NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 6, 2009
OSHA Confirms Continuance of VPP
ARLINGTON, VA – The Voluntary Protection
Programs Participants’ Association, Inc. (VPPPA) has received
confirmation from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Acting Assistant
Secretary for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration
(OSHA), Jordan Barab, that OSHA is not suspending the Voluntary
Protection Programs (VPP).
Recent media coverage of Acting Assistant
Secretary Barab’s statement on April 30, 2009, before the U.S. House
of Representatives Subcommittee on Workforce Protections has caused
some confusion for VPP sites and the safety and health community. He
stated that, “We need to better utilize the resources that we
already have. In order to direct more of OSHA’s existing resources
into enforcement and to provide time to address concerns in an
upcoming GAO Report on the efficacy of OSHA’s Voluntary Protection
Program, I have informed the field staff that we will suspend the
previous administration’s practice of establishing goals for new
Voluntary Protection Program sites and Alliances.”
In response to the resulting confusion, Acting
Assistant Secretary Barab called VPPPA’s Executive Director R. Davis
Layne and assured him that OSHA is not suspending VPP. Indicated
changes represent a shift in focus toward enforcement but do not
equate to an elimination of OSHA’s VPP. In the course of the
conversation, Barab accepted an invitation to attend the
association’s 25th Annual National VPPPA Conference in San Antonio,
Texas, August 24-27, 2009, and address the anticipated 2,500
attendees.
VPPPA, Inc., a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charitable
organization, is dedicated to promoting advances in worker safety
and health excellence through cooperation among communities,
workers, industries and governments. The nearly 2,000 VPPPA member
sites primarily consist of worksites that have been approved, or are
seeking approval, into VPP as administered by OSHA, state-plan OSHA
and the Department of Energy.
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