Bush Fought to Weaken Job Safety Rules, Panel Told

Vice President George Bush recently pressured Labor Department officials to let companies avoid the expense of ventilating toxic gases from the workplace by making workers wear less effective, but cheaper, respirators instead, a Senate committee was told today.

As a result, proposed standards have been sent to the White House that would allow greater use of personal respirators for short-term exposure to toxic substances or when the cost of a cleanup is considered “excessive,” scientists with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration testified.

The changes were first advocated five years ago by the Task Force on Regulatory Relief chaired by Bush and were pushed by the vice president in a meeting last month with officials of the Labor Department, the scientists said.

‘A Waste of Our Time’

Dr. Sheldon W. Weiner, deputy director of health standards for OSHA, and John Martonik, the agency’s director of standards analysis, said OSHA had effectively resisted the idea until January.

“There is no way in my view that respirators can be as protective,” Weiner said.

Martonik agreed with that assessment but said the proposed regulations, nonetheless, were sent to the White House with the changes called for by Bush’s task force.

“It was a waste of our time as far as I’m concerned,” Martonik told the Senate Labor Committee. “We had to tie up five years working on this.”

50,000-70,000 Deaths a Year

The committee was told Monday that between 50,000 and 70,000 Americans are dying from occupational illnesses each year because the Reagan Administration has delayed new job health regulations and has not enforced existing standards.

Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, director of environmental and occupational medicine at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City, offered those statistics and estimated that another 350,000 workers incur illnesses each year because of inaction by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

John Moran, former director of safety research at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, said 2,000 workers have been killed in so-called “confined space” accidents alone since 1980.