Posts for April 24, 2010

Red Flags of Injured Worker Fraud

By Greg Summerhays

• Injured employee is seldom available at home.
  
• Injured employee has a history of multiple workers' compensation claims.
  
• Injured employee's account of cause of injury is vague or contradictory.
  
• Injured employee delays return to work after maximum medical improvement.
  
• Injured employee refuses light duty opportunities.
  
• Subjective complaints of injury are not medically diagnosed.
  
• Injured employee's employment status was in jeopardy prior to injury.
  
• Injured employee "shops" for caregivers and/or is noncompliant.
  
• Injured employee did not report the injury with timeliness.
  
• Evidence exists of the injured employee's covert employment.
  
• Evidence of activity contradictory to reported physical limitations.
  
• Injured employee conceals pre-existing medical information relevant to claim.
  
• No witness of injury occurrence or resulting symptoms

Greg Summerhays is Director of Public Relations at Workers Compensation Fund. WCF offers ongoing safety training and UMA members are eligible for a 5% premium discount through a partnership with WCF. Visit www.wcfgroup.com for more information.

COSTLY NEW RESTRICTIONS ON TRUCKING YOUR FREIGHT

April 24, 2010 – NAM

As part of a legal settlement reached between the U.S. Department of Transportation and a coalition including Public Citizen and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters last year, the current Hours of Service (HOS) trucking rules implemented in 2004 and relatively unchanged since then, are being scrutinized by the Department’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and have been the subject of several public outreach sessions during the month of January.

In anticipation of the issuance of the new Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) as part of the previously referenced settlement, the FMSCA has reopened its Hours of Service docket and has requested comments regarding the current rules on

· rest and on-duty time
· overnight driving
· restart provisions
· sleeper berth provisions
· loading and unloading time driving “windows”

We encourage NAM members to talk with their trucking service providers as well as supply chain and logistics professionals and begin to have an important conversation about what a change to the HOS trucking rule could mean in terms of compliance, maintaining competitive pricing and costs, distribution patterns, just-in-time standards, and the overall trucking capacity that serves your company.

We are anticipating the following concerns in the NPRM:

· Mandatory breaks that borrow from future workdays or do not extend driving duty times to reflect the break taken.
· Limits to night-time driving between the hours of midnight and 6:00 a.m.
· Reductions in 11 hour or 14 hour driving times that provide critical “windows” for weather, traffic, loading, unloading and other unforeseen events.

Because this docket is open for an undetermined period of time as the FMCSA prepares its NPRM, we encourage you to file comments as soon as possible. To send a comment to the FMCSA, please visit www.nam.org/p2.

DURABLE GOODS ORDERS FALL IN MARCH

April 24, 2010 – Today in Manufacturing.net
New orders for large manufactured goods dropped 1.3 percent in March, but excluding the volatile transportation sector, orders rose by the most since recession began... continue

GOING GREEN PROVES GOOD FOR BUSINESS

April 24, 2010 – Late Wire at Manufacturing.net
Big companies have been taking significant steps towards sustainability and seeing the economic value of going green ... continue

GREEN INDUSTRY COULD DEPEND ON CONGLOMERATES

April 24, 2010 – CBS News

CBS News posted yesterday on the Green Eye blog, that "While start-ups have played a crucial role in getting the green industry off the ground, the future will likely be dominated by large, sprawling conglomerates." The is because "green technology essentially involves revamping the physical infrastructure of the modern world: replacing coal-fired power plants with wind turbines, building homes from materials concocted in chemistry laboratories, and swapping out engines for electric motors." Furthermore, "established companies simply are in a far better position to muster the capital, technological depth, managerial expertise and factory capacity needed." The list of "green giants" includes China, General Electric, Siemens, Nissan, and Dow Chemical.

IMMIGRATION REFORM NEGOTIATIONS CONTINUE

April 24, 2010 – NAM Capital Briefing

Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have been negotiating with all parties interested in immigration reform with the goal of creating an immigration package with a broad base of support. However, those negotiations have continually stalled due to the limited time on the legislative calendar. Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced his intention to push comprehensive immigration reform. He is becoming increasingly involved in pursuing the issue and has stated his goal of completing a bill this year.

KERRY: SENATE FACING 'LAST AND BEST SHOT' TO PASS CLIMATE CHANGE BILL

April 24, 2010 - By Kathleen Hart

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who is expected to unveil on April 26 the much-anticipated bipartisan climate change legislation he has been crafting with Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., sees this year as the best — and perhaps last — chance to pass a comprehensive energy and climate change bill in the Senate.

"[T]his can be the year — our last and best shot — to find the 60 votes needed to reduce carbon pollution, and build a new energy economy that makes good on President Obama's Copenhagen pledge to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent by 2020," Kerry said in an April 22 message commemorating the 40th anniversary of the first Earth Day.

"Washington conventional wisdom may argue that big change is impossible and politicians will always take the path of least resistance, but I was there for Earth Day 1970 and I saw average Americans prove all those assumptions dead wrong long before I was a Senator. It's why I still believe that Earth Day 2010 must be a reflection point that helps make this the year the Senate passes comprehensive climate and energy legislation," Kerry said. "We can't afford to wait and we'll never have as clear a shot to reach this goal we first set out twenty years ago."

Kerry, Graham and Lieberman have been considering a variety of tools to achieve the 17% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions sought by the Obama administration. While they favor an economywide cap-and-trade program, their legislation may call for slightly different approaches to reducing emissions in different sectors of the economy.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., has been working with Kerry, Graham and Lieberman in their effort to forge a bill that can garner the 60 votes needed for passage in the Senate. "When we move forward to address the challenge of climate change, we will create millions of jobs and protect our children from dangerous carbon pollution," she said April 22.

One major issue still under discussion is the extent to which the climate change legislation being developed by Kerry, Graham and Lieberman should bar states, regional governmental entities, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies from separately regulating carbon dioxide emissions. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, has been drafting stringent pre-emption language that he wants to see incorporated in the Senate bill.

"Because climate change is a global issue, I believe that addressing climate change effectively must be done through a single, national program that replaces the existing, conflicting patchwork of rules, regulations, and lawsuits," Voinovich argued in an April 21 news release. "To get my support on any climate change legislation, it must include a comprehensive preemption provision that goes well beyond language included in previous climate bills."

Voinovich said: "[T]he only workable solution to climate change should occur at the federal level, considering we are not dealing with pollution that has localized effects. When it comes to climate change, letting 'a thousand flowers bloom' will frustrate our ability to address this problem in a manner that protects jobs, consumers, small businesses and the environment."

Many senators have voiced concerns about efforts by the administration and advocacy groups to use provisions of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and other laws to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and six other Republicans introduced legislation April 20 aimed at preventing federal agencies from using the National Environmental Policy Act to make determinations about the global warming impact of new power plants and other projects.

The legislation came in response to draft guidance the White House Council on Environmental Quality issued in February on how federal agencies should consider CO2 emissions in conducting environmental impact reviews under NEPA.

CBO REPORT: WAXMAN-MARKEY BILL WILL COST HOUSEHOLDS $930 A YEAR BY 2050

April 24, 2010 -- By Amanda Luhavalja

The U.S. Congressional Budget Office has concluded that the House of Representatives-passed Waxman-Markey climate bill would cost the average household $90 a year in 2012, $550 a year in 2030 and $930 a year by 2050.

The cost would average about $460 per year over the 2012-2050 period, according to the new report, requested by Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., and issued by the CBO on April 20.
CBO estimated the loss in households' purchasing power would result from the primary cap-and-trade program that would be established by HR 2454.

The loss would be modest as a share of gross domestic product in all years between 2012 and 2050, but it would rise over that period as the cap became more stringent and more resources were dedicated to cutting emissions. The loss would equal about 0.1% of GDP in 2012, about 0.5% in 2030, and about 0.8% in 2050. CBO estimates the average loss per year over the entire 2012-2050 period would be about 0.4%.

In a previous analysis issued June 19, 2009, the budget office said a cap-and-trade system under the House-passed legislation would cost $22 billion a year by 2020, or $175 for each household.

"A strong consensus has developed in the expert community that if the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is allowed to continue unabated, it will have extensive, highly uncertain, but potentially serious and costly impacts on regional climates throughout the world. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the United States and around the globe would moderate those impacts, but policies to achieve a reduction in emissions would also impose costs on U.S. households," the report said.

Compliance costs would tend to increase faster than GDP over time. In contrast, compensation to households would rise faster than GDP during the next decade, level off as a share of GDP for the following several decades, and then decline relative to GDP in the 2040s. As a result, more than 85% of compliance costs would be offset by compensation in 2012, but only 35% would be offset by compensation in 2050.