Occupational Safety and Health Small Employer Access to Justice Act of 2004

OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH SMALL EMPLOYER ACCESS TO JUSTICE ACT OF 2004 -- (House of Representatives - May 18, 2004)

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 645, I call up the bill (H.R. 2731) to amend the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 to provide for the award of attorney's fees and costs to very small employers when they prevail in litigation prompted by the issuance of citations by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

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Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren).

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I think it is clear that the effect of this bill, if it were to become law, would be to stall enforcement of workplace safety measures. It is a back-handed attempt to weaken OSHA's enforcement and standards-setting efforts. It would require the American taxpayer to pick up the entire tab if a company successfully challenged even one of the citations that OSHA gave, regardless of whether OSHA's actions were substantially justified.

It is important to note that current law already allows companies to receive payment if the government's position had no substantial justification. Think of it this way: If you had 50 citations and one of the 50 was found wanting, the costs would be shifted over to OSHA, and so we would be punishing the government every time it loses even a small part of an overall enforcement effort. This will deter the agency from enforcing the law.

What is next? Are we going to pay a criminal defendant's legal costs every time there is an acquittal? I know of no other agency that is punished for failing to guarantee the outcome of its good-faith attempts to enforce the law.
OSHA's mission is to protect the safety and health of American workers. We should not tie its hands and drain its resources as H.R. 2731 does.

I recall several years ago there was a ballot measure in California to severely impair the ability of California OSHA to enforce California OSHA regulations. After a very short while, do my colleagues know who the biggest opponent was of that measure to hurt Cal/OSHA? It was the Chamber of Commerce in California because they figured out we will pay more in insurance costs than we will save on compliance costs. It is a mistake for workers and it is a mistake for business to impair OSHA enforcement of safety acts.

I urge colleagues to think carefully about this ill-advised scheme and vote "no" on H.R. 2731.