Senate HELP Committee Approves Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission Nominees

On December 3, 2019, the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) unanimously approved President Donald Trump’s two nominees to the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. The president tapped both nominees—Amanda Wood Laihow and Cynthia L. Attwood—for the commission earlier this year in October.

Laihow, who currently serves as chief counsel to the commission’s chair, James J. Sullivan, Jr., was nominated to fill the remainder of the unexpired term of former chair Heather MacDougall. That seat on the commission has been vacant since March 2019 and the term expires in April 2023. In addition, the president nominated Attwood to serve a third term on the commission after her previous term expired in April 2019.

The HELP Committee’s unanimous approval moves the nominations one step closer to confirmation by the full Senate, and thus one step closer to restoring a full complement of commissioners for the three-member panel. The commission needs at least two commissioners for a quorum to decide the cases before it, which it has not been able to do since Attwood’s term expired in April.