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Grassley blasts OSHA’s actions

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is one of the 43 U.S. Senators who have sent a letter to the U.S. Labor Secretary accusing the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of overstepping its authority in attempting to regulate small, family-run farms.

The senators’ letter was in response to reports that OSHA recently assessed a 132-thousand dollar fine against a Nebraska farm—a farm with only one non-family employee—for grain bin safety violations.  Since 1976, Congress has included language in appropriations bills prohibiting OSHA enforcement actions against farmers with ten or fewer employees.  However, according to the senators, OSHA has circumvented the law by redefining small farms as commercial grain handlers.

Grassley says OSHA’s claim that grain handling and storage are not part of farming “doesn’t meet the test of common sense”.

“For somebody to come along and tell us that grain drying isn’t part of a farming operation, it just proves to you that people in Washington are living on an island surrounded by reality,” Grassley says. “They’re trying to regulate some industry that they don’t know anything about.”

Grassley says he’s not aware of any OSHA fines being levied in Iowa—but he says even the one report from Nebraska is one too many.

“If there’s only one case, we have every right to take the action we did and we have every right to pursue it until we get this idiotic sort of approach to regulation—particularly as it affects agriculture—until we get it stopped.”

In their letter, the senators call on Labor Secretary Thomas Perez “to respect the intent of Congress by reining in OSHA”.

AUDIO: Chuck Grassley (1:19 MP3)