Am-Bush On Work Regs Right On (Editorial)

President Bush appears set on undoing as much of former President Clinton’s final administrative regulations as possible, and his signing of the repeal of ergonomic rules is a good thing.

Bush called the workplace ergonomic rules to combat repetitive stress injuries “unduly burdensome and overly broad.” And that they were.

Although Bush’s action quickly drew the wrath of organized labor and some Democrats, his decision was justified.

In exchange for uncertain benefits, the President said, “The ergonomics rule would have cost both large and small employers billions of dollars and presented employers with overwhelming compliance challenges.”

The Occupation Safety and Health Administration had estimated that the new rules would have generated benefits of $9.1 billion a year for each of its first 10 years, and would have prevented 460,000 musculoskeletal disorders a year. It said employers pay $15 billion to $18 billion a year in workers’ compensation costs as a result of such disorders.

OSHA estimated that the regulations could cost businesses $4.2 billion a year, which would be offset by the $9 billion savings in medical costs and increased productivity, but businesses put the cost of the regs closer to $80 billion a year. The true cost would undoubtedly have been somewhere in between. The Small Business Administration said the annual cost of the ergonomics rule could exceed $18 billion, double the projected savings.

Now, we don’t deny that preventing the pain and disability that can result from jobs involving repetitive motions is worthwhile, and even worth money. But the ergonomics rule issued by the Clinton administration wasn’t limited to those jobs. It ordered benefits that exceeded those covered by workers’ compensation policies, superseded state workers’ comp laws and was so broad and vague that more than 100 million employees may have been affected by the rule — not the 27 million that OSHA said were targeted.

Business groups rightfully questioned rules that would have required them to address individual physical problems such as carpal tunnel syndrome, back pain and tendinitis that could have been caused by elsewhere and had nothing to do with working conditions.

We’ve yet to see a federal regulation, no matter how well intentioned, save businesses more money than its mandates will cost. Maybe it’s time to stop trying to sell policy with that kind of promise.