Feds Wonder If Oil And Gas Workers Have To Die

on September 15, 2015 at 11:37 AM

Men-working-oil

Working out in the field while drilling for oil and gas is probably the most dangerous thing you can do without being on a reality show. It’s also probably the most “dangerous job” that engenders the least amount of sympathy. Most of the people who care about things like worker’s rights and health and safety are liberals who don’t like it when people stab the Earth until she bleeds black.

But you don’t have to like what people do to feel bad when they get blown up. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health is undertaking a comprehensive, three-year study, aimed at making oil fields more safe for the people who do the work.

The three-year study, which NIOSH said will “determine on-duty and off-duty factors that contribute to motor vehicle crashes, injuries and illness” among oil and gas extraction workers, will distribute the questionnaires to equipment and trucking yards, well sites, community centers and “man camps,” the temporary lodging structures housing workers flooding into the oil patch.

Oil field work is considered especially dangerous — the fatality rate for the industry is seven times higher than the national industry average.

You can study it all you want, but at the end of the day the only thing that will make things better for the workers is regulation. Safety standards, best practices, all of that falls under the “R” word. And we all know how much the oil and gas industry likes regulation.

But hey, worker safety is a liberal, commie, tree-hugger issue, and regulation is kind of our thing.

Originally Published on Breaking Energy, September 14th 2015. 

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