Toll, David

Hearing loss caitsed by excessive noise levels remains a serious occupatiorral health problem in this country, said Dr. David Michaels, assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health, in a recent OSHA press annoimcement. OSHA states thousands of workers every year continue to suffer from preventable hearing loss due to high workplace noise levels. Since 2004, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported that nearly 125,000 workers have suffered significant, permanent hearing loss. In 2008 alone, BLS reported more than 22,000 hearing loss cases, and Michaels emphasized that OSHA is committed to finding ways to reduce this toll. 

In this case, as in so many others, the AEC would undoubtedly have responded to pressture from the Joint Committee. But the Joint Committee, despite expressions of concern by its members, took no action to legislate broader federal jurisdiction over privately owned mines or to informally prod the AEC to enforce corrective measures. In hearings in 1959, staff counsel David Toll suggested to Harold Price that the AEC might reinterpret the Atomic Energy Act to assume control over mine safety, but the committee never pushed for such an approach. The fol-... 

David Toll to James Ramey, 11, 26 Sept., 3 Oct. 1956, Ramey to Clinton P. Anderson, 11 Oct. 1956, General Correspondence (AEC—Procedure and Organization in Licensing of Reactor Facilities), JCAE Papers. 

House Committee on Education and Labor, Hearings on Radiation Workers Compensation Act, pp. 1-2,88-101,152-156,166-167,180-186,205-229,316-319 David R. Toll to Clinton P. Anderson, 26 Jan. 1960, Box 818, Clinton P. Anderson Papers, Library of Congress. 

---