U.S. Rushes to Change Workplace Toxin Rules

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Political appointees at the Department of Labor are moving with unusual speed to push through in the final months of the Bush administration a rule making it tougher to regulate workers' on-the-job exposure to chemicals and toxins.

The agency did not disclose the proposal, as required, in public notices of regulatory plans that it filed in December and May.

But the fast-track approach has brought criticism from workplace-safety advocates, unions and Democrats in Congress. Some accuse the Bush administration of working secretly to give industry a parting gift that will help it delay or block safety regulations after President Bush leaves office.

TVNL Comment: I think at this point it is pretty safe to say that anything we do to stop or eliminate every member of the Cheney/Bush administration can be considered self defense. Everything these people have done and are doing has made us less safe or directly harmed (or killed) us. They have attacked our liberties, our finances, our health, our access to information, our environment and our entire world. If "the people next door" tried to do to us what these people have done to us...we would form a lynch mob.

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