Rep. Henry Bonilla, R-Texas, today during the Labor-HHS Appropriations bill markup, again will offer an amendment to prohibit OSHA from issuing new regulations or standards for ergonomics.
Bonilla has failed in attempts the last two years to get his proposal enacted into law.
In 1995, the provision was stripped out during the government shutdown in negotiations with the Clinton administration, which opposes the amendment.
Last year, the House voted for an amendment by Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to remove the Bonilla amendment from the Labor- HHS bill.
But this year Bonilla's amendment will try a different approach. It would prohibit OSHA from issuing ergonomics regulations until the National Academy of Sciences conducts a study to determine if there is a causal relationship between poor ergonomics and workplace injuries.
But the American Public Health Association, which represents public health scientists, believes Bonilla's idea for a study would delay regulations indefinitely, because the National Academy of Sciences has no ergonomics study even planned.
One APHA official compared Bonilla's strategy to that of the tobacco industry asking for more studies on the health effects of tobacco before moving to more tightly regulate it.
In a letter to House Appropriations Chairman Livingston, 210 APHA member-scientists wrote: "Scientific evidence has established a cause-and-effect relationship between poor ergonomics in the workplace and chronic musculoskeletal disorders. We urge you to provide OSHA with the necessary funding to move rapidly in the development of the best ergonomics standard possible."
Bonilla during the past several weeks has sent out a series of "Dear Colleagues" on the ergonomics issue.
"There has never been a thorough, unbiased review of all available scientific research on ergonomics," Bonilla wrote in one of the letters.
"Until we have some basic understanding as to what risk factors in the workplace cause or significantly contribute to repetitive stress injuries, an ergonomics standard would be nothing more than a very expensive experiment by the federal government," he added.
The Coalition for Ergonomic Research, a group of 400 businesses opposed to new regulations, sent a letter Monday to all House members saying, "The NAS would provide the sorely- needed objectivity in this debate without influence of the business community, OSHA, or other supporters or opponents of the standard."
Two of the biggest proponents of the ergonomic regulatory delay are the trucking and telecommunications industries.
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