Will Obama’s Budget Increase Health and Safety Spending?

An article [1]in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal points out that President Obama’s proposed FY 2010 budget blueprint [2], released last week, promises boosts in funding for regulatory standard setting and enforcement.

Increasing budgets for regulatory agencies would be a wise step for Obama to take and a sharp departure from the last eight years. In fact, it would be a sharp departure from the last 30 years.

A series of articles OMB Watch released last year chronicled budget and staffing trends at four regulatory agencies: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration [3], the Mine Safety and Health Administration [4], the Food Safety Inspection Service [5], and the Consumer Product Safety Commissio [6]n.

Years of budget cuts at these and other agencies have left the federal government unable to ensure the safety of the food we eat, the products we buy, and the places we work, not to mention the preservation of our environment.

For workers, the budget blueprint promises increases without assigning dollar figures. From the Journal: “The president seeks more money for the department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration, to allow it to "vigorously enforce" workplace safety laws and oversight. He is likewise proposing more resources for the Wage and Hour Division to ensure workers get the pay that is due them.” The budget does not mention mine safety.

On food safety, Obama is a bit more specific, pledging “over $1 billion for Food and Drug Administration food safety efforts to increase and improve inspections, domestic surveillance, laboratory capacity and domestic response to prevent and control foodborne illness.” At the Food Safety Inspection Service, the agency responsible for meat and eggs, the budget calls for “additional resources to improve food safety inspection and assessment and the ability to determine food safety risks.”

Sadly, Obama’s budget blueprint fails to mention the Consumer Product Safety Commission. CPSC’s budget was halved between 1977 and 2007 and has been increased only modestly since. When Congress reauthorized CPSC last year, it allowed for a budget up to $118 million in FY 2010. (The current budget is about $80 million.)

The White House has been working hard to sell the sizzle of the budget. But the steak comes in a few weeks when Obama proposes his actual detailed budget: a 1,000-plus-page behemoth that will dwarf the 142-page summary released last week.

Obama will have to shell out some serious coin if he’s going to back up his rhetoric. Modest increases simply won’t suffice. CPSC needs its full budget allocation in order to enforce new standards for lead and phthalate exposure. Since the Bush administration finalized a scant few occupational health and safety standards, OSHA rule writers have eight years of catching up to do. The number of holes in the federal food safety net are too numerous to mention here, but a serious commitment – both in funding and political leadership – is required if we are to avoid the peanut butter [7] and jalapeno [8]scares of the future.

Check back for either praising or shaming when Obama’s full budget is released.