More than 75,000 people have written to the Department of Labor (DOL) in response to its proposed changes to overtime standards -- the most mail the agency has received on any similar issue in at least a decade, according to the Washington Post. DOL’s proposed changes, issued March 31, 2003, would significantly alter current overtime rules -- stripping eight million workers of their right to time-and-a-half pay for hours worked beyond 40 in a single week, according to a recent analysis by the Economic Policy Institute.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) altered standards on June 30 for recording workplace injuries and illnesses, eliminating a provision that required employers to document workers’ ergonomic injuries.

The House Appropriations Committee recently voted to block implementation of a law that requires meat and meat products to bear a label indicating their country of origin. The meat industry strongly opposes such country of origin labeling (COOL), which was mandated by the 2002 Farm bill, claiming it would be costly and disruptive. The requirements were instituted to help consumers identify American-made products and have been seen as increasingly important due to the recent discovery of mad cow disease in Canada.

Rep. Doug Ose (R-CA) recently introduced legislation (H.R. 2432) that would test regulatory budgeting at five agencies, including EPA and the departments of Labor and Transportation. Under these “pilot projects,” the participating agencies -- including two to be designated by OMB -- must present the “varying levels of costs and benefits to the public that would result from different budgeted amounts” for at least one of their “major regulatory programs.” OMB is to include these regulatory budgets in the president’s budget submission to Congress for fiscal year 2007.