WASHINGTON (PAI)- A package of four bills affecting the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, pushed through the GOP-run House on virtual party-line votes last month, weakens the job safety agency, congressional Democrats say.

One measure would make it easier for small businesses to delay compliance with OSHA’s enforcement orders, the Democrats said. A second expands a small judicial agency that rules on employer-OSHA job safety conflicts, and requires all its commissioners be lawyers, not job safety specialists.

A third bill forces OSHA to pay the court costs of any “small business” that wins its case, while the fourth OSHA bill puts more enforcement power in the hands of the small agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, and removes it from OSHA itself.

The court costs bill “significantly diminishes protections of occupational safety and health by discouraging OSHA from even enforcing the act and punishing taxpayers unless the agency, like Perry Mason, can win every case,” said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.). “That is not going to happen. These bills do no good.”

The business community, acting through the GOP-run House Education and the Workforce Committee, pushed the bills through. Miller, the panel’s top Democrat, noted the GOP-run House passed similar legislation two years ago, but it died in the Senate.

Foes of the package, led by members of the Congressional Black Caucus, said its cumulative impact would weaken OSHA. Rep. Major Owens (D-N.Y.) called the GOP’s OSHA package “poison.”

“If we compare OSHA to an elephant…they knock the elephant to its knees immediately by repealing the ergonomic standards, and now they want to slowly kill the elephant with spoonsful of poison,” he added.

Owens called the package “significant if we take this within the context of what the majority has been trying to do with OSHA since it took control, if we take it in the context of how the protection of owners and businessmen is the obsession of the majority party.”

Democrats also called the OSHA bills part of an overall anti-worker agenda pushed by the House’s ruling Republicans. That agenda includes refusal to extend jobless benefits, opposition to raising the minimum wage, and cutting workers’ overtime pay, Miller said.

A new report calls the bills part of a corporate-backed dismantling of public safeguards.

“Special interests have launched a sweeping assault on protections for public health, safety, the environment and corporate responsibility – and unfortunately the Bush Administration has given way,” according to Special Interest Takeover: The Bush Administration and the Dismantling of Public Safeguards.

The report, released May 25, was prepared for the liberal coalition Citizens for Sensible Safeguards (CSS) by the Center for American Progress and OMB Watch.

“This agenda puts narrow special interests over the broader public good,” said John Podesta, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress. “The administration is littered with ex-lobbyists who are now writing the rules to benefit their former special-interest employers. With these foxes guarding the hen house, the public is at significant risk.”