I just got this from the NRA-ILA:
Labor Department Announces It Will ReviseOverreaching OSHA Explosives RuleThe Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced it will significantly revise a recent proposal for new “explosives safety” regulations that caused serious concern among gun owners. OSHA had originally set out to update workplace safety regulations, but the proposed rules included restrictions that very few gun shops, sporting goods stores, shippers, or ammunition dealers could comply with.Gun owners had filed a blizzard of negative comments urged by the NRA, and just a week ago, OSHA had already issued one extension for its public comment period at the request of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. After continued publicity through NRA alerts and the outdoor media, and after dozens of Members of Congress expressed concern about its impact, OSHA has wisely decided to go back to the drawing board.Working with the NRA, Congressman Denny Rehberg (R-MT) planned to offer a floor amendment to the Labor-HHS appropriations bill this Wednesday when the House considers this legislation. His amendment would have prohibited federal funds from being used to enforce this OSHA regulation.Such an amendment is no longer necessary since Kristine A. Iverson, the Labor Department’s Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs, sent Rep. Rehberg a letter, dated July 16, stating that it “was never the intention of OSHA to block the sale, transportation, or storage of small arms ammunition, and OSHA is taking prompt action to revise” this proposed rule to clarify the purpose of the regulation.Also, working with the NRA, Congressman Doug Lamborn (R-CO) gathered signatures from 25 House colleagues for a letter, dated July 11, expressing concerns about this proposed OSHA rule. The letter calling the proposal “an undue burden on a single industry where facts do not support the need outlined by this proposed rule” and “not feasible, making it realistically impossible for companies to comply with its tenets.”The OSHA proposal would have defined “explosives” to include “black powder, … small arms ammunition, small arms ammunition primers, [and] smokeless propellant,” and treated these items the same as the most volatile high explosives.Under the proposed rule, a workplace that contained even a handful of small arms cartridges, for any reason, would have been considered a “facility containing explosives” and therefore subject to many impractical restrictions. For example, no one could carry “firearms, ammunition, or similar articles in facilities containing explosives … except as required for work duties.” Obviously, this rule would make it impossible to operate any kind of gun store, firing range, or gunsmith shop.The public comment website for the proposed rule is no longer accessible. The Labor Department will publish a notice in the July 17 Federal Register announcing that a new rule proposal will soon be drafted for public comment. Needless to say, the NRA monitors proposed federal regulations to head off this kind of overreach, and will be alert for OSHA’s next draft.We will post the letter to Congressman Rehberg shortly.
While I’m glad that all the pressure got OSHA to back down, not for a single New York Minute do I believe that it was never their intent to make the manufacture, transportation, sale and possession of ammunition impossible. Of course that was their intent.
There is documented evidence that OSHA will skew it’s enforcement activities based on pressure from their oversight committees. Knowing that, one of the more interesting names on the roster of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce (the House’s oversight committee) is Carolyn McCarthy of HR 1022 fame.
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions is far worse. Chaired by Senator “I’m safer hunting with Dick than riding with Ted” Kennedy, it’s a veritable club of a gunnie’s worst political enemies–Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders are only a few of the gun-grabbing luminaries on this committee.
Folks, this was a back door attempt to put us out of the shooting business. We caught them this time, but remember, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.