Savannah Morning News
Editorial
IT’S GOOD that Georgia’s two senators now support permanent, mandatory standards to protect American workers and eliminate hazardous dust in industrial workplaces.
Here’s a better idea for Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss – support proposed legislation that could have the new rules in place in as few as 120 days.
Both Mr. Isakson and Mr. Chambliss were on the fence last year on legislation to establish specific standards on combustible dust in general industries. Instead, the senators opted to wait until the government’s independent experts officially weighed in on the causes of the Feb. 7 explosions and fires that killed 14 workers and injured 36 others at the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port Wentworth.
And now the experts have spoken.
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board approved a report Thursday in Savannah, citing a combination of unsafe sugar dust, poor equipment design and poor maintenance as factors in the fatal blast. The four-member, independent board again urged – for the second time in three years – adoption of dust standards to stop such preventable accidents from reoccurring and killing and injuring more workers.
Deliberation in federal rule-making is a positive thing when it stops the creation of excessive, bureaucratic red tape.
This isn’t one of those times.
Instead, in the wake of last Thursday’s affirmation by experts that dust has again needlessly taken lives, there’s a need for speed. Let’s get the new rules in place as soon as possible. Then enforce them.
U.S. Rep. John Barrow, D-Savannah, is co-sponsoring legislation (HR 849) that would fast-track the rule-making process, which means the new dust standards would go into effect in as little as three months.
We support this measure. After the CSB’s report, there’s no reason for Congress and the administration to go slow. Lives are potentially at stake.
Dust standards would make American industries pay attention to potential hazards now, not after workers have been killed or injured and facilities destroyed.
It’s clear from the evidence collected and presented by the CSB that Imperial Sugar was, at the very least, complacent before last February. Management was aware that dust was a hazard. Yet it didn’t take the risk seriously.
Today, Imperial Sugar says it’s a changed company. That’s good. But it took death and destruction for the company to readjust priorities. Many American businesses complain, and rightly so, about new, costly government regulations that appear to serve no legitimate purpose. But this is one instance when additional regulation is a good thing.
Complacency kills. It can kill again. The sooner that dust standards are applied to American industries, the better.