DeRemer and Keeling: Dueling Labor Hearings

I had the pleasure yesterday of watching two hearings at the same time (so you wouldn’t have to): The confirmation hearing of David Keeling to be Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA, before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and the appearance of Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer before the House Education and Workforce Committee.

Spoiler alert: Both were pretty anti-climactic — no earthshaking revelations, or even useful information — at least from an OSHA standpoint.

Keeling was one of four nominees appearing at the same hearing and didn’t get many questions. And across the National Mall in the House, there are an enormous number of problem areas over at the Trump DOL, so OSHA played a relatively small role and no one really pushed her to the wall on the catastrophic cuts the President is proposing for OSHA and MSHA.

And if you were playing a drinking game with phrases like “we will comply with our statutory requirements,” “one size fits all rules,” “I’m not able to answer that,” and the always-reliable “I’m looking forward to working with you on that,” you would have succumbed to alcohol poisoning by lunch time.

Chavez DeRemer is in the House

A couple of general observations. Let’s start in the House, where Secretary Chavez DeRemer appeared before my old committee

As we’ve seen from other administration witnesses over the past couple of months, Chavez-DeRemer conveniently refused to respond to a number of questions about rulemaking or Department actions, using the tired old excuse that they’re being sued (and they’re being sued over just about everything), or because we are in the middle of the regulatory process. While it’s true no one is supposed to talk about the details of lawsuits or ongoing rulemaking, she declined to even discuss general issues — if she was uncomfortable with the question.

But I will give her this: If there were awards for “Best Flirt” (with Wisconsin Congressman Glenn Grothman (2:28)) or for being a master chef of the word salad, she would win hands down.

Criticism of OSHA’s proposed civilization-ending, “one size fits all” heat standard was a popular subject for several Republicans. I covered some of those criticisms in my recent post that summarized a recent hearing I testified at.

As at that hearing, Texas Congressman Greg Casar came vigorously to the defense of the OSHA heat standard, repeatedly attempting to get Chavez DeRemer to concede that we should all be able to agree that it might not be a good idea for employers to require workers to labor five hours straight in 100-degree heat without a rest break. (1:51)

Casar was unsuccessful because — well, I’ll let you decipher her word-salad yourself…

Well, Congressman, I appreciate the question and understand that you want my opinion, and as the Secretary of Labor, I think it’s more important…the bigger question is, is it my responsibility to address the stakeholders and take the information as you just mentioned from one side, then it might be wrong and another side that says, uh well, wait a minute, we want to comply?

From my perspective, while we’re in rulemaking, I will take that information when we’re developing that rule, because, but what I do want is to follow the law, we know that one size fits all. I just said it earlier to Congressman Messmer here and understanding that. I can’t speak specifically to the rules, it’s rulemaking. But I do want Congress to address what is the best policy moving forward to protect the American worker. One of the things that the Department of Labor, its core mission is to make sure every worker gets home safely. That’s what we should always be.

Translation: “I’m not going to respond to any heat-related questions because we’re in rulemaking.”

Enforcement Cuts

The big news — and Chavez-DeRemer’s main vulnerability is the devastating OSHA and MSHA budget and staffing cuts that the President is seeking in his proposed budget.

I was hoping someone would reduce her to a quivering pool of tears challenging her on the OSHA enforcement cuts that will result in almost the lowest number of inspections in OSHA’s history.

Not quite. Ranking Member Bobby Scott (D-VA) raised the issue in his opening statement:

“I understand that, during your budget hearing before the Appropriations Subcommittee, you said that “more money does not lead to the best outcome.” Madame Secretary, I am looking forward to hearing from you today about how less money can lead to better outcomes.

“How does this affect OSHA? Because OSHA has so few inspectors that it would take 185 years for the agency to visit every workplace within its jurisdiction just once. So, how will workers be safer with the cuts proposed in this budget?

She sort of attempted to address the issue in her written testimony:

The President’s budget outlines a proposal that streamlines bureaucracy and focuses the Department’s agencies on their statutorily mandated work. The funding requests for the Mine Safety and Health Administration, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and the Wage and Hour Division direct our efforts toward conducting inspections and investigations to ensure all workers are kept safe.

Streamlining bureaucracy, maybe. But are OSHA inspectors the bureaucrats that need to be “streamlined.” And how do 10,000 fewer inspections “ensure all workers are kept safe?”

Her written comments weren’t good enough for Workforce Protections Subcommittee Ranking Member Ilhan Omar (D-MN) who asked what her plan was to keep workers safe when she’s slashing enforcement in OSHA and the Wage and Hour Division?(2:25)

Again, the word salad.
Chavez DeRemer: Yeah, no, thank you again and you know again one of the overall core missions is to protect the American worker and that includes in the Wage and Hour Division as well, and while we are streamlining and doing some cost saving for the American taxpayer, we will always be in compliance with our statutorial requirements…

Omar: Madam Secretary, if I can just interrupt for 1 second, at one point, DOGE was set to close 20 WHD (Wage and Hour) field offices and 11 OSHA offices. If this is happening, how will this protect workers?

CDR: So the offices that we have been, that were originally proposed through GSA, we have worked with to bring them online, I don’t think that that is a good use of uh, the compliance issue that we have to protect the American worker and through the DRP, none of our essential workers, either through Wage and Hour, through OSHA, through MSHA, were able to take those, because we know we need those investigators on the ground to protect the American worker and I advocated for that.

Omar: But having fewer investigators and inspectors will not protect workplace from wage theft, misclassification and dangerous working conditions. So how are you going to operate with less, even though we didn’t even have enough to begin with?

CDR: Well, it depends on what the priorities are from the past administration. But in this…

Omar: Are inspections not priorities?

CDR: They are priorities to protect those…

Omar: But with less inspectors, you can’t do investigations.

CDR: What the thing that you want to do is weaponize the use of those funding dollars against…

Omar: How is it weaponization, if you are, if it’s going to take you 187 years to complete inspections, and you are cutting the inspectors that are supposed to do those inspections, the math is not mapping.

CDR: And well, statutorily, we will protect the American worker we did not have any of our investigators currently were not able to take the DRP in order so that they can be assigned to the job that they are required with. [Note: The DRP is the” Deferred Resignation Program,” a voluntary program for federal employees that allows them to resign and receive paid leave until September 30, 2025.]

Omar: Are you saying that you’re going to hire more investigators to do inspections?

CDR: What I’m saying is we did not allow our statutorily mandated offices that we need essential workers like our investigators through Wage and Hour, through MSHA, and through OSHA, to take the DRP because they are essential to protecting the American worker in these industries. We can still cost-save and do the job that we need to do it.

Omar: So American workers can expect that you will expedite investigations to make sure that we are assuring their safety.

CDR: American workers can expect that the Department of Labor will protect the American worker as it is a core mission of the Department of Labor.

Omar: I hope you keep that promise.

Now, the DRP (Deferred Resignation Program) mention was a clear diversion from the real issue: It is true that OSHA, MSHA and Wage & Hour inspectors weren’t eligible to take advantage of deferred resignation because they are vital to the agency’s mission.

But what her answer did not acknowledge is that the President’s FY 2026 budget cuts OSHA enforcement staff by 13% and reduces inspections next year by almost one-third — almost the lowest in OSHA’s 54-year history.
Rep. Courtney (D-CT) asked about OSHA’s very slow progress on a workplace violence standard and whether she would commit to moving forward. She responded ominously that they are “taking a look at all the rulemaking” and protecting workers is one of DOL’s core missions, and that “no worker should have to determine whether or not they are going to go home safe at the end of the day.”

So there’s that.

And Congresswoman Mary Miller (R-IL) played her usual Wicked Witch of the Midwest shtick (1:50), accusing Biden’s OSHA of forcing the firing of thousands of healthcare workers, government employees and military personnel for refusing to take the “experimental” COVID-19 vaccine, persecuting small businesses and destroying the agriculture industry with the heat standard.

Wisconsin Congressman Glenn Grothman asked whether she would fight against the evil firefighters union which is conspiring with OSHA to destroy volunteer fire departments in its Emergency Response standard.

Most of it was pretty tame, but if you’re looking for fireworks, check out Pennsylvania Congresswoman Summer Lee’s questioning about DOL’s elimination of Job Corps and her (mostly unsuccessful) persistence in attempting to get answers to her questions. (2:12).

It ended with Chavez DeRemer trumpily accusing Lee of being “very disrespectful and very rude from a former colleague.” Rep Lee was not amused, as you can see for yourself….

Keeling Confirmation

David Keeling’s confirmation hearing resulted in no significant revelations. He was asked relatively a few questions and none about the troubled health and safety history of Amazon whose OSH program he directed for several years. Nor was he asked about his stint at UPS where heat comprised 20% of injuries.

His written testimony was somewhat puzzling. He explained his three goals.

The first dealt with “Regulatory Oversight and Rulemaking” where he wants to “bring to bear technology and predictive analytics, which move beyond simple regulatory compliance and post-injury response, to injury prevention through informed design.”

Whatever that means…

He wants to “expand OSHA’s leadership in the areas of industry ‘Cooperation and Collaboration’ between professional groups, companies, and unions” and to modernize VPP. You can’t get much more non-controversial than supporting cooperation and collaboration — where that works.

And he reminded us (in case we had forgotten) “that many of OSHA’s existing standards have become antiquated or unusable in the face of job modernization or technological advancements within the workplace.” He failed to acknowledge, however, that the way around that is to make it much easier and faster for OSHA to issue and modernize new standards.

And finally, he wants to transform enforcement. How?

Technology exists today that wasn’t available to us when OSHA processes were originally put into place in the 1970s. We now have the ability to use existing data to greatly enhance on-site safety efforts through predictive analytics. We must engage at-risk employers and employees through proactive risk mitigation and reduction programs before a worksite tragedy has taken place or fatality has occurred. We should never get to a worksite after it is too late.

What are “predictive analytics?” According to the Google, “Predictive analytics uses historical data and various statistical techniques to forecast future outcomes, essentially predicting what will happen based on what has already happened.” That sounds kind of like OSHA’s existing Site Specific Targeting Program that uses historical injury and illness data to target its inspections at the most hazardous workplaces.

Of course, if you really want to do that, “predictive analytics” aren’t enough. You actually need inspectors and inspections. And the President wants to cut those.

Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) condemned the President’s proposed OSHA inspection cuts in her opening statement, accusing the cuts of creating an unsafe environment and mor injuries.

She later asked him to commit that he would finalize a workplace violence standard as soon as he is confirmed. He committed to working with her on that.

Senator Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD) asked him whether he thinks there is a need to increase workplace protections for firefighters. He said he’s confident that there is “a path through,” but there are concerns from volunteer firefighters, although not necessarily as written now.

One of the better questions was asked by a Republican, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, who asked him what impact the destruction of NIOSH would have on OSHA, point out that the cuts will produce an information and research gap in efforts needed to protect workers in high-risk occupations like fishing and firefighting.

Keeling responded that he is confident “there are paths through by using professional groups that are out there and some private resources to fill the gap, not necessarily equally, but there are ways…” [emphasis added.]

Is he a hiker? He clearly sees a lot of “paths through” OSHA’s problems.

I think there is no doubt that Keeling will be confirmed. I don’t know how many, if any, Democratic votes he’ll get — not that Democrats have anything specific against him, but they may vote against his confirmation to protest Trump’s proposed budget cuts.

And as I’ve said before, the question is really not what he believes or what he wants to do. The question is to what extent he’ll bow to White House dictates. And if he’s looking for a role model, Chavez-DeRemer is setting a good example of how to bend the knee.