Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. COURTNEY. 1309.
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Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Chair, today's vote on H.R. 1309 is an important milestone in what has been a 7-year process of getting the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to effectively act to protect the healthcare and social service workforce from skyrocketing rates of violence.
Sadly, in America today, nurses, doctors, social workers, EMTs, and nursing assistants are more likely to be the victim of on-the-job violence than any other sector of our Nation's workforce.
This violence comes in the form of assaults, kicking, hitting, choking, and spitting from patients and residents and clients or those who may accompany them. It affects a worker's sense of safety at work. It contributes to burnout, absenteeism, high workers' compensation costs, and stress. Tragically, it can also lead to death.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, healthcare and social service workers are more than five times as likely to suffer a serious injury from workplace violence than workers in other settings. And this chart, which shows the red line of healthcare workers versus other sectors in the U.S. economy vividly, powerfully demonstrates the data that is coming into the Department of Labor on this issue.
In psychiatric hospitals, that number is drastically higher. In a recent survey, nearly 50 percent of emergency room physicians report having been physically assaulted at work, and 60 percent of those who have these occurrences said they happened in the past year.
As this graph shows, these numbers are on the rise. The incidents of violence in the workplace have increased 80 percent over the last decade.
Since OSHA has not effectively addressed this emergency, this bill is necessary to ensure that a standard is issued and enforced in a reasonable period of time.
Using past precedent, the bill calls for an interim final standard within 1 year and a final standard within 42 months. The public comment and rulemaking process is preserved in the development of the final standard.
Very simply, the standard required by the bill would require that covered employers, such as hospitals and psychiatric facilities, develop a workplace violence prevention plan that is tailored to the specific conditions and hazards present at each workplace. It is not a one-size-fits-all requirement.
Madam Chair, developing a plan is not rocket science. For over 20 years, OSHA has published voluntary guidelines on violence prevention that include commonsense measures, such as training staff about how to identify high-risk patients, share the information with coworkers, not be alone, and ways to de-escalate threats. We know from the Joint Commission on Hospital Accreditation that these measures work, and the problem is, though, that there is no consistent enforceable standard to ensure their application, and that is precisely what this bill does.
While we will never eliminate all risk or stop every violent attack, research on the measures in this legislation have been shown to substantially cut the incidence of serious injury from workplace violence. The nurses, doctors, social workers, and EMTs who care for us in our times of crisis and need deserve to have these protections soon, not in 7 years and not in 20 years, as is likely if we fail to pass this legislation into law, leaving OSHA rulemaking to its own dilatory, almost comatose, devices.
I would like to thank the large coalition of healthcare professionals, their organizations, and union representation who have diligently fought for these protections for years; the subcommittee chair, Alma Adams, of the Workforce Subcommittee on Education and Labor and Chairman Bobby Scott for their leadership; also, Richard Miller and Jordan Barab, our committee staff, who have done amazing work, as well as Maria Costigan from my personal office, who have just worked night and day for years to try and get us to this point.
House of Representatives, Committee on Energy and Commerce, Washington, DC, September 6, 2019. Hon. Bobby Scott, Chair, Committee on Education and Labor, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Scott: I write concerning H.R. 1309, the ``Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act,'' which was additionally referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce.
In recognition of the desire to expedite consideration of H.R. 1309, the Committee on Energy and Commerce agrees to waive formal consideration of the bill as to provisions that fall within the rule X jurisdiction of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. The Committee takes this action with the mutual understanding that we do not waive any jurisdiction over the subject matter contained in this or similar legislation, and that the Committee will be appropriately consulted and involved as this bill or similar legislation moves forward so that we may address any remaining issues within our jurisdiction. I also request that you support my request to name members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce to any conference committee to consider such provisions.
Finally, I would appreciate the inclusion of this letter in the report on the bill and into the Congressional Record during floor consideration of H.R. 1309. Sincerely, Frank Pallone, Jr. Chairman. ____ Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives, Washington, DC, September 9, 2019. Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., Chairman, House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Pallone: In reference to your letter of September 6, 2019, I write to confirm our mutual understanding regarding H.R. 1309, the ``Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act.''
I appreciate the Committee on Energy and Commerce's waiver of consideration of H.R. 1309 as specified in your letter. I acknowledge that the waiver was granted only to expedite floor consideration of H.R. 1309 and does not in any way waive or diminish the Committee on Energy and Commerce's jurisdictional interests over this or similar legislation.
I would be pleased to include our exchange of letters on this matter in committee report for H.R. 1309 and in the Congressional Record during floor consideration of the bill to memorialize our joint understanding.
Again, thank you for your assistance with these matters. Sincerely, Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, Chairman.
Ms. FOXX of North Carolina. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Chair, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 1309, the Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act.
American workers deserve to be kept out of harm's way while on the job, allowing them to return home to their families and loved ones healthy and safe.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, healthcare and social service workplaces experience the highest rate of workplace violence, totaling 71 percent of all workplace violence injuries in 2017, and these workers are more than four times as likely to suffer a workplace violence injury.
There is no question that these caregivers deserve meaningful and effective protections, but H.R. 1309 is shortsighted and partisan, and it fails to address the important issue in an effective, feasible manner.
In the Education and Labor Committee's single hearing on this issue back in February, Members on both sides of the aisle expressed a desire to work together to produce real policy solutions.
Committee Republicans believe there can be a bipartisan response to this issue that would aid in the rulemaking process and provide protection to healthcare and social service workers.
Instead, committee Democrats have decided to advance legislation that circumvents the long-established rulemaking process and blocks valuable input from workers and other stakeholders who know better than we do how to prevent workplace violence in these unique circumstances.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, the Federal agency that helps ensure safe and healthful working conditions, is currently working on a workplace violence prevention rule for healthcare and social assistance workplaces, which includes gathering important stakeholder input to create the most feasible and effective Federal safety and health standards possible.
However, by requiring OSHA to circumvent established rulemaking procedures under the Occupational Safety and Health Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, H.R. 1309 would undermine and threaten this ongoing collaborative and evidence-based process by denying OSHA the ability to be responsive to important feedback from the public and impacted stakeholders.
H.R. 1309 severely limits the participation of industry, worker representatives, the scientific community, and the public from having a say in the development of a new comprehensive standard. Democrats are rejecting a thorough response to this complex and highly technical issue that is backed by meaningful input.
Furthermore, this legislation turns a blind eye to comprehensive research and data. Currently, there is no agreed-upon set of policies to prevent and mitigate workplace violence for healthcare and social service workers, and researchers in the field have pointed out the need for additional studies to determine the most effective response.
In 2019, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said further research was needed to identify effective strategies that prevent workplace violence in healthcare and social service settings.
Additionally, in 2016, the Government Accountability Office, GAO, noted there have been a limited number of studies done on the effectiveness of workplace violence prevention programs, and GAO chose not to call on OSHA to establish a standard without further study.
Continuing with their record of rushed and haphazard legislation, Democrats are pushing a false sense of urgency with H.R. 1309. This bill wrongly implies that Congress should impose a swift and sweeping standard immediately, ignoring that OSHA is already enforcing workplace violence prevention. In 2019, the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission upheld penalties issued by OSHA under the general duty clause against healthcare facilities for not adequately addressing workplace violence.
I will remind my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that, according to a 2018 American Hospital Association survey, 97 percent of respondents indicated they already have workplace violence policies in place.
To make matters even worse, H.R. 1309 mandates yet another costly and burdensome regulation. Simply put, financially struggling healthcare facilities such as rural hospitals and small businesses cannot afford another costly, congressionally imposed mandate from Washington.
Democrats will argue they didn't intend for the bill to have such a large scope and to cost so much. What else didn't they intend to happen when they rushed through this process, forcing an overly prescriptive mandate on the public?
Madam Chair, Republicans are committed to ensuring that healthcare and social service workers are protected from workplace violence. There is bipartisan support for OSHA's current efforts to create a standard on workplace violence prevention. However, Congress should aid in the rulemaking process, not circumvent it, as H.R. 1309 does.
H.R. 1309 will likely have many unintended consequences which negatively impact healthcare and social services workplaces, in addition to imposing a costly mandate on healthcare providers. I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing this unnecessary legislation so we can get to work on a bipartisan solution.
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Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I would just note that this is a bipartisan effort. There are 227 cosponsors in the House, 8 Republicans. And again, we have had lots of engagement, accommodated a number of the issues that came up at the public hearing process.
Again, I would just note that I appreciate the fact that the ranking member spoke highly of OSHA's volunteer guidelines, which I have in my hand here. Those are actually incorporated into the bill language for the interim final standard. So we are working exactly with the guidelines that she endorsed.
Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Khanna), an early advocate of this measure.
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Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Chair, again very quickly, the mandate costs that CBO scored, the $1.7 billion, that is spread out over 200,000 facilities, if you read their note closely. If you do the math, we are talking about a $9,000 cost per year for facilities. That, in my opinion, in terms of protecting their workforce, is not a high price to pay to make sure that the people who work there are safe.
Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Adams), the chair of the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, and I want to thank her for moving this bill this calendar year.
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Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), the chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor.
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Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Chair, just really quickly, it is true, yesterday that notice went out scheduling that panel. I would just note, that is the third time the department has sent out such a notice, and they have canceled the prior panels. We will see whether or not it actually happens in January.
We are in the third year of this administration, after a GAO report, again after statistics and hearings, where we have asked questions of the department to move on this, and frankly, we are talking about adopting OSHA's own guidelines in the interim standards.
This is not some farfetched, radical proposal. It is their own recommendations about how you can safely and effectively reduce workplace violence.
Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Bonamici), a great member of the Education and Labor Committee.
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Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Iowa (Ms. Finkenauer), one of our great new freshmen.
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Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Chair, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Iowa.
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Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).
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Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wilson), the chair of the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions.
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Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Florida.
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Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney) for yielding, and I thank him for his leadership.
I rise as a cosponsor of the Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act.
Mr. Chair, I thank the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Scott, and chairwoman of the subcommittee, Ms. Adams. I thank the complete committee for bringing this important legislation to the floor.
As I have listened to testimony over the last couple of days, I began to frame a concept that we must do the right thing.
As I have interacted with my constituents, as I understand the work of healthcare workers and social service workers, they take care of the broken of our society, some who may be ill, some who may have necessities of life that have not been fulfilled.
These individuals are under enormous pressure, yet our workers in the workplace caring for these people have the largest heart. They train to be sympathetic and empathetic.
I am reminded of a situation in my local hospital where an individual broke loose because that person was suffering from a mental challenge, illness, health need, mixed in with a population that was there for other reasons. That person was in the mix of healthcare workers trying to care for others, but trying to be kind, sympathetic, and caring, but that person was in a state of crisis that was threatening to the patients and threatening to the workers.
This is a crucial act. We are at a crisis moment. It is important to recognize that these incidents, as have been evidenced on the floor of the House, happen every day, even as we speak. Those individuals with that person were not able to bring him to a resolve, and law enforcement had to be engaged.
Those are situations that make it difficult. We need this interim response, and we need it quickly. 200,000 facilities will be covered, and, as was evidenced on the floor by Mr. Courtney, at $9,000 per facility. That is a worthwhile investment to stop someone who is injured from having a lifelong series of injuries.
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Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Texas.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Coming from the Texas Medical Center in my community and many other hospitals and seeing the proliferation of health clinics, federally qualified health clinics, and social service agencies all attempting to do the right thing--and the patients who are there deserve to have the best care possible, but they are, in many instances, ill; they are, in many instances, broken. In order to have the staff continue to serve them, let's protect those workers. Let's stand alongside those workers.
Mr. Chairman, I ask my colleagues to enthusiastically support this legislation and let us begin to stand alongside those who work with those who are most in need.
Ms. FOXX of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Chairman, I have exhausted all speakers, and I am prepared to close on my side.
Ms. FOXX of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I am prepared to close and yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, as we debate the impact of H.R. 1309 on healthcare providers, I note that this bill is in violation of the House's pay-as- you-go, or paygo, rule.
The paygo rule requires that legislation affecting direct spending not increase the deficit. Any legislation projected to increase direct spending must be offset by equivalent amounts of direct spending cuts, revenue increases, or a combination of both.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, H.R. 1309 will increase the deficit by $60 million between 2020 and 2029. In addition, CBO estimates the cost of H.R. 1309 to private entities will be at least $1.8 billion in the first 2 years and at least $750 million annually thereafter.
Democrats wrote this particular paygo rule months ago, and they are already abandoning it. It is not hard to find $60 million in savings for the taxpayers, and the Democrats' failure to do so speaks volumes about their regard for fiscal discipline. This significant violation of the budget rules is yet another reason to oppose this bill.
Madam Chair, protecting the safety of healthcare and social service workers is not a partisan issue. I reiterate that statement. All of us here today, regardless of our political beliefs, appreciate the hard work and empathy that healthcare workers and community caregivers demonstrate every single day on the job.
There is much agreement on both sides of the aisle that these workers deserve protections in the workplace. Given this bipartisan interest, it is frustrating that the Democrats have moved forward with the rushed and ill-conceived legislation we are debating today.
H.R. 1309 ignores expert and practical input; imposes mandates that may ultimately harm the very people this legislation intends to protect; forecloses better, more protective and feasible solutions that would result from the established rulemaking process; fails to allow meaningful public input; and imposes costly requirements on regulated entities.
Our healthcare workers and caregivers deserve a thoroughly vetted and researched solution that protects them in the workplace, but H.R. 1309 badly fails to deliver on that front.
Madam Chair, I strongly urge a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Chair, regarding the paygo issue, just to be clear, paygo applies to the budget impact. And the gentlewoman is absolutely correct; CBO calculated a $60 million deficit impact over 10 years in the Medicare program. Again, we spend over $700 billion a year in Medicare, and, by all projections, that is going to go up.
By the way, $60 million is for rural hospitals. If you read the CBO note, that is really the retroactive impact that has caused that, really, budget dust in terms of the impact to the Medicare program.
Madam Chair, we have heard today about the urgency that this emergency requires. We understand the statistics. Workers are uniquely vulnerable in the healthcare setting to violence as they care for the most vulnerable among us.
We know how to help. We know that evidence-based practices will lower this trend line. And we know that when hospitals and other facilities adopt them, rates of violence against staff go down.
In closing, I would like to share a few words from a letter written to me by Gene Sausse from Louisiana about his sister, Lynne Truxillo, who was a nurse in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, until her death just this past April of this year in the hands of a patient while she worked.
Lynne saw the patient attacking one of her colleagues, and when she intervened, the patient turned on her, grabbed her by the back of the neck, slammed it into a desk, and she passed out and suffered additional injuries. A few days later, she died from her injuries.
Lynne's brother came to Washington, unannounced to my office, a few months ago to share his family's grief and explained why we cannot wait another 20 years for OSHA to act. This is what he said:
``It wasn't until days after my sister, Registered Nurse Lynne Sausse Truxillo, was brutally attacked and murdered by a patient inside of Baton Rouge General Hospital during her shift 6 months ago did I learn that violent workplace incident rates are four times higher in healthcare than all other industries. . . . As a small business owner in New Orleans, I have firsthand experience with the complex and often burdensome nature of government regulation. I get that, and I support fewer regulations in certain circumstances. However, in the 6 months since Lynne's death, I've learned how gravely and disproportionately vulnerable healthcare workers are to acts of workplace violence against them. The data, stats, and facts are undeniable on the subject. There's practically a news story every day somewhere in America about it. It is unconscionable that less care is given for the health and well-being of those who care for us when we need it most. Thank you for trying to spare other families from the kind of grief and tragedy mine has endured every day since we lost our beautiful sister, mother, and daughter.''
She should be home making Thanksgiving dinner for her children-- mother of two. But because we don't have a national enforceable standard to reduce workplace violence in healthcare settings and social work, this gentleman--he is not a lobbyist; he is not a super-PAC; he is a brother--came to Washington at his own expense, like so many others, to talk about the fact that we have a crisis. It is our job to address that crisis, and that is what this bill does.
Madam Chair, I urge a ``yes'' vote on H.R. 1309, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Chair, I rise to speak in strong support of H.R. 1309, the Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act.''
This bill offers workplace violence protection to our nation's caregivers--including nurses, social workers, and many others who dedicate their lives to caring for those in need.
Last year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that health care and social service workers were nearly five times as likely to suffer a serious workplace violence injury than workers in other sectors.
Public employees, such as care givers in state and local government, health care and social service work, suffer particularly high rates of workplace violence.
In 2017, state government health care and social service workers were almost nine times more likely to be injured by an assault than private- sector health care workers.
Workplace violence often causes both physical and emotional harm.
Victims of these incidents often suffer career-ending post-traumatic stress disorders that take away their livelihoods and weaken an already stretched health care workforce.
In 2018, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 707,400 Social Workers are employed in the United States.
Social worker employment is expected to grow 16 percent between 2016 and 2026; a much faster rate than the average career in the United States.
The ratio of social workers to populations varies widely in the United States, ranging from 80 per 100,000 people in Arkansas to 572 per 100,000 in Washington, D.C.
Northeast states tend to have high numbers of social workers per capita, and the southern states have fewer social workers per capita.
Social workers work in a variety of settings, including mental health clinics, schools, child welfare and human service agencies, hospitals, settlement houses, community development corporations, and private practices.
They generally work full time and may need to work evenings, weekends, and holidays.
There is currently no standard from OSHA, the federal agency created to protect workers' safety, that requires employers to implement violence prevention plans that would help reduce workplace violence injuries among health care and social service workers.
The lack of an enforceable standard means that OSHA has few meaningful tools to protect health care workers from the threat of workplace violence.
Unless Congress intervenes, it is highly unlikely there will be any action taken to protect health care workers in the next decade.
The Government Accountability Office estimated, conservatively, that it takes OSHA at least 7 years to issue a standard.
Two of the most significant OSHA standards issued in recent history-- crystalline silica and beryllium, which cause irreversible lung disease--each took OSHA 20 years to finalize.
Despite OSHA promises and its obligation to defend workers' safety, the Trump Administration is erecting new barriers that will prevent OSHA from protecting caregivers from workplace violence.
This bill is needed more now due to a shift in the social work industry: today's social workers are becoming less focused on solving problems and more focused on primary prevention, providing interventions in advance to prevent problems from ever occurring in at- risk populations.
Social work is more than a job.
Social workers help millions of Americans live fuller, more productive and safer lives.
They often are the primary front line of assistance to 13.9 percent of Americans living below the poverty line.
Through mentorship, social workers have contributed to a 68 percent decline in the juvenile arrest rate between 1996 and 2015.
The incarceration rate in the United States is approximately 716 per 100,000, the highest in the world, which means that social workers are invaluable in helping the formerly incarcerated transition into community life.
Social workers provide substantial care and services to the mentally ill.
Reports state that 1 in 4 people in the world will be affected by mental or neurological disorders at some point in their lives.
Child Protective Services and its social workers check up on 3.2 million children each year.
Every year, more than 3.6 million referrals are made to child protection agencies. These referrals involve more than 6.6 million children.
Social Workers are the first line of prevention to prevent over 1.2 million students drop outs from high school each year (one every 26 seconds).
Both Child and Family Social Worker and Clinical Social Worker rank among the top 100 best jobs of 2019.
Professional social workers are the largest group of mental health services providers in the United States.
83 percent of all social workers are female. 86 percent of Master of Social Work graduates in 2015 were female.
47 percent of social workers work in the child, family, and school sector, 26 percent work in healthcare, 18 percent work in mental health and substance abuse, and 9 percent work in other sectors.
The primary employers of social workers are governments (41 percent), private nonprofit or charitable organizations (34 percent), and private-for-profit businesses (22 percent).
More than 40 percent of all disaster mental health volunteers trained by the American Red Cross are professional social workers.
The importance of social workers has been recognized by Jane Addams, a social worker, becoming one of the first women to receive a Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.
I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting H.R. 1309.
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Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
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Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Chair, again, I rise in opposition to the amendment, but certainly with great respect for the proponent. I actually supported making this amendment in order because I have such high regard for the gentleman.
However, this amendment, essentially, Madam Chair, guts the bill.
The essence of this bill is to say to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, who has been studying this issue since the 1990s and has issued commonsense guidelines--that again, Ranking Member Foxx has touted as an example of how this isn't a real problem that we need to accelerate, but the fact of the matter is, we incorporate those guidelines in the underlying bill with a real deadline, 42 months. That has precedent.
Congress has done this before. OSHA is an act of Congress, and we have accelerated deadlines for bloodborne pathogens back in the late 1990s, gave them a 1-year deadline or a 6-month deadline to implement a standard, again, for HIV, hepatitis B, and C, in healthcare. And thank God. We are a safer country because Congress stepped in and set a deadline for OSHA to act.
We did it for hazardous waste materials. We put a deadline to make them act. Without a deadline, what we are stuck with is OSHA's atrocious record of getting rules out in a timely fashion. Beryllium, 18 years it took; silica, 19 years. If you inhale silica, you suffocate and get cancer; confined spaces in construction, working in trenches, 22 years.
And, yes, yesterday, the Trump administration, for the third time, scheduled a preliminary panel with the SBREFA panel, having canceled the prior two. We are 3 years into this administration, and still, to this date, nothing actually has happened other than notices, which so far have just been canceled over and over again.
Madam Chair, while we were here on the floor, one of the most credible voices on this issue, which is the American College of Emergency Physicians--when these unruly, agitated patients with the heroin and opioid crises and behavioral health crises are coming through the doors, they are the ones who are really at the front line, along with the nurses and their assistants. They urge legislators to oppose the Byrne amendment that would eliminate the deadline for OSHA to issue a standard.
The reason they give is that, in 2018, they did a survey of emergency physicians all across America who reported being physically assaulted while at work, with 60 percent of those assaults occurring within the previous year. This is happening in real time, and it is accelerating. The trajectory is something that we cannot wait for OSHA to basically go back and reinvent the wheel that they have already issued in terms of guidelines about how to reduce risk in workplaces.
That is why, in addition to other issues in this amendment that eliminate the whistleblower protection, as well as the interim final standard, which, again, incorporates OSHA's already preexisting rules, that I rise in strong opposition to this amendment.
Let's move forward, and let's do it in a timely fashion for America's healthcare and social services workforce.
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Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, the gentleman is absolutely right. The Obama administration took too long to move on this. Again, I, along with George Miller, requested the GAO study back in 2013. The results came in, in 2016. He is right. The first regulatory step didn't take place until January 2017, on the way out the door.
But we are 3 years into this administration, and they are not setting the world on fire in terms of addressing this issue. That panel, which you described, to call it a baby step is an overstatement. It is a baby crawl, in terms of this process. Again, we have seen the track record-- 22 years, 19 years, 17 years--to get a standard out.
Our healthcare workforce cannot wait that long. That is why H.R. 1309 should proceed without the Byrne amendment.
Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Chair, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Harder) for yielding.
Again, I want to salute his amendment. For the record, there is no prohibition built into OSHA that you can't have dual jurisdiction, in terms of criminal investigations or prosecutions from injuries in any setting that OSHA covers. However, I still applaud the Member for just sort of foot-stomping this point to make sure that because so many of these incidents involve assault, there is absolutely a clear signal that there is no hindrance or obstacle.
Again, for that purpose, I certainly strongly support the amendment and urge its adoption.
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Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Chair, I move that the Committee do now rise.
The motion was agreed to.
Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. Brown of Maryland) having assumed the chair, Ms. Jackson Lee, Chair of the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, reported that that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 1309) to direct the Secretary of Labor to issue an occupational safety and health standard that requires covered employers within the health care and social service industries to develop and implement a comprehensive workplace violence prevention plan, and for other purposes, had come to no resolution thereon.
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