Now that the House is controlled by Democrats, the House Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee approved a draft bill that proposes increased funding for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Safety + Health reports.
The draft bill, which was released April 29, 2019, proposes that OSHA budget allocations would be more than $660.9 million, which is approximately $103 million more than the administration’s proposed budget of just $300,000 more than its $557.2 million FY 2019 budget. MSHA would receive nearly $417.3 million for FY 2020 — approximately $41.3 million more than the administration’s proposal. The agency had a $373.8 million budget in FY 2019. NIOSH would get $346.3 million, $10 million more than its FY 2019 budget and approximately $156 million more than the administration requested.
The subcommittee also proposes giving almost $12.7 million to the Susan Harwood Training Grant Program, a program the administration would like to eliminate. The budget summary states that in lieu of grants, the Department of Labor would “maximize flexibility and use alternative methods to develop and distribute training materials to reach the broadest possible audience.”
The budget proposal would give $13.3 billion to the Department of Labor — approximately $1.2 billion more than FY 2019’s budget and $2.4 billion more than the administration’s proposal.
Next stop for the budget proposal will be for markup by the full House Appropriations Committee, which had not yet been scheduled at press time.