THE FUSS OVER MICHAELS

President Obama’s nomination in July of George Washington University professor David Michaels to head OSHA is being met with just about everything in the satchels of opponents. Michaels’ critics are throwing it all his way -- slingshots, bows, arrows, missives, and, yes, the kitchen sink.

In fact, Michaels’ nomination, pending in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, is shaping up as a cause celebre for pro-business, conservative interests, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Manhattan Institute. Not too often in Washington does a prospective sub-Cabinet leader meet with such virulent opposition. Given all the rhetoric, Michaels’ foes are aiming to show they are serious about blocking him.

Will it be enough to stop the confirmation of the epidemiologist and research professor at the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at George Washington’s School of Public Health and Health Services? Short of an unforeseen scandal, probably not.

Political Tit-for-Tat
Washington is a place of political tit-for-tat. Opponents seem to be forgetting that their guys – John Henshaw at the start of the administration of President George W. Bush and Edwin Foulke Jr. at Bush’s second term – were confirmed to lead OSHA easily and without much of the expected usual opposition from Democrats, labor unions and others.

The progressives abdicated eight years of workplace safety and health policy formulation under Henshaw, a business executive, and Foulke, an industry labor attorney, and believe now it is their turn. Additionally, the intent of Obama to nominate Michaels, who served as assistant secretary of energy for Environment, Safety and Health during the waning years of the Clinton administration from 1998 to 2001, was never a secret.

Many names were being floated during the spring following Obama’s ascension to the presidency. But the choice always seemed to circle back to Michaels, whose academic ideas were shaped during graduate and doctoral work at Columbia University in New York.

So with political tit-for-tat, how can you deny the president’s choice for OSHA when HELP Committee Democrats – including the late Edward Kennedy, Patty Murray, Barbara Mikulski, Chris Dodd and Tom Harkin – let the nominations of Henshaw and Foulke get through on unanimous voice votes?

Would GOP senators on the committee, such as Ranking Member Mike Enzi and Orrin Hatch, Judd Gregg and Johnny Isakson really want to expend the political capital needed to even place a hold on the nomination when they enjoyed nearly eight years of Henshaw and Foulke?

Expect HELP to take up the nomination as soon as the legislative process for health-care reform runs its course – certainly by November. Judging by precedent that is about a typical timeline for OSHA nominations at the start of new presidential terms.

Big labor and others are feeling pretty good with the timeline -- comforted that Jordan Barab, formerly the senior labor policy advisor for health and safety for the House Education and Labor Committee and a former union official, is already running the agency as acting assistant secretary. They also know that Democrats hold an unmistakable voting majority in the Senate, should such a nomination reach the absurdity of a floor debate.

Laying on the Tar
Opponents are laying the tar on Michaels on a number of fronts – that he is a leading "junk science" proponent; that his zeal to promote workers’ safety and health at nuclear weapons facilities while at Energy may have harmed national security; that he plans to use OSHA’s broad statutory authority to restrict firearms ownership and possession; or that he has unusually close ties to liberal financier George Soros.

Opponents are particularly pushy on Michaels’ approach to the use of science in setting public policy and say his organization, the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy, or SKAPP, is a shill for promoting "jackpot-justice lawsuits," as the conservative Washington Times newspaper put it.

Opponents’ claims on gun control seem a novel kitchen-sink argument – that Michaels would use OSHA’s General Duty Clause to tie gun violence with public health and thus promulgate stricter regulation aimed at private gun ownership.

Through his body of written work, congressional testimonies and associations, Michaels is pretty clear about where he would take OSHA. Opponents see where it is heading and do not like it.

Among ideas, Michaels has supported a workplace injury and illness prevention program rule that would require all employers to develop and follow hazard identification and abatement plans; increase workplace health and safety dollars for training down to the shop-floor level; develop protocols for an electronic recordkeeping and reporting system, and pursue strong public outreach programs to get citizens to think more about safety and health.

Already under Barab, OSHA is reviewing many of these issues, particularly more aggressive development and enforcement of safety and health standards. Michaels’ ideas are not as new as they would seem as many have been part of the progressives’ stance on occupational safety and health during the Bush years.

Generally, the last thing pro-business interests want is a federal agency in OSHA that will have more sway over industry. Already, they hold the view that the agency has lost its way through abuse of its authority and original purpose.

Power Versus Bureaucracy

While the head of OSHA holds considerable power, opponents might ask if that power trumps the Washington bureaucracy. Things get done in Washington, but usually not overnight. Remember Henshaw’s stated desire early in his term to expand the OSHA Voluntary Protections Programs to 8,000 participants? It never happened, despite greater agency focus on voluntary compliance. The bureaucracy simply did not allow it.

When he gets in, Michaels will find the same bureaucracy facing him. Short of some radical remaking of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (efforts are out there to do so), perhaps the best Michaels may hope for is to be able to drive fundamental change in approach and philosophy at the agency.

Domestic issues like healthcare reform, cap and trade, union "card check," education and others are still ahead on agendas in Washington.

More: David Michaels' bio, Washington Times editorial, Views on OSHA, including from Michaels.

Photo credit: George Washington University