On February 20, I wrote in this space about OSHA's inaction on the problem of "combustible dust" -- invisible particles that build up in some workplaces, creating a dangerous risk of explosions -- and how that inaction led to the deaths of twelve workers and injuries to many more when the Imperial Sugar plant at Port Wentworth, Georgia exploded on February 8, along with many other deaths and injuries in other accidents over the years.

Since then, there has been a steadily growing call for OSHA to (belatedly) do something about combustible dust. On February 20, several Change to Win unions presented Labor Secretary Elaine Chao with a petition demanding action, and op-ed pages in Georgia have taken up the call as well.

Yesterday, Congressional leaders Rep. George Miller (D-CA) and Rep. John Barrow (D-GA) introduced legislation to force OSHA to act and scheduled hearings for March 12 to investigate why the agency dragged its feet. And also yesterday -- nearly a month after the Imperial Sugar explosion, and just days before those hearings -- OSHA chief Edwin Foulke, Jr. announced that his agency would finally be doing something:

Federal inspections will be carried out at hundreds of plants where combustible dust is a workplace hazard, a top safety official said Monday at a sugar refinery where dust is suspected of causing a deadly explosion.

Ed Foulke Jr., head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, announced the inspections while visiting the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port Wentworth, where a blast on Feb. 7 killed 12 workers injured dozens more.

OSHA has not completed its investigation of that explosion but is sending letters to 30,000 companies that deal with combustible dust to discuss the dangers, Foulke said in a telephone interview.

But the question isn't whether or not OSHA will do a one-time inspection or send an "FYI" letter to corporations and hope they will voluntarily clean up their workplaces. The question is whether OSHA will enact a permanent, standing rule that will ensure now and in the future that buildups of combustible dust are prevented.  And the AP report on OSHA's new statement makes it clear that OSHA is in no hurry to make that rule:

Foulke said Monday that more work must be done to determine whether existing standards on ventilation and factory housekeeping can be used to address existing concerns, and to determine how a standard can be crafted so it makes sense for different industries with different types of dust.

So OSHA's position is that we need more research to determine if there's any need to do anything about these factories that keep blowing up.  Never mind that the Chairman of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board said in November 2006 that "new federal standards are necessary to prevent further loss of life" from combustible dust accidents.

These hearings ought to be pretty lively, don't you think?

(By the way, if you want to follow this issue, a great resource is the new Dust Explosions blog. It's a product of the same person who created that Google Map of combustible dust explosions I cited in my earlier post on combustible dust. The OSHA Underground blog is useful as well.)

UPDATE (12:20PM): From UFCW -- Chao and OSHA: Too Little Too Late:

The explosions could have been prevented had OSHA heeded the recommendations made by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board made in November 2006. That year, the CSB conducted a major study of combustible dust hazards following three worksite catastrophic dust explosions that killed 14 workers in 2003. The CSB report noted that a quarter of the explosions that occurred between 1980 and 2005 that were identified, occurred at food industry facilities, including sugar plants.

OSHA’s Katrina-like inaction on this workplace risk follows a pattern of the agency ignoring scientific evidence and its own rule-making guidelines. By law, OSHA was supposed to respond to the CSB’s recommendations within six months.