The head of the federal agency that oversees workplace safety is under growing pressure from Democratic lawmakers who accuse the agency of putting off needed regulations. Edwin G. Foulke Jr., the assistant secretary of labor in charge of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, has been drawing fire from members of the House and Senate labor committees. They are calling for tighter regulations on hazards such as combustible dust and more protection for workers in the oil, gas and food-processing industries... The biggest criticism of OSHA under Mr. Foulke centers on the agency's preference for seeking voluntary compliance from employers on safety goals rather than establishing new mandatory regulations... OSHA said the agency has published or proposed eight major rules, including one requiring employers to pay for protective equipment worn by workers. Moreover, the agency says that it has exceeded its inspection goals in each of the past two years, and that recent declines in the rates of reported workplace injuries and illnesses, including a 17% reduction since 2002, indicate its success. "Election-year partisan attacks go with the territory," said Labor Department spokesman David James. "Worker-fatality, injury and illness rates are at record lows under this administration's leadership." On Wednesday, the House Education and Labor Committee approved legislation that would require OSHA to issue new regulations on combustible dust, a recommendation made more than a year ago by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, an independent federal agency. In February, a dust explosion at a sugar refinery in Georgia [Imperial Sugar] killed 13 workers and injured more than 60... Sen. Edward Kennedy...has questioned whether OSHA has sufficiently adopted the Chemical Safety Board's recommendations in the wake of a 2005 BP PLC refinery explosion that killed 15 people.