TELL ME SOMETHING ISN'T WRONG HERE

STATEMENT OF RICHARD FAIRFAX
DIRECTOR OF ENFORCEMENT PROGRAMS
OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION
BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

May 16, 2007

Chairman Stupak, Ranking Member Whitfield, and Members of the Subcommittee:
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today and discuss the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) role in safeguarding workers in the nation’s refining industry.

My name is Richard Fairfax. I have worked for OSHA for 29 years. Since 1998, I have been the Director of OSHA’s Directorate of Enforcement Programs, for which I coordinate the agency’s federal inspection efforts. Federal OSHA conducts inspections from each of its 86 local offices around the nation. These efforts are overseen and supported by the agency’s 10 regional offices. Twenty-one states and Puerto Rico have chosen to exercise the option given them by the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act of 1970 to become “state-plan states” and operate OSHA-approved occupational safety and health programs covering employers and workers in their states. These state programs conduct inspections in their own jurisdictions. Alaska, where BP’s Prudhoe Bay facility is located, is a state-plan state which is not under federal OSHA’s jurisdiction.

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Letter sent to Mr. Fairfax

November 7, 2005
Richard E. Fairfax, Director
Directorate of Enforcement Programs (DEP)
U.S. Department of Labor
200 Constitution Avenue N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20210

Dear Sir,

For the past two years at every step in this long railroad, from my initial complaint filed at the EEOC, and subsequent to that, the HCRC; the United States Commission on Civil Rights; the Department of Justice; and finally through no effort of my own, having it wind up at the Regional OSHA offices in San Francisco, I have steadily maintained that I submitted a written complaint at the state HIOSH offices, here in Honolulu.

I was told that much of what I sent to the DOJ had been sent to the San Francisco OSHA offices .. Evidently this written HIOSH complaint was not among the papers.

Imagine my surprise when I got this letter from Mr. Traenkner, informing me that I should not have made this a verbal complaint. I retrieved the copy of the written complaint, made for me while at the HIOSH offices, just to convince myself that those in power are the ones mistaken, and now I believe with my whole being, they are in actuality, deceitful and dishonest, practiced at covering up embarrassing incidents, and downright criminal.

I am making a request to you for a review by your national offices, where hopefully someone unbiased, with integrity, will do the right thing. There was a Ms. Hirai in San Francisco that said she could see the discrimination in this matter. Too bad it was not she that conducted the investigation.

I only hope it is coincidence that there is a Hirai here in Honolulu that is a lawyer and involved in the real estate business, and a lawyer formerly in the firm representing my former employer.

Throughout this situation there have been relationships, I have noticed in my opposition, which include professional, academic and familial. It has long been my suspicion that those ensconced in the cronyism here in Hawaii have at each step facilitated the lack of effort in this matter. I am now sure of what I have long suspected. This cover-up goes much further than what happens here in Hawaii.


Sincerely,
Vernon Balmer Jr.
yinsay@aol.com
Honolulu, Hawaii

CHANG ! ! !

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