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40 Pallet C e nt ral • Ma rch -Ap r il 2 0 25 OSHA CONT. REGULATION, 1995, Number 4, pp. 46–56. Written by two economics professors, the article made the case for eliminating OSHA in part because the agency cannot shutter unsafe workplaces (at least permanently); they can only issue imminent danger orders to stop work short-term. Due to OSHA's lack of resources, businesses are inspected only once every 75 years. Today, that timeframe has stretched to about 160 years. While federal OSHA conducts around 100,000 inspections annually (both full and partial), it oversees more than 11 million workplaces. In the Cato Institute article, the authors discouraged giving OSHA more funding, recommending instead that state and local officials could better utilize their own means to ensure worker safety. e authors argued that most of the protections on the job come from state workers' compensations laws and programs and from the threat of tort actions for wrongful death and personal injury (where third-party workers were involved). ese are essentially the same arguments being made today by proponents of HR 86, so let's examine the pros and cons of a world without OSHA. Pros: • ere would be reduced governmental oversight and exposure to federal civil fines and potential criminal prosecution (however, states could still prosecute companies and their agents criminally under their manslaughter/negligent homicide, reckless endangerment, and assault/battery statutes). • ere would be greater flexibility for employers to design programs that address the real-world hazards facing their workers and eliminate some outdated requirements. • National/international consensus standards might become the de facto rules for larger employers who could be litigation targets. Without OSHA, companies could follow guidance from ANSI, NFPA, ASTM, ISO, and ILO, among other organizations. • States would gain control of their OSHA programs and could support them with what state officials believe are appropriate levels of financial commitment, enforcement and regulatory oversight. Cons: • Increased Workplace Risks: Without codified standards as a bare minimum, in some industries, it would be a return to the bad old days of risk-taking and no regulation in some areas. Only 22 states currently have an established infrastructure for enforcing safety and health rules at private sector workplaces (several more have enforcement programs that are limited to public sector workers in the state). If OSHA were abolished tomorrow, workers in 28 states would be left unprotected as all existing rules would be unenforceable. • Crazy Quilt of Conflicting State Rules: While most state-plan states have simply incorporated federal OSHA laws by reference into their state codes, others have gone beyond federal OSHA by adopting novel (and conflicting) rules that are only enforceable in that state. Examples include Cal- OSHA's unique requirements for ergonomics, heat illness prevention, workplace violence programs, and an overarching Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP). Other state plans have unique rules that conflict with both federal OSHA and other states' requirements. If the federal rules are abolished and states are left to build their own system of occupational health and safety codes, multi-state employers will face a crazy quilt of regulations and penalty and enforcement systems. While this exists a bit already, it would be on steroids without a federal authority to ensure some level of consistency and protection for workers. • Unequal Protection: If states have to fund their own OSHA programs, there will be unequal protections for workers across state lines based on budget and political considerations. is can expose employers to claims if equivalent safety precautions are not put in place from one location to the next and workers are killed or injured as a result. • Workers' Compensation costs could rise if injuries and deaths increase overall, and while that is a no-fault system, any related tort actions could allege unsafe conditions without having a federal framework against which to benchmark reasonable precautions, etc. While OSHA citations can be used as proof of negligence, clearing an accident investigation without any citations is also useful in showing the company's lack of culpability and a recognition that it was following a reasonable and acceptable standard of care. Federal OSHA recognition programs such as the VPP (Voluntary Protection Program), which often result in lower workers' comp rates for those accepted into the OSHA program, would go away as well. • Research into occupational safety and health would stall or cease

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