CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) -- The head of Nevada's Occupational Safety and Health Administration defended his agency's efforts to ensure workplace safety during a Senate committee hearing that marked the start of a monthlong review of such efforts.

Tom Czehowski told the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee that Nevada OSHA is operating the way it's supposed to, and there's "no subjectivity" in how safety rules are enforced.

Sen. Maggie Carlton, D-Las Vegas, the committee chairwoman, raised several questions about workplace safety in Nevada, noting a dozen construction workers died in a recent 18-month period at job sites on the Las Vegas Strip.

Carlton said that the death total was more than the number of construction workers who died throughout the 1990s on Strip projects, telling Czehowski she had "a hard time understanding"
why safety wasn't better now at all building sites.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)