By Kevin Stawicki

Law360 (May 20, 2020, 9:05 PM EDT) -- The U.S. Department of Labor on Wednesday doubled down on the adequacy of its response to the novel coronavirus just hours after Democrats postponed a hearing on Capitol Hill scheduled for earlier in the day, causing a tussle over whether the delay was a political power play.

Loren Sweatt, the principal deputy assistant secretary of the Office of Occupational Safety and Health Administration, was scheduled to testify at a long-awaited hearing about the agency's response to workplace safety issues, until the House Committee on Education and Labor postponed it late Tuesday.

The agency released portions of Sweatt's written testimony on Wednesday that reiterated OSHA's commitment to addressing COVID-19.

"Although the pandemic has changed the way OSHA completes its mission, it has never faltered in its commitment to ensure employers provide a workplace free of hazards," Sweatt wrote, adding that the agency had focused on providing workers and employers guidance on workplace safety and also enforced existing standards.

"It is important to recognize OSHA also has existing standards that serve as the basis for its COVID-19 enforcement," she continued. "Those standards include rules regarding respiratory protection, personal protective equipment (PPE), eye and face protection, sanitation, and hazard communication."

Sweatt did not provide the numbers of updated COVID-19 complaints, inspections and investigations.

An aide for the Committee on Education and Labor told Law360 that the delay was due to Sweatt's providing the testimony too late and failure to respond to a list of questions about how many COVID-related citations OSHA issued and in which industries.

The committee's chairman, Bobby Scott, D-Va., asked in a letter to Sweatt on May 11 how many COVID-related inspections had been conducted, how many had been conducted on-site and whether inspections were in response to deaths or proactive.

"We understand that OSHA has issued a lot of voluntary guidance, but why do you think voluntary guidelines more effectively protect workers than mandatory standards — especially when we've seen so many employers don't volunteer to implement the voluntary guidance and workers are getting sick as a result?" Scott wrote in the letter.

Sweatt did not respond to the questions, which the committee aide said the committee had made clear were desired in advance of the hearing.

The committee's ranking member, Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-NC, and leader of the subcommittee on workforce protections, Bradley Byrne, R-Ala., said committee Democrats "decided at the eleventh hour to sit on the sidelines."

"The federal government's actions to protect workers from COVID-19 is an issue congressional Democrats assert is a top priority," the representatives said. "Yet, with less than 24 hours notice committee Democrats unilaterally decided to cancel the hearing. This very unusual action is perplexing, especially given the credentials of the confirmed witnesses and Chairman Scott's recent comments saying, 'Let us commit to doing everything we can to keep workers safe.'"

OSHA said in a series of enforcement memos released Monday that it was stepping up in-person inspections in areas where COVID-19 infections have slowed and making more employers disclose when workers come down with the coronavirus. 

The agency also said all employers subject to its illness record-keeping rules must track and report workplace COVID-19 cases as best they can, nixing an earlier policy excusing all but health care, corrections and first response employers from that duty.

--Additional reporting by Braden Campbell. Editing by Peter Rozovsky.

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