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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   27945 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025

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It would be really cool if the USCSB wasn't being shut down; if you haven't seen their investigation videos about industrial disasters, they really are wonderful.

Looks like they're only being targeted because they're "independent". Seems to me it would make sense to move them under the Department of Labor.

That's the thing; they're not just an extension of OSHA. Their primary focus isn't labor safety, or environmental quality, or industry standards, it's process safety, which touches all of those. Their role is inherently cross-functional, as you can see from the variety of organizations they make recommendations to.

Anyway, it's not being moved, it's just being destroyed. Whatever the talk there is about it being redundant, it's not being consolidated with something else, and its function will go unfulfilled.

Whatever the talk there is about it being redundant, it's not being consolidated with something else, and its function will go unfulfilled.

Depends on whether or not they are actually duplicative. The proposal does not say that its function will go unfufilled; it says it should rest with other agencies with rulemaking authority.

Is that actually happening? Do you have any reason at all to believe that we're not going to lose that functionality? The budget request says:

CSB duplicates substantial capabilities in the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to investigate chemical-related mishaps. CSB generates unprompted studies of the chemical industry and recommends policies that they have no authority to create or enforce. This function should reside within agencies that have authorities to issue regulations in accordance with applicable legal standards.

But those agencies don't do that. Their recommendations are well-regarded by the industry (see also the quote from the American Chemistry Council here).

I note that EPA's budget is being halved, and OSHA's is being cut as well; they're also eliminating EPA's Office of Research and Development entirely.

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