Posted January 29, 2014
 
U.S. Representative Kevin Cramer (R-ND) recently responded to reports of excessive fines on small farming operations by urging U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez to stop the action by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), according to a press release from Rep. Cramer’s office available here.
 
“Farmers and landowners have a strong vested and personal interest in keeping their operations safe and viable, and they are already subject to countless regulations to ensure operational integrity.  If the Administration believes OSHA should be given authority to regulate small farming operations, evidence would need to be presented to Congress and passed through the normal legislative process,” said Cramer and others in Congress in a letter to Secretary Perez.
 
Senators Mike Johanns (R-NE) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) also called on Secretary Perez to rescind an OSHA guidance clarifying the agency’s authority to enforce regulations on farms with less than 10 workers, according to an article by The Hill available here.
 
Congress, for decades, has inserted language in appropriations bills which prohibits OSHA from enforcing provisions of the 1976 Occupational Safety and Health Act on farming operations with 10 or fewer employees.
 
Recently, however, OSHA has begun issuing fines based on a guidanceissued in 2011, “which was meant to clarify the agency’s authority at small farms with grain storage structures.”
 
Jordan Barab, deputy assistant secretary for OSHA, “lamented what he described as confusion over the agency’s approach to grain bins and promised to work with the USDA to clarify operations that are exempt from OSHA regulation,” according to the Omaha World-Herald Bureau in an article available here.
 
Barab also defended the agency, saying “it has always taken seriously the longstanding prohibition against regulating small farms, including their grain bins.”  Barab said the agency became more aggressive about grain bin inspection in 2011 after a high number of cases in which people became engulfed and “drowned” in the grain were reported.  In 2010, there were 57 engulfments, 31 of them fatal.

 

For more information on agricultural labor, please visit the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
 
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