The White House is apparently
sitting on an update to child labor rules, rules that have been unchanged for 40 years, that would increase agricultural child worker protections.
Although the rules proposed by the Labor Department have not yet been made public, sources familiar with them say they would deem certain work activities on farms too dangerous for minors to perform, potentially strengthening laws that haven’t been updated in 40 years.
The rules have been awaiting review from the White House's Office of Management and Budget for the past nine months—an unusually long time, even in the world of federal rule making. Such rules are supposed to be reviewed within 90 days, then go on to a public-comment period.
Observers are confused in part because the changes would have minimal economic impact.
"We've been trying to figure out who's opposed to these rules," said Celeste Monforton, a former Department of Labor safety official and blogger writing about workplace safety issues. "Is it part of this administration's concerns about regulations and how they're perceived? I have not been able to discern that."
Two high profile accidents this summer have added to the urgency for getting this rule passed. Two 17-year-old boys were critically injured last week when they were pulled into a grain augur, and a few weeks before two 14-year-old girls were killed on a farm in Illinois, where they were electrocuted. They were detassling corn on a Monsanto-owned farm when they came in contact with electrical irrigation equipment.
A group of public health and workplace safety experts have written to Cass Sunstein, who is in charge of rule review at the Office of Management and Budget, asking him to push the review.
