OMB Can’t Block Safety Regulations, Court Says : Judiciary: Agency misused the anti-paper work law, justices hold. The ruling is seen as a victory for workers and consumers and as a setback for business.

In a victory for workers and consumers, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the White House may not block regulations intended to warn employees about the dangers of hazardous chemicals in their workplace.

Both sides in the dispute predicted that the ruling will have wide ramifications. Public interest lawyers said it could lead to more public disclosures on everything from food nutrition to the dangers of tampons. Business officials predicted that the decision would foster more costly and unnecessary warning labels.

The high court said that the President’s Office of Management and Budget has been overstepping its bounds by forcing federal agencies to withdraw regulations that it found too burdensome for business.

The dispute dates to 1980, when Congress said the OMB could oversee the federal bureaucracy to ensure that citizens and businesses were not required to supply excessive and unnecessary paper work to the government.

However, the court concluded, the Reagan and Bush administrations have used that authority to block the flow of warnings and other information to workers and consumers.

Although the case before the court (Dole vs. United Steelworkers, 88-1434) focused on the disclosures of hazardous chemicals mandated by the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the ruling went well beyond that situation.

“We hold that the Paperwork Reduction Act (of 1980) does not give the OMB that authority . . . to review and countermand agency regulations” that order regulated entities, such as manufacturers or employers, to disclose information to third parties, such as employees or the public, Justice William J. Brennan Jr. wrote for a 7-2 majority.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Byron R. White dissented.

“For the worker, the consumer or the community activist, this will free up the flow of information on hazardous materials, consumer warnings and nutrition labeling,” said David Vladeck, a lawyer with Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen project.

In recent years, agencies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration have not required public disclosures of dangers from chemicals and drugs because of OMB pressure, Vladeck said.

“This decision will unshackle those agencies,” he said.

The United Steelworkers of America and the AFL-CIO first took the OMB to court in 1983 for blocking the worker-disclosure rules on hazardous chemicals. Two years ago, an appeals court in Philadelphia ruled for the steelworkers, a decision affirmed by the high court Wednesday.

“We are very pleased with the outcome. This means that all workers will be able to continue to have readily available on-the-job site information about toxic chemicals and hazards,” said Margaret Seminario, AFL-CIO’s director of safety and health.

A spokeswoman for the OMB refused to comment on the decision.

During the Richard M. Nixon Administration, the Bureau of the Budget was transformed into the OMB and given new authority to put the President’s stamp on the vast federal bureaucracy. In the 1980s, the OMB gained even more power as former President Ronald Reagan sought to get the government “off the back” of American business.

All the while, however, the OMB’s only legal authority to block federal agency regulations was the 1980 anti-paper work law.

A series of business organizations joined the Bush Administration, unsuccessfully, in urging the high court to grant the OMB broader powers.

“OMB provided a forum for business to make its case. Now that forum has been eliminated,” said Clark R. Silcox, who filed a court brief on behalf of the Business Council on the Reduction of Paperwork. “There are a dozen other regulations out there like this one,” he said, referring to the hazardous chemical disclosure rule upheld Wednesday.

He and other business lawyers contend that zealous federal regulators, if unchecked, may require that everyone from pharmacists to gasoline station attendants be given lengthy disclosure statements on the dozens of chemicals that could be used in their businesses.

“This means just a lot of extra pieces of paper that are redundant and unnecessary,” said Lawrence W. Bierlein, a lawyer who represented the National Wholesale Druggists’ Assn.

In other rulings, the court:

--Upheld the popular “rails-to-trails” program under which abandoned rail lines are converted to hiking or biking trails. However, the court said that property owners whose land is crossed by a trail may file a federal claim for compensation.

Nationwide, more than 3,000 miles of recreational trails have replaced unused rail lines since Congress created the program in 1983. But a Vermont couple whose deed gave them the rights to the abandoned rail line on their land said the program was unconstitutional, both because it violated their property rights and because it exceeded Congress’ authority.

The high court disagreed unanimously but said the government could be required to pay the couple for their property (Presault vs. ICC, 88-1076).

--Said the Social Security Administration may deduct past overpayments of benefits from a recipient’s monthly check without granting a hearing. On a 5-4 vote, the court overturned a ruling that said this practice was unfair to elderly and disabled persons who depend on the money. The court said that the law required officials to correct errors whenever a recipient has been paid “more or less” than he or she is entitled to (Sullivan vs. Everhart, 88-1323).

Times labor writer Bob Baker contributed to this story.