Baumgartner says the lab brings strong support for keeping the lab’s mission in supporting western industries and their workers.
SPOKANE, Wash. — Congressman Michael Baumgartner says he is asking the Trump Administration to keep the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s Spokane Research Laboratory (NIOSH SRL).
In a press release sent by Baumgartner’s office, they say Baumgartner sent out a ‘bicameral oversight letter’ to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to keep NIOSH SRL operating.
Baumgartner says the lab brings strong support for keeping the lab’s mission in supporting western industries and their workers.
“NIOSH’s Spokane lab is the backbone of innovation and safety in the hardrock mining industry for the Western United States,” said Congressman Baumgartner. “Shutting it down, without a plan to reassign its vital research, would be a mistake and a disservice to the Trump administration’s America First energy and mineral strategy.”
Baumgartner said lawmakers have been raising concern that the lab will be facing closure with no reassignment to a different federal agency to keep its research responsibilities, according to a press release.
The press release says that the letter shines light on the essential role the lab plays in supporting metal and non-metal operations and industries that would be ‘critical’ to the western economy of the U.S.
“The SRL is one of the lowest-cost laboratories NIOSH operates,” the letter states.
The following people cosigned the letter:
The press release says that staff have been reassigned to eastern facilities within the U.S., such as West Virginia, but there is not any official plan for the Spokane Lab.
“We fully support President Trump’s efforts to streamline government and eliminate waste,” said Baumgartner. “But eliminating a low-cost, high-impact lab like this one goes against that goal.”