The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has reopened for comment a rule requiring employers to pay for personal protective equipment, "such as fall arrest systems, safety shoes, and protective gloves," that workers must currently purchase themselves, or do without (69 Fed. Reg. 41,851 (2004)). Although the rule, first proposed during the Clinton administration in March 1999 (64 Fed. Reg. 15,401), was open for public comments until June 1999, OSHA has let it languish on its long-term agenda for most of the past four years and has yet to announce any anticipated date for finalizing the rule. Labor groups decry the move to reopen comments five years after the initial period ended as playing politics with safety, further delaying action while giving the appearance that OSHA is working on it. They note it also coincides with a recent OSHA summit on safety and health issues of Hispanic workers. The rule is particularly important to the Hispanic population, and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has repeatedly petitioned OSHA to move on it. CHC has stated, "Tens of thousands of workers are bearing the cost of safety in the workplace, or worse, paying the price because they are unable to bear the cost." OSHA officials claimed in href="http://www.hillnews.com/executive/071504_osha.aspx">The Hill that the rule has actually been in a final stage since before President Bush took office, but the agency's own semiannual regulatory agendas show otherwise.