Federal OSH Agencies Fare Well in New CR – EPA Slashed
In the latest Continuing Resolution for the remainder of FY 2011, the April 11 deal that is now up for a vote in Congress nearly $40 billion is cut from the federal budget through September. EPA is cut 16%, one of the biggest percentage cuts in the whole bill, $1.6 billion less than FY 2010. However, safety and health agencies have fared well –
NIOSH
There’s a $49 million cut in NIOSH funding, but that is coming from $71 million NIOSH was given for FY 11 for the WTC health program. That money will be coming off its books, replaced by the program established by Congress last year, which has its own funding. For FY 2011, NIOSH needs $38.5 to begin standing up that program. The CR apparently leaves them with $22 million of the $71 million, which they can combine with some discretionary funding to get to the $38.5 million needed. However, there a .2 percent across-the-board budget cutback, which means $600,000 that will be taken from NIOSH’s budget.
OSHA
From the Senate Appropriations Committee website, “The bill provides last year’s funding level of $558.6 million for OSHA. H.R. 1 would have cut $99 million or 18 percent from the agency’s budget.”
MSHA
Also from Senate Approps website, “The bill provides $363.8 million, an increase of $6.5 million over last year, sufficient to continue the mine safety and appeals backlog reduction plan, carryout aggressive enforcement actions and improve MSHA’s emergency response capability. H.R. 1 would have cut MSHA by $1.5 million, denying the agency needed funds to reduce the backlog of appealed cases and continue aggressive enforcement actions targeted at mine operators with poor safety and health records.”
Senate info is at http://appropriations.senate.gov/news.cfm?method=news.view&id=9aab5122-312e-49ed-b47e-79cd63970e5e and House info at http://appropriations.house.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=285