At a House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing prior to the Congressional recess, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) questioned Jordan Barab, the Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of OSHA, about protections for miners and firefighters.
00:00Next, I will go to our ranking member for her five-minute question.
00:06Mr. Barab, in your testimony, you stressed the critical partnership of NIOSH with OSHA and MSHA.
00:15What happens to the work of OSHA and MSHA to protect workers, including firefighters and minors,
00:21if the Trump administration continues down the path to fire large numbers of NIOSH employees?
00:30Yeah, so NIOSH plays an extremely critical role in protecting both minors, as you mentioned, and firefighters.
00:36Let me start with firefighters.
00:37Firefighters are known to suffer a very high incidence and disproportionately from cancers as well as respiratory disease.
00:44And NIOSH basically assembles a register of firefighters that protects them and identifies the risks that firefighters face.
00:54They're the only agency that does this.
00:56And although some positions at NIOSH have been restored, the firefighter registry has not been restored yet,
01:02which leaves firefighters across the country.
01:04These are the guys that rush in to homes to protect us, you know, without the kind of knowledge and protections they need
01:09to prevent them from getting cancer and heart disease.
01:13The mine issue is much more critical.
01:16Minors are suffering a much higher rate of black lung disease because of their exposure to silica in the mines these days,
01:22a disease called progressive massive fibrosis, which hits minors at a much younger age.
01:29You know, minors in their 30s and 40s are unable to climb the stairs.
01:33They end up dying many decades earlier than they would have.
01:36It's a tragedy and a preventable tragedy.
01:39And NIOSH provides the kind of, they provide surveillance, health care to minors.
01:44They require minors to be transferred to less dusty positions.
01:48They are critical for the safety of minors.
01:50Now, some of those positions have been restored as well, but none of the mine functions that deal with safety in mines,
01:55with the machinery in mines, other things like developing technology that will measure silica exposure on a daily basis
02:03instead of having to send the samples out and waiting weeks until you find out if you were overexposed two weeks ago.
02:08All of those functions are gone.
02:10Yeah.
02:10And I know that yesterday, Secretary Kennedy announced a reinstatement of around one-third of the NIOSH staff who were targeted for reduction in force.
02:23What are some of the NIOSH workers that will be left unstaffed if the NIOSH employees are now reinstated immediately?
02:31Yeah, well, I mentioned the firefighter staff and some of the, a lot of the mine safety staff,
02:35but also NIOSH does health hazard evaluations, for example.
02:38They go in and they investigate when you find a lot of workers getting sick in a workplace for no discernible reason.
02:44NIOSH will go in there and try to figure out what's happening.
02:47NIOSH plays a role in preventing the transmission of avian influenza in workplaces.
02:54Fisherman and agricultural workers have some of the highest death rates and injury rates in the American economy.
03:02NIOSH works on technical issues and researching ways to make jobs safer for those workers.
03:10There's just an enormous number of things that NIOSH does that nobody really knows about
03:14except for the workers whose lives are extended and injuries are prevented from the work of NIOSH.
03:22I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a letter from the National Safety Council
03:27on the importance for business leaders of the work of OSHA and NIOSH.
03:32Without objection.
03:33As I mentioned in my opening statement that there is a NIOSH-funded education and research center in my district
03:40that will be impacted by these cuts.
03:44This center and others like it are in universities around the country.
03:48It's crucial.
03:49I mean, these are the people that run our health and safety system and not just at OSHA or not just at NIOSH.
03:53Throughout industry as well.
03:54These are people that receive their education largely through NIOSH education and research centers,
03:58resource centers.
03:59You can look at doctors, occupational physicians.
04:03NIOSH runs these ERC's, run the residents programs for the ERC's to get to turn to the
04:08community.
04:09to train, to train occupational physicians.
04:10I went to a conference, actually an ERC conference a couple of weeks ago in New York.
04:12I think it's crucial.
04:13It's crucial.
04:14I mean, these are the people that run our health and safety system.
04:15And not just at OSHA or not just at NIOSH.
04:16And not just at NIOSH.
04:17Throughout industry as well.
04:18These are people that receive their education largely through NIOSH education and research
04:22centers, resource centers.
04:24You can look at doctors, occupational physicians.
04:27NIOSH runs these ERC's, run the residents programs for the ERC's to get to train, to train
04:34occupational physicians.
04:35I went to a conference, actually an ERC conference a couple of weeks ago in New York.
04:39And I asked, this was probably a couple of hundred people there.
04:43I asked how many of their, and these were people from, I mean, they were from businesses,
04:46from unions, from universities, from health groups.
04:49I asked how many of them, either in whole or in part, whose careers depended on the work
04:55that the ERC's did.
04:56Every single person in the room raised their hand.
04:58If we lose this pipeline, if we lose these people, we will have a major shortage of health
05:03and safety professionals in this country.
05:06And that can do nothing but not only endanger workers, but also raise the price for companies
05:11who are trying to hire health and safety professionals who have to deal with these shortages.
05:16Thank you and then.
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