSHA to announce this week that it will be conducting similar reviews of other state programs, as part of new Labor Secretary Hilda Solis’ pledge to rejuvenate OSHA with a renewed interest on workplace safety.

The Senate panel today did approve several other nominees including three nominees to the National Labor Relations Board -- Harold Craig Becker, Mark Gaston Pearce and David E. Hayes -- who now go to the full Senate.