The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) is proposing to cut in half the exposure limit for coal dust, the cause of black lung disease. MSHA estimates the new standard will prevent thousands of illnesses and hundreds of deaths over the lifetimes of miners.

The Government Accountability Office found that major worker safety, health, and rights violators hide among the federal government’s most lucrative contract awardees. A new GAO report shows that the government awarded contracts to firms after they were cited for violations or fined by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Wage and Hour Division (WHD), the federal agency responsible for worker rights issues like back wages and child labor.

This week, the Interior Department released a new policy to protect scientific integrity in the department. OMB Watch joined other public interest groups in submitting comments on the department's draft policy in September. The new policy attempts to address concerns, raised in those comments and others, that the draft policy did not go far enough to prevent abuses of the department's scientific activities and decision making.

As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency continues to hold hearings across the country on its proposal to regulate coal ash, a toxic by-product of coal combustion that contains lead, arsenic, and other toxics, industry representatives continue to make excuses and concoct ridiculous arguments for why coal ash regulation isn’t necessary.