Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 20, 1994 TAG: 9401200321
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
WASHINGTON - The Clinton administration will step up enforcement of workplace safety laws to reduce the number of people injured and killed on the job, officials said Wednesday.
Labor Secretary Robert Reich said the effort will focus on the worst offenders and most serious individual violations.
The government will pay particular attention to businesses that hire large numbers of "vulnerable" employees, including children, older people and low-wage workers, Reich said.
An estimated 17 people are killed on the job every day, and work-related injuries and illnesses cost employers in excess of $115 billion a year.
Reich said the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has traditionally investigated violations of workplace safety laws only after complaints were filed, but that will change.
"Sometimes that does lead to the worst offenders; sometimes it doesn't," he said.
- Associated Press
Ethanol plan called road-fund threat
WASHINGTON - A proposal to mandate greater use of ethanol in reformulated gasoline threatens to deplete the Highway Trust Fund by as much as $1 billion, a transportation trade group charged.
The Highway Users Federation asserted that a new rule being considered by the Environmental Protection Agency to increase the use of ethanol could further deplete the primary funding vehicle for disbursing federal highway funds. If adopted, the rule would become effective in January 1995.
But adopting the rule could lead to lower receipts for the trust fund that maintains the road system, because taxes on ethanol are more than 5 cents a gallon lower than on gasoline.
About 1 billion gallons of ethanol are produced for motor fuels, according to the highway federation. It estimated that trust fund receipts already are $540 million lower than they would be if all-gasoline fuels were used nationwide. Increasing the percentage of ethanol in gasohol in areas with severe pollution problems would widen the difference in Trust Fund receipts by another $465 million, the trade group maintained.
The debate over greater use of ethanol stems from a proposal the EPA made late in 1993 to increase the percentage of ethanol used in gasoline-based fuels in metropolitan areas such as New York, Los Angeles and Washington that have severe air pollution.
The EPA proposes to increase the amount of ethanol, which is largely made from corn, from 10 percent to 30 percent in gasohol, a mixture of gasoline and ethanol.
- Journal of Commerce
Weather strangles transportation
Battling record-cold temperatures and icy roads across the eastern half of the country, airlines, trucking companies and railroads attempted to return to normal Wednesday.
United Parcel Service, hit by more than 16 inches of snow and a temperature of 22 below zero at its air hub in Louisville, Ky., resumed sorting packages there Wednesday for the first time since Sunday afternoon, said Ken Shapero, a spokesman. But UPS was not sure whether it would fly any aircraft out of there at night.
The carrier did not make any flights out of Louisville either Monday or Tuesday night.
American Airlines, which was forced to cancel 218 flights Tuesday, had more problems Wednesday.
Gus Whitcomb of the carrier's cargo division said the airline was embargoing perishables at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago because the goods could be damaged by the subfreezing temperatures.
Other carriers, however, said operations were getting back to normal, although Federal Express said pickups and deliveries were not being made in some areas because of icy roads.
- Journal of Commerce
by CNB