New House bill targets safety against dust explosions

WASHINGTON – Businesses would be required to adhere to new federal safety standards designed to protect workers from combustible dust explosions under legislation moving through the House on Wednesday.

House Democrats say the legislation is needed because the Occupational Safety and Health Administration hasn’t moved fast enough to develop safety standards that would prevent explosions like the one that killed 13 people in a Georgia sugar plant blast in February.

“The bottom line is that the workers need protections and the agency established by Congress 37 years ago to protect workers has once again failed in that duty,” said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chair of the House Education and Labor Committee.

A Feb. 7 explosion at an Imperial Sugar Co. refinery outside Savannah killed 13 people and has been blamed on dust that ignited.

But Republicans suggested the House is rushing through legislation without knowing all the facts, since OSHA has not yet finished its investigation at Imperial Sugar.

“The bill in front of us presumes that current safety standards were insufficient, but the truth is that we don’t yet know whether that is the case,” said Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon of California, top Republican on the Education and Labor Committee.

The White House threatened Tuesday to veto the bill if it makes it out of Congress, saying it would apply one standard to too many different kinds of businesses.

The legislation would require OSHA to come up with temporary safety standards within 90 days and final safety standards 18 months after the legislation is signed into law.

OSHA already has that power. It put combustible dust standards in place for the grain industry after a series of explosions in the 1980s. But OSHA has declined to act on a 2006 recommendation from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board to enact similar standards for other industries.

In a 2006 study, the board identified 281 industrial dust fires and explosions between 1980 and 2005 that caused 119 deaths and more than 718 injuries.