Sen. Elizabeth Warren spent several minutes pressing Trump labor nominee Alexander Acosta on whether he would enforce the recent Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule to protect workers from silica. It’s no shock that Acosta dodged—after all, Donald Trump didn’t nominate him to protect workers’ lives.
In response to Warren’s question—“Will you promise not to weaken the silica rule in any way and not to delay future compliance by even a single day?”—Acosta repeatedly cited Trump’s executive action directing cabinet secretaries “to review all rules and to make determinations if any rules should be revised, and so based on that executive action I cannot make a commitment.”
As you might imagine, Warren was not interested in this dodge, and she kept at Acosta until he cracked and said something other than that Trump has directed cabinet officials to review all rules.
“Senator, high on the list of priorities will be to protect the safety of workers with appropriate rules.”
“And you will decide what appropriate rules are but you don’t want to give a hint right now?”
“Senator, there is an entire staff at the Department of Labor—“
“Yes, there is, and they’ve already looked at this rule, and they already have comments on this rule and they have already received comments from the public about this rule and they strongly support this rule and I raised this rule with you when we talked about it two weeks ago so this should be no surprise that I’m asking you about this.”
“And I gave the same answer, and I look forward to hearing from that staff if confirmed their views on this
“And following their advice?”
“If that advice is appropriate, yes.”
“And you will decide if it’s appropriate? I think we’ve got how this dance works.”
For the record:
OSHA estimates that the rule will save over 600 lives and prevent more than 900 new cases of silicosis each year, once its effects are fully realized. The Final Rule is projected to provide net benefits of about $7.7 billion, annually.
Acosta does not seem eager to save those 600 lives each year.
Watch the video below.