Top House Democrats say they will include a mandate that OSHA issue an emergency temporary infectious disease standard to address risks from the coronavirus to healthcare employees and expand protections in other industries in their next bill to address the pandemic after they were forced to drop the mandate from prior measures.
November 15, 2026
Anthony Lacey
Anthony Lacey was the Managing Editor of Inside EPA and Environment Next until April 2021. He joined Inside Washington Publishers in 2004 as an associate editor on Clean Air Report, and previously covered a wide range of news for the regional Hull Daily Mail newspaper in his home country of England. He grew up in the northeast of England and earned a bachelor’s degree in law from the University of London, and a higher education certificate in newspaper writing from the NCFE awarding organization.
Archived Articles
The Senate’s massive $2 trillion emergency bill to address fallout from the coronavirus pandemic provides billions of dollars to increase supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers, but does not mandate an OSHA emergency standard for the workers that House Democrats are seeking.
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Two top House Democrats are urging Vice President Mike Pence to protect health care workers from coronavirus risks by immediately appointing a senior Trump administration official to coordinate the supply and distribution of personal protective equipment (PPE) to the workers who are at high risk of exposure.
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OSHA has issued temporary guidance for discretionary enforcement of its respiratory protection standard that eases some requirements in order to boost access to adequate filtering facepiece respirators for healthcare workers during the coronavirus pandemic, but the guide falls short of Democrats’ calls for an emergency healthcare standard.
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Federal agencies are scrambling to protect the U.S. workforce from the coronavirus threat, with EPA announcing that its staff should be prepared to soon start teleworking to reduce exposure risks and OSHA detailing a range of voluntary steps companies can take to reduce employees’ risks depending on their potential exposure.
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House Democrats are pushing legislation that would force OSHA to issue an emergency temporary standard to protect healthcare workers caring for patients suffering from coronavirus, noting there is no such mandatory federal policy and that Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidance to protect the workers is not binding.
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The National Institute for Occupation Safety and Health (NIOSH) is launching a pilot study to evaluate workplace hazards facing landscapers and groundskeepers and to develop “appropriate” controls for one of the highest-risk sectors, seeking participants to take part as NIOSH eyes options for reducing workers’ exposures to substances like silica.
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Congress’ supplemental $7.8 billion funding bill to tackle the spread of the coronavirus includes $10 million for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to pursue worker-based training to prevent and reduce exposures to the virus of hospital employees, emergency first responders, and other workers at risk.
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OSHA and labor unions are opposing building industry groups’ call to sever and transfer the sector’s lawsuit over agency beryllium standards from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit to the 8th Circuit, which has stayed a long-pending challenge from other industry groups over the agency’s standards.
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A federal appeals court has rejected a hospital’s challenge to a penalty OSHA imposed under its General Duty Clause authority for not adequately addressing workplace violence, while sidestepping the hospital’s claim that the agency should instead have issued a rulemaking to address workplace violence rather than a citation.
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