Senator Edward Kennedy, Ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, sent a letter to Department of Labor Secretary Elaine Chao on August 18 expressing his concern over the lack of "development and enforcement of health and safety regulation." "Despite the demonstrated need for worker protections, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Mine Safety and Health Administration have abandoned dozens of proposed safeguards," Kennedy wrote. "I'm concerned that the Department is doing too little to meet the challenge of keeping American workers as safe as possible." Kennedy asked the Department to send him information on rules withdrawn from OSHA and MSHA's rulemaking agendas, along with "specific timetables for action on all pending health and safety rules being developed" by those agencies. Kennedy's letter follows the Department of Labor's issuance on June 28 of its semiannual regulatory agenda. As of the time of the agenda, OSHA had only promulgated nine rules under the Bush administration. Out of those, only one was economically significant. During the same time period, OSHA has withdrawn 24 rules, nine of which were economically significant, including a rule to protect against occupational exposure to tuberculosis and several rules that protect construction workers, who are most likely to suffer serious job-related injuries. At the same time, other rules, including one on employer payment of personal protective equipment, have been repeatedly delayed.