David Michaels, a professor in occupational safety and health at George Washington University and a former Department of Energy assistant secretary, has emerged as a leading candidate to become the next head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, sources close to the issue told BNA.

Michaels declined to comment for this story when reached by BNA.

Michaels is currently interim chair of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the George Washington University School of Public Health in Washington, D.C. He is also the director of the university's Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy, which “examines the nature of science and how it is used and misused in government decisionmaking and legal proceedings,” according to the project's website.

In 2008, Michaels wrote the book, Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health, which received positive reviews from the health and safety communities and The Library Journal.

In the book Michaels said that as a regulator with the Department of Energy, he was never sure what was the origin of the studies he received.

For this reason, Michaels says in the book, OSHA's lack of authority to inquire who has paid for studies the agency receives or “whether they (the studies) were performed under the types of contracts the medical journals have banned,” should be changed.

Major Policy Change at OSHA.

Michaels said he did not believe regulators should use conflict disclosures to exclude research the agencies receive, because “we have an obligation to consider all of the evidence” but should be informed who funded the study so the agency could “accord greater importance to those studies that are of higher quality and relevance, although we should certainly be informed about those conflicts.”

Michaels gave more hints as to what he might do as OSHA administrator in the Winter 2009 issue of the New York Committee of Occupational Safety and Health's SafetyRep newsletter.

Michaels wrote that OSHA “badly needs a change in direction and philosophy,” listing four objectives the agency should undertake: issuing a workplace injury and illness prevention program rule, increasing training grants, developing a new electronic recordkeeping and reporting system, and launching a campaign to “change the way the nation thinks about workplace safety.”

Under the Clinton administration, Michaels was the Department of Energy's assistant secretary for environment safety and health from 1998 through January 2001. In that role he was charged with protecting the health and safety of workers at nuclear weapons facilities.

Michaels also helped develop the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program and oversaw the promulgation of the Chronic Beryllium Disease Prevention (10 C.F.R. 850) and Nuclear Safety Management (10 C.F.R. 830) rules, according to his George Washington University biography.

“All along, there were rumors the administration was looking towards someone with a science background. His appointment would fit those rumors,” Dave Heidorn, manager of government affairs at the American Society of Safety Engineers, told BNA. “Hopefully, it would mean a more effective link between OSHA and [the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health], as envisioned in the OSH Act, and a commitment to science-based over political solutions to help OSHA address long-standing difficult issues like permissible exposure limits and emerging issues like nanotechnology, which John Howard, another science-based OSH leader, did such a great job of addressing at NIOSH.”

Praise for Michaels.

“He's a real solid, qualified guy,” said a longtime OSHA watcher who spoke to BNA May 18 on condition of anonymity. “He might have the right combination of being knowledgeable about the issues, but the virtue of not having ever worked in the Labor Department. So he may have more creativity about the ways to change things than somebody who's been waiting [for the job] for 30 years.”

The source also said Michaels' management credentials were proven during his tenure at the Department of Energy, where he ran a “huge operation” with many more staffers than are at OSHA.

“It hasn't been since Eula Bingham that we had a true person of science running OSHA,” the source said, referring to the head of OSHA under the administration of former President Carter, from 1977 to 1981. “So that's a great thing. Certainly, [Michaels] has become well-known in the last five years or so for advocating the notion that industry is corrupt and can't be trusted to get the science right, because they're not interested in doing that. The question is whether he has the ability to carry that skepticism forward, but also to work cooperatively with industry.”

One labor source told BNA May 14 the labor movement had identified and thrown its support behind a candidate, but declined to name that person.

“After what happened to Peg [Seminario], we're a little gun-shy,” said the source, referring to the AFL-CIO's safety and health director who was eliminated from consideration for the OSHA top post in March because of her lobbying on behalf of the labor federation (39 OSHR 257, 4/2/09).

By Stephen Lee

Copyright 2009, The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.