The Hill: ...The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) proposal under White House review would reportedly set a new significantly lower permissible limit for workers' exposure to silica, one of the most abundant naturally occurring minerals on earth. As sand on the beach, silica is harmless, but in the form of tiny crystalline silica particles in the air breathed in by workers, it can cause silicosis, a potentially disabling and sometimes fatal lung disease.
There is no question that silicosis is a completely preventable occupational disease, and there is also no question that responsible companies should do everything necessary to protect their workers. The real question -- what is the best way to do that?
Most of industry has taken a position that no new regulation is necessary, but the country's leading industrial sand producers, which have the longest history of working with silica, believe doing nothing is not an option.
The companies of the National Industrial Sand Association (NISA), which I represent, agree with our friends in labor that we must do more to protect workers. However, we also strongly believe there is a better or "smarter" way to do that than lowering an exposure limit that has a history of noncompliance and little government enforcement.
A smarter approach to preventing silicosis is for OSHA to require employers to conduct regular dust monitoring of their workplaces, implement dust controls needed to comply with the current exposure limit, and adopt medical surveillance programs to identify silica-related disease and halt its progression. In our experience, doing so will prevent new disease.
We know this approach works because this is what the companies in our association did voluntarily more than 30 years ago and our Occupational Health Program has resulted in the virtual eradication of silicosis from the generation of workers hired by our companies since the program began.
Read more by Mark Ellis, president, National Industrial Sand Association
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/289099-regular-dust-monitoring-can-help-prevent-silicosis-not-more-regulation
