Great Moments in Regulation

This story from St. Louis, which my Cato colleague Walter Olson cites in a post about OSHA, is a typical example of bureaucratic stupidity and absurd "safety" laws. My favorite part is that the bureaucrat actually thought it would be reasonable to rent a lift for $750 per day just to attach a harness for somebody working only 11 feet off the ground. I'm sure the consumer would have been happy to swallow that additional cost. Reminds me of the classic Dave Barry column I cited in this post. Good to see that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is just as incompetent today as it was decades ago.

In April, Heffernan and his nephew were working on a house in the 6400 block of January Avenue. Heffernan had finished rebuilding the chimney and his nephew was finishing up the job when Heffernan left to bid a job in West County. While he was looking at the prospective new job, he got a call from his nephew. There was some kind of a problem with an inspector. Heffernan returned to the site on January Avenue and found that an inspector for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration had shut down the site. In other words, she had told Heffernan's nephew to stop working. Heffernan was taken back. ...He said the inspector had written several citations. The first thing she told him was his scaffold wasn't level. He said he pulled out his level and put it on the scaffold to show that the scaffold was level. He said the inspector then wrote down the brand name of the level, as if there might be something wrong with his equipment. ...He said he offered to let the inspector walk on the scaffold, but she declined and said she was afraid of heights. The inspector told him his nephew needed a helmet and a safety harness. "We have safety harnesses. If the job requires it, we wear them," Heffernan said. "But my nephew was only about 11 feet off the ground. I told the inspector I didn't know what I was supposed to attach the harness to. She told me I could rent a lift and run the main pole above the chimney and have the safety line from that hooked to my nephew. A lift costs about $750 a day. It made no sense." ...Heffernan received notice in the mail that he had been cited for three violations. ...Heff's Tuckpointing is a successful operation, but it cannot afford $3,600 in fines. ...So Heffernan requested a meeting to contest the violations. He said he spoke with an OSHA compliance officer who offered to drop the first violation and reduce the fines of the other two by 40 percent. Heffernan refused the offer. He has now requested a formal hearing.