At a House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing prior to the Congressional recess, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) questioned Jordan Barab, the Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of OSHA, about heat standards.
00:00Thank you. And next we have Ms. Stephens from Michigan.
00:04Mr. Tresselt, last night at about 1030, I sent my dad a text message.
00:11It was a screenshot of a, guess what, it would look like a poster, but its title was Advice from a Tree.
00:22Stand tall and proud. Go out on a limb. Remember your roots. Drink plenty of water.
00:30Be content with your natural beauty. Enjoy the view. Would you agree with the message that I sent my dad?
00:41Thank you, Kang Shum. Absolutely, I would agree with that. I think that's a lovely poem.
00:46I also just messaged my father to see what he was doing because I thought he'd really like to meet you.
00:54My dad is a landscaper. He loved trees. He loves arborists. He loves people who are in the business you are in.
01:04He was born in 1945 in Detroit on Comstock Street, and he's been in this tree space for a long time.
01:14He ran a landscape business. He ran a landscape business. And every day, I call my dad and ask him,
01:24Dad, are you drinking enough water? Because he is out there on these job sites still.
01:34You know, he's got his Ford F-150 with Stephen's landscape on the side of it. He's signing up jobs.
01:42Again, Dad turned 80 in January. But I think you might understand why somebody like a proud Michigan man like my father loves what he does
01:51and loves to design and loves to work with people like yourself.
01:56And so I just wanted to take a moment of personal privilege to share an exchange on that.
02:01And I'll have to follow up with you potentially after the hearing.
02:05But would you say you're a small business, sir?
02:08Yes, that's correct.
02:09Yeah. So, you know, you're signing up jobs. You're working, you know, and you're taking care of your crew and your team, I have to imagine.
02:18And look, I appreciate with what Mr. Krizar shared about this terrible death in the factory.
02:26And that shouldn't happen. And it is outrageous. And you're nowhere near the size of Tesla. Is that right?
02:32No, ma'am.
02:33Yeah. So, you know, I'm sure you also care that, you know, we've got these, you know, maybe some of this mismanagement and we shouldn't have any loss of life.
02:42And to Mr. Person, you know, what your enterprise is up to is really fantastic.
02:49You know, we like that you're paving roads in Austin. We want you to pave roads in Michigan, too.
02:53And we know you do. We know you do.
02:56And it's really quite remarkable because, you know, we have the snow and the ice and we're always having to repave our roads.
03:05We've got a lot of potholes, okay?
03:07And we want people at work. And we're really proud of, frankly, the bipartisan work that you've been a part of.
03:16And I really see you as a part of it because you helped us pass an infrastructure bill.
03:20And we needed to do that. And we need the people working in infrastructure.
03:25Now, Mr. Barab, okay, you were in charge of OSHA?
03:30I was Deputy Assistant Secretary.
03:31Okay. And you're right. You know, it's 185 years to go.
03:36We don't want you, like, coming down on these small businesses.
03:40We want you partnering with people properly.
03:43We want people drinking water. We don't want people in the heat.
03:47How many people from OSHA that you remember, you know, came out of the, you know, maybe the businesses that Mr. Parson and Mr. Trussell were a part of?
03:59Did you employ a lot of people like that at OSHA?
04:01Well, we did have a lot of people that had, you know, started off in business.
04:04They were often safety managers in businesses and then decided they wanted that as a career, yes.
04:09Yeah. And so how do we get to the place where people aren't being supported in these heat environments?
04:17Because not everyone has a daughter like me that cares if their dad's drinking water.
04:21Right. Well, that's why you need a standard, because it actually tells employers what they have to do.
04:26And the funny thing is, we were, you know, talking about performance standards or, you know, as opposed to specification standards.
04:32Small businesses usually like specification standards better, where a standard actually tells you what you have to do,
04:38because otherwise they have to figure it out for themselves, and that's hard to do.
04:41Small businesses also have something called the On-Site Consultation Program.
04:46They can get free help to comply with OSHA standards and to make sure their workplaces are safe.
04:50So OSHA's very conscious about the needs and the problems of small businesses.
04:55Yeah. I mean, it's an absolutely fascinating topic, because we are experiencing greater heat in this country and around the world.
05:03And, you know, as the next couple of decades are projected, and, you know, it sounds cute, but we do need to take it seriously.
05:10And, you know, Mr. Chair, I'm so proud to be on this committee.
05:15I'm also on the Science Committee, and I do a lot with the standards there.
05:19And standards are important.
05:21Coming out of COVID, standards, health safety, very important.
05:25The voices on this hearing today, phenomenal.
05:29And we salute you, and from one tree gal to another, you know, man who's in the tree business, we salute you, sir.
05:36And we thank our friends in the infrastructure with CRH as well.
