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We had one of the finest back surgeons, one of the most prominent back surgeons in the country who said after years of his study and years of his dealing with the issue he found that in many instances it is not physical factors like how often you lift or how often you bend. In fact, he said that it is in many instances nonphysical factors, just stress in life, not enjoying one's job, and I think we can all relate

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   And so here is a back surgeon, a prominent back surgeon who made that statement. So again, all the hearings that we have had, there is so much indecision as to what is the proper way to go, what do we specifically know and how do we handle the issue? And so all we say is, wait, get the study. We are paying almost a million bucks for it, and then see whether you can promulgate regulations that will truly help the men and women that we are trying to help.

   So no one is here trying to prevent forever ergonomic regulations. We are here saying let us do it right, let us get the scientific evidence first, and then proceed.

   Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. PELOSI).

   Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me.

   Mr. Speaker, today we vote on legislation to block OSHA from protecting America's working men and women from workplace injuries and illnesses caused by ergonomic-related issues. My colleagues have the figures, but they bear repeating. Each year more than 2 million workers suffer these injures, more than 640,000 workers lose time at work, and each year this costs the economy $15 to $20 billion in worker compensation, an overall $60 billion, all things considered.

   I oppose this legislation and support workplace protection for American workers.

   What is ergonomics? What is that word? What does it mean? Ergonomics and what are ergonomic-related injuries? Ergonomics is the science of adapting the workplace to the physical needs of the workers such as giving telephone headsets to telephone operators to avoid cradling the phone to reduce neck and shoulder pain, a work place that is poorly adapted to workers' causes, ergonomics injuries.

   One type of injury, repetitive motion injuries frequently mentioned here, is caused when a worker repeats a specific motion hundreds or thousands of times. For example, secretaries and office workers who type all day at their computer keyboards often suffer wrist and arm injuries.

   Similarly, America's poultry workers who cut up and sliced up the chicken parts for our meals repeat the same cutting and slicing motion hundreds of time an hour each day as they cut up thousands of chickens for our meals. The cumulative stress of these repetitive motions cause secretaries, poultry workers, and other workers to suffer health problems.

   But I want to get personal about this, Mr. Speaker. I want to talk about one particular poultry worker.

   Betty Yvonne Green. Betty worked as a chicken fillet puller for seven years. Her job required her to use her thumbs to separate the fillet from the bone, cut the tips off the fillet with scissors and then place the product in a tub. Betty performed this task 16 to 17 times a minute for 2 1/2 hours straight without a break.

   In 1984, Betty began to feel pain in her right arm and reported it to her supervisor, the directors of personnel and the plant manager. They all told her there was nothing wrong and she would have to live with this problem. Management felt her pain did not warrant medical assistance, and nothing was to be done until Betty went to her personal physician.

   Betty's doctor found that both her rotator cuffs had been torn and required surgery. She went back to work after both surgeries, but was unable to continue to do her fillet job. She worked some light duty, but to no avail. Betty was terminated by the company for what they said was excessive absenteeism. She was denied unemployment and only received workers compensation after retaining an attorney.

   On behalf of Betty Yvonne Green and many, many workers throughout this country who deserve our respect, in fact deserve our protection, I urge our colleagues to vote no on this so-called Workplace Preservation Act. Indeed it should be called the Workplace Persecution Act because that is exactly what it does to the American worker. We can study this thing to death. Of course we are always open to more science, but we have to also know when we have enough science to proceed and learn many more ways that we can do better in the workplace, but not to deny, not to deny what has been fully documented by NIOSH, which has been fully documented by the National Academy of Sciences as a relationship between repetitive motion and ergonomic disease.

   I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

   Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. CUNNINGHAM).

   (Mr. CUNNINGHAM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

   Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. FROST) says that the Democrats are for working people, for working men and women, but yet every piece of legislation that they had out of here in support are against 90 percent of the working people. But if it is for the union bosses, they will support it. In 1993, they put the highest tax on the American people possible and increased the tax on middle-income workers, and this year they are trying to stop tax relief for those same workers. Salting for the unions where the unions go in and just destroy a small business, not even looking to overtake that business. That is wrong, but yet our union brothers over here support it.

   Davis -Bacon , that increases inflation 15 to 35 percent of construction for school buildings, but yet will they waive for the children? No, they will support the unions. Now we are asking for a scientific study, and I would say that even Republicans, we need to go one step further because when colleagues say based on science you need to look at who pays for the science. Is it the Republican groups or the Democrat groups, and people need an individual peer review to be fair, a nonpartisan independent review. Sometimes that does not exist, and I will give into that and we need that.

   As my colleagues know, in the office the people that work with computers all the times, they have carpel tunnel. There is good scientific basis that we need to help those people and provide the pads and make sure there is rotation and lights, and we have some pretty good science on it. But the problem is our colleagues want to go in without a study or agenda instead of science, and we are saying, no, let us back it up with the science to show so there will not be a big input on it, and I brought up yesterday www.dsa/usa.

   Democrat Socialists of America, progressive caucus, has a 12 point agenda: government control of health care, government control of education, government control of private property, and guess what? Union over small business and cut military by half, by 50 percent, and it is to support the union. That is their working men and women, but not the 90 percent of the people that have all of the other jobs.

   My colleagues should put their mouth and money where their rhetoric is. Support the people, the working men and women.

   Who is for this? The union bosses. Who is against it? Chamber, NFIB, every small business group out there because they know that the only thing that my colleagues are focusing on is the union bosses who give them their campaign finance money. Admit it. Why do they fight against 90 percent of the small businesses and workers every single bill that we have? They do not support the networking men and women in this country; they only support the union members.

   As my colleagues know, I take a look at the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. GEPHARDT) who gets up here and says, Oh, the poor lady in the red dress, not again, and he talks about the working men and women and the class warfare, only the rich versus the poor.

   Well, cut out the rhetoric. Do things based on science; the environmentalists, the same thing. We want environmental changes. Do my colleagues think we want bad environment, the Republicans over the Democrats? We just want it based on good science, and then we want a peer review. The same thing with ergonomics. We want a good science and peer review so they do not destroy the 90 percent of the jobs that are out there in favor of their union bosses.

   And that is what we are asking, Mr. Speaker. We are tired and tired and tired of the Democrats' rhetoric trying

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   If colleagues really support the working men and women, support the Republican position on this.

   Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. PETERSON).

   Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this rule and this bill, and I would hope that we could cut back a little bit on the rhetoric.

   First of all, people need to understand this talk about this study. There is no study that is going on. All that is happening is it is going to be a compilation of a bunch of studies that have already been done. So we need to get that clear.

   Second thing I think that people need to understand is that it would help if somebody would have talked to the people in the department that are actually working on this.

[Time: 18:30]

   I have met with Secretary Jeffers more than once and talked to him about this proposed rule that they are looking at. They have been working on it a long time. There is a lot of science that has gone into this. I do not think a lot of people that are talking on this floor have actually looked into what this is about.

   This only applies to manufacturing and manual lifting businesses, where 60 percent of these injuries take place. If you do not have an injury, this is not going to apply to you. It only applies when you have an injury where there is ergonomics involved, and at that point, you have to come up with a way to deal with it.

   If you have got a situation where it is only one injury and you are a small employer, they have something called a quick fix where you can go in and work on this without having to put a plan together. So they have listened to small business, they have tried to make this workable, and if anybody sat down and read this, they would understand that.

   The other thing is that businesses that have gone out and actually worked on this have found it to be cost effective. It saves money for their company, and it is good for their employees. This afternoon I talked to 3M. They have an ergonomist on their staff. That person has saved them money. It is better for the company and better for the workers. This is something that clearly works. So I hope that people will focus on what is really going on here.

   Back in October of 1998, then appropriations Chairman Livingston and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. OBEY) sent a letter to Alexis Herman saying we are funding this NAS study and it is in no way our intent to block or delay issuance by OSHA of a proposed rule on ergonomics.

   Well, it looks to me today like what is going on here is delay, and is contrary to what was said. So I urge my colleagues to reject this rule and reject this bill.

   Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. DREIER) the Chairman of the Committee on Rules.

   (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks and include extraneous material.)

   Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding me time, and I assure him I will reserve time for my friend from Louisiana and will not fill out the entire hour here.

   Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the rule and congratulate my friend from Buffalo for his super management.

   We have an expression that we have been trying our doggonedest to successfully implement around here in the 106th Congress, and we call it regular order. We try to, as much as possible, follow regular order.

   Frankly, that is exactly what the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Chairman GOODLING) is trying to do with this legislation. We authorized $1 million for the National Academy of Sciences to come up with some sort of finding before the Occupational Safety and Health Administration proceeds with implementation of its regulations on ergonomics.

   The fact of the matter is, nothing, as has been said by several of my colleagues, nothing prevents them from moving ahead. But what we are saying is get every bit of information you possibly can so that you come up with good public policy.

   Now, that will be unique for OSHA in the eyes of many, because a number of us have been very critical of the fact that regulations that they over the years have imposed have been extraordinarily costly to the private sector, and, in turn, to the consumers of this country.

   But, obviously we are all wanting to deal with the problems of stress-related repetitive actions that people take in their work, so all we are saying is let us do it right. This is a very fair and balanced rule which allows for a free-flowing debate, while at the same time recognizing that most of my colleagues with whom I have spoken over the last few days want us to complete our work by the end of this week so we can go home for August. This rule allows us to have a debate and do it in a fair way, and also get this, and I hope the rest of our work, done. So I urge support of the rule.

   Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. ANDREWS).

   (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

   Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Texas for yielding me time.

   Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule. I listened intently to my friend from New York, a member of the Committee on Rules who spoke about this rule a few minutes ago, and I wanted to make several points about the rule.

   We are operating here under the facade that this will give, as the chairman of the Committee on Rules just said, a free-flowing and open debate about worker safety.

   I want to point something out: There are many of us who believe that OSHA is understaffed, that OSHA does not have enough inspectors to go find workplace violations and do something about them. But, if I am not mistaken, and my friend from the Committee on Rules can correct me, an amendment that would add inspectors to OSHA's inspection force would be ruled out of order because it is not germane.

   There are many of us who are concerned about sick building syndrome, about people going to work, day after day, in buildings where the heating and air conditioning systems do not work properly and they cannot breathe properly and their asthma is aggravated or their other breathing related disabilities are aggravated, and many of us believe OSHA should do something about that. An amendment that would address that problem would be out of order because it would not be germane.

   In fact, it is almost impossible to think of any amendment that could be offered under this bill that would do anything other than kill this regulation or delay this regulation that would be germane.

   So let us get the record straight here. There are dozens of important worker safety issues that confront this country. None of them, none of them, are in order for debate under this rule on the floor. The only thing we can do is either accept or reject this attempt to delay, and I think ultimately defeat, the new ergonomic standard by OSHA.

   So let us be very clear about this, that this is an open rule in form only. Every other consideration in worker safety is not in order. That is why the rule should be defeated.

   Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York, Mr. CROWLEY.

   (Mr. CROWLEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

   Mr. CROWLEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to my good friend from Buffalo, New York, a fellow New Yorker, to this rule and to, even more importantly, to H.R. 987, the Workforce Preservation Act.

   Injuries resulting from workplace stress and strain have long been studied. We cannot continue to needlessly put off a standard by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. There is overwhelming scientific evidence supporting the belief that ergonomically unsafe conditions result in repetitive strain injuries, also called RSIs.

   Approximately 700,000 serious workplace injuries result from ergonomically unsafe working conditions. This

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   Now, these are not made-up injuries, they are not fantasies in workers' minds. These are real injuries, not only costing billions of dollars, but destroying people's everyday lives, people who can no longer work in their chosen professions, no longer cook at home, no longer play the guitar, no longer ride their bicycles even, and even no longer picking up their little children. That is what we are talking about here.

   I cannot understand how my colleagues could want to delay the implementation of a standard that would not only reduce pain and suffering but save the business community of this country billions of dollars each year. I applaud last year's appropriation funding of the National Academy of Sciences study of ergonomic injuries. However, that is no reason to delay the implementation of a highly researched and needed OSHA standard. Stand up for working Americans, stand up for healthy workplaces. Vote against this rule, H.R. 987, to help prevent thousands of injuries and save employers up to $20 billion a year.

   Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. LOWEY).

   Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the rule and to the bill. Like many of my colleagues, I feel as if I am in a time warp. Last year when the latest NAS scientific review was funded, there was an agreement that this study should not and would not block or delay a proposed rule on ergonomics. Yet here we are again.

   The bill is not about the need for more research. Both NAS and NIOSH have conducted exhaustive reviews of the scientific literature and concluded that this is a compelling workplace safety and health issue.

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