Compliance Assistance, Whistleblower Efforts Gain Funding In Approps Deal

Congress – as part of a huge eleventh-hour deal to keep agencies afloat the rest of of the fiscal year – appropriated millions more to OSHA compliance assistance programs at the state and federal levels, as well as $1 million to beef up the whistleblower protection program, which OSHA has been striving to improve. Overall, OSHA got a roughly $7 million budget hike for the rest of fiscal year 2012 under the newly signed measure funding the government through September, even as a policy rider attached to the bill stops one of the agency's more controversial proposed rules, dealing with musculosk