By CHUCK BENNETT and DAVID SEIFMAN
June 6, 2008
Congress should focus on pressing national issues and let the city worry about collapsing cranes, Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday.
He shot down a call by US Rep. Carolyn Maloney, whose district includes the two sites involved in recent deadly collapses, to have federal regulators inspect every city construction site where a crane is used.
"I appreciate the intent, but it's tough enough in the city to do an investigation and to make progress in terms of making this city safer and growing, and Congress has lots of things to do at a national and international level," Bloomberg said.
"They have to address tax policy, who's going to pay for Social Security. If they spend their time on that, we'll spend our time on investigating a tragic accident [and] find out whether we could have prevented it."
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration is already working with the city to overhaul construction regulations.
