Yes, Virginia, there's a federal agency to protect workers against safety hazards

It's called OSHA, and Congress raked it over the coals yesterday.

Yesterday’s hearing on the Occupational Safety Health Administration’s inaction during the Covid crisis didn’t get a lot of coverage, because the regulatory state bores most media outlets, even in the midst of a public health crisis that’s killed 100,000 people. (Read Michael Lewis’s The Fifth Risk for a bracing reminder about why the workings of executive branch agencies warrant considerably more attention even when we aren’t in the middle of a deadly global pandemic; or read any issue of the Washington Monthly, where I’m a contributing editor; or read my review of Lewis’s book for the Monthly.)

Anyway, that’s not what I came here to say. I came here to announce that I have a piece up today about the OSHA hearing on the New Republic’s new spiffed-up website. A highlight is OSHA administrator Loren Sweatt’s refusal to answer the question, “Do you think that Covid-19 presents a grave danger to workers?”

I also recommend this report about the hearing in Law 360 by Braden Campbell. You can watch the hearing itself here. The exchange over whether Covid-19 presents a grave danger to workers comes at 2:02:01.