Republican calls to scrap the workplace safety agency

House Republican Andy Biggs introduced a bill on Sunday that would abolish the Work Environment Administration (OSHA), a department of work agency that is tasked with supervising workplace safety.

The Arizona representative claimed that Osha’s role should be taken over by “state governments and private employers.”

Newsweek Contacted Biggs and Department of Labor for Comment on Tuesday via E email.

Why it matters

Following his second inauguration on January 20, President Donald Trump has taken a number of steps to fight what he considers a breach of the federal government. On January 31, he issued an executive order that requires that when an agency comes with a new regulation, it must “identify at least 10 existing rules, rules or counseling documents to be lifted.”

Trump also approved the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the technical billionaire Elon Musk, who previously suggested that the federal government spending could be reduced by up to $ 2 trillion.

What to know

Biggs’ Bill, titled Nullify Work Environment Administration (NOSHA) ACT, says: “The Working Environment Act of 1970 is abolished. The Work Environment Administration is abolished.”

In an accompanying press release published on Sunday, Biggs said: “Osha’s existence is another example of the federal government creating agencies to tackle issues more appropriately handled by state governments and private employers.

“Arizona and any other state have the constitutional right to establish and implement their own health and safety measures and are more than able to do so.

“It’s time we are fighting the inflated federal government and eliminating agencies that should never have been established in the first Federal Agency.”

Biggs introduced an almost identical bill in parliament in November 2021, though it failed.

The Work Environment and Health Act was signed by President Richard Nixon in 1970 after a series of high -profile workplace disasters, including deaths for 21 workers when a drilling barge hijacked in Mexicogolf in the Farmington Mine disaster in 1968 in West Virginia in 1964.

What people say

National Consumers League CEO Sally Greenberg, In a statement: “This bill would be a catastrophic step behind the workers’ security in this country. The abolition of OSHA would put workers at high risk by removing the very protection that has helped to reduce workplace damage and death for over 50 years.

“Without OSHA, many workers will become vulnerable to uncertain conditions, and it will be the most vulnerable low-income and minority workers-which will carry the head of dangerous rollbacks.”

Conservative-bending commentator Kristen Meghan, in a post of X, former Twitter: “As a person who has worked in the working environment and health for almost 23 years, I am 100% for this.

“Osha violated his own standards and targeted businesses and abused the general customs clause … They let themselves become weapons and violated the ethics of our profession.”

What happens next

It is unclear whether Biggs’ bill is supported by the Trump administration. If so, it can be plausible in the law, although the Republicans’ slim majority of both congress trials mean that this is far from a given. Without supporting the White House, the legislation is likely to fail for the second time.