May 20—WASHINGTON — Rep. Michael Baumgartner sent a letter to U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday asking him to reverse course and reopen an office in Spokane that conducts research on workplace safety for miners, farmworkers and wildland firefighters.
It was the second letter the Spokane Republican has sent to Kennedy since the Department of Health and Human Services closed the Spokane Research Laboratory as part of the Trump administration’s sweeping effort to shrink the federal workforce. Baumgartner voiced support for that push while asking the secretary to reconsider his decision.
“I understand and support the broader effort to make government operations more efficient,” Baumgartner wrote. “However, that effort should not come at the expense of worker safety or the loss of essential research capacity. The work conducted at the Spokane Lab plays an important role in protecting workers and advancing our national priorities.”
The congressman noted that Kennedy has reopened a similar office run by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH, in Morgantown, West Virginia. He pointed out that the mine safety work in particular is aligned with President Donald Trump’s stated goal of increasing mineral extraction in the United States.
“The NIOSH Spokane Research lab conducts research … aimed at preventing work-related illness, injury, and death in mines, forests, fisheries, and oil fields,” Baumgartner wrote. “As the United States seeks to increase domestic mining production, the safety research conducted by NIOSH is more critical than ever.”
The department notified the Spokane lab’s union at the end of March that virtually all of the roughly 90 workers would be fired by the end of June. Kennedy previously announced NIOSH will be consolidated into what he calls the “Administration for a Healthy America” as part of his reorganization of the agency.
In response to a question from The Spokesman-Review asking why the Spokane lab remains closed, the HHS said in a statement that Kennedy “has been working hard to ensure that the critical functions under NIOSH remain intact.”
“The Trump Administration is committed to supporting coal miners and firefighters, and under the Secretary’s leadership, NIOSH’s essential services will continue as HHS streamlines its operations,” HHS said. “Ensuring the health and safety of our workforce remains a top priority for the Department.”
In a Senate hearing on May 14, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., asked Kennedy why workers in the Spokane office hadn’t been reinstated. When the secretary said he had brought back employees at the NIOSH offices in Morgantown and Cleveland, Ohio, Murray replied, “You can’t fire 90% of the people and assume the work gets done.”
The facility at 315 E. Montgomery Avenue in the Logan neighborhood researches hard rock mining and other occupations relevant to western states, whereas the facility in West Virginia has focused on coal mining. Noting that specialization, Baumgartner wrote to Kennedy, “NIOSH’s work is indispensable to the laudable objectives of renewing America’s natural resource independence.”
Orion Donovan Smith’s work is funded in part by members of the Spokane community via the Community Journalism and Civic Engagement Fund. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper’s managing editor.
