I nearly fell out of my chair when I read that the Clinton Administration paid 28 witnesses $10,000 each to supply “friendly” testimony on controversial federal ergonomics rules.

In a letter to Charles Jeffress of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Pat Cleary of the National Association of Manufacturers expressed his frustration this way: “I spent 10 years in federal government — four of those at the Labor Department — and I must say this is unprecedented. In the interest of fairness, I’m enclosing an invoice for $10,000 for my testimony in opposition to this rule.”
Cleary is still waiting for a reply from OSHA.

While Cleary’s $10,000 invoice was sent “tongue-in-cheek,” what OSHA did is no laughing matter. In fact, it is a perfect example of why the American people are so cynical about government. Apparently, it is not uncommon to pay experts to testify on proposed rules. But in this case, OSHA paid only those “experts” who support the Department’s proposed ergonomics rule.

Why would bureaucrats resort to paying for supportive testimony if the rule made sense and was based on sound science? The answer is, they wouldn’t!

The inherent problem with any ergonomics regulation — including the version proposed by the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries — is there is simply no sound medical or scientific evidence to support it.

Whether it’s the state, federal or local ergonomics rule, it makes no sense at this time. Employers will be forced to pay for a costly unscientific experiment with no assurance that it will prevent a single injury.

Congress was so incensed by OSHA’s latest attempt to impose ergonomics rules — not to mention the Clinton Administration’s cavalier disregard for the integrity of the federal rule-making process — that it voted along party lines to cut off funds to OSHA for implementing its ergonomics rules.

Hopefully, this is one battle Congress will win.

Every hard working American knows that it is wrong to spend $280,000 of their tax money to skew public testimony on proposed legislation.

(Editor’s Note: Don Brunell is president of the Association of Washington Business (AWB) AWB’s 3,700 members range from the state’s largest employers to the smallest, and employ over 600,000 workers in our state. Visit AWB on the Web at www.awb.org.).