Today's Wall Street Journal reports on a major problem in the area of workplace safety. Unlike recent stories, this one is not about crane safety, combustible dust, or popcorn workers lung. Instead, the Journal profiles an issue which should be far easier to handle but has vexed the Department of Labor nonetheless: accurate data on workplace injuries.

Journal reporter Kris Maher points out why reliable injury statistics are vital to occupational safety: "Having accurate data is considered critical in making policy decisions about where safety needs to be improved and whether new regulations and rules need to be issued."

Both employers and the Labor Department are to blame. A Department official "acknowledged that workers and companies both have incentives not to report injuries, noting that contracts are sometimes awarded to companies with low injury rates," according to the article.

To make matters worse, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration isn't meeting its responsibility to collect data, and rule changes have altered the definition of what counts as an injury:

At present, the nation's safety record consists of a survey of 250,000 establishments. Recent figures show a decrease in injuries, which indicates that workplaces are getting safer.

However, research suggests the federal figures capture less than half of actual injuries. One study published in June in the Annals of Epidemiology compared employer data reported to OSHA against figures from state workers' compensation systems in six states. It found that the OSHA figures failed to count from 24% to 49% of all workplace injuries.

Another study last year by University of Illinois researchers attributed 83% of the decline in workplace injuries from 1992 to 2003 to changes in OSHA record-keeping rules. Researchers said OSHA no longer requires an injury to be recorded if the worker was able to come back to work the day after the injury. They also said OSHA stopped collecting data at workplace sites, and relied on employers to send injury information.

Today, the House Education and Labor Committee will take a critical look at the problem. You can watch the hearing, scheduled to begin at 10:30, by clicking here.

In today's New York Times, public policy mediator Susan Podziba writes an op-ed which uses two recent and tragic New York City crane accidents, which killed nine people, as an entree into the rulemaking process at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

OSHA has had a rule to improve safety for crane and derrick workers in its regulatory pipeline for years. The pending rule, which would update an outdated policy from 1971, is welcomed by worker safety advocates and industry alike. Podziba tells the story of how the proposal was developed:

From July 2003 to July 2004, representatives of labor unions, crane manufacturers, crane operators, contractors, crane rental companies, builders, crane owners, billboard installers, insurance companies, electrical power line owners and safety experts met to discuss virtually all hazards associated with cranes — and how to prevent them. The deliberations were governed under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which meant that the public could attend the sessions and address the representatives.

The group reached consensus on a set of revised crane standards. OSHA officials participated in the negotiations and contributed their expertise in writing enforceable regulations. According to OSHA's analysis, these standards would prevent 37 to 48 worker deaths per year. The draft regulations are about 120 pages long, and include important new requirements like the testing and certification of crane operators and the oversight of crane assembly and disassembly.

From the first day of deliberations — in accordance with the process, called negotiated rulemaking — the parties operated under this assumption: If this balanced group of stakeholders and the government could agree on a standard, then OSHA would publish it in the Federal Register as its proposed rule. After OSHA publishes a draft rule, the public has 60 days to comment before the final rule is published and becomes law.

Since then, the rulemaking has come to a grinding halt — even though the bulk of the work is already done. Why? Maybe it's because the Bush administration is ideologically opposed to new worker safety regulations. OSHA has issued only two significant new rules in seven-and-a-half years: one mandating employers pay for personal protective equipment (a no brainer) and one setting an exposure limit for chromium (required by a court deadline and not nearly as strong as the underlying science supported).

Or, maybe it's because of government-wide rulemaking process requirements. Celeste Monforton at the Pump Handle blog says, after the crane rule was written, "OSHA took nearly two years to prepare" a cost-benefit analysis. Monforton also says the rule was further slowed by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act which requires OSHA give businesses a sneak preview of new rules and an opportunity for the Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy to pressure OSHA to make changes.

Whatever the reason, the two recent crane accidents are a tragic reminder of how OSHA inaction can have real world consequences.

Podziba and Monforton also remind readers of the new White House memo setting deadlines for regulations agencies want to finalize during the Bush administration. Since the proposal deadline has already passed, crane and derrick workers will have to wait until at least 2009 to see the standard finalized.

In this video, OMB Watch Executive Director Gary Bass discusses the importance of public protections; the Bush administration's track record on such protections; and what the American people can do to take our country back from the big-monied special interests that are endangering our health and safety.

You can also leave comments on our YouTube page with suggestions for future videos.

In August 2005, the Department of Transportation proposed a badly-needed update to its 1971 standard for roof strength in passenger vehicles. According to the nonprofit group Public Citizen, the regulation would save 13 to 44 lives every year (out of about 10,000 rollover-related deaths).

The proposed rule is weak on its merits. Critics charge the rule is too weak to make a marked improvement in vehicle safety and does not require automakers to adopt readily available technology that would significantly increase roof strength. (Check out Public Citizen for more.)

But a troubling provision in the proposal makes it even worse by limiting the rights of all rollover crash victims. DOT's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) included language that would preempt the rights of victims to bring damages claims against automakers.

Yesterday, a Senate panel grilled a NHTSA official on the preemption language, and senators from both parties urged the agency to abandon it. Congress Daily (subscription) reports:

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., charged that pre-emption language had been cropping up "like spring flowers" in Bush administration rule-making proposals over the past year, and added that "we in Congress are pretty upset about it."

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., appeared as a witness at the hearing. He chided NHTSA for not offering "any explanation for why the rights of a vehicle purchaser to seek a common-law remedy for harm done to them should be taken away."

Federal agencies are responsible for enforcing the positive law enacted by Congress. However, even when positive laws and regulations work, citizens must have an opportunity to seek legal redress if a product causes harm. Tort law provides that opportunity by allowing citizens to seek damages from the makers of those products.

When the Bush administration tries to preempt tort law through regulation, as it has frequently attempted, it is conflating two different types of law — and doing so to the detriment of the public.

NHTSA may finish work on the rule as early as July 1.